Tarot by your own design

One of the fun assignments in my Tarot workshops is for everyone to produce a sketch of a personal tarot card, based on discoveries and imagery that came to them during the program. There is no shortage of material, since our Tarot for Dreamers playshops include theater and performance, journeys through the doorways of the cards, monologues in the voices of both major and minor arcana as well as readings for ourselves and each other in many different styles.
     In  a Tarot workshop, I produced sketches of several cards. The card that demanded my closest attention was the Four of Swords. In a Celtic Cross spread, it had come up in the position of my Hopes and Fears. I had seen it in the same place before, in another recent reading, and realized that I needed to explore why this number card - a benign one in the sometimes scary and clanking procession of the Swords - might speak to me of my Hopes and Fears.
     My personal name for the Four of Swords is Rest. My catch phrase for it is "Time Off". Weapons are laid down or hung up on the walls. We have moved beyond the pain and grief and possible self-laceration of the Three of Swords; we are not yet menaced by the terrible mental strife of the Five of Swords. A period of calm and relaxation might certainly figure among my hopes; why would is also be a source of fear?
     In one of our exercises, I drummed for the group, inviting our participants to step through the frame of a selected card, as through a door, to learn more about the character of the card within its own realm. When I let my mind travel through the frame of the Four of Swords, I saw metal pens hanging on a wall. They were the Zebra F-402 pens, inexpensive but elegant, that I often use.
     Inside the scene I strolled from a writing nook through an open doorway into a rather Hawaiian setting with a sandy beach, palm trees, a lounger near the water. A great place for rest and relaxation, imagined or physical. Then why the fear? I looked back into the writing space and saw one of my pens lying on top of an unfinished manuscript. Ah, yes. Now I saw it. The writer in me - who might be the creator and producer in other contexts also - fears rest periods because he knows that starting up a project that has been left for a while requires overcoming the heavy weight of inertia. 
     So I produced a personal version of the Four of Swords with the hope of delightful R&R, but also the implied fear of that pen laid to rest across the unfinished book.

For designing minds: Though "Tarot for Dreamers" is not in my current workshop schedule, we are likely to play some Tarot games in my creative retreat, "Writing as a State of Conscious Dreaming" at magical Mosswood Hollow near Seattle in May and on a beautiful country estate in northern Bohemia near Ceska Skalice in August

Image: Four of Swords (c) Robert Moss

The world as seen by the Queen of Swords

I pull a Tarot card for the day, drawing from a deck called Navigators of the Mystic Sea. I have drawn the Queen of Swords, In this deck, she is tagged with the word "Subversion". Instead of thinking about what she may represent for me today, I decide that I'll enter her perspective and try to grasp what part of me may be like the Queen of Swords, and what strengths and challenges come with that.

I am seated in a high black throne on the edge of a chasm. My robes are gold and purple, and I wear a gold helmet with a long back-plate that protects my neck. A huge solitary raven perches on the top of my throne, above my head. Though I am seated, my right arm, brandishing a sword, is vigorously outstretched, pointing to the far side of the abyss, as if am ordering an army to attempt the dangerous crossing – or warning off an unseen force on the other side. In my left palm, I am holding what may be an orb but could also be a pocket watch.
    Where my robes flow over the armrest of the throne, they burst into other colors – blue and lavender, teal and pink and gold again. The same colors stream like ribbons through the sky above the high orange peaks in the background, and – joining my streaming robes – along the edge of the abyss.
     In the distance, a strange brown dog (if it is a dog) is leaping over the chasm, from the far side towards my side. When I inspect his jump, I see that the far side of the abyss is higher than my side.


I remember that, in other images, I am represented as holding a severed head, and that I have been called the Mask Cutter. My sharp sword gives me the power to strip away illusion and pretension. But I know that the sharpness of my intellect can suppress my essential feminine gifts and that, misused, my sword can cut down the brightest hopes and ambitions. I cut deep.
     A solitary raven is not to be trusted. The raven you can rely on is one of a pair. The head is not to be trusted without the heart.
     I have come to the very edge. I may order others to take the jump, but do not take it myself. Yet I am barefoot, which gives me the ability to touch and feel the earth if I am willing to listen to my body.
     I am beautiful but cold and aloof and unforgiving. I place myself above others. The dog, jumping to my side, could help to soften me.
     There is a story to be written about me, and why I sit, with sword unsheathed at this high and wild and lonely border. My throne is also my prison, from which I can be released only with the help of the dog and the second raven, the one who does not appear on the card. There is a clue in the arrangement of the scene. I sit on the left side of the chasm, and on the left side of the brain.

Note: I first posted this piece a few years ago. I am posting again because of a friend's question about the significance of the Queen of Swords. Entering the perspective of this court card is as an example of how we can learn to meditate or journey with tarot. I am leading a "Tarot for Dreamers" weekend workshop involving this and other practices for active dreamers who are interested in tarot at magical Mosswood Hollow on May 9-10.

Tarot for Dreamers: The Priestess gentles the Serpent

I often use synchronicity to get a second opinion on what is going on in a dream.
     Sometimes I do that with the help of tarot. Often all that is required is to pull a single card; sometimes I am moved to draw a series of cards corresponding to different scenes, characters or elements in a dream on which I would like some further insight.
     I never consign the meaning of a dream to what the cards reveal, because dreams are vastly deeper and more various than any set of 78 cards designed according to someone else's ideas. Nonetheless, what the cards show can be provocative and illuminating.
     I see many examples of this when I lead my Tarot for Dreamers workshops. Upon occasion, the tarot can even produce an ally to help a dreamer move through a stuck place or confront a terror, in dreams of the night and in passages of the day.
     This is what happened, in a memorable way, in a Tarot for Dreamers playshop I led at a site with the perfect name for such things: The Dragon's Egg, Mystic, Connecticut. A dreamer named Ann recounted a dream in which she was terrified by a giant snake.

The snake was enormous. It looked like a giant python. I was holding it by the neck, with my right hand. The huge, pale yellow head, lolled over my hand. I was trying to break its neck, but I couldn't. I woke up terrified.

In discussion, Ann revealed that she had been frightened by snakes in a series of dreams over many years. She was evidently uncomfortable talking about the latest snake dream now. Yet she told us that she had been inspired to do some research and had discovered that the snakes in the ancient temples of Asklepios, regarded as medicine allies of the god of dream healing, were pale yellow in color. Thus she was open to the suggestion that there might be a power in her dream that was waiting to be claimed - if she was ready to brave up to the giant snake and see what needed to be done with it.

     I suggested that she might want to pull a card from her tarot deck for guidance on this. She drew one of the keys: Trump II, the High Priestess. The Priestess card, for me, offers a path of initiation, a way of going beyond the veil into the heart of the Mysteries. In pathworking on the Qabalistic Tree of Life, the path of the High Priestess, running from Tiphareth to Kether across the abyss of Daath, is the longest and most challenging, requiring the journeyer to pass a series of tests and brave up to a series of challenges. I also thought of the snake priestesses of the ancient world, especially the famous statue from Crete, and of the Pythia, the priestess-seer of the oracle at Delphi whose name literally means The Pythoness.
     The entry of the High Priestess into our circle of dreamers prompted me to suggest a travel itinerary to Ann: to journey to the High Priestess and seek her blessing for a close-up encounter with the giant snake. "See yourself stepping through the border of the card, as through the frame of the door, to meet the Priestess. Seek her counsel and protection for a further journey, to the place of the python, to see what you need to do with it." We agreed that, with Ann's permission, all of the participants would travel with her, as family support.
     We shared powerful and mutually confirming experiences during the group journey, fueled and focused by my shamanic drumming. The most important and profound travel report came from Ann:

I found myself at once before the High Priestess. From her throne, four snakes darted forward and wrapped themselves around my arms and my legs. To my amazement, I felt neither fear nor revulsion. The Priestess told me that the easiest way for my to connect with the serpent power was to let the giant snake swallow me. Now I was facing it. I saw its great jaws open and I let it devour me. I felt myself traveling at amazing speed through a series of landscapes. Then everything turned inside out and the serpent was inside me. I felt it move through all of my energy centers in a zigzag path, clearing blockages, raising a terrific vital energy inside me. I have finally conquered my fear of snakes and I am ready to dance with the Serpent Power.

And she did. We were delighted to see her move into the midst of the circle with the sinuous grace of a snake dancer.

Note: "Qabalistic"? Yes: the Tarot system inherited from the magicians of the Golden Dawn is related to the Western "Qabalah" rather than to Kabbalah. A useful guide to the correspondences is Robert Wang's The Qabalistic Tarot.

Tarot for Dreamers workshops: My next one is at an even more magical location, Mosswood Hollow, in the wild woods east of Seattle, over the weekend of May 9-10, 2015.

Image: This unusual version of the Tarot Priestess is from the Navigators Tarot of the Mystic Sea.

Chicken tarot

My sketch for the 3 of Disks, inspired by the contribution that chickens in the yard made to our lunch breaks during my Tarot for Dreamers workshop at The Dragon's Egg, Mystic last weekend. I have always thought of the 3 of Disks or Pentacles as a positive card, but suggesting that there is a price for manifesting good things on a physical level. No windfall here. Rather, the need for honest labor, and to take your time to do a job well.
    Now "Hatching" seems a suitable name for it.

Ancient Mother and the Deer King

In one of my Tarot for Dreamers workshops, I asked the group to journey into the twinned images of the Empress and the Emperor, trumps III and IV.  I had powerful visions, which I sketched.

    I saw the Empress as Ancient Mother, a deep-bosomed Earth Goddess seated with or within the World Tree. From her womb she is birthing a world. From her flows a gentle inundation that feeds and nourishes a vast population - tiny in proportion to her - that is gathered around her. Above her, the branches of the World Tree form the exact shape of a tremendous rack of antlers. At the same time, they are taproots reaching into the Sky World. One-liner for her: "Praise and serve the Mother and re-enchant the world."

    I saw the Emperor as the Deer King, wearing an antlered crown that exactly reproduces the shape of the branches or sky roots of the World Tree. In a total re-visioning of the classic male-domineering Red Emperor of conventional Tarot, this is the sacred king whose power is the gift of the goddess and who joins with her in sacred union. One-liner for him: "The power of the true king is the gift of the Goddess."

Designing your own tarot cards - 4 of Swords

One of the fun assignments in my tarot workshops is for everyone to produce a sketch of a personal tarot card, based on discoveries and imagery that came to them during the program. There is no shortage of material, since our Tarot for Dreamers playshops include theater and performance, journeys through the doorways of the cards, monologues in the voices of both major and minor arcana as well as readings for ourselves and each other in many different styles.
     In my tarot workshop last weekend, I produced sketches of several cards, including a Priestess inspired by the snake journey I described in my last article here. The card that demanded my closest attention was the Four of Swords. In a Celtic Cross spread, it had come up in the position of my Hopes and Fears. I had seen it in the same place before, in another recent reading, and realized that I needed to explore why this number card - a benign one in the sometimes scary and clanking procession of the Swords - might speak to me of my Hopes and Fears.
     My personal name for the Four of Swords is Rest. My catch phrase for it is "Time Off". Weapons are laid down or hung up on the walls. We have moved beyond the pain and grief and possible self-laceration of the Three of Swords; we are not yet menaced by the terrible mental strife of the Five of Swords. A period of calm and relaxation might certainly figure among my hopes; why would is also be a source of fear?
     In one of our exercises, I drummed for the group, inviting our participants to step through the frame of a selected card, as through a door, to learn more about the character of the card within its own realm. When I let my mind travel through the frame of the Four of Swords, I saw metal pens hanging on a wall. They were the Zebra F-402 pens, inexpensive but elegant, that I generally use. I strolled from a writing nook through an open doorway into a rather Hawaiian scene with a sandy beach, palm trees, a lounger near the water. A great place for rest and relaxation, imagined or physical. Then why the fear? I looked back into the writing space and saw one of my pens lying on top of an unfinished manuscript. Ah, yes. Now I saw it. The writer in me - who might be the creator and producer in other contexts also - fears rest periods because he knows that starting up a project that has been left for a while requires overcoming the heavy weight of inertia. 
     So I produced a personal version of the Four of Swords with the hope of delightful R&R, but also the implied fear of that pen laid to rest across the unfinished book.