KAJAMA.COM NEWSLETTER

7 Ways to Develop Your Tarot Language, by Nancy Antenucci

(Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal.)

A wise high school teacher told us the secret to learning French was to think in French. That advice was a game-changer for me. Within time, I was speaking and even dreaming in French with an ease and flow.

Every language shapes reality. Tarot is no exception. As a language, it reflects being human in a full spectrum from the mundane to the divine. To stay curious and open to a world of elements, great natural forces and our vast potential is to own the language of a true Magician.

Following are 7 tips in creating Tarot as a second language.

1. Think in Tarot.
   Tarot is a language of images. Learn the rhythms and power of non-verbal communication. Engage with the ways images speak daily. Watch commercials or movies without sound to strengthen skills in reading body language, colors, and symbols. Pay attention to where your focus is being directed when reading a magazine or looking through social media. Gain some basic art principles such as repetition, color, and design to expand your ability to perceive patterns.In addition to surfacing meaning from imagery, become more aware of the four elements—Air, Water, Earth, and Fire. These energies literally are the backbone of tarot and are expressed fully in the Minor Arcana. We are the elements. Air is Mind (Swords), Fire is Expression (Wands), Water is Feeling and Vision (Cups), and Earth is Sensation and Matter (Pentacles). A simple exercise is to sense what each person's major elemental nature is while standing in a checkout line. See yourself and others as these energies.

   Look for tarot everywhere—in church windows, music, poetry, or even clouds. You will find what you seek. Once while babysitting a creative young girl, she pointed to the sky and told me that the Empress was smiling. I looked up, and indeed the clouds seemed to form her shape. I realized back then that tarot on the cards is only one form of the wisdom they hold.

2. Choose a Primary Deck.
   When one learns a language, it helps to stay within one system. Choose the one tarot deck that you will go to again and again as you practice and build your knowledge. A minimal amount of research into the three branches of tarot (the Rider-Waite, the Marseilles and the Thoth) would be helpful in understanding the origins of your primary tarot deck. All additional decks you might use in the future will be variations of the mastery of this primary deck, much like a musician playing other instruments after starting with the piano.
3. Trust What You Sense.
   Initially treat tarot as if it were a new friend that speaks another language. When with them, it would be disruptive to pull out the translation book on the spot to know exactly what they are saying. Receive the messages as best as you can. Don't underestimate what you can gather by the cards' energy, gesture, and tone. Allow this kind of reciprocity to grow as you study the traditional meanings.In your initial phases with tarot, read immediately and intuitively. Act as if you know the message each card holds for you. Don't wait until you have some thorough understanding of all 78 cards. Your comfort in using your sense of the cards will actually create a base to contain the centuries old classical definitions.
4. Find the Noun and Verb.
   As a novice, understanding another language requires the ability to get the jist of the message. The heart of any sentence is the noun and the verb. If you can understand who is active and what is happening, the rest will follow. There will be a lot to unpack in one card (much less a number of them together) that could be overwhelming. Stick with the basics of the main character and the action that is happening card by card. Pretend you are reading a grade school primer. Let go of trying to make sense of all the details.
5. Allow Variation.
   Languages contain a myriad of ways to express and communicate a thought. As you learn to see the cards through your own creative authority, each card will accumulate different layers—your sense or experience of the card, its traditional meaning, the meaning from your deck's little white book, etc.Choose an overall pattern to serve as a basic layer, such as numerology, the elemental influence of each of the Minor Arcana, or correlations for all the Court Cards. Once you are have progressed into using spreads, stay true to the position of the spread and how it frames the card's meaning.

   During a reading, trust the layer that comes to surface. For instance, when reading the Empress card, I could speak of the traditional meaning (Mother, life force, and unconditional love), but the layer that surfaces is my earlier reflection of Empress as a force in our daily life if we just remember to look up. Trust that you are being guided. Traditional definitions are a strong and powerful dimension of the card yet just one layer during a reading. Remain open and curious, and don't attach to outcome. Let tarot and your curiosity lead you.

6. Have a Practice Partner.
   Ideally you would speak to another person fluent in tarot language. The greatest benefit of attending tarot conferences and meet-ups is to be immersed with other tarot speakers. Outside of gatherings, however, find another tarot curious friend to go on this journey with you. Design certain time and goals with lots of readings for yourself and each other from the very beginning. Don't worry about making mistakes and share all discoveries.Listening to other readers is helpful. Many YouTube tarot readers have developed a specific tarot vernacular. For example, a card is often defined by its clarifying card. The card at the bottom is an overview. There are developed definitions given for astrological collectives such as:
   Lovers: Twin Flames
   Moon: Secrets
   High Priestess: Holding secrets from someone
   Page of Swords: Cyber stalker
   Page of Cups: An apology
   Kings and Queens of the same suit: Divine partners
   6 of Cups: Soulmate
   Knight of Pentacles: Very slow
   3 of Wands: Long distance

   Stay open to all interpretations and reading styles as you study and experiment with your own reading style. Keep in mind, though, that there is no one right way.

7. Play.
   Creativity happens when one feels safe and relaxed. Follow your curiosity as you explore and find ways to know each card. Use your cards in various states of being, such as when you are content, tired, bored or sexy to uncover different perceptions. What you bring to the card is as important as what you receive from it. Pretend that you have been taught how to divine in other incarnations, all you need to do in this one is remember. Allow tarot to shape your reality.

Article originally published in The Llewellyn Journal. Copyright Llewellyn Worldwide, 2022. All rights reserved.

Is it natural to want to do bad and hurtful things to someone you once loved post-breakup? I recently ended a relationship and as much as I try to forgive and forget, random urges come over me to say and do hurtful things to him. Sometimes I act on those impulses. Afterwards I always feel bad yet I keep going through this same cycle as if stuck in limbo. Is there something I can do to stop myself from thinking and acting on these thoughts?

Taylor

Susyn:

It's common to feel anger and resentment after a break-up, and for these feelings turn into actions we later regret. Our level of spiritual development often dictates how we respond to the loss of a close relationship. Initially, it's a good idea to journal about your feelings of loss and resentment. Committing them to paper will help you process the pain you are feeling. Reviewing specific incidents that you still feel angry about can help you put them in perspective.

Whether your feelings are justified or not, there are ways to get beyond them. Keep in mind that anger is a cover-up for fear, and that in the end, you are only hurting yourself when you act on urges to retaliate.

Once you have your feelings in written form, you can burn the pages as a spiritual ritual to release the hold they have over you. You may also want to freeze your ex, which won't him but will minimize the emotions that rise up when you think about him. You can find the instructions for the Freezing Ritual at my Kajama profile.

Next I recommend a practice called Corralling Your Thoughts. This will help you let go of the past and refrain from acting on any thoughts of doing hurtful things to him.

It works like this: When your ex comes into your thoughts, stop immediately and say, I will not think about this now; I will think about it tonight at 9 p.m. Continue this practice throughout the day whenever he crosses your mind. Then at 9 p.m., allow yourself 15 minutes to think about him - no more, no less.

At the end of the fifteen minutes, if he comes into your thoughts again, you must wait until the next night at 9 p.m. to think about him. If you miss the time the next night, you will have to postpone those thoughts until the following night. After three days, reduce the time to 10 minutes, and after six days, to five minutes. This will help you gradually reduce the time you are thinking or obsessing about your ex, and minimize your concerns about him.

These practices can help as you move away from a relationship that obviously was not healthy for you. If you are without a relationship at this point, it's time to open yourself up to finding new love. However, as long as you are focused on your ex, you will be unable to find the ideal partner with whom to build a strong, healthy relationship, for to build a brighter future, you must first break free of your anger and resentment from the past.

*****

Mata Maya:

As the Buddha taught, holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned. Though you may want to hurt your ex, the person your hate is hurting the most is yourself. By holding on to pain instead of letting it go, you are keeping yourself stuck in an endless cycle of suffering.

While it's perfectly natural to feel the way you do, the pain these thoughts cause you is a sign that your thinking is not in harmony with the peace and happiness you desire. You feel bad because your inner being is urging you to think loving thoughts in order to manifest loving experiences.

These thoughts and feelings are a sign that you are still wounded and need more healing. Your anger is a primal reaction to feeling hurt. When you have these hateful impulses, you might picture yourself as a wounded, cornered little animal lashing out at that which you perceive to be the cause of your pain.

As you picture this, instead of saying to yourself, I am so angry, remember to say to yourself, I am in such pain. This will help you shift toward a more sophisticated, constructive perspective on what's happening on an inner level, which will facilitate a faster journey to healing and new happiness.

Next, recognize that what you do to others comes back to you; what you wish for others you draw to yourself. When you keep in mind that what you wish for another, you wish for yourself, it becomes much easier to stretch toward forgiveness, to shift from wishing your ex a lifetime of loneliness and misery to praying for him to find new love and happiness.

I am sure you have been similarly upset in the past. If you think about it, you will see that it was only when you started to let go of your anger and resentment toward the individual involved that you began to feel better about your own life and began to move into new and better circumstances. Whenever you find yourself thinking hateful thoughts, stop and remember that you are cursing yourself, and begin to send out positive thoughts and wishes instead.

Finally, you would be wise to remember that you wouldn't want to be with someone who doesn't really want to be with you. Everything happens for a good reason whether we can see it at the time or not. If you realize that you have been set free from the wrong relationship so you can end up in the right one some day, perhaps you will eventually be able to thank your ex for making it so clear that he was not the right one for you.

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.