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October 4 through October 10, 2021

We could feel a bit skittish or anxious this week as four astrological events unfold. Monday's Virgo Moon has us running on all cylinders, and we could find it difficult to keep up with all that's on our plates! Luckily the Moon will move into Libra on Tuesday to restore some balance, culminating in a Libra new Moon on Wednesday. This gives us the opportunity for a fresh start or a "do-over" if something we're working on has hit a block. Pluto will also turn direct on this day after 5 months of backward motion. Pluto generates karmic shifts and is more generational than personal, so we may not even notice its influence for a month or more, but it promises to reverse and right some global problems we've been dealing with. Venus will move into the light-hearted and fun-loving sign of Sagittarius on Thursday, bringing six weeks of joyful movement as we move closer to the holiday season next month. Speaking of Sagittarius, the Moon will travel through this fair-minded sign over the weekend, lightening the mood considerably. Saturn will turn direct on Sunday, calling for a restructuring of boundaries and schedules as we move into a cycle of busyness and high activity for the remainder of the year.

The Spirit of Tarot, by Kristoffer Hughes

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

Materially and superficially, the Tarot appear as a set of images printed with ink onto slightly stiffened paper or card; to all sense and purposes, they appear as simple pieces of art. However, the Tarot is significantly more than just pretty pictures; they are a treasure house of images that express a profound connection to a mystery school that was centuries in the making. Elements hid within the Tarot reflect a truth that was old when the world was new. The school of Tarot emerged from an Occulture that was intent on creating a tool that would transform the lives and spiritual wellbeing of its users. They succeeded.

As a fledgling Tarot reader, I often felt out of my depth, isolated from my teachers or those who inspired me. Cut off from the guide books and the information therein that, my fallible memory failed to recall clearly and succinctly. With the eyes of the Querent upon me, I cannot begin to tell you how often my breath would catch in my chest, as pearls of sweat broke out on my forehead to glisten and betray my lack of confidence. Thankfully, most querents were patient and willing to allow a young person to simply have a go, and I am grateful to them for their tenacity and encouragement during my studies. And yet, I often felt so alone in my quest to understand and move into deep relationship with the cards.

That is, until one fateful day when I was to meet the most influential person in my magical life. Her name was Myfanwy Davies, and she hailed from the green valleys of South Wales. For decades she had resided in the North Wales coastal town of Rhyl. She was profoundly crippled by consequence of a road traffic accident; she wore glasses as thick as milk bottle bottles, and I would jest that she could still see Haley's Comet through them things. Short in stature yet huge in heart and magic, she told of me something inherent within the Tarot that I had yet to consider or contemplate—the Spirit within the Tarot.

Aleister Crowley explored this spiritual principle hid within the Tarot in his seminal work The Book of Thoth. In it he discusses the animistic principle held within the cards and stated that the cards themselves are living beings. They appear on the surface of to the untrained eye as inert and stationary and yet they crackle with a life-force and a vitality that is accessible to any student or adept of the Tarot. It was of this that my teacher Myfanwy referred to and then encouraged me to expand on that thought and explore the nature of the Tarot as a landscape of living, spiritual entities. My relationship with the cards were never to be the same again.

It is easy for us to consider that the nature of consciousness only applies to that which we consider as kin or near-kin, fellow humans, our pets, other animals, trees and rocks. We can identify the consciousness in others because we may share a similarity of awareness. We may not immediately consider this when we look at a deck of cards, and yet we would be foolhardy—as students of the occult sciences—to dismiss that the cards themselves reflect a consciousness. As I learnt that day, all of those years ago, as the western winds brought hailstones to beat at Myfanwy's windows: the Tarot are pictorial representations of the natural forces of the universe, and they contain within them the very principle of existence and all of its glorious expressions.

Tarot functions through the occult hypothesis that consciousness is not local, and it is not confined to specific points in space, or places like our brains. But in turn, our brains coalesce that consciousness, like a receiver, into a moment in time, and like the opening of a book and the turning of its pages, consciousness reveals itself in the here and now. This is precisely what the Tarot does: it opens the book of consciousness and coalesces material and information relevant to a precise moment in time (the reading), and reveals it.

It is able to do this because of the immense psychic energy that went into its creation.

In truth, each time you take to your decks, you are accessing a storehouse of wisdom that is more than the sum totality of its creators. For instance, if your deck is one inspired by the Rider-Waite-Smith system, a plethora of energies and influences went into the making of that tradition. From the Kabbala to the complexities and magical endeavours of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, to the profoundly powerful images of Pamela Colman-Smith, to every student and reader of that particular system. All have fed and nurtured a mystery school that is complete in 78 branches of wisdom. This magical heritage gave breath and life to the thought-forms that would eventually rise as living beings in their own right, as the spirit within the Tarot.

If your deck is inspired by the Rider-Waite-Smith system but has another overlay, take for instance my own Celtic Tarot. I have retained the primary symbology and system of the Rider-Waite-Smith but overlaid it with the magic of Celtic mythology. This adds another spiritual dimension to the cards; it does not detract from what is already present in the symbols themselves. By proxy of this, using a modern deck connects you to its creator and artist and the spiritual work that was necessary for them to perform to bring their decks into being.

Tarot is revealed to both reader and querent simultaneously, as each card is turned the spirit within that card sings of its heritage and the connection it has to all that has gone before it. The reader interprets the meaning of the card based on its position or value within a spread, and reveals this vocally to the querent. The most effective of readers are those who can sense and work with the spirits that inhabit their decks.

With this in mind, when one takes to a deck, one is in actuality never alone, for the spiritual beings that inhabit the Tarot are your constant guides to their revelation and inspiration. I sit here now, on a night not dissimilar to that which I enjoyed decades ago, the winds blow and hailstones stammer at my window demanding attention. But in my office, I am not alone, I have a number of decks, too many to admit to, and I sense their companionship. For within these decks are the wonders of the universe and of all life and living, of things seen and unseen and things betwixt and between sense and sensibility. In them are the efforts of occultists and artists and magicians long since dead, the mighty ones of the Tarot. It is the company of Tarot that I share this space with, and the comfort and stability that they offer my adventures into the magical world of Tarot.

Next time I will share some of my techniques for accessing the spirit within the Tarot.

Until then, fare thee well, and keep reading.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2021. All rights reserved.

I have always been very sensitive and intuitive. I am a hairdresser and a manicurist, so in my line of work, I am constantly touching people. I have been doing this for the last year, and now, oddly enough, I have to wear a wig because my alopecia has gone crazy and I've lost 70% of my hair. If a customer has a pain, I will feel it for the next few days the same way they did. I was told I have healing hands, but instead of helping others, they seem to sicken me. How can I continue helping others without taking on their problems myself? Please help me.

Yasmeen

Susyn:

This is a very common experience of natural healers: we tend to become sponges for other people's problems, and take them on ourselves.

If you can work with gloves on, I recommend you wear them when you work on your clients. If that won't work for you, try using hand sanitizer after each appointment. Of course, we don't actually have to touch a person to absorb whatever is wrong with them, so taking the measures above should only be considered the first steps in protecting yourself.

The good news is that you can pass healing to other people without jeopardizing yourself. Ideally, you will want to use a ritual for spiritual protection before you go to work, one that will allow you to continue healing others but keep you from absorbing their energy. I like to visualize a clear, large bubble surrounding me before I work. This is similar to the one that Glinda, the good witch in The Wizard of Oz, traveled in.

I also recommend wearing protective stones and colors as you work on others. These are natural ways to keep others' energy from clinging to you. White, yellow and red are good colors to wear when you work on others. Earrings, rings or bracelets that have quartz crystals, amber stones or red gems such as rubies or garnets can also create a protective shield around you.

Next, you will need to practice higher awareness when dealing with clients who are in pain or emotional distress. Be aware that to heal them, you will be bringing their energy into your own body. Instead of holding on to their troubles, however, you will perform a ritual that removes these troubles from your own body or emotions as well as theirs.

Once you have finished with a client, take a few minutes to focus on the trouble they had and visualize it leaving your own body. This may take a little practice, but in time, you will be able to move the negative energy away from them, onto you, and then out into the atmosphere.

In regard to your alopecia, there are a few natural supplements that may help. Vitamin B-6 or silica can help eliminate the stress you feel as a result of your psychic sensitivity. (Most hair loss can be traced to stress.) You may also have a low-grade infection that is contributing to the problem; goldenseal and echinacia should be able to help with this problem.

I support your desire to continue practicing with your healing gift. Once you have set up these protective measures, you should experience less stress and pain as a result of your sensitivity.

*****

Mata Maya

What you describe is very common; in fact, I experienced something similar as a new healer. When I prayed about the matter, I was led to a wise teacher who enlightened me; as a result of her teaching, I've become a much more powerful healer and haven't had a problem since.

While it's clear that you would also benefit from some training, I'm a bit hesitant to recommend it since most of the energy healing methods being taught are in my opinion fundamentally flawed.

Energy healing is simple and is something anyone can do. You don't need any special knowledge, mystical symbols, expensive attunements or secret codes. What you do need is a heart full of divine love and unwavering faith.

Many traditional methods teach you to look for problems to solve; since what we focus upon grows bigger, this is their first mistake. Further, healers are encouraged to connect with people with great empathy and compassion. While it may seem like this is the kind thing to do, it actually just draws you into their problems instead of empowering you to uplift and empower them.

As an energy healer, your job is not to figure out what needs fixing and how to fix it. Instead, your job is to embody perfect well-being and draw others into that high vibration. If you truly believe that all is well and everyone is experiencing whatever they need to experience in order to learn what they need to learn, then you can remain calm and full of faith regardless of what people may be suffering through. If you know without a doubt that death is not an end but rather the next stage in an endless journey, then you will be able to maintain a high, peaceful, faithful vibration even if the person you're healing is struggling with a life threatening disease.

To put it another way, if someone is lost in darkness, you could go into the darkness with them and stumble around, trying to help them feel their way out of it, or you could simply turn on the light. To be able to turn on the light, you must be in a state of radiant health and well-being on all levels yourself. Though many may disagree with me, if you're not there yet, you would be wise to focus on healing yourself before you undertake healing others.

Whether you are trying to heal others or just cut their hair, it is important that you learn to set your own tone. This way what you create in your life will come from within you instead of from outside influences. To do this, I highly recommend you study and work with the law of attraction.

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.