archives

Welcome to my new and twisted series of tarot lessons! Part 1: An Intro and Forewarning Now while I'm certainly proud of the online tarot work I've done over the years, I often find myself in a state of frustration over the contradiction between how I actually use tarot myself, what I believe it can (and can't) do, how I hope you'll to be able to use it -- and the necessarily specific, consistent,...

So it would seem that seeking out or calling up the self directed knowing and active trust of the Fresh Start Fool can work for all intents and purposes when behind it is the belief that the pursuit of hope and the effort itself is noble and worthy. Or, it provides a joyful liberation by the doing regardless of the outcome.  For me this is the very essence and redeeming value of embracing the...

Anyway the point was that my mind was made up again to be the hope and encouragement I sought. And though I laid out no specific itinerary (The April Fool doesn't roll that way) each helpful, outside project was also related to creatively controlling a starting over phase for my "help-ee" in some way (mutual benefits are good), but it also had scheduled or discernable, almost...

...So what it came down to was this: I knew I was vulnerable and needed a cheerleader, so I made an effort to become one for others.  For example, I offered myself out to my family for tangible projects that I could do for them for free, particularly those that they couldn't handle or face alone. When things got slow and I felt myself slipping I even resorted to begging ("pleeeeease...

Mother's Day seems like a good reason to go off on another tangent and revisit our Tarot Lessons, picking up with the Court Cards, and specifically, an overview of the Queens. To review: At their most fundamental level, the Court Cards of the Tarot are your "peeps"; they embody the whole cast of external and internal characters moving in and out of the environments of the Minors within...

Mothers are the best. Yes, I have decided: you rule! Not only do many of you fry up the bacon, you also bring it home. I know you're tired. I know you're often under-appreciated. But I am here to tell you that you are loved. Yes, you are the best! Below is my handy-dandy guide to making the most of this most excellent day of days: the day we all say thank you for a job well done. Here is where the...

Anyway, speaking of Fools, where was I? Oh yes. At the risk of TMI, the final tip-off that I needed a breakthrough by the April Fool was that I didn't seem to be planting or even planning to plant anything anymore.  I also had no long term manual labor projects in the works and didn't seem to feel the "umph" to make them up.   The Magicians spark had apparently...

Side Bar and speaking of Fools: When I write/research for extended periods (months or even years at a clip), I exist in a vacuum like a deep winter sort of Fool -- dangerously close to the edge. It's pretty isolating, and for me, also physically painful, so without Temperance of this extreme (I use planting, creative hands on stuff, and other manual labor as my counterweight) I can and often...

So ok, eventually, but all of the sudden, the rest of us get wise to the signs and start coming out in droves; staggering like zombies or like Dorothy taking in Oz for the first time. Trauma victims who are tentatively ready to believe the worst is finally over yet surprised it really is.    And as we begin to adjust our eyes to the sunshine and to each other again -- to reconnect as...

So what does it mean to be under the influence of the April or spring Fool?    For starters it implies significant hope and an unquestioning, even unexamined belief in one's own automatic pilot or self direction. Not the deliberate blind trudging of winter, but a vaguely ignorant yet unshakeable faith in the future that trusts in something greater and guides one's own motives and actions...