The Devil - Bondage

When the Devil card comes up in Tarot readings people generally get into an state of anxiety. I could be the same if I didn't know better, and besides I've been experiencing enough anxiety the past few days, without heaping more upon myself.

 There are positive and negative aspects of this card. I understand the negative very well, as a person in recovery and a member of a 12 step program for over 20 years. The positive is that I became honest, open minded, and willing enough to accept my shadow self and I have been recovering ever since.

Pan is the great god represented here, once worshiped by the Greeks, as the Great All. He roams and haunts the woods and pastures of Arcadia. His nature is characterized as being wild, fertile and untamed.
In Greek myth, Pan was not considered evil, but simply being in his natural state, untamed, and amoral.

Not surprisingly his name is derived from the word 'panic' and he likes to give folks sudden frights. Whenever this card comes up in readings I do, though it seldom does, the thought that comes immediately to mind, is one who is in some kind of inner bondage.


As human beings, we are all aware of our shadow self. The saying. " we are only as sick as our secrets" is very true. It takes humility and honesty to face the truth, to confront our shadow side, and the most shameful parts of ourselves, and to look into the face of Pan, in acceptance. The acceptance that Pan is merely natural not evil, enables us to release our creative power when we face our own darkness.

 If Pan does not face his shameful secrets, he will only exhibit a sense of superiority, projecting the worst of his character on to others,  manifested in the form of prejudice, bigotry, discrimination and persecution toward others, whom he considers 'evil.'

Four of Wands - Friends

 In this card we see Jason gathered with his friends and shipmates, about to set off for their great adventure to find the Golden Fleece. This adventure of sailing to the ends of the earth is not only daunting, but it is something that cannot be done by Jason alone, and he knows it. This is why Jason gathers his friends around him. Each friend has different strengths, skills and inner resources upon which he can draw.
The Four of Wands like Jason's friends reminds me of the Four Elements, each one bringing it's particular nature.


Drawing the Four of Wands this morning made me wonder, what does this card have to say to me. Then I saw clearly, it speaks about the importance of having friendship with those we can trust. No one is an island, and we all need friends and we need to know how to be a good friend to others, to all God's creatures, and to the earth.


My mother, the very wise woman she was, would say, we can have many acquaintances, but if a person has a few close friends in life, they are very blessed. I have also found this to be very true. We can have long time friends and we can meet new friends that we feel close to, even though we may never meet them face to face, particularly in the age of the internet, meeting people from all over, the world. Many of our old friends we may not see for years but when we are reunited we pick up just where we left off, like we had never been apart, because we are bonded.

As I age I am  more and more grateful for my friends, as they have been and are like family to me, as I would be lost without them, and may never have survived the things I faced.
We have chosen one another. We cannot choose our families, and sometimes we are not as close to our biological family as the friends we choose as family. Friendship is precious.

Five of Wands - Awakened

I haven't been able to get to my blog the past few days. I've been busy battling the dragon like Jason. It felt like the dragon was winning. This card describes exactly what I have being experiencing. But the dragon-fight is with myself. Fighting ourselves can be the worst kind of battle when " the powers of the earth resist change "

I have been experiencing  'regressive inertia'. It has been more than a rut, but a combination of things that have resulted in me avoiding, procrastinating, and resisting reality. All this has collided with my creative energy, but now it's come to an apex and I am ready to accommodate reality and my imagination.

The Feminine energy of the High Priestess helped Jason and I must trust my intuition and my instincts and allow them to help me do the right thing, so I can grow and achieve my goals.

I have heard it said, and have experienced myself, in various situations, using the metaphor, of how the last mile of the race is the hardest, because you are exhausted, feeling overwhelmed, and want to give up. This is were faith, courage, trust, persistence and prayer come in for me. No one said a good life would be easy, but it is worth fighting for. 

Six of Pentacles - Generousity

Although the Six of Pentacles has to do with the monetary generousity, I have to say, if we do not have a generousity of spirit our physical gifts are rather empty. There is a way of thinking of generousity that is making allowances for another's behaviour because of their intent. We can easily 'take' offense to what another does to us and we allow their behaviour to dictate how we behave. Instead of response we react but wanting to lash out, or start spinning our psychological wheels, feeling wronged or hurt, and maybe even feeling a little sorry for ourselves.

The Six of Pentacles is the perfect card for me at present. It is a good reminder for me not to take things personally, and be generous of spirit. God only knows there have been and are many folks being generous  with me.

It is very important for me to really know and understand, I am not perfect nor is anyone else, and so we need to be forgiving of one another in the generousity of spirit.

Hindu deity Lakshmi - the goddess of prosperity, wealth, purity, generosity, and the embodiment of beauty, grace and charm.

' The Feminine Face of God '

La Loba /Wolf Woman - Catherine Meyers

Yesterday I posted the about the Empress, which was the card I drew from my Mythic Tarot deck.
The Empress (Demeter) is the Earth Mother. Her daughter is The High Priestess (Persephone) queen of the underworld, link to the inner world or ' the unconscious ', and guardian of the secrets of the dead.

I am posting today about these two particular cards because they directly relate to the amazing book I am reading that I have mentioned in my posts a number of times, The Heroine's Journey, by Maureen Murdock. There is so much more I would love to share about this book and why I think it is a very important book to read, but suffice to say I highly recommend it to anyone, but especially to those who are tarot readers. It is a book that enables a deep understanding of our feminine and masculine identity and how there needs to be a balance between the two within ourselves for wholeness.

The High Priestess is our guide to all that is mysterious and mystical. I have read that this card, more than any other in the tarot deck, embodies and symbolizes the tarot reader, which I agree with, because the High Priestess represents the knowledge of intuition, supernatural, instinct, secret and self knowledge, and I believe it is the reason why individuals become tarot readers, male or female.

Here are some excerpts from The Heroine's  Journey that I hope will provide for you  food for thought, that I think clarifies ideas about the feminine, masculine, and about mother and daughter.

 " The nature of the mother/daughter split is also determined by how a woman integrates the archetypal Mother into her psyche, which includes Mother Earth and the cultural view of the feminine.

Our collective psyche fears the power of Mother and does everything it can to destroy it. We take her nurturance for granted; we use, abuse, and dominate matter (mater) every time we get a chance. Every barrel of oil that pours into Prince William Sound, every ton of nuclear waste that is stored in the New Mexican desert, every tree that is suffocated by acid rain shows our enormous arrogance and disregard for her.

Our churches have pushed the feminine face of God underground for centuries, destroying her image and usurping her power for the male gods. How can we feel connected to the feminine when culture around us does everything in its power to make us forget? We bow before the gods of greed, domination, and ignorance and scoff at the feminine images of nurturance, balance, and generousity. We rape, plunder, and destroy the earth and expect her to give to us endlessly. This mother/daughter wound runs deep; it will take much to heal it. "

" Your inner man and woman
   have been at war
   they are both wounded
   tired
   and in need of care it is time
   to put down the sword
   that divides them in two "

" The Masculine is an archetypal force; it is not a gender. Like the feminine, it is a creative force that lives within all women and men. When it becomes unbalanced and unrelated to life it becomes combative, critical, and destructive. This unrelated archetypal masculine can be cold and inhuman; it does not take into account out human limitations. Its machismo tells us to forge ahead no matter what the cost. It demands perfection, control, and domination; nothing is ever enough. Our masculine nature is wounded. "

" It is the job of the heroine to enlighten the world by loving it-starting with herself. "

I have to say I was initially not clear about what is meant by the masculine not being a gender. Upon more reflection. I believe what is meant, is that masculine and feminine are archetypal forces, not gender. That makes sense to me. I found more information from this site.

 http://www.gestaltreality.com/2013/02/03/archetypal-masculine-feminine-forces-the-key-to-creation/

The Empress - Beauty and Bounty

Embracing the feminine is embodied in the Empress card. She is the epitome and symbol of motherhood, possesses the wisdom of nature, and she lives life with creative abundance, imagination and luxury. The Great Mother sets the standard for honouring and nurturing ourselves, imparting an understanding of living in our physical bodies and knowing that we are both creatures of the spirit, but also of the earth. She asks us to nourish life.

Embracing our light and dark instinctual nature is encountered in meeting the Empress. Our bodies are both valuable and precious which are worthy of being cared for as being part of nature, rooted and in natural life.

Without the Empress we cannot appreciate our physical selves, living in a purely intellectual world without being grounded in reality. She provides for us a connection to safety and a trust in life.

King of Cups - Emotional Intellect

The King of Cups is all about emotional balance, creativity, control, and the unconscious. It is a very clarifying and affirming card for me today, as I can occasionally feel overwhelmed, and confused by emotion.

I have learned through the Mythic Tarot that emotion and feelings are different.  " Emotion is a visceral reaction while and feeling is an active, intelligent faculty of choice. " Feelings need to be in sync with the intellect, and the intellect should be in conjunction with the heart, if we are to be in a balanced state. If we do not control our emotions, they will control us or often come out sideways. This does not mean we repress feelings and sentiment but our emotion and intellect together allow us to have relationships based on temperance, and understanding.

The King of Cups represents having a deep understanding of what it means to actualize our compassion toward  others and toward ourselves. This card encourages us to consider our dealings with others, and how we interact with them.

 Needing to exercise our emotional maturity when others are exhibiting negative energy is an essential strength and skill.

We must be clear about our boundaries, and know what is acceptable, and what is not, on an emotional level. Developing our unconscious and compassion are the skills that will help us to define these boundaries, they create balance and enable us, like the King of Cups, to be the master of our own feelings and to have an emotional intellect.