My Tattoo: The Three of Swords

Many people ask me... friends and strangers alike, why I chose to permanently put this image on my chest. If I'm feeling talkative, I will give them the long version of the story, but usually I just say that it is a symbol of strength.

The three of swords is a complicated card. In the Rider-Waite deck you will see that the heart is hanging in the air with a cloudy sky in the background. The heart is pierced by no less than three swords, however it remains in tact, still together, not in pieces. Three in numerology is linked to growth, while the swords suit speaks of mental energy; truths, and challenges. This card to me asks us to lean into pain in order to fully feel it. Only then can we grow through it, and move on to live in our truth - not unchanged but not broken.

At the time that I had this tattoo done, I was only 23 years old. I'd just overcome my life's biggest challenge to date; healing myself of a major Lupus flare that almost killed me. I was feeling strong and healthy, though forever changed in body and mind by my brush with this chronic illness. I knew that I'd learned some core truths about myself from the experience, and for that I was thankful. Knowing that I grew from enduring this challenge however, did not make dealing with the aftermath easy. The boundaries of pain I felt at the time were worthy of documentation in some form or another, I needed a way to communicate and express it without using words.

A good friend that I grew up with posed the question to me one night at a small gathering of friends; "do you want a tattoo?"- I didn't think twice before saying yes, and in moments I chose the image and where I wanted to place it on my body. It was decided so quickly that there was no time to second guess myself. I felt that I knew exactly what I wanted, and had never been so sure of anything in my life.

I've never regretted this tattoo, and I still feel as true to it today as I did the day that Renee gave it to me. <3

A fiery three card spread

I read my own cards today, it was a quick three card spread. It was incredibly positive and exactly what I needed to see- that I am on the right track.

Three card spreads are used when you want to get an idea of where you are at and what is coming. I do this when I feel that I already have a good handle on things and just want to quickly check in on that feeling to be sure. For more complicated times and inquiries the longer spreads are better as they let you explore all possibilites and issues.

This reading was all wands. Wands are fire- and represent primal energy, the things that make us tick. It's the fire inside, fueling inspiration, creativity, determination and spirituality.

My cards were- in order: The Magician, the 8 of Wands, and the 2 of Wands.

Kicking things off with the Magician which is associated with the number 1 in the Major Arcana was a great start. It's the number of beginnings. I just moved in with my boyfriend so I'll assume it pertains to that. The Magician card holds all four suits of the Tarot on the table in front of him. These are to be used as tools to manifest your desires. It's a sign that now is a great time to act on achieving your goals, because you have all of the right things in order.

The next card was the 8 of Wands. This card works great with the Magician as it further signifies a great time to act on something. The wands are pointing forward, telling you to make your move!

 For me, I have felt like I was on the verge of great changes all year. It's now that I will want to make the leap. What it is that I want to leap into has to do with bettering myself and leaving old self-destructive habits behind for good.

Lastly the 2 of Wands as the final card shows planning and progress. The man in the card literally has the world in his hands. It's time to start planning, prioritizing and making solid decisions. When it is preceded by the Magician and the 8 of Wands this energy is solidly positive, and tells you that you will be successful in all that you do.

I've got a lot of projects to get started on!

The Gestalt Method

As a Tarot Card reader who is always reading and never has my own cards read; I like to turn the table on my friends and ask them for a reading once I am done with theirs. This is often met with a look of complete terror as they exclaim that they don’t know the meanings of the cards. I tell them not to worry, and teach them to use a little trick called the Gestalt method. This is when you simply look at the cards and use the archetypes and symbols to explain what you think the card means.

Gestalt psychology proposes a unique perspective on human perception. According to Gestalt psychologists, we don't just see the world, we actively interpret what we see, depending on what we are expecting to see. A famous French author, Anaïs Nin, who was not a psychologist, framed that idea in an interesting way: 'We do not see the world as it is; we see it as we are.'

Here is a link to a great explanation of The Gestalt Method that I used when I was still learning:

 http://www.tarotpassages.com/heartof.htm

Just memorizing the “meanings” of the cards from books is not going to make you a better reader. No two readers read the same card in exactly the same way. No one is going to yell “FRAUD” in your face if you don’t read a card the same way that they do. There are so many different decks, and so many different views on each card’s meaning out there. Every author of every book explains each card a little differently. While it is helpful to know basics like suits, numbers, and key words for each card; these things are only guiding factors to help you figure things out in your own way.

For beginners, The Gestalt Method will strengthen what you learn along the way and make your readings better.  Once you get past the initial fear of getting it wrong, you realize how easy it is to get it right!

The Emperor

Today I recorded a podcast with my friend Rebecca Muir. It's called Everyday Seeker: http://www.everydayseeker.net/

It's a fabulous podcast, with lots of cool episodes each with a different topic relating to all things mystical, enlightening, and healthy. 

During the conversation, we randomly used the Emperor as an example of archetypes- The Emperor being that of a "father" archetype. Rebecca related him to a story of an overly controlling man from her past. Domineering, in control and unwavering. When I think of the emperor I think of structure and dependability; holding oneself accountable, ect. Later At the end of the podcast we pulled a card and made an intention to really meditate on it's meaning and find a way to apply it to our selves that would serve us in a positive way. Sure enough, a synchronicity was set in motion from our earlier conversation about The Emperor; and it was this card that we pulled. 

The Emperor is one that I haven't really spent much time with. He is the father of the deck. With his stern face, armor, and his stone throne adorned with the heads of rams he can be quite the commanding figure.

He represents:

• FATHERING
• STRUCTURE
• AUTHORITY
• REGULATION

How he relates to me in my life currently is specific to his emphasis on structure. I feel that this card is asking me to start creating order out of the chaos. Start making lists, applying reason, organizing, and coordinating. Becoming an adultier adult if you will. 

There are a lot of plans that I have been meaning to set into motion in regard to my health and mental well being that I have been slacking on. It's time to get started on those plans and make them stick. I need to create some habits, routines, and systems that will get me out of this rut I have been in. It's lingered too long. 

The Universe Communicating with Itself

Why do the cards work the way that they do and why do they do it so well? This is a question I have asked over and over again when a reading was just a little too spot on, sometimes to the point of being a bit spooky! I started researching this long ago and found that the answers were far more intriguing than I could have imagined! The way that I understand it and the truth that speaks to me all starts with the psychologist Carl Jung.

When you read the Tarot cards for the first time, you are looking at various images that seem vaguely familiar. Aside from not knowing what they "mean" you can still recognize a lot of the main characters. Your subconscious opens up when viewing the images on the cards. This is not by chance, but by design. While I researched why this is,  I kept coming across references to the psychologist Carl Jung; one of the most famous psychologists in history- next to his frenemy Sigmund Freud. Jung founded analytical psychiatry, and while he was not an expert on the Tarot himself, it is hard not to find a respectable article on Tarot without the mention of Carl Jung. This is because The Collective Unconscious, Archetypes, Symbols, and Synchronicity are all Jungian ideas that come into play when we talk about how the cards work.

Each of the images on the cards are loaded with things called Archetypes, and symbols. Jung described archetypes as a universal and recurring image, pattern, or motif representing a typical human experience. Symbols he described as being the best possible expression for something essentially unknown. They replace the need for written words. Some examples of archetypes are: mother, father, crone, free spirit, hero, and lover. A simple example of a symbol would be the crescent shape which we often recognize as the moon.

Wikipedia’s Archetype page defines an archetype as ‘a universally understood term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned or emulated.’ The same page tells us that in Psychology, an archetype is a ‘model of a person, personality, or behavior’. So an example of an archetype in the cards is the Empress. She is the archetypal "mother". Everyone knows what a mother is, and when you think about the words associated with a mother, they are all closely related to the meaning of the card.

Jung came to his conclusions about archetypes and symbols after studying the explanations of dreams and hallucinations in psychotic patients. He found that many of the things that they described were the same or similar to the symbols and archetypes in myths, stories and legends from all over the world. These were things that these patients did not, or could not have known about.

 According to Jung, archetypes are:‘innate universal psychic dispositions that form the substrate from which the basic symbols or representations of unconscious experience emerge. The archetype is a tendency to form such representations of a motif – representations that can vary a great deal in detail without losing their basic pattern… they are indeed an instinctive trend.’

In regard to where archetypes and symbols come from, Jung refers to "The Collective Unconscious". He theorized, that a pool of knowledge exists in every person and connects us all. Jung believed that we all innately know the secrets of the universe and that each and every one of us can access the Collective Unconscious for information or inspiration. We are all- also continuously contributing to its growing pool of knowledge and memories.

Next we are going to jump over to synchronicity. The word "synchronicity" was created by Jung to describe "meaningful coincedences". These are the random events in life that seem to be related in a meaningful way, even though there is no natural connection. For example, you are thinking of someone you have not talked to in long time, and suddenly out of nowhere- they call you on the phone. Has something like this ever happened to you?

In his book on the subject- Synchronicity: An Acasual Connecting Principle he wrote-

"...it is impossible, with our present resources, to explain ESP, or the fact of meaningful coincidence, as a phenomenon of energy. This makes an end of the causal explanation as well, for "effect" cannot be understood as anything except a phenomenon of energy. Therefore it cannot be a question of cause and effect, but of a falling together in time, a kind of simultaneity. Because of this quality of simultaneity, I have picked on the term "synchronicity" to designate a hypothetical factor equal in rank to causality as a principle of explanation."

Jung thought; and I agree- that when a synchronicity occurs, it happens because you are attracting  events into your life as a way to get place emphasis on something that you need to be made consciously aware of... in order to grow. Watch out for the patterns of synchronicity in your life. You can consider what the synchronicity is trying to tell you, and use it to guide you. The more aware you become of it, the more in tune you are with yourself and the source of "all that is" or as Jung would call it "Unus Mundus".

"Unus Mundus" was greatly inspired by physics. After Jung and his friend Albert Eisenstein talked many times about Einstein's theory of relativity, he had an idea. He then partnered with yet another physicist; Wolfgang Pauli to build the theory of Unus Mundus"; which in Latin means "one world". It  is the concept of an underlying unified reality from which everything emerges and to which everything returns.

Archetypes and symbols then, would be an expression of Unus Mundus. We know them through the collective unconscious. Synchronicity is made possible by Unus Mundus; in that it would mean that both the observer (you) and the phenomenon (synchronicity) ultimately stem from the same source....!

By using Tarot, we are basically opening up windows to the collective unconscious through the archetypes and symbols on each card. The cards fall in a way that will apply to you because you chose them. Your reading is like a synchronicity life hack. You make synchronicity happen instead of letting it happen to you. Instead of tying together random events you have laid these cards out before you and read them like a story.

So in closing, you can use the cards to find the patterns in your life that are worth paying attention to. Learn and grow from the information that you receive from them. You gain understanding of yourself, and make choices that will ultimately result in a better you. An easy way to choose a  higher frequency.

You are part of the universe and the universe, is communicating with itself.