From the category archives:

Tarot Card Meanings

Tarot Archetypes

If you’ve heard the term, but never understood it, you aren’t alone!
Although archetypes are fundamental to the way our minds work, they’re not that easy to explain. Carl Jung, who coined the term, didn’t make it particularly clear either. He said they are preformed patterns in the psyche, based on instinct – i.e. very basic, [...]

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Tarot Card Meanings: Origins

As an introduction to Tarot Card Meanings, let me start with what we know about the origins of the Tarot as a means of divination.
The origins of the cards themselves are shrouded in mystery, though they were first described in 1377. It is possible that at first they were merely used as a game (Tarocchi); [...]

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Tarot Card Meanings – The Major Arcana

In our consideration of Tarot Card Meanings, the journey of the Major Arcana is the path of spiritual self-awareness, each card symbolising not only the choices we meet along the way, but also – deeper and wilder – the archetypes that underpin each stage, which can be seen as degrees of initiation. The earliest mystery [...]

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Tarot Card Meanings: The Magician

A sudden conscious awareness of your personal path in life; new initiatives, creative ideas. The directed application of will to manifest an idea or a dream. The ability to tread a difficult path with confidence. Awareness of personal values so that ethical choices can be made. The interrelationship of many different dimensions, and how these [...]

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Tarot Card Meanings: More on Reversals

People often find reversals – when the card is drawn upside down – offputting in the extreme. Indeed, many tarot readers don’t use them at all, preferring to interpret both negative and positive sides of the card at the same time. However, reversals can be very useful – particularly when the majority of cards have [...]

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Painting the Bones: an Artist’s Guide to the Death card

With the first crocuses out in the garden, it’s a little odd to find my thoughts centering on death – and the tarot Death card. The latter is often depicted as a skeleton wielding a scythe and cutting down King and commoner alike. Given that the first tarot decks appeared shortly after the Black Death [...]

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Tarot Card Meanings – The Fool

Yes, I know: it’s irrelevant now, but I wonder why I began with the Magician. After all, The Fool precedes him. He’s either unnumbered, or numbered 0. But why be conventional? The Fool wouldn’t care one way or the other, in fact he’d probably be keen to be placed just about anywhere except the expected [...]

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Tarot Card Meanings – The High Priestess

Whenever I see this card I see in my mind’s eye the moon rising over the Mysteries, the Delphic Oracle and the ancient temples. There’s a quote in The Bacchae which somehow brings with it the atmosphere, magic and the belief in the Otherworlds:
Will they ever come to me, ever again
The long, long dances,
On through [...]

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Tarot Card Meanings -The Empress

I remember I had problems painting this card: whereas The Fool, Magician and High Priestess came really easily, almost as if they had been waiting for me, I had about 3 versions of the Empress before this one appeared. She’s softer and less stylised than the others, and while the image says what’s necessary, it [...]

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