Tarot Cards – Page 6 – Just the Tarot

Ace of Swords

The meaning of The Ace of Swords in a Tarot reading, including definitions for the upright and reversed positions.

The card show a ghostly hand grasping a sword. The tip of the sword pierces a crown draped with laurels.

Upright: This card represents power and action beginning to manifest in the Earth plane. It may indicate the start of a new enterprise or the beginning of a very strong, power based sexual affair. There is the suggestion of an excess of force, of pure, undirected physical strength. The crown hints at positions of authority held by fear and intimidation rather than by merit or morality. This card is also linked to minor surgery and small cuts.

“Just the Tarot,” by Dan Adair – a kindle ebook available on Amazon

Reversed: This shows someone who is pushing too hard or coming on too strong. It warns against over-reactions and loss of temper. If the Querant is entering a new business deal be warned that it may go very, very wrong.

EXAMPLES: A new boss or supervisor who immediately starts reshaping things to his or her own model through intimidation and sheer force of personality.

A new lover who is way too dominant and controlling.

Seven of Wands

The meaning of the Seven of Wands in a Tarot reading, including definitions for upright and reversed positions.

A man stands on top of a rising or hillock, a staff held crosswise in his hands in a defensive position. Six staves seems to wave in the air just beneath him and he wears an expression of concern and watchfulness.

Upright – A card of battles and a constant state of conflict. The key to note with this card is that – while under siege – the subject still holds the high ground and will probably triumph. Tactically, it is important for the subject to remember that he or she is outnumbered and it’s best to deal with one problem or person at a time rather than attempt to take them all on at once.

“Just the Tarot,” by Dan Adair – available on Amazon

Reversed – There are just too many opponents or problems for the time being. Disengage from conflict and deal with what you can or you must.

EXAMPLES: A boss or supervisor who is under constant criticism from superiors and rebellion from employees. The misery of having to constantly fight just to hold your position.

Sharing a house with roommates who are constantly criticizing you.

Six of Wands

The meaning of the Six of Wands in a tarot reading, including definitions for the upright and reversed positions.

A man rides a horse through a crowd. He is robed in purple, wears a laurel crown and carries a stave which is topped with another crown of laurel. Five people stand aside as he rides by, each one clutching a staff of their own.

Upright: A card of victory and success. Of the multiple people battling in the five of wands, this person has emerged victorious and holds the dominant position. The cloak he wears signifies authority and command and he is definitely in charge. The laurel crowns tell us that he has won legitimate honors and recognition. This card can indicate victory in a legal battle or show that the subject’s ideas and view points have launched him or her into a position of authority. Promotions may be indicated.

Reversed: Approach any conflict with extreme caution. The subject is not in a position of strength and will lose if he engages in a fight. Walk away and live to fight another day.

EXAMPLES: Winner. Think of a person who has used her wits, skill, knowledge and persuasion to emerge as the head of the pack.

Winning an election.

Five of Wands

The meaning of the Five of Wands in a Tarot reading, including both upright and reversed positions and examples for each definition.

Five men, crowded together, hold wands aloft. At first glance this appears to be five people engaged in a fight with staves, a scene right out of the old Robin Hood movies. Upon closer examination, however, it’s apparent that they are holding the staves one handed rather than in a two handed fighting stance and don’t even seem to be looking at each other. Indeed, the placement of the wands suggests that they are very close to constructing a pentacle with them.

Upright: Difficult negotiations, conflict, struggle, competing ideas fighting for ascendancy. This is a shift from the previous cards because it shows a group effort, several people working on putting ideas or projects into effect and having strong differences of opinions. They are literally trying to construct something new by joining their separate ideas together. There will be a tough period to get through but you can still expect a positive outcome at the end.

Reversed: Walk away from the negotiations, let passions calm down and try again later. Emotions are getting in the way of ideas and this project isn’t going to work right now.

EXAMPLES: A large committee or work group composed of people who have wildly different approaches to solving problems and very different ways of thinking.

A commune where the members are working together but have very different philosophies about life.

The Ace of Wands

The meaning of the Ace of Wands in Tarot readings. Definitions for the Ace of Wands in both the upright and reversed positions.

A ghostly hand reaches out of a cloud and holds a branch like wand. The wand is living and bears green leaves, some of which are falling through the air. A peaceful river valley lies in the background with a castle perched atop a small promontory.

Upright – A startling, perhaps even earthshaking new idea or insight. The start of a new venture or enterprise that will take you in a totally different direction. Perhaps an unexpected phone call or letter that opens up unexpected, positive horizons. The leaves falling from the wand signal benefits that will develop out of the original idea.

Reversed – A new beginning or idea but it may not be the right time to bring it to fruition or it may be poorly received by those around you. Go back and examine the idea more carefully to see what flaws need to be corrected and what details need to be filled in.

EXAMPLES: A bolt from the blue. A flash of inspiration that is so powerful that it knocks you on your ass.

An artist or writer who suddenly breaks into a whole new style and a higher level of creativity.

The Angels of the Tarot

Exploring the various types of angels that are depicted in the Waite Tarot Deck.

There are ALOT of angels flying around in the Major Arcana of the Tarot.

The first one to appear is in The Lovers, hovering over Adam and Eve, arms outstretched, while the crafty snake twines around an apple tree. One assumes that this snapshot was taken BEFORE Uppity Eve decided that she just had to have a goddamned apple for breakfast, because the angel seems to be protecting or blessing them as they stand there. After her snack, of course, god went into a major psychotic rage and the angel drove them out of the garden with a flaming sword. (“She ate AN APPLE! That bitch ate one of my apples! How dare she? They’re MY apples. I’ll show her! I’ll throw her skinny ass right OUT of Paradise. I’ll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!”)

Jewish tradition holds that the angel who tossed them out was Jophiel, which is odd because she seems like a pretty nice angel. She’s known as, “the angel of beauty,” and she’s shines beautiful thoughts into people’s hearts and helps addicts and artists.

The next angels to appear are the Cherubim and we see them in both The Wheel of Fortune and The World. Cherubim have four faces, one of an ox, a man, and eagle, and a lion. The human face fits on the front and the lion face goes on the right and ox goes on the left and the eagle face goes . . . somewhere else. Must be on the top or the back, right?

What else? They have two sets of wings that join together. The top set is to fly around with and the bottom set they use to cover themselves up. For why, I don’t know. (Ezekial 1:6)

So, as near as I can tell, they look sort of like giant dragonflies only they have four faces which are placed right, left, middle, and somewhere else. And to think they didn’t even have LSD when they wrote this . . .

We should note that cherubim are NOT cherubs as we know them on Valentines Day cards. The cute, cuddly little guys who shoot arrows into your heart are actually putti. That’s right, they’re putti. Cutey puttis. Look it up.

Also, apparently the Cherubim guard the gates of the Garden of Paradise so Uppity Eve can’t sneak back in for another apple, though it’s not clear if Jophiel (remember Jophiel? Nice angel? About 5 foot 4, blonde hair?) is a Cherub.

Also, Satan was a Cherub. Who knew, right?

The next angel, who is pictured in the Temperance card, is . . . well . . . the Temperance angel. I’ve done a lot of research on him/her and no one seems to know who she/he is, although they all agree that he/she is either of both sexes or no sex, which would make he/she an it, rather than she/he. We know that Temperance is one of the christian cardinal virtues so perhaps the angel is merely supposed to be an allegorical reference to our better self.

The next to the last angel is The Devil. And perhaps I’m taking a leap here that isn’t justified. There are so many christian symbols in the Tarot that it seems logical that if they’re referring to The Devil they probably mean Satan who, as noted above, is a Cherub and NOT a putti. NOT A PUTTI!

On the other hand, he could be Beelza Bubba, or whole bunch of other fallen angels. Or the idea of evil itself. Still, it seemed better to err on the side of caution and include him.

And the last angel is the angel blowing the horn on the Judgement card to summon the dead out of their graves. We can probably go out on a limb and say that this is Gabriel the Archangel. Anal retentive biblical scholars will point out to you that the bible doesn’t say it was Gabriel and, in fact, the bible doesn’t even mention Gabriel and in fact the only archangel that the bible even mentions is Michael.

But we all know it’s Gabriel. Gabriel’s the one with the horn. Everyone knows that.

Angels. What a trip! If you want to take a deep dive into angelology (yes, there IS such a word) Wikipedia has an extremely detailed article here.

If you’re interested in exploring your personal relationship with angels and spirit guides DailyOm has several good courses with guided visualizations here.

The Judgement Card

The meaning of the Judgement card in the Tarot. Definitions for the reversed and upright positions are included.

An angel blows a horn and people rise joyfully from their coffins which appear to be floating on water. An icy mountain range is in the background.

Upright: This card looks kind of creepy – probably because of the gray people jumping out of their coffins – but it’s not. This card is about judgements of all kinds but especially about self-judgements.

When Judgement shows up in a reading it indicates that a very significant part of a person’s life is coming to an end. Moreover, the questioner is in a place where he or she can sit back and examine how they behaved during that phase of their lives and whether or not they are satisfied with what they did.

I’ve seen this card come up frequently with home health care providers, for instance, after the loved one they were caring for had passed over. They had devoted months or years of their lives to caring for another person and then it was time to reflect on the experience and evaluate what they had done. You can apply the same thing to any important phase in a person’s life, whether it’s the end of a long career or children who are moving out of the house.The basic questions here are what did it all mean and how did I do? When the card is upright it indicates that the questioner has done well and feels good about it. And there is also the obvious theme of being reborn in this card. I’ve finished that phase of my life, so what do I do next?

There is also, of course, the more mundane matter of legal judgements. If you’ve been involved with some sort of a court case you can expect a positive outcome.

Reversed: The same scenario as with the upright card but when reversed it implies a negative judgement. The questioner is feeling far from satisfied with his or her own behavior and wishes that she had done better. Again, this can be applied to any life event that’s coming to an end, whether a relationship or a job.

Pending legal matters will not go well.

If you have questions about this card or its meaning in one of your readings, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

A Few More Thoughts About the Judgement Card:

“You’re judging me!”

“Don’t be so judgemental.”

“That’s a value judgement.”

Not to mention visions of crabby, constipated old men in black robes banging little wooden hammers on their desks.

There’s no question that the word, “judgement,” carries a lot of emotional baggage with it. It, “feels,” like we’re talking about one person condemning another person, something most of us aren’t totally comfortable with. Hell, I’ve known Buddhists who refused to serve on juries because they were so adamant about not judging another person’s karma.

As I said in my book, “Just the Tarot,”though, the Judgement card is really more about self-judgement. It’s about taking a hard, dispassionate look at your life and deciding whether you did good or you fucked up.

And then moving on.

We’ve all known people who were in dysfunctional relationships where one person was doing all of the heavy lifting and the other person was letting him or her do it. I knew one man who was married to a woman who had been brutally raped when she was younger. About five years into their relationship their sex life pretty much disappeared because she was having flashbacks to the rape. He was a very sensitive, caring man who was deeply in love with her and so he went along with a sexless relationship until it started to make him crazy. He tried to talk to her about it and got nowhere. He suggested that she see a therapist and she refused. He suggested that THEY see a therapist and she refused.

He finally ended up seeing a therapist himself and discovered that, sadly, a lot of marriage counseling is actually divorce counseling. After two years of trying to make things work he filed for divorce and they went their separate ways. He still loved her but he realized he deserved a life partner who could love him back.

I mention that particular instance because it contains all of the elements of the Judgement card. 1 – Being confronted with a large problem in your life. 2 – Working hard to deal with it or solve it. 3 – Seeing very clearly that it involved a phase of your life which, for better or worse, is over and walking away from it. 4 – Making a Judgement about your own behavior and evaluating how you did before you move on to the next phase.

It happens all the time. Women who live with abusers and try with all of their hearts to believe that the man will somehow change until there’s one too many beatings. Home health providers who take care of parents with dementia until they’re emotionally and spiritually exhausted and just don’t have anything more to give. People who endure terrible jobs with terrible bosses for years and finally have enough.

The self judgement is sometimes positive and sometimes negative. Sometimes we can look at ourselves and say, “Yeah, I did really good and I did everything I could have.” Sometimes we have to admit that there are things we wish we could have done better or wonder if we should have tried a different approach.

In either case there is strong self-knowledge that it’s OVER. That chapter of your life is closed out and you’re moving on to the next chapter, hopefully a wiser and more compassionate human being.

Time to be re-born.

The Sun Tarot Card

The meaning of The Sun card in the Tarot, including definitions for the upright and reversed positions.

A young, nude child sits astride a pony with flowers and feathers in her hair while a bright, red banner waves in the air. Behind her a wall is topped with sunflowers and a huge sun shines down upon the scene.

Upright: Joy, fun, happiness! This is a wonderful card and indicates that everything is going just right. It indicates that warm, comforting sense of existence when you’re going through a period where you’re satisfied and happy.

The child on the pony obviously indicates youth, both in the way the questioner feels right now and in her actual physical environment. New children or grandchildren may be on the way or perhaps the neighbor’s kids will show up to play. Life is good.

Reversed: The weather forecast is for a cloudy day with the possibility of clearing. Good things may be on the horizon but that’s not assured, yet, and it’s important to keep a positive attitude.

Possibilities of problems with children or pregnancies. Perhaps the neighbor’s kids show up to play and they’re REALLY annoying.

If you have questions about this card or its meaning in one of your readings, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

A Few More Thoughts About The Sun

If you’ve ever done any Inner Child work you’ve got to love The Sun. It’s all there: the laughing child (riding a pony, no less) in a warm, walled in garden filled with sunflowers waving a banner or flag while the sun shines down.

Let’s focus on the flag for a little bit because it’s the one thing in the composition that just doesn’t belong there. And things that don’t belong tend to be the most interesting.

We can see first of all that the flag is WAY oversized for the child. It’s huge and would be appropriate for a large man or woman, not a child. Secondly it’s red, a color commonly associated with power. So combining those factors we’ve got a very small child controlling a large amount of power, which is a fascinating concept.

To say that our society is anti-child might be an overstatement, but it might not. Consider these common insults:

Do you have to be so childish?

Why don’t you just grow up?

I guess I’ll be the adult in the room.

Quit being such a brat.

You’re just a cry baby.

And on and on and on. The word, “puerile,” is from a latin word meaning, “boy.” Also juvenile, infantile, immature.

Most Inner Child work could more accurately be defined as, “Injured Inner Child work.” It’s all about working with that ego construct that we form as a child and which tends to be emotionally abused by parents, teachers, preachers and other authoritarians commonly known as grown ups. It’s about recovering and healing that part of us that was told that he/she was stupid, noisy, pesky, insolent, too big for our britches, and a general pain in the ass. Shut up and sit down or go stand in a corner and think it over until you’re willing to be, “good.”

And, yes, we tend to think of Inner Child as being weak, powerless, delicate, violated. But if that was all there was to it, what would be the point in trying to recover it or heal it? After all, it’s just a dumb kid.

The fact is, though, that there is tremendous power that flows out of the Child. Julia Cameron, author of, “The Artist’s Way,” places creativity squarely in the child ego state, as do many others. Here’s what Cameron had to say:

“Remember, your artist is a child. Find and protect that child. Learning to create is like learning to walk. The artist child must begin by crawling.”

Picasso said, “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”

Amber K, in her wonderful book, “True Magick,” says:

“ . . . the Younger Self is a valuable ally to the conscious mind. . . it is in charge of emotion, memory and sensation . . . it is a powerful generator and channel of psychic energy . . .”

I know a therapist who is fascinated both by deaths and births because, “those are the moments when the veil is thinnest, when a Soul is coming into or passing out of the world.”

If you conceptualize it that way, Child is much closer to the Divine, to Spirit World than Adult. Each child is a traveler who just stepped off of the Astral Plane and is approaching the Baggage Claim area to pick up it’s new bag of karma. Each child is still magical.

Until we can talk her out of it.

The Death Card in Tarot

The meaning of the Death card in the Tarot. This includes definitions for the upright and reversed positions.

This is that card that always causes Tarot readers to rush to say, “It doesn’t really mean death. It just says death.”

Doncha feel better now?

Upright: In some of my readings it actually has meant death, but it was a statement after the fact. For instance, Death appeared in my readings for months after my partner died but not before her death. The cards weren’t predicting death, they were just saying, “Okay, someone you loved very much has died and you’re dealing with death.”

In most instances, though, the card indicates a radical, transformative change that is not associated with a physical death. Rather, it indicates that the questioner is saying goodbye to one phase of his or her life which is, “dying away,” and saying hello to a new phase that will be radically different. We’ve all had those turning points in life where we suddenly walked down a totally new path and away from what we were accustomed to and Death presages those turnings.

Still, it’s a spooky, creepy looking card and no matter how much New Age Optimism you throw at it it’s still unsettling. And that’s another aspect of the card: the changes that the questioner is about to go through may not feel at ALL comfortable to begin with. In fact, they may feel downright scary and unsettling at first. They will lead to positive developments, though, so just hang on and work through it.

REVERSED – A lot the same as in the upright position but the changes will probably be more gradual and feel less like the world has been turned upside down. There is a warning that the questioner may be resisting necessary change and this could lead to a life that’s stuck in neutral.

If you have questions about this card or its meaning in one of your readings, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

A Few More Thoughts on . . . you know . . . D-E-A-T-H

It’s interesting to note that in the earliest versions of the Tarot the Death card was the only card without a label. It was almost as if they were saying, “It’s him. You know . . . HIM. Don’t mention his name or he might look at us and then we might . . . you know . . . die.”

To a large extent we seem to share that same superstition in 21st century America. It’s cliched but still relevant to point out that we have largely sanitized death in our culture. Most deaths take place in hospitals rather than homes and we let strangers tend to our loved ones bodies after their demise.

Let’s face it: DEATH . . . FREAKS . . . US . . . OUT!

And isn’t that odd?

Death is the most natural thing in the world. Everything that is born dies. As the old blues song says, “No matter how you struggle and strive/you’ll never get out of this world alive.”

As Ram Dass put it,”Death is not an outrage.”

So why is it that we hold it in such awe and fear?

Probably because it puts an end to the little magic act that our ego performs every day. I am immortal. I will go on and on. The entire world revolves around me and my self image and my needs and wants. Hell, even if we CAN envision ourselves as ghosts it’s usually as pretty much the same body we have now only sort of translucent and vaporous.

Only, NOT. Your body is going to be . . . you know . . . D-E-A-D.

Buddhists point out that we all have a craving for permanence and security. It seems to be hard wired into the human Self. We need to feel that we’ll be happy forever. That we’ll be in love forever. That we’ll go on and on in our little homes and tragedy will never touch us. That our loved ones will never die and neither will we.

And then Death comes along and blows all of that into a million pieces. And that causes pain and suffering like we never knew we could endure.

The answer to that suffering seems to be to try to keep an awareness of Death every day. It sounds depressing and dark, but it’s really not. Knowing – truly knowing – in your heart that you have a very limited period of time lets you enjoy each moment. It lets you be aware of how amazingly precious and beautiful your life really is.

Yes, it’s the death of the ego and ego HATES that. But it’s the birth of the Soul. No real awareness of death = no real awareness of life. As Pema Chodron said:

“To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man’s-land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. ”

The Hanged Man – Suffering and Rebirth

The meaning of The Hanged Man card in the Tarot, including definitions for the upright and reversed positions.

A young man hangs suspended by one foot from a tee shaped cross of living wood. His hands appear to be tied behind his back and a glowing nimbus surrounds his head.

Upright: The key word in the description above is, “suspended.” This card indicates a time out, a period during which the questioner may, “suspend,” life for a while and take a break to rethink and re-create his or her life. The suspension of activities precedes a change in the person’s life and attitudes.

This actually happens fairly frequently in our society and in some cases we describe it as a mid-life crisis. A person wakes up one morning and thinks, “What in the hell am I doing with my life? This sucks.” And, in more radical instances, they may quit their jobs, walk away from everything, and join a monastery or meditation center for a while to sort things out.

Even without taking it to those extremes this card represents a self-imposed period of sacrifice and relative isolation in order to grow spiritually or mentally. On a romantic level it may indicate walking away from relationships for a while in order to become a more balanced person and have better relationships in the future. On an employment level it may signal a need to quit a job that you don’t like and retrain for something that you will like. In any event, it always signals temporary sacrifice that allows the questioner to grow and improve in the future.

REVERSED: Take a careful look at the sacrifices that you are making in life and be sure that they’re worth it and that something better will emerge as a result of them. It may also indicate a strong desire for change without any ability to make it happen. A time when you’d really like something different to emerge but you just can’t take a break from your responsibilities and make it happen.

If you have questions about this card or its meaning in one of your readings, please don’t hesitate to leave a comment. I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

A Few More Thoughts About The Hanged Man:

There are actually two components to The Hanged Man. One is suffering and the other involves a period of retreat leading to a spiritual rebirth.

In my experience many of the Tarot definitions which you find today – particularly those with a heavy New Age emphasis – tend to overplay the spiritual rebirth part and underplay the suffering. It is, after all, the suffering which causes the spiritual rebirth in the first place.

A person who draws The Hanged Man in a reading has gone through the emotional equivalent of being hit in the face with a two by four. They have gone through something that was so shocking, so devastating that it’s knocked them out of the orbit of their normal lives. They have to pull back, retreat, and rethink what their lives are all about.

I began pulling The Hanged Man on a consistent basis after the death of my life partner. We’d been together for 19 years and suddenly the center of my universe, my reason for being, was gone. The grief was excruciating, something I hope I never have to go through again and, at its’ core, was the knowledge that life would never be the same. It took months of meditating, journaling, and pondering before I began to crawl out of that horrible black hole to put my existence back in order.

That’s the kind of incident that precedes The Hanged Man appearing in a person’s reading. For some it may be a divorce or finding their spouses were cheating on them. For others it may be the sudden realization that they’ve been living a life without meaning or purpose and that our time on this earth plane is limited.

First there is the pain. Then there’s a retreat from normal life which probably starts on the very basic level of licking your wounds and trying to not go crazy. And then there’s an extended period of questioning what life is about, what your values are, and how you want to live.

The Hanged Man doesn’t move through your life quickly. It’s not something that’s over within a few days or a few weeks. This card can show months or even years of rebirth and regrowth. The good news is that you come out of the other side of it a much stronger and much better person.