What does the Major Arcana have to say about our soul's journey?
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Our souls go through a journey of learning and growth while we are here. Many of us, my self included feel that we chose lessons before we were born to learn in this lifetime, working through our karma, ever reaching for, searching for wholeness.
The Major Arcana of the Tarot shows us images that reminds us of where we are on this journey. These are of course the universals that we all go through in this life, as our souls grow. Steps we all take. Just as we grow physically-learning to walk and run, or intellectually as we learn to move through our education, our soul grows and we share these steps across the board.
This is not a one shot deal either. We have many lessons to learn, so we go may go through this journey repeatedly. So as we look at the major arcana, and the whole tarot deck really, these energies crop up again and again. So where do we start?
With The Fool and Magician. When studying the history of tarot there is some discussions, I find, as to where The Fool goes. He is number 0. My first teacher explained it like this: The fool is our young soul, our soul that has nothing but choice in front of him, he is carefree, about to take a leap with his little faithful pup confident and supportive, and his bag full of all that he needs. To me the pup also represents unconditional love too. Think of times when we felt this invincibility? Heading off on new journeys-confident, maybe even a little arrogant, fearless! Some say that The Fool goes at the end of the majors, in effect becoming #22 instead of zero, and really, this makes sense. One lesson completed, one journey, and a new one begins, it is the continuous spiral of life.
As our soul grows, we begin to see our power, our effect on the world around us and our lives, we can embrace and learn about that power The Magician. This card is #1 in the deck, now we see that the tools he/she has are all the energy of the suits of the major arcana. These are the elements, the emotions, the desire and motivations in our lives.
As we move through the majors we see the ups and downs of life-we see the journey of expansion and contraction that we all have felt and will feel in the future. This is one of the things I love about Tarot. It shows us all of it-the good, the bad, the scary and the beautiful.
We moves through getting in touch with our subconscious, and our balance with The High Priestess.
We learn about creation and abundance with The Empress. And her yang partner The Emperor teaches us about creating stability and a strong foundation. This is something you will see in the cards, a duality of sorts- a partnership where we see the energies balance. Yin and Yang we see in nature. The Empress and Emperor are an example of this and we will see this again. As we learn how the cards relate and balance each other it helps us tell the story in the spread of our choosing too.
Just as the emperor is the partner to the empress, The Hierophant is the balance to the high priestess. He is the guardian of knowledge and religion and traditions, orthodoxy, the thinking of the masses, she is about the inner arcane knowledge. We see both in our lives and the world around us. One often leading us to seek the other for balance.
The Lovers show us this balance of male and female as well. It has always struck me that in many faiths/spiritual paths we see a duality of the gods-male and female represented. In nature we see this too. The companion card to this, with the same position of the images is the companion card for this. Here with the loves we see a deep soulful love, a karmic connection of two souls-as my first teacher pointed out although, this does not necessarily mean this is an easy love, but a deep and important one. A sacred rather than purely physical love. It also traditionally speaks of choices in life, and how we approach them.
As we approach card number 7 we start to see a sort of graduation. We are moving onto the next level of development.
We have learned that we can impact our own reality, and we are learning how to control that with our subtle nature. The Chariot maintains that control with calm will-look closely, the figure is not holding the reins, yet the balance is maintained. Similarly with the
Strength card the woman is with a lion, but they are friends, I feel like it like my relationship to my dogs, playful, the lion seems to be licking her hand in love and respect. Again this balance of duality the physical and the spiritual.
We come back to that inner searching, with The Hermit. Time spent alone, to slowly figure out what we need to know to move forward. And we learn to flow with our life and karma with The Wheel of Fortune.
We see this turning of our lives and the energy of our soul learning, expansion, contraction, coming home and then searching. Over and over in the journey. We see this echoed with the Justice card. This card reminds us that there is a reality and a consequence to our actions and to other’s actions. We have learned that we can make our own reality, and change in our lives, and with these two cards, we see our karma and our just desserts so to speak.
When we see reality for what it really is, we can surrender to it which is what The Hanged Man signifies. This figure reminds me of Odin in the Norse myths - god of wisdom among other things, who sacrificed his eye and hung upside down for 9 days to gain knowledge. This is the part of the journey we learn to surrender to what we found to be true in the Justice card.
The card that probably scares people the most is the Death card. This card is about death of the Self. We have found our truth, surrendered to it and can now make the changes we choose to make.
We find balance in the Temperance card. The fool has learned to look deep within, made the changes, done the work and now is managing all the things. The figure is at home balanced between land and sea, the 2 cups are representative of the balance between conscious and subconscious. This is part of what the soul is learning
The next card is about contraction again, The Devil, my first teacher told me this is sort of the anti-thesis to the lovers card, this card represents that union that is addictive, they are in chains instead of freely holding each other, this can also represent addiction, unhealthy things we are attached to. The Devil card to me says we have lost traction after the preceding card, sort of like when we join the gym and then stop going, only to re sign up and have to make our way back!
If things are not going well, if we are not paying attention, or the universe just needs to clear the way with a brush fire we find ourselves in the energy of The Tower. This card even looks scary! This is the card of the universe making us pay attention! A wake up call so to speak, we have to pay attention now, and when we do the work we see that it all coming together. This is The Star is a card of meditation, balance, the waters represent the unconscious mind, a card of healing after we have dealt with the upheaval of the tower and our other lessons.
In our dreams we continue to find inspiration under The Moon, furthering our learning and deepening our connection to spirit and the subconscious.
The Sun card shows us the fool has learned that he has control his/her work and is now happy, free and naked. Nothing to hide, and has done most of his journey. Again these higher numbered cards in the major arcana seem to show us our soul’s growth as we have learned and flowed through the ups and downs of the lessons, done the work and are reaching the payoff.
Judgement shows us a life well lived, a calling home of sorts, a realization that we are spirit here to have a human experience to fulfill our destiny of lessons.
The World card brings us to the end of this particular lesson and journey. The figure is in the same shape as the hanged man although this time right side up. She/he has attained the knowledge they were hoping for.
And then we go back to the beginning. Back to the Fool to learn a new lesson.
I hope this helps to give you a brief overview of the major arcana of the tarot, the cards can be so useful to us, and our development.
If you want to dive further please click on the link below for my 23 day email series on this. After your welcome letter you will receive daily discussions on the cards of the Major Arcana and daily thought prompts for “homework”.
*Please note that the descriptions I use when speaking of the images are from the Rider Waite deck.
**I would like to also add that these cards and images are not linear in their gender. We can all exhibit the qualities of any and all of them -as a woman I have the energy of the emperor when needed or the magician, and men can have the caring creative nature of the empress-nothing is static, not even gender
