What Daddy Gave Me This Christmas

Missing Dad

Last week, I wrote a personal blog that described the immense loss I felt this Christmas, because it was my first Christmas without Dad.  The month leading up to the Christmas celebrations filled me with emptiness and depression as I felt that  a Christmas celebration, which should be a celebration that involved family and close friends coming together, just would not be complete without the presence of Dad.  I could not bring myself to get to the garden centre to pick out our Christmas tree.  Dad loved gawking at my colourful Christmas tree each year, and he adored the smell of fresh pine. If Dad was not by my side at Christmas this year, why bother with a tree?  I could not bring myself to go grocery shopping to prepare for our annual Christmas Eve dinner, so David took it upon himself to put the Christmas feast together.  We did get on with it and celebrated Christmas in our usual way, inviting our extended family over for our annual Christmas Eve dinner, but I could not help feeling an even deeper sense of loss. So I set aside a glass of red wine and a plate of chocolates for Dad the way I had set aside a glass of milk and a plate of cookies for Santa every year when I was a child, hoping that wherever he was in spirit, he could see that I was thinking about him.

A Dream

Spent from entertaining the family the night before, I spent my Christmas Day curled up in bed just wallowing in even more sadness and exhaustion. Just as I drifted off into deep sleep, I remembered seeing an image of myself in a dream, walking into an all-white living room. The floors, the walls and a sofa in thet room was all white in colour.  Just beside the sofa was a corridor to a bedroom perhaps, and in front of it was a big Christmas tree that looked so beautiful.  It had glittery baubles all over it and orange lights twinkling around it.   As I was about to touch the tree, I felt a gentle nudge on my right shoulder that woke me up.  I knew in that instant that that dream was delivering a message to me, perhaps from Dad. 

It took me an entire evening of discussions with David before I realised what Dad was really trying to tell me.   In fact, what got me nearer to the essence of the message was when David drew a picture of exactly what I had dreamt. 

A Message From Dad

Dad was telling me that how beautiful a Christmas tree can be, a home will be cold and empty, if the family was not there to fill it with warmth, love and laughter. Christmas was all about the family. Dad loved Christmas when he was alive, and he had always loved how I had decorated my Christmas tree.  Most of all, he enjoyed being surrounded by the family during Christmas.  He enjoyed watching the kids tinkering with the baubles and putting a hole in the Christmas decorations from time to time, and laughed at my youngest nephew attempting to tear open some of my presents under that tree.  With or without the tree, a Christmas without the family, was not Christmas at all.

So I started a conversation with Dad, using my Hanson Roberts Tarot deck.  I felt Dad's presence as he guided my hand to pick the cards.  I picked the World Reversed, the 4 of Wands, the 3 of Cups and the Sun.

These cards affirmed Dad's message to me.  He acknowledged that when he had passed on, because it was so sudden, there was lack of closure, and we all just could not move on. There were so many things left unsaid. I felt particularly so because I was so busy juggling work, running my business and training most days at the gym that my conversations with Dad was relegated to the Sundays when I visited him.  He was taken so suddenly from me that I had no time to say how much I loved him, how I wanted to take him to see the world on his wheelchair, and how much I wanted him to see Joel start his 2-year stint in national service. I just wanted more time with him.  However, Dad wanted me to just accept that his time was up but he wanted me to get on with life and embrace it with positivity.  He was happy to see that the family had come together to celebrate Christmas and he wanted to assure me that in spirit, he was amidst the din of the merry-making and did enjoy the atmosphere of family bonding, chatter and laughter at my home.  At the end of it all, he wanted me to just let my hair down and enjoy Christmas for what it stood for - the family.  

Dad's Gift To Me

So that was my gift from Dad.  He "passed on that baton" to me, to ensure that I would continue to keep the family close, and did everything to fill the home with love and laughter.  He promised to be behind me always, and in his way, he would carry me through the difficult times and fill it with as much sunshine as he could.  He promised to continue to hold my hand through it all, in the way he had always done when I was Daddy's little girl.  He nudged me on my right shoulder to wake me up from my slumber, as if to say, "It's your turn."

My dream was captured in this picture that David drew.
Beneath it were the cards Dad guided me to pick from my Hanson Roberts Tarot Deck

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  Tarot, Numerology and Astrology overlaid with her Clairvoyant, Claircognitive 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.   As a member of the American Tarot Association (ATA) and the Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI), Joanna governs her practice under the associations’ respective codes of ethics.  She is currently mentoring fellow intuitives on the path of developing their intuitive potential and teaches Tarot and Numerology as well. 

Website: www.sungoddesstarot.com

 Email:  Joanna@sungoddesstarot.com

 Facebook:  www.facebook.com/SunGoddessTarot

 Twitter: www.twitter.com/SunGoddessTarot

 Instagram: @SunGoddessTarot

Getting To Know The Grandmother I Had Never Met

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Whether you are celebrating Halloween, Hallows’ Eve, Samhain, Dia De Los Muertos or Day of the Dead, All Saints’ Day or All Souls’ Day (celebrated by Catholics on 31 October and 2 November respectively), the significance of the celebrations in spite of the cultural, racial or religious differences remained the same.  Celebrations at this time were  held to honor our ancestors and relatives who had passed on.  So members of the Tarot Blog Hop community were tasked to write about a loved one or someone we admired or disliked that ties with Tarot.  I chose to write about my paternal Grandmother whom I have never met but had built a close connection with in the past months as I honed my claircognitive and clairaudience skills within the field of my developing mediumship abilities.

 

My Paternal Grandmother

 

My Granny’s name was Tan Suat Ngoh.  It was a name I could hardly pronounce and I knew very little about her apart from the fact that she died very soon after Dad graduated from the University and was about to embark on his first job.  Dad loved her dearly and the only few nuggets of information he had shared about her was that she died quite suddenly the night after eating soup which might have gone bad and that she was a very dutiful wife who sat by the window every evening to wait for my Grandfather to come home after whiling his nights away perhaps at the dancehalls. 

 

With just these little snippets of information, she already embodied the stoicism, strength and patience that I felt I could learn so much from as a Granddaughter.

Her sense of duty to her husband in spite of suffering the extreme loneliness of what seemed like a loveless marriage was commendable.  Yet in my heart, I harbored so much disdain for my Grandfather up till today and wished secretly that my Grandmother was still alive so that I could hold her and tell her how much I loved her and how grateful I was to her for nurturing my Dad to be my biggest hero in my life.

 

My Conversation With Granny

 

So, with the help of my Hanson-Roberts Tarot deck, I decided to have a little conversation with her, to get to know her better during her lifetime and to find out what lessons she wanted to share with me as I walked my journey as her Granddaughter in this life.  And here’s what she told me:

 

Her Life In The Past -   9 of Pentacles Reversed + 3 of Cups + The High Priestess + The Empress

 

Granny’s marriage to my Grandfather was a match arranged in accordance to our strict Peranakan family traditions.  They were both cousins. All she ever wanted was a beautiful home, surrounded by a loving family, and be provided with emotional and financial security, like most young women of that time. She probably had most of these but something was in the way of that complete picture of security and contentment that she had originally envisaged.  As the 3 of Cups and the High Priestess indicated, the major cause of this obstacle, was the fact that she spent much of her married life in an unhappy marriage because my Grandfather indulged in extra marital affairs and was never quite present for the family.  In fact, there was another prominent woman in my Grandfather’s life with whom he spent a lot of time with. 3 people in a marriage, made for a very uncomfortable situation at home, yet Granny stoically stood by his side, bore him 5 children and waited patiently for him by the window every night.  She stuck to her responsibility of raising the kids, managing the household, and being a dutiful and giving wife, with no complaints.  What free time she had, she spent those with the kids or played a local card game called “Chek Kee” with the other womenfolk in the household. What the cards had unveiled, were aligned to the stories that my Aunt and my Mom had told me.  My Aunt said, “The saddest picture imprinted in my mind for life, is watching my mother seated by the window every night, with a blanket around her shoulders to keep warm, as she waited for my father to return from “work”.”

 

Another thing I had gleaned from her life, was her love for nature.  In spite of the “prison of an unhappy marriage”, she was actually a free-spirit at heart.  She channeled the Empress card, not only in the way she nurtured the family, surrounded the home with warmth and loved my Grandfather unconditionally, she also loved to be surrounded by nature and often took walks by the sea.  This was affirmed by her when she communicated to me and showed me that vision of her walking by a river.  My Aunt validated that vision when she told me that one of Granny’s favorite activities was to take a walk along the East Coast beach that was nearby their home in a little village called Geylang before the Singapore government reclaimed the land.

 

Lessons From Granny's Past To Guide My Present – Knight of Pentacles + The Sun

 

Granny was a very patient woman.  Her life was her kids.  Even when my Grandfather was not present for the family, she ensured that she gave the kids everything they deserved. She surrounded the home and herself with as much positivity as she could muster and often looked at the bright side of things.  The one thing she always had, was hope. She pinned her hopes on her kids, expecting that one day, when they all grow up, they could lead useful lives, adding value to the community.  She had hopes that one day, my Grandfather would turn around and realize that she was his one true love.   So Granny wanted me to take a leaf from this page of her book.  She wanted me to approach everything I did with positivity, patience and practicality no matter the hurdles thrown in my path.   To her, my success would be measured by the effort and commitment I put into achieving my goals. No matter the circumstances, regardless of the challenges that I faced, she wanted me to stay focused on what I had set my heart and mind to do and to know that in my life, only I would be accountable for the outcomes because of the choices I have made. 

 

Her best advice to me, was that my life journey will undoubtedly be dotted by many bumps, twists and turns along the road.  Instead of fearing these challenges, avoiding them, or feeling negative about them, I should embrace them with positivity and hope.  Every situation, gives me the opportunity to learn, grow and develop as a person as long as I keep at it, stay focused, and be committed to my goals.  When the currents get rough, I have the choice to jump off the ship, adjust the sails, or steer the ship against the currents, and only I am responsible for any of these choices that I have made. 

 

Contentment - 10 of Cups

 

Granny died quite suddenly after suffering a night of stomach ailment.  She died about a month after my Dad graduated from the University.  His graduation, as the eldest son of the family, was her proudest moment as much as it was his.  Dad promised to look after her and provide for her when he started work.  However, this promise could not be delivered because she had died before he was able to do so.  Dad often told us that he felt so much regret and remorse about not being able to give her much when she was alive.  He too felt a lot of resentment for his late father, for not giving her the love she deserved. 

My Dad passed away in April this year.  Deep down in my heart, I know that he is in a happier place and by his mother’s side.  However, I needed validation and proceeded to pull another card asking Granny if Dad was with her at the moment. Guess what showed up?  It was the 10 of Cups.  “Enough said,” I whispered silently, “I am so happy that the family is now together and they are all now at peace.  One day, I will take my place by your side, Granny, so that you can tell me even more stories.”

 

Granny Is Always By My Side - Queen of Cups

 

As I thanked my Granny for being present and having that conversation with me, I pulled a last card to validate my relationship with her.  I picked the Queen of Cups and knew immediately how much she truly loved me.  Granny is one of my main guides who had been with me since I was young.  I know now because I have been talking to her more regularly as I developed my mediumship skills.  When I doubted my intuitive capabilities, I was shown a vision of a woman with another girl by her side.  When that woman pointed a finger in circular motion around her tummy to my question about how she had passed on, I shared that vision with my Aunt and my Mum who validated that she had died of a stomach ailment.  I asked my Aunt who that girl was by my Granny’s side that looked like she was a generation younger.  My Aunt affirmed that that was her sister.  My Granny had a daughter who died after accidentally falling off a tree when she was quite young. 

 

I did not need anymore validation.  My Granny was that maternal presence I had always felt around me since I was young.  She had been protecting me whenever I was about to fall into a pothole.  She held my hand whenever I was feeling down and lost.  She patted me on my back whenever I needed a bit of encouragement to take a little leap of faith.   

 

She was my Queen of Cups, my confidante and my mentor.  How privileged I felt to have a Granny sitting on the other side of the rainbow, watching over me.

 

 

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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  Tarot, Numerology and Astrology overlaid with her Clairvoyant, Claircognitive 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.   As a member of the American Tarot Association (ATA) and the Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI), Joanna governs her practice under the associations’ respective codes of ethics.  She is currently mentoring fellow intuitives on the path of developing their intuitive potential and teaches Tarot and Numerology as well.

Website: www.sungoddesstarot.com

 Email:  Joanna@sungoddesstarot.com

 Facebook:  www.facebook.com/SunGoddessTarot

 Twitter: www.twitter.com/SunGoddessTarot

 Instagram: @SunGoddessTarot

 

 

Creating A Gem Of A Tarot Card For The Autumn Equinox

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This blogpost was written as my contribution to the 2015 Tarot Blog Hop themed to celebrate the Autumn Equinox or Mabon which falls on 22 September, marking the start of the Autumn season.  Our bloghop wrangler, Maureen AislingDuffy-Boose had asked that we pick a card from the Tarot deck that we associated most with the Autumn Equinox and attempt to create our own depiction of that card.

Celebrating Autumn Equinox With The Hanged Man

The Tarot card that I associate the Autumn Equinox with, is the Hanged Man, which is a card that reflects the process of letting go, healing, surrender, taking on different perspectives, change, and taking time out for learning new skills and gathering of new knowledge to lay the foundation stones for renewal.

Autumn as a season is much like the Hanged Man.  It is a time of release and letting go when we see the leaves turning colour from green to brown, and finally dropping off the trees with absolutely no resistance. As Mabon marks the second harvest where people gather and store crops to prepare for the impending winter months, it is also a reflection of a time to gather knowledge and skills to prepare us for what is to come.

  

A Time Of Letting Go

The Hanged Man, and its association with Autumn is particularly meaningful for me at this time,  In more ways than one, this has been a period where I had been giving myself some time and space to manage the letting go of several aspects of my life:

·       This was a period of spiritual renewal where I was forced to confront limiting factors from my past, let go of my ego, and deal with my anger issues caused by my fear of lack of control. Before I struggled with my intuition from time to time, but with this spiritual renewal, my intuition developed further from a space of heart-centredness.

·       This was a period of learning, studying, finding myself and honing my intuitive skills.  As a consequence of that purification process of letting go, I started letting go of my total dependence on my usual metaphysical tools of tarot cards, numerology and astrology as I developed my claircognitive and clairaudience skills.

·       This was a period of dealing with my resistance to the changes in the dynamics of my relationship with my son. This again, has to do with my fear of lack of control. Our relationship went through a roller-coaster of emotions from anger, to disappointment, to sadness simply because it was difficult to deal with his growing up and his preparing to “leave the nest”. I wanted to hold on to every last vestige of him.  Only when I learnt to let go of this fear of lack of control, and allow him to thrive as an independent young man, watch him learn from his own mistakes and explore the world around him without me, that I found peace again with my son.

·       This was a period of changes at my workplace.  Organizational changes always brought about uncertainty, stress and fear.  However when I learnt to let go and change my perspectives that the new environment could be a good opportunity to further push the boundaries of creativity and strategic thought leadership, that I was able to better manage the change and be a better mentor and manager to my team.

  

Designing My Hanged Man Card With Crystal Energy

When I thought about creating my own Hanged Man card for the Autumn Equinox, I felt I was not going to do it justice by copying the usual image of the Hanged Man depicted in most Tarot decks, that is, a figure suspended upside down from a tree. That image etched in the minds of most Tarotists  has already done a wonderful job of teaching us so much because that card is chocked full of meaningful symbolisms. 

From the Morgan Greer Tarot deck by Lloyd Morgan and Bill Greer

I wanted instead to create a card image that had the symbolisms of the Hanged Man card, yet was a reflection of my current journey and the support that I had been given to walk that journey.  So I chose to design my Hanged Man card using a combination of crystal gemstones and photography.

  

Co-creating The Hanged Man Crystal Gemstone Bracelet With Jennifer Toka

I loved working with crystals, and the energy of crystal gemstones are what had been supporting me through this period of change, when I had to manage stress, anxiety, the reluctance to let go, my anger issues and my vulnerabilities. So I got my friend Jennifer Toka, a fellow intuitive and jewelry designer who owned www.healingdragongems.com to design a bracelet for me to reflect this period of change, letting go and renewal that I was going through.  I wanted her to pick the gemstones and design the piece using purely her intuition and my vision.  Part of the brief, was that because Jennifer was also a professional photographer, I wanted her to take a photograph with that jewelry as the subject but composed the image by using purely her intuition, in such a way that would allow the image to depict what the Hanged Man card was all about.  

Take note that Jennifer lives thousands of miles away from me.  She is in America and I am in Singapore.  Yet when we worked on this project together, it was almost like we were speaking to each other in our dreams, telepathically building a piece of jewelry together and linking that jewelry to my past, my present and my future. We co-created the image of the Hanged Man card together using her creativity, our intuitive skills, and our vision.

Designed and photographed by Jennifer Toka, www.healingdragongems.com

Metaphysical Properties Of The Gemstones Within The Hanged Man Bracelet

For the main imagery, the final outcome resulted in a bracelet made up of gemstones that were very much Autumnal in colours and had properties to support me in my process of renewal and letting go:

·       Gold Rutilated Quartz which cleanses, energizes and removes barriers to spiritual growth,

·       Cat’s Eye Quartz to transform negative thoughts, ground and enhance intuition,

·       Garnet for illuminating darkness, lessening anger, build courage,

·       Amber to balance emotions, clear the mind, ease stress and manage fear,

·       Carnelian to give courage to move forward onto a new path

·       Ruby to recharge energy and stimulate creativity

·       Amethyst for healing and calming emotions

·       Moonstone to support intuition and connection with higher self.

·       Smoky quartz for grounding, and removing negative energy

Stringing The Bracelet Together To Symbolize The Hanged Man

Aside from the metaphysical properties of the stones that aided me in my time of change, letting go and renewal, Jennifer was guided to string them all together in such a way where the focal gem of Gold Rutilated Quartz paired with the Garnet actually symbolized the Sun Goddess emerging from an eclipse.  Because Autumn equinox was about the balance of light and day, the Amber in its Autumnal colour was positioned to balance the strength of the Gold Quartz and the Garnet.  She put 4 dark cherry polished Amber stones on each side of the bracelet because the Hanged Man is usually depicted being hung upside down with his legs crossing to make the number 4, the number of building of foundations through  the gathering of knowledge and skills.  Because Autumn and the Hanged Man were symbols of changing perspectives and renewal, the bracelet started with dark coloured Amber at the top and then separated by the green pearl to symbolized change, followed by the brighter gemstones that symbolized renewal.

She then fastened a gold Chinese coin at the end of the bracelet. This coin honors my Chinese heritage, and as a coin, it not only had protective energy but much like the ancient days where coins were buried with the dead to aid them in their passageway across the other world, this Chinese coin symbolized my passageway from my old self, to a renewed self.

When Jennifer held the completed bracelet up, the piece resembled the original Hanged Man imagery where the focal gem of that Gold Rutilated Quartz  resembled the head of the Hanged Man, the Chinese coin resembled his torso, and the gems on each side of the focal point of the bracelet were his arms.

I loved this beautiful piece of jewelry so much that I had dreams of co-creating a piece of jewelry with Jennifer for the rest of the cards in the Tarot deck, and I would have called it the Healing Dragon Gems Tarot Deck!

After putting this bracelet together with the highly symbolic gemstones that reflected the essence of the Autumn Equinox and the Hanged Man card,  Jennifer then put her photography skills to work by composing an image of what we both thought would best depict the Hanged Man card in Tarot using that bracelet.

  

Behold Our Version Of The Hanged Man Card

Photo credit: Jennifer Toka and Strve Murphy
Concept direction:  Joanna Ash

Our version of the Hanged Man card depicts an image of a mother suspending her baby up in the air.  She wanted to play “airplane” with her by tilting her downwards with her arms outspread just like an airplane swooping down the sky.  Her baby clearly felt uncomfortable in that position and was poised to cry.  Just like the Hanged Man, the mother was hoping for her daughter to surrender in trust that Mummy will never allow her to be accidentally dropped from her hands.  In assurance, Mummy held her close, and that was a representation of the Divine help that we get when we faced challenges that required us to step back, recalibrate our thoughts and just Let Go, Let God.

Just as the Hanged Man card was about learning knowledge and garnering skills, Jennifer was teaching her daughter the skill of flexibility, building trust through play, having fun by letting go of fear.

Just as the Hanged Man card was about sacrifice, release and letting go, Jennifer’s relationship with her daughter was a manifestation of the same because of the sacrifices she had to make along the way as a Mother for the love of her daughter.  She would be spending these years, nurturing her daughter, knowing that it would be a relationship of a lot of good times as well as bad times but at the end of it, she would need to let her go as she walks into adulthood. 

Finally, on the mother’s wrist, is the Autumn Equinox bracelet which she had specially made with the gems that reflect the essence and color of Autumn. We also opted to name the card SURRENDER instead of calling it the Hanged Man. Surrender, most aptly defined the Autumn Equinox and everything that the season stood for, knowing that annually, the season brought with it the typical changes of mother nature which served to prepare us for the harsher months of Winter.

I hope you like the Hanged Man card created by Jennifer and I.  If I had the opportunity to develop a full Tarot deck of 78 cards using Jennifer’s intuitive jewelry designing skills and her photography, I definitely would.  Do check out Jennifer’s awesome work at www.healingdragongems.com and if you were to place an order for a piece of jewelry from her, do quote Sun Goddess to get your 15% discount.

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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.  As a member of the American Tarot Association (ATA) and the Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI), Joanna governs her practice under the associations’ respective codes of ethics.  She is currently mentoring fellow intuitives on the path of developing their intuitive potential and teaches Tarot and Numerology as well.

Website: www.sungoddesstarot.com

 Email:  Joanna@sungoddesstarot.com

 Facebook:  www.facebook.com/SunGoddessTarot

 Twitter: www.twitter.com/SunGoddessTarot

 Instagram: @SunGoddessTarot

Acknowledging Accountability With The Judgement Card

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Drawing The Short Straw 

This blog post was written as my contribution to the Tarot Blog Hop to celebrate the Summer Solstice which falls on 21 June 2015. Our Blog Hop wrangler Alison Cross has asked us to pick a card from the Major Arcana as our subject for this blog post.  I was a late entrant.  I picked the short straw and got the Judgement card.  Why couldn’t I get prettier and more positive cards like The Empress, The Fool, or The Star?  How did I end up with Judgement?

It was purely my choice. Really.  There were a few more un-exciting cards, like the Sun, that none of the blog hop participants had picked at that time.  I could have picked the Sun. But it was boring.  I could have pulled out of the hop too, but that would have made me look like a bloody wuss in front of my Tarotist friends.

Being Accountable For Our Choices

Yes choices.  And that’s what this blog post is going to be about.  At the height of the Summer Solstice, it is a perfect theme because we could all choose to get out of the house and embrace the warmth and abundance Summer brings, or we could choose to stay indoors because we are worried about tan lines.  And if we chose to stay indoors, at least be accountable for the fact that you’ve  just missed out on all that fun and the rest of the world thinks you’re a sad lonely wanker.

Judgement

I am not typically fond of the Judgement card.  The card within my Radiant Rider Waite Tarot deck updated by Virginijus Poshkus, depicts an image of naked bodies rising from the dead, armed raised towards the heavens as an angel blows his trumpet.  Every time I pick this card for a client, the key message would be to get him to re-evaluate what decisions he had made in the past, the impact of these decisions on his future, recalibrate his thoughts about his goals and then reassess his plans to achieve these goals.  The message is very loaded.  Sometimes, it feels as if the card forces the client through a process of going through multiple stages of hoops and hurdles before he can finally get to his prize. Believe me, it is easier if I had picked the Star card and told him, “Don’t worry honey, all’s going to be well.” But life doesn’t happen like this all the time, does it?

In truth, when I kick that lazy-ass Jo out of my space and put my wiser Sun Goddess Tarot Jo’s hat on, the Judgement Card for me is possibly one of the most important cards in the deck.  It is only through the Judgement card, when we are encouraged to readjust the sails on our ship, that we can then move on to the World card, where we sail forward on our journey to achieve our goals and serve our purpose as it was meant to be.

So let’s take another look at the image on the Judgement card.  The angel in the card is Angel Gabriel, the messenger of God who famously appeared to Mary to announce the impending birth of Jesus Christ.   He was the angel that also famously appeared to Zacharias to announce the impending birth of John the Baptist to Zacharias’ supposedly barren wife, Elizabeth.  The naked bodies rising from the dead seems to be responding to the call of Angel Gabriel’s trumpet.  The mountainous terrain, clouds and waves in the background suggests the challenges one has to surmount throughout his journey to his goals.

When you view the Judgement card as a good knock on the head before you wake up your senses enough to walk towards the true potential of what the World card promises, I reckon, it is THE card that truly says it all and in many ways, ties the deck together to underscore what the true purpose of Tarot is, which is to offer you choices.

I have always prefaced my readings with clients by explaining to them that metaphysical tools like Tarot should not be used as “predictive” or “fortune-telling” tools.  Instead, they are meant to provide you with options with which you can make the right choices to influence your own desired outcomes.  The Judgement card points to the fact that whatever is happening with you today, is a result of decisions that you have made in the past.  If you’ve woken up to the fact that whatever you are doing now is not getting you to your goals in the way you’ve hoped, then you have the choice to recalibrate your thoughts, reassess your actions and re-chart your plans.

We do have the ability to make choices and we need to be accountable for the choices we make.

The Lovers

When it comes to making choices, one card that jumps up to me is the Lovers card.  Before I get rapped on the wrist by our blog hop wrangler for going beyond the brief to invite a second card into my blog post when we were only meant to talk about the one card we had picked, which in my case, is the Judgement card, please allow me to explain.

The image on the Lovers card looked quite a lot like the Judgement card.  Both have an angel in the background, but the key difference is that while there are naked bodies rising from the dead in the Judgement card, the Lovers card depicts a naked man and woman. Unlike the feel of the Judgement card which seemed cold, the Lovers card depicts a sun shining boringly over the couple, offering warmth, positivity and comfort. The snake in the tree points to the story of Adam and Eve and infers that life has full of temptations. The flames behind the man is a symbol of passion.  The angel in the Lovers card is the angel Raphael, who is the angel of healing.  The Lovers card tells me that hard choices that aligns with my personal values would have to be made. In spite of the fact that some of these choices are so difficult and puts me between a rock and a hard place, I should be assured that I am guided by my angel who will be helping and healing me through that process.  Only if and only when, I muster the courage to make the right choice, can I truly move forward along my journey to get to my goals.

Moving Towards Achieving The True Potential Of The World

When I reflect on both the Lovers and Judgement card together, I am reminded that  throughout a lifetime of challenges, along with its fair share of good times, I did have the ability to make choices that shaped how I responded to these challenges.  Whatever outcomes I had experienced as a consequence, were all attributed to the choices I made.  Judgement, tells me that I am almost reaching there.  I am almost getting to my destination.  It is a card placed just before the final card of the major arcana, the World, and quite aptly too.

When we can finally acknowledge that we do have the power to make things happen and embrace new opportunities by letting go of the past which may not serve us anymore and changing the way we think or changing our plans along the way, the World would be ours to hold.

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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.  As a member of the American Tarot Association (ATA) and the Tarot Association of the British Isles (TABI), Joanna governs her practice under the associations’ respective code of ethics.  She is currently mentoring fellow intuitives on the path of developing their intuitive potential and actively teachers Tarot and Numerology as well. 

Website: www.sungoddesstarot.com

Email:  Joanna@sungoddesstarot.com

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