Tarot

The tarot is a symbolic language. It shows a journey of self improvement that we all go through. Each card represents a stage in the journey. The tarot will not divinate your future, it instead, helps you understand in which steps of the journey you are and what are the things you must focus on to move forward. The steps are not linear, sometimes you can skip steps. Different situations in your life can be in different points of the journey simultaneously. Sometimes you can even encounter the same step in a different way. This makes the journey a spiral of self actualization. The situations encountered on the tarot are generic situations that we all go through, they are archetypes of the human experience. You should use the tarot as a tool for self discovery and mastery. Here I will explain the meaning of each the cards explored in this way.

Formation of self

How do i become someone?

0. The Fool

This is the starting point of any new endeavour. When you start something new, you will always start as a beginner, full of innocence and excited for the new journey ahead. Everything is novel and exciting and there is so much untapped potential for your own growth. The beginner is curious. We embody the fool when we start a new job, a new hobby, a new relationship. Potential is the main idea transmited through this card, all the possible growth and potential when you begin something new.

I. The Magician

After a while, the fool realizes they can act in their new environment. They gain skills and are able to use them to change things. The magician represents agency over the new environment or endeavour. Its when the fool has learned to apply its will to change and build things. It is able to exert control over this environment and realizes that they are not simple observers and instead they participate.

II. The High Priestess

Now the individual is able to exercise agency over the environment, at some point they will stop and ask themselves: why and how should i change things? Having skills does not teach you how to use them. Being able to change the world does nothing to answer the question on how or why should you change it. The high priestess is about stepping back, observing and thinking. Learning to use your intuition , as to how to best use your new found skills and agency. Its about listening to the subtle things and realizing that the things that are important in the world will not always be apparent.

III. The Empress

Once you have chosen an objective, the empress represents nurturing . Giving an environment where your projects and yourself can grow. It represents learning to make the conditions right to foster growth. Plants do not grow just by throwing seeds into the ground, you have to water them and give them light. Just in the same way, do we and the projects we pursue need to be taken care of. Conditions have to be right for growth.

IV. The Emperor

Now that you have fostered new growth, you have to learn to make this growth permanent and durable. This is why the emperor teaches you to learn discipline and rules, so that growth can have structure. For example, a plant has to be constantly trimmed, you have to water it regularly. So this card is about making changes that last, is about sticking with your projects over the long haul and not just abandoning them midway for new ones. To create something lasting, you have to put in constant effort.

V. The Hierophant

The hierophant teaches us to be aware of the beliefs and priorities of the people that came before you. Whenever you are doing something, there will be probably be people that have already tried it before. This is why interacting with this knowledge and seeing whats there to gain is an important step. Its learning what was important to them and what they believed in, in terms of values and expectations .

VI. The Lovers

Once you have learned what was important and expected of the people that came before you, the lovers asks you to make a choice . Now its time to choose which of those beliefs and traditions you want to keep for yourself and which are to be discarted for things that are more relevant to you. Make the choice and with it choose a direction to orient your life to.

VII. The Chariot

Once the choice has been made, the chariot represents learning to control your life to direct it into your new objective. It is about learning self control and mastery of your skills to take you to your destination.

Descent into self

What is underneath this new identity and what are its limits ?

VIII. Strength

After you have learn control and mastery. You then need to learn that control is not domination . Control is learning how to be aware of your impulses. Is learning that controlling yourself is not suppressing yourself, and instead, it is learning how to properly express or direct yourself. For example, learning to control your anger, is not learning to suppress it, its instead learning to be aware of it and what it is trying to tell you so you can act upon it in an apropiate fashion. Its taming the lion so that you can use it as an ally instead of struggling against it. All of our impulses serve a purpose after all, they only become a problem when we act upon them in a negative way.

IX. The Hermit

The hermit represents withdrawal from society. It teaches us to learn to listen to our inner selves without the influence, opinion and expectations of society, our friends, our families. Its learning self reliance and self confidence. Its learning to retreat from the noise of regular life to be able to hear the subtle voices inside ourselves. Its distinguishing which expectations were fed to use by our environment from what actually matters to us.

X. Wheel Of Fortune

Even after you have learned to listen to yourself, the wheel of fortune is here to show you that there are situations or events that are outside of your control. The world will sometimes have different plans than what you wanted and will force you to adapt. So you need to learn to let go and go with the flow with the things outside of your control.

XI. Justice

Even if there are situations outside, you cannot excuse yourself. While you cannot control everything, the actions you can control, have consequences . This card represents facing up to this fact. Teaching you responsibility and learning that you participate in the conditions of what you inhabit, so that you wont victimize yourself when your actions come back to you by blaming things outside of your control.

XII. The Hanged Man

This represents a change of perspective and a sacrifice of your point of view to gain access new knowledge. Sometimes you this to sacrifice can be a voluntary sacrifice, to see the world in a new way. Sometimes you are forced to sacrifice it. Your old way of looking at things is surrendered to the world and in exchange you gain new insight of it. For example: children when they grow and are forced to see the world as teenagers and have to surrender what they thought about the world but at the same time gain new knowledge.

Death and reconstruction

What parts of the new identity do i have to keep and which ones must go ?

XIII. Death

With the loss of your old point of view and the insight that you made, you realize that your old identity can no longer survive. With the new insight your old identity is no longer sufficient, it cannot accommodate this new knowledge. Because of this, the identity has to change. This step is about the death of an old identity so that a new one can take its place.

XIV. Temperance

Once the old identity is gone, temperance is about choosing which of the pieces of the old identity are going to be kept to put together a new identity. Some of the aspects of your old personality will still be useful and can be kept, while some others will no longer be adapted and will have be changed by new ones. For this, temperance is about finding the balance between what can stay and what has to be replaced in the reconstruction of the self.

XV. The Devil

Even with a new identity, there will be limitations and things that have control and power over you. You may have addictions, attachments, compulsions, fears and patterns that hold you back. The devil is about realizing which are the remaining limitations even after you have forged your new identity.

XVI. The Tower

Once you have realized that there are still things that have power over you and sometimes even when we dont, at some point you will realize that the structures that you have built around you are not actually stable. This collapse of the structures brings sudden and drastic change, the upheaval of the false structures. It can present itself in situations like a breakup, a job change or any collapse of the things that seemed stable. This card can be seen as the fall from the garden of eden.

Return to the world

How do i bring back what i learned into the world ?

XVII. The Star

The star is the sign that there is a place to go to after the collapse of the structures around you. It represents hope after the calamity. It guides your way through the night in much the same way it used to for sailors. Remember that there is somewhere to go to and to be. Not all is lost.

XVIII. The Moon

Once you have seen the star and started moving, the moon represents movement through unknown territory. Imagine how it is to walk at night under the moon, you can sort of see shapes, but you cannot fully trust your eyes and the things that you see in the night. Traveling through the unknown and navigating it, like traveling through a maze, a cave or a dark forest. You know there is somewhere to go to, this card represents the stage of navigating to get there. One interesting association of this card is the idea of traversing through your own subconcious.

XIX. The Sun

The sun represents being able to finally see clearly after navigating through the dark. The coming of day and of light into a situation where before you did not have clarity on. Its about illumination. It represents fulfillment and happiness after a getting through dark passage. Finally being able to see whats behind the dark forest, the cave or the maze.

XX. Judgment

Now that you can see, Judgment represents awakening , having to awaken to your higher calling. Now that you can see, what are you going to do ? You have heard the call and now you have to answer it. And to fulfill your higher purpose in life.

XXI. The World

The cycle is over. The world represents the integrating of new knowledge and new aspects into your life. You are not the same person as you were when you began the journey. This does not represent a permanent end, just the ending of the current cycle. After the world comes the fool again and the cycle can repeat. Each cycle giving us an opportunity to improve upon the previous one.

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