A Paradoxical Perspective At The First Signs Of Spring

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This blog post was written as my contribution to the Tarot Blog Hop to celebrate the Celtic festival of Imbolc on 2 February 2015.

Our wrangler Karen Sealey had asked that we explore the topic of “Oracular Anomalies” for this particular blog hop. That was initially deemed as an interesting feat  for me because I could not even pronounce the  words – oracular anomalies, let alone understand what that meant.  For someone who did not celebrate Imbolc, to finally understand what the festival meant after spending 2 years in the company of this wonderful Tarot blogging community,  this new phrase Oracular Anomalies had given me a month of worry. I remembered muttering to myself, “ Oh Karen, it finally dawned on me what Imbolc is. Now I have to try to find out what Oracular Anomaly means? Damn you, woman.”   

 So what I had decided to do was to break the phrase down the way I did with my Muay Thai and boxing training.  I broke the moves and combinations down during my training sessions so I could practice them each week in the hope of improving over time.  Often, a light bulb might switch on, on one of the combinations when I realized that it was created to simulate a situation when I am met with an aggressive opponent who might push me to the corner of the ring and leave me with no room to move.

The light bulb switched on for me about Imbolc too.  It made sense that my friends were lighting candles in every room to mark the day of Imbolc when it was a festival that celebrated the beginnings of Spring and the rebirth of the Sun.  It made sense to me that Karen had asked that we themed this blog post “Oracular Anomalies” so that we could share how our experience with Tarot had cracked a new dawn for us.

The Fool

So today, I want to write about the Fool card and the card I picked for this blog post was the Fool from the Radiant Rider Waite Tarot deck updated by Virginijus Poshkus.   I looked at the card in detail and started asking, “Why is this card marked 0?” It is the first card of the Major Arcana, so why could they not just mark it as 1.  Why did they have to label it as 0?  A journey had to start somewhere.  For numerologists like us, new beginnings, fresh new starts, a first step to a new journey is always marked by the number 1.  Yet, the Fool card which is a card of new beginnings, fresh new starts, a first step to a new journey, is labeled as 0. I had no answers to this ”anomaly” apart from the fact that we numerologists used to think that Tarotists were a complicated bunch that needed to just sit and chill for a bit.

In the card, the Fool had the image of a man about to step off  the cliff.  His head looked up to the sky as if trusting the Universe to guide his hand along his journey.  His dog beside him was like a companion assuring him that wherever he went, he will not be alone.  The card illuminated in bright orange, full of sunshine, hope and positivity, as one would feel when they embark on a new journey.  As a numerologist, my lifepath is 7 and I do not take unnecessary risks, often rendering a lot of thought and analysis to every move I make particularly when it comes to my career goals.  This Fool card however, seems to depict a man who is about to fall off a cliff and not giving two hoots if he did or not.  I do trust the Universe, and I am thankful for the support I get from my friends and family.  However, as a believer of this reality that I am a creator of my own circumstance, I find it difficult to let go in the belief that I would not fall off the cliff just because  I have got the Universe, my friends and my family holding my hands. I don’t mind taking risks, if they are indeed calculated ones.    So that brings me to how I saw the numerological significance of the Fool card evolving.

While The Fool is marked as the number 0 card in Tarot, it is also the 22^nd card of Tarot – the beginning and the end.  As a numerologist, 22 is the number of the master builder and when we reduce it, it becomes 4.  4 is the number of the Emperor card in Tarot. The master number of 22 may suggest the presence of an older soul coming into one’s lifetime to make an important contribution for mankind be it in the spiritual, medical, religious, educational, or creative field. The 22 number often suggests that one is endowed with gifts enabling him or her to lean towards leadership and inspiration and those who have this number in their birthdates often feel a heightened sense of obligation to the community, hence needing a greater measure of discipline, humility, control and awareness.  This speaks to me from the voice of the Emperor’s card.  The Emperor is an archetype that represents authority, structure, discipline and stability.  He is able to create order out of chaos because of his keen sense of structured and meticulous planning and he is able to provide and protect because of his wisdom, experience and authority.  As the Fool meets the Emperor along his journey, he gets offered guidance and direction.  With his strong leadership, the Emperor mentors, supports and advises the Fool as he navigates his journey towards his goals.  

The Emperor

This spoke to me a lot and cracked a new dawn for me as like the Fool, I had been meandering along my journey of discovery about my spiritual self. Beyond the work around tarot, numerology and astrology, I had been developing my clairvoyant and mediumship skills.   Along the way, I met a lot of teachers and mentors who were manifested by the Emperor card in tarot.  They have been critical to my spiritual growth, developing my knowledge and my skills and encouraging me along the way. Today, I take on the mantle as an advisor, teacher and mentor to my students, leveraging the same energies of the Emperor’s card, yet I am still on the Fool’s journey of making  new discoveries every day.

If you look at the Fool card closely, the terrain is rough, and there are mountains surrounding him.  Where the Fool steps next, could be a perilous road ahead.  In the same way,  I had been through a tumultuous journey of bad experiences ranging from health, career and familial issues.  However,   had also learnt that I cannot make new discoveries, learn new things, or make fresh starts if and when I cling on to vestiges of these negative issues.   This then brings me to another card  that had the numerological energies of the number 4  - the  Death card.  Death is numbered 13 in a Tarot deck, which when reduced, becomes a 4.  

Death

It made so much sense.  As the Death card suggests, one needs to let go of unhealthy aspects of life, and all vestiges of negativity that no longer serves in order to pave the way for a  fuller life of new learnings and experiences that the Fool needs to go through to enrich his life. My entire spiritual journey had been one big purging exercise of what I had previously thought as rational and explainable. I remembered how I had gasped at my clairvoyant experiences and dismissed it as over-thinking and a result of work stress.  I had to purge my ignorance, to open my heart, mind and soul to the messages that my spirit guides were trying to give me.   I remembered how I had brushed my intuitive gifts under the carpet because of the fear of being laughed at.  I learnt to purge my ego so I could help my clients through their own journeys.  I remembered how I had stayed away from books and tarot cards because they were not aligned with my religion as a Roman Catholic.  I learnt to purge my fear as I helped others through their lack of knowledge and ignorance and opened their heart and mind to the fact that my intuitive gifts were God-given.

Thanks Karen for suggesting such a difficult topic to celebrate Imbolc, the dawn of a new Spring.  In Singapore, we are celebrating Spring too with the coming Lunar New Year, so this topic is very apt for me as I visit my relatives over the Lunar New Year period.  You see, just a few years ago, these visits were a deft practice of how fast I could “eat and run” after visiting each home.   Now, many of them want me to stay longer so that I could do random Tarot and Numerology readings for their respective guests at their homes. 

Here’s hoping that everyone who reads this blog post be blessed with Springtime abundance.

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About The Writer:

The writer of this blog post is a marketeer by trade, and an intuitive reader by accident who deploys the combined modalities of a Tarot, Numerology and Astrology overlaid with her Clairvoyant and Clairsentient skills to deliver her readings with authenticity. She was awarded a Certified Professional Tarot Reader qualification from the Tarot Certification Board of America (TCBA) and is also a certified numerologist.  She is currently running a consultancy based in Singapore called Sun Goddess Tarot,  which provides confidential intuitive readings combining the metaphysical disciplines of Tarot, Numerology and Astrology via face to face and emails as well as readings at corporate and private events and workshops.  A member of the American Tarot Association (ATA) and the Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI), she also mentors Tarot protégés on behalf of the American Tarot Association

Website: www.sungoddesstarot.com

Email:  Joanna@sungoddesstarot.com

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/SunGoddessTarot

Twitter: www.twitter.com/SunGoddessTarot

Instagram: @SunGoddessTarot

Beltane Tarot Blog Hop - A Union Of Opposites

Happy May Day or Happy Beltane everyone!  This blog post is written as my contribution to the Beltane 2014 Tarot Blog Hop.  The Blog Hop wrangler Maureen Aisling Duffy-Boose had asked that we focused our Beltane blog post on a theme inspired by the Lovers card in Tarot -  "A Union Of Opposites".  To read the blog posts of my fellow Tarot bloggers participating in this Beltane Tarot Blog Hop, please follow the links below:

The Blog Before    |        The Master List      |     The Blog After

What Is Beltane?
  
Beltane is a fire festival widely celebrated to mark the midpoint of the vernal equinox and the Summer Solstice. Traditionally, to welcome warmer weather, people during this time would indulge in cheery Springtime activities like planting seeds, dancing around Maypoles, starting bonfires.  They celebrated with plenty of fresh flowers and there was generally more fun, love and laughter in the air.   

The Lovers Card In Tarot

Beltane is one festival that celebrated love, fertility and union.  The Lovers Card aptly signifies this at a time when my Pagan friends traditionally honored the union of the god and goddess during Beltane.  As the theme of this blog hop was "A Union Of Opposites", I had to look for proof points to support this theme.  Of course I need not have strayed too far because during this time,  the Roman  Catholics celebrated the feast of St Bertha of Kent on 1 May.  She was credited for introducing Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England.  It was interesting to note that she married the pagan King, Ethelberht of Kent.  That sounded to me like a wonderful celebration of love and somewhat a union of opposites too. 

Inspired by St Bertha's story, I had decided to look for examples when I had created a "union of opposites" in my Tarot practice.  It struck me that I had been growing this "union of opposites" quite recently when I discovered my clairvoyant and clairsentient skills after attending a spiritual retreat organised by Danielle Dove and Karina Ladet.

A Spiritual Transformation

During the retreat, I went through a spiritual transformation that had evolved into a journey I am still currently awed by.  I was forced to step out of my comfort zone and temporarily remove my usual tools of the trade, Tarot, Numerology and Astrology.  I learnt then to trust my intuition completely without the use of these tools. I struggled with it and realised that I had to go through this learning process to come to terms with my ego, shed it completely, and then acceped the gifts of clairvoyance and clairsentience in a bid to better serve my purpose.  I spent weeks practising channeling without my Tarot cards and gradually came to terms with these gifts.  

Combining Tarot With Clairvoyance

In the weeks that followed, I began creating that union of opposites by using my Tarot cards with my clairvoyance.  This was the  reading that I had done, detailing my first experience of doing a channeling before creating a Tarot spread.  I am still in awe of it and so grateful that I got the chance to do this for a client.  

A Union Of Opposites

One evening,  a fellow psychic friend contacted me and expressed a lot of fear and anxiety.  Like me in the last month or so, she was going through a purging process.  She had to purge her ego too.  Although she was living half the world away, I was able to channel for her and felt a pain in my upper back on  the right. It felt like I was carrying a burden. It was a reflection of her fear as a burden, weighing down on her back.  It was a fear of not knowing where her skills would take her.  Her doubts driven by her rational mind was taking over her intuition.  That blocked her ability to channel clearly and caused her even more fear.   I felt a cord at my Solar Plexus chakra too. It was a reflection of a negative cord she was bearing that was causing her  a lot of anxiety.  This negative cord had to be cut.  It was put there by her ego.  At the same time I felt my crown and third eye chakra buzzing and I knew it was a reflection of how actively her upper chakras were opened.  So I proceeded to do some cord-cutting to help relieve her of her fears and anxieties.  I also told her that my spirit guides were guiding me to let her know that she needed to go to a hill near a home to meditate and make peace with herself.

She felt better at that point as I carefully explained what I was doing for her with my channeling. I was communicating to her midway via Facebook message when I accidentally rolled my mouse over a Facebook post by Tarot By Arwen.  The Guardian of Air card from the Gaian Tarot deck by Joanna P. Colbert popped up.   This was an excerpt from her post, "The Guardian of Air is the Queen of Swords.  Swords/Air is the mental suit.  I set my intention to be a guardian of my own mental processes.  I speak with love and kindness."  I thought that was so beautiful. Feeling inspired then, I emailed the image of the card to my friend and I visualised myself holding her hand through her journey of spiritual self discovery.  I explained the synchronicity of the appearance of the card with our discussion about her situation by saying, "This is the Guardian of Air from the Gaian Tarot deck.  She is likened to the Queen of Swords.  She asks that you not be too over-critical of yourself.  Do not always judge your capabilities and compare them vis-a-vis the others who are going through similar spiritual journeys.  We all walk our respective journeys at our own pace. So do not be too hard on yourself." This truly resonated with her as she had been managing a lot of anxiety and doubt about her own capabilities.

So you see, both sets of skills though quite different, can co-exist side by side.  Just as I had combined Tarot, Numerology and Astrology in my readings, I have now started to add another dimension to the readings by adding my clairvoyant and clairsentient skills as well.  I now channel for my clients before I meet them face to face.  The Tarot cards would then become my tools to affirm the messages and visions that I got from my channelling.  With renewed confidence, I revamped the way I did my client readings by creating a perfect union between my clairvoyance and Tarot moving forward.  The more I did this, the more I surprised myself with the clarity and accuracy my client and I got from the readings.  Here is another reading that exemplified this. 

I commend Maureen for coming up with a theme that had helped me process that guilt I felt when I dropped my cards for awhile to practice my channeling.  With this union of opposites, nothing had changed.  No, actually, the readings were better.  I felt I served my purpose better with my gifts.   Since then, I have been happily blending my clairvoyant and clairsentient skills with Tarot, and I will continue to do it with immense gratitude for the opportunities entrusted to me by the Universe.  

Again, do visit the blogposts of my fellow Tarot Blog Hop participants.  The links can be found here:

The Blog Before    |        The Master List      |     The Blog After

And if you have been enjoying some of these blog posts written by the Tarot Blog Hop community, do LIKE our Facebook page here.


About The Writer:

The writer of this blog post is a marketeer by trade, and a tarot card reader by accident. She was awarded a Certified Professional Tarot Reader qualification from the Tarot Certification Board of America (TCBA) and is also a certified numerologist.  She is currently running a Tarot consultancy based in Singapore called Sun Goddess Tarot,  which provides confidential intuitive readings combining the metaphysical disciplines of Tarot, Numerology and Astrology via face to face and emails as well as readings at corporate and private events and workshops.  A member of the American Tarot Association (ATA) and the Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI), she is also a reader for the Free Tarot Network and mentors Tarot protégés on behalf of the American Tarot Association.

Website: www.sungoddesstarot.com
Email:  Joanna@sungoddesstarot.com
Facebook:  www.facebook.com/SunGoddessTarot
Twitter: www.twitter.com/SunGoddessTarot

Picture was taken off a Facebook post by Tarot By Arwen.  It depicts the image of the Guardian of Air from the Gaian Tarot deck by Joanna P. Colbert

Renewing Relationships On The Advice Of The King Of Cups

The Ostara 2014 Tarot Blog Hop

This blog post was written as my contribution to the Ostara 2014 Tarot Blog Hop.  Do click onto the following links to read the blog posts of my fellow Tarot bloggers.

Previous Blog      |     Master List     |    Next Blog 

Our wrangler Joanne Sprott had been kind enough to get out of the usual clichéd theme of balance which was often expected in any write-up about the festival of Ostara.  Ostara was often associated with balance because it was a festival that marked the vernal equinox where day and night were equal in duration.  Instead, she had asked us to focus on the theme of renewal.  This was apt simply because many of my friends across the world had been suffering from a protracted winter, and some had also experienced severe winter storms, floods and torrential rains.  Ostara, was truly about renewal, especially when it welcomes the first glimpse of Spring.  

As I am a Roman Catholic, I was in the Lenten period preparing for the celebration of Easter.  During mass last Sunday, the priest, in his sermon asked the congregation, "In preparation for Easter, what aspects of your life needs renewing?"  That had set me thinking, and I believed it was the Universe' way of guiding me as I wrote this blog post.

Ostara And Easter

My Pagan friends around the world celebrated the festival of Ostara by honoring the Goddess Eostre. She was the Goddess of fertility, Spring and renewal. I had discovered through my research that there were many myths surrounding Eostre.  One of them was that she travelled throughout the lands with a white rabbit as a companion, to bring life to dying plants and they put coloured eggs all over the fields in the process.  Anglo- Saxons during the festival offered coloured eggs to her.  This brought me then to the topic of Easter and it explained to me why children all over the world celebrated Easter with painted eggs and chocolates, and were either gifted with an Easter bunny made out of chocolates or dressed themselves up as Easter bunnies at Easter parties.

Ostara fell on 21 March when I would be mid way through my Lenten celebrations.  My Catholic friends, family and I, had been preparing for the coming Easter celebrations in April.  In many ways, whatever the co-relation I had read about Ostara and Easter in the past without getting into an argument reserved for kindergarten kids about which festival came first,  Easter, like Ostara was also the celebration of renewal and rebirth when Jesus Christ rose from the dead.  As I had been shaped through experience to be  extremely opened about different religious and cultural beliefs, Ostara to me, came as an early Easter celebration for me.  Hey, you know me, I am up for anything that called for a celebration.

More importantly, this particular Tarot Blog Hop had a special meaning for me because in preparation for Easter, I was in the process of letting go and forgiving past hurts, making up for my own faults and failures, and moving on to reconnect with those who had crossed me and whom I had crossed too. 

The topic of this Ostara Tarot Blog Hop -  RENEWAL -  was timely.  

The King Of Cups Reversed

As Ostara or Easter celebrated renewal and rebirth, I picked a Tarot card to look at what aspect of my life needed renewing most.  The King of Cups Reversed showed up to gently remind me about not one but several aspects of my life that were governed by the King.

The King of Cups in Tarot was a figure of emotional maturity, compassionate and nurturing leadership, and the balance of  mind and heart. He was the epitome of quiet strength. Honestly, I could not identify with this King.  What a softee!  Astrologically, my Sun sign was that of the fiery Leo, which was represented by the energetic, passionate, bold and confident King of Wands.  Nothing stood in my way of getting what I wanted, and nothing scared me.

The reversed King of Cups represented one who had allowed one’s emotions to control  one’s  life or had been responding in a “knee-jerk” fashion to how others might perceive him or her. Sometimes, this reversed King might fall into extreme mood swings, causing everyone around him or her to be confused, not knowing when he or she might blow up into an emotional volcanic eruption.

Renewing Relationships This Spring

I turned the reversed King of Cups card around, and started meditating on the card image.  I heard a soft whisper from the King and the touch of his gentle hand as he spoke.  He asked one question, “ As you grow your spirituality and start living a heart-centred life, how will you  manage life with the same heart-centredness in your capacity as mother, wife, daughter, manager to your team at work, direct report to your boss at work and business owner of Sun Goddess Tarot?”

The path before me that was filled with so many sharp bends and perilous bumps suddenly became quite clear.  I had been truly acting like the reversed King of Cups  recently with the stress of juggling multiple commitments in my multiple roles in recent months.  At home, I was an Ogre about to be dragged for his annual bath.  I often came home exhausted after a long day of work and several Tarot reading appointments or events.  At work, I was often on edge and growled at everyone whenever a project hit a snag or the boss questioned my decisions.  

With Sun Goddess Tarot, I often worry excessively about managing the mounting pressures on my time because of the numerous business commitments to my clients, and my business partners. I have got workshops, events, private and group classes and readings lined up for the next two months which from time to time, put me in a reversed 2 of Pentacles situation because I had over-stretched myself due to my inability to say no.  I often thought that as Tarot reader, mentor, and teacher, I had to always be there for my clients and proteges no matter the circumstance because I felt obligated to offer them help and support with my intuitive gifts.  However, at times, the back to back appointments and my inability to find time to ground myself in between would put a severe drain on my energy.  When I felt that I could not give 100% to my role as a light worker, I would get terribly upset and my confidence  level would take a nose-dive.

Turning The Reversed King Of Cups Around

Acknowledging the issues at hand, I resolved to turn the reversed King around.  With the multiple demands on my time and energy by my family, my colleagues and my clients, the one thing that they looked to me for was to manage these demands with a balanced heart and mind.  

Years ago, when I found my calling as a Tarot reader, Numerologist and Astrologer,  I had been channelling my inner Sun Goddess to help, guide and support everyone around me with positivity and genuine heart-centredness.  How can I aim to deliver positivity and genuine heart-centredness without having a balanced heart and mind? 

So this Spring, I am committed to renewing my relationships with my husband, my son, my colleagues, my boss and my clients.   Like the King of Cups, I promised to hold their hands through each and every challenge they might face by spending time with them to listen to their daily issues with a compassionate heart, and provide them with the right advice without judgement.

I was grateful for that reminder by the King of Cups, to always lead a heart-centred life.

Previous Blog      |     Master List     |    Next Blog 

About The Writer:

The writer of this blog post is a marketeer by trade, and a tarot card reader by accident. She was awarded a Certified Professional Tarot Reader qualification from the Tarot Certification Board of America (TCBA) and is also a certified numerologist.  She is currently running a Tarot consultancy based in Singapore called Sun Goddess Tarot,  which provides confidential intuitive readings combining the metaphysical disciplines of Tarot, Numerology and Astrology via face to face and emails as well as readings at corporate and private events and workshops.  A member of the American Tarot Association (ATA) and the Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI), she is also a reader for the Free Tarot Network and mentors Tarot protégés on behalf of the American Tarot Association

Website: www.sungoddesstarot.com

Email:  Joanna@sungoddesstarot.com

Facebook:  www.facebook.com/SunGoddessTarot

Twitter: www.twitter.com/SunGoddessTarot

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The King of Cups from the Golden Tarot deck by Kat Black

Welcome Spring Through Tarot, Healing And Creativity

THE IMBOLC TAROT BLOG HOP

This blog post was written as my contribution to the Imbolc Tarot Blog Hop which incidentally, would be the first Tarot blog Hop for 2014!  Christiana Gaudet, the wrangler for this particular blog hop had decided on this topic "Tarot, Healing And Creativity".  To visit the blog posts on the same topic written by my fellow Tarot bloggers, please visit the links below:

Blog Before     |     Master List     |      Blog After 

IMBOLC WELCOMES SPRING

Imbolc, was celebrated as an ancient Celtic fire festival that marked the mid point in between the seasons of Winter and Summer.  The festival was a celebration of the renewal of the earth when prayers were focused on welcoming Spring. Bonfires and candles were lit to hark back light, longer and warmer days.  Hopes were placed on creating abundance, from planting seeds that could reap crops in a few months, to the birthing of  cattle, lamb and other farm animals.   At Imbolc, Brigid was celebrated by my Pagan friends as the Goddess of fire, healing, creativity and fertility.  

The Christians celebrated  the feast day of St Brigit of Kildare. St Brigit was honoured for her devout faith and support of creativity.  A testament to this was when she founded a school of art and nurtured skills like metal work and illumination.   Another testament to her creativity was when she approached King Leinster for a piece of land upon which she could build a convent.  The King laughed at her and promised her that she could have a piece of land as big as her cloak could cover.  When Brigit spread her cloak on the ground, it grew miraculously to cover acres of grounds.  The King,  having experienced this miracle, gave her the land as promised and became a Christian soon after.  In more ways than one, she should be honoured for the new beginnings she had established through her creativity.

TAROT, HEALING AND CREATIVITY

I saw Imbolc as a period that celebrated new beginnings.  Most people would have come off the year-end festivities with renewed vision of what they wanted the new year to hold for them.  It was a time when farmers started to plant new seeds, and people started to plan for the for the rest of the year.  As they prayed for light and warmer days, they wanted to embrace the future with optimism and looked forward to manifesting their goals with all the past experiences they had garnered.  It was exactly the same with my clients, who kept me extremely busy these few weeks because they were in the throes of 2014 planning and wanted guidance on career and relationship so that they could navigate challenges through the year.

 I have always believed that my purpose was to use my intuitive skills to support the journey of healing that my clients took through the creative Tarot spreads that I enjoyed designing when I read for them.    However,  beyond the creative Tarot spreads that one could design, I wanted to explore the nifty idea of telling a story through Tarot.   I worked in Public Relations, and in that profession, it was all about story-telling for a purpose, and I see that same synergistic skill I had been using to do my Tarot readings.

I was quite inspired by Arwen Lynch's work when I attended one of her presentations at an international tarot conference a couple of months ago.  She spoke about Tarot for writers, and that was where I got the idea.  She also wrote a book called "Mapping The Hero's Journey" which aimed to help aspiring writers  finish writing that book within 33 days.  I would not attempt to tell a story here using my Tarot cards.  I would  instead be writing a poem guided by the Tarot cards that I had picked as I wrote this blog post.  I also had the  immense help of a few glasses of wine. 

This poem is called A New Beginning because the focus of my work this month, was to help my clients heal from their negative experiences in the last year, so that they could move on to embrace a better and more positive 2014.  Bear with me as this was my first time writing poetry by randomly picking my Tarot cards.


A NEW BEGINNING


STRENGTH

A laboured walk through darkness
I leave painful footsteps within the snow
With my last vestige of strength
I fight my weary way through the cold

KING OF CUPS

Where am I going
I don't quite know
Perhaps to find a place of calm
Or a clear path for me to run

KNIGHT OF PENTACLES

But I know that soon dawn will break
This journey is one I have to take
Even when the burden weighs heavy on my lap
As I struggle to take my next step

TEN OF SWORDS

With eyes fixed upon the horizon
I shall release all disappointments

ACE OF WANDS

To a new beginning I approach
When I am guided to find the right road

 ~ Joanna Ash,  Sun Goddess Tarot


Thanks to Christiana and Arwen, I learnt to be slightly more experimental with my Tarot cards and took them beyond my client readings.  I managed to write poetry with them too!  However, that book has to wait though, I now have a headache from the wine. 

Again, here are the links to the wonderful posts written by my fellow Tarot bloggers. 

Blog Before     |     Master List     |      Blog After 

About The Writer:

The writer of this blog post is a marketeer by trade, and a tarot card reader by accident. She was awarded a Certified Professional Tarot Reader qualification from the Tarot Certification Board of America (TCBA) and is also a certified numerologist.  She is currently running a Tarot consultancy based in Singapore called Sun Goddess Tarot,  which provides confidential intuitive readings combining the metaphysical disciplines of Tarot, Numerology and Astrology via face to face and emails as well as readings at corporate and private events and workshops.  A member of the American Tarot Association (ATA) and the Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI), she is also a reader for the Free Tarot Network and mentors Tarot protégés on behalf of the American Tarot Association

Website: www.sungoddesstarot.com
Email:  Joanna@sungoddesstarot.com
Facebook:  www.facebook.com/SunGoddessTarot
Twitter: www.twitter.com/SunGoddessTarot

I picked these cards randomly to help me craft this poetry called A New Beginning.
These cards were taken from the Morgan Greer Tarot deck
created by Bill Greer and Lloyd Morgan.
The cards were laid out deosil around a candle used for my Imbolc prayer.

Beltane - Celebrating Love In A Non-Traditional Way

Trying To Understand Beltane

This blog post themed around Beltane was written as my contribution to the 2^nd Tarot Blog hop of the year at which I participated, together with a community of Tarot bloggers from around the world.  I was quite excited to write about Beltane. I thought, "Finally!  A topic up my alley!”   My friend said Beltane was a festival that celebrated love and sex.  To quote what she wrote in her text message to me, ”Ooooh…it’s about union, love and sex, Jo.  An exciting time.  It’s a day you might want to go make love in the woods…”.  Wonderful!  It wasn’t that I had plenty to write about through experience, but after months of blogging about Tarot spreads, Tarot card interpretations and impact of Tarot on my life, I thought our Tarot Blog hop wrangler Arwen Lynch, was definitely on the roll with this topic!  Then I re-read the details of the topic outline again, and realized she had  asked us to write about “Traditions” because there were so many traditions surrounding Beltane. 

I am not familiar with traditions around Beltane.  So I had to ask my friends and searched the internet for some information about how Beltane was traditionally celebrated, while muttering something rude under my breath about Arwen making me excited for nothing. For the different perspectives from the blog hop participants about Beltane and the traditions surrounding the festival, please visit the Tarot Blog hop master list at http://tarotbyarwen.com/?p=10046.

Beltane - Traditionally A Celebration Of Love

From my understanding, Beltane is a fire festival widely celebrated to mark the midpoint of the vernal equinox and the Summer Solstice. Traditionally, it’s a time where people welcomed warmer weather, planted seeds, danced around Maypoles, made bon fires at open spaces and celebrated with plenty of fresh flowers and cheery Springtime activities…including <cough, cough> making love in the woods!  For my pagan friends, Beltane is a Sabbat that traditionally honored the union of the god and goddess, no wonder my friend texted me to say it’s a festival that celebrated love, fertility and renewal.  So I see it as a day blessed with lots of Love.  The Roman Catholics celebrated the feast of St Bertha of Kent on 1 May.  She was credited for introducing Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England.  It was interesting to note that she married the pagan King, Ethelberht of Kent.  That sounded to me like a wonderful celebration of love and union too. This is the month that David and I celebrate our 12th wedding anniversary.  So it does look like Love is certainly in the air.


Like all the traditions that surrounded Beltane and indeed like all the traditional demonstrations of love as in the example of hand-fasting,  it gave me a chance to think about Tarot and Traditions, the crux of the topic behind this Tarot Blog hop.  

Do I follow traditions religiously in my Tarot practice or have I become like that oddball errant kid in class?

Tarot And Traditions - If I Follow Them At All

When I first started out on my journey with Tarot, I was taught how to cleanse my cards by smudging it with sage, store my cards with a black silk cloth, shuffle my cards 7 times, do a reading only with an established Tarot spread like the Horseshoe spread or the Celtic Cross spread.


The fundamentals of tradition when it comes to Tarot, are indeed important. Cleansing the cards, grounding and protecting oneself before the reading, storing the cards properly and treating them with due respect, are all important parts of tradition surrounding tarot that I adhere to. However I am not pedantic. Let me tell you, I am the last person that would bend to convention rigidly.  

I do cleanse my cards by smudging it with sage regularly, but as someone who believed wholeheartedly in the power of crystal healing, I would, more often, run a blue Kyanite wand down each of my 78 cards after a reading. Sometimes, I cleansed the deck by putting it in my Himalayan singing bowl and let the vibrations do the job.  I store my Tarot cards in pretty hand-sewn bags, one of them was a hand-sewn bag made of Japanese kimono material which my Granny had given me. My favourite Morgan Greer Tarot deck was housed within that Japanese kimono bag.  That bag held a special meaning for me hence I wanted to store my favourite Tarot deck in there.  You see, I inherited Granny's gift of intuition.  Having my favourite Tarot deck stored in it was a reminder that Granny would want me to put my intuitive gifts to good use.

  I was traditionally taught to interpret cards through structured Tarot spreads that had been tried and tested for generations, but I don’t strictly do that as I leaned on my intuition to guide me to create my own Tarot spreads.  I designed up to 4 or 5 Tarot spreads in a Tarot reading session with each of my clients and these spreads always somehow provided the best perspectives to my clients.

There was no requisite number of times that I shuffled my cards with.  I just shuffled them and either spread them out faced down from which I picked the cards, or sometimes I just picked a card from the top of the pile for Situation, and I would pick a card from the middle of the pile for Outcome and then picked a card from the bottom of the pile for Advice. This again was dictated by my intuition at that time of the reading.

I might also choose to use a significator to symbolize my client.  If my client was a Leo, I picked a King of Wands to be the significator for example.  I would then shuffle the cards and cut them into 4 piles to represent Earth, Air, Water and Fire elements.  If I found the King of Wands in the Earth pile, I would know that my client had come to see me about his financial issues.  If I found the significator in the Water pile, I would then know that he had come to see me about relationship issues.  This was important because it helped me to connect with the energy of my client and then I would be able to design Tarot spreads thereafter to help him to uncover some choices that he could make.

So I am not too conventional when I read Tarot, I just go with the flow dictated by my intuition at that time, depending on the connections I have formed with my client then.

I know a lot of readers would shuffle their Tarot cards, spread them out and then pick the cards to a specific spread in response to a client's question.  I sometimes stay away from this because I tend to have deep conversations with the cards.  Like so...

Celebrating Beltane With An Unconventional Tarot Spread

As Beltane clearly was a festival that celebrated Love, I had decided to shuffle my Tarot cards to get some insights on how David and I could strengthen our relationship further. I decided to do something not very traditional to get some perspectives from my cards.


My first question was “What should David and I do to nurture our relationship and make it even stronger and better?”I picked the 2 of Cups as our significator to represent the both of us, naturally because the 2 of Cups was a card symbolizing true love based on mutual respect and opened communication.  I then put the card back into the stack and shuffled my cards, cut them into 4 piles each representing Earth, Air, Water and Fire.   I found my significator in the Fire pile.  The Fire element governed the realm of passion and creativity.  I saw it as an advice for us to rediscover passion in our relationship by being creative and spontaneous as much as we can.


I then asked the question “What’s the obstacle hindering each of us from adding that spontaneity and creativity back into our relationship?” I calculated our personal day numbers on 1 May and used the compound numbers in the Tarot readings that followed.

For David, when I calculated his personal day number, the compound number was 20, so I shuffled the deck, removed 20 cards from the top of the pile and opened the card after.  I got the 2 of Pentacles.  It was clear to me that the Tarot cards were telling me that the obstacle hindering David in our bid for a stronger relationship were his efforts to juggle multiple commitments from running his business, playing and practicing for his gigs with the band, the photography assignments as well as his involvement in helping a friend run her pub. 

As for myself, when I calculated my personal day number, the compound number was 21, so I shuffled the deck, removed 21 cards from the top of the pile and opened the card after.  I got the Devil.  This was interesting.  The Devil was a message to me about my obsession with my work.  I was chained to the perception that only the hours and efforts put into my work could garner me the recognition that I needed, to the point that I did neglect spending time with David.  Even when we did spend time together, our conversations were about my work.  Sometimes, when David wanted to take us on a nice vacation, I would entrap myself with a sense of negativity by thinking that if I went away for a week or 2, everything at work would just go awry, or worse, I would be seen as abandoning the team when they were already having problems coping with the work.  I felt guilty even when I had to take a day off to get a much needed surgery done because my mind saw my work standing still without me in the office.  Sometimes, this obsession with work irritated David.  He had to play second fiddle to my Tarot, and then be brushed away like an annoying child because I was too busy at work, No wonder, he too had decided to keep busy with multiple activities like his band and his photography.

What David And I Can Learn From Beltane

Because Beltane was traditionally a celebration of Love, I had decided that it would be a day of new beginnings and a celebration of renewal of our commitment...thanks to Tarot.

My Tarot cards are never wrong.  The messages were very clear.  Through a spread drawn in a very unconventional manner, I had gleaned so much to help us make the right choices about our relationship.  The 2 of Cups appearing in the pile symbolizing the Fire element was an encouragement for us to start renewing the passion in our relationship.  The 2 of Pentacles was an encouragement for David to create some balance amongst his commitments and to prioritise what’s most important to him. The Devil was an encouragement for me to release myself off that perception that my world was all about my work.  Work should not be defining me.


So, while I don’t intend to dance around the Maypole naked or go romping in the hay with David as per the age old traditions of celebrating Beltane, I had decided to honor the day with a little "fire" of our own. I lit a pink candle, placed the Empress card and the 10 of Cups Tarot card in front of it and held a Rose Quartz crystal in my hand as I whispered a prayer of gratitude to the Universe for an abundance of love surrounding us.  I then invited David to join me in this ritual.  Okay, so I had to deal with his attempts to dismiss it with a rude joke ("Cant we just have a shag, its easier."). However, I am glad he did join me within my sacred space although it was outside of his comfort zone. 

I think traditions exist to shape our values and form some principles to guide our paths. In this case, I used a very non-traditional way to get some advice from Tarot to better my relationship with David.  Yet,  I had used something so traditional, a simple prayer ritual, to get David involved in something so personal and meaningful to me, by joining me within my sacred space and having him walk even closer to my Tarot world. I think tradition had served yet another great purpose - education - Don't you think?

Before I end this blog post, I would like to invite you to read my fellow Tarot Blog hoppers’ perspectives about Beltane.  You may visit Aisling’s blog at www.tarotwitchery.blogspot.com/2013/05/tarot-blog-hop-for-belteine-tarot.html or you may hop on to the lovely Joanne Sprott’s blog at http://cosmicwhisperstarot.com/2013/05/01/in-the-traditions-tarot-blog-hop-for-beltane/


About The Writer:

The writer of this blog post is a marketeer by trade, and a tarot card reader by accident. She has a Certified Professional Tarot Reader qualification from the Tarot Certification Board of America (TCBA) and is also a certified numerologist based in Singapore. A member of the American Tarot Association (ATA) and the Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI), she is also a reader for the Free Tarot Network and Biddy Tarot as well as a mentor for the ATA.   She can be contacted at www.facebook.com/SunGoddessTarot or www.sungoddesstarot.com

This is the pouch made from Japanese Kimono material 
that I used to store my Morgan Greer Tarot deck.

Created my sacred space with a pink candle, rose quartz, fresh flowers, dried flowers and herbs, the Empress Card and the 10 of Cups card from my favourite Morgan Greer Tarot deck.  David joined me in a prayer of gratitude to the Universe for all the blessings of abundance we have everyday.