The soul’s journey through the Tarot

The story of the tarot is the story of our soul’s sojourn on earth. She has to move from fast asleep or un-enlightened to awake and self-realized. In the following story to demonstrate this journey through the tarot cards, the soul can be seen as either male or female. I have chosen to use “she “ as the gender of the soul for easy reading, but in essence, our soul’s are both male and female.

The story of the fool

The un-enlightened human(0), wakes up to the laws of science and magic(1) and learns to focus her mind and emotions to manifest her desires(2). She creates effortlessly just like mother nature(3), and she realizes her innate power(4), she can then choose to use or abuse this power(5) and then will be tempted by love or lust(6). Depending on her choice she will be victorious or she will lose her drive(7). She will have the power and desire to create inner strength or outer anger(8). Looking back on the first bit of her journey she can retreat, rest and assimilate knowledge into wisdom or she can isolate and become depressed(9). Like a wheel, her life turns as does her fate, one moment on top of the world the next in the underworld. Depending on her karma and spiritual attainment she will flow and thrive or suffer loss. (10)

In the inner worlds depending on how the wheel spins she receives the wisdom to create change or experiences injustice(11). How she approaches this energy will give her balance and growth and she will learn about perspective(12). Change arrives when she lets go of her fears and starts seeing life as a constant state of transformation(13). If she succeeds she will find peace and balance(14). If she fails she will be bound to her addictive desires in the form of negative thoughts(15). The failure of this test will lead her to a complete collapse of her illusions. There can be a victory over the negative ego. (16) From this victory, hope and brightness arrive and unfound treasures can be explored(17). If she fails the ego test, the moon becomes the place where she can’t see her way forward(18). If she balances the ego and her addiction to negative thoughts, the light of the sun blesses her with its light(19). She will then wake up to her true eternal soul-self(20) and will be the goddess of her earthly domain, manifesting her hearts/soul’s desire(21).

History

The history of the Tarot is clouded in mystery, intrigue, and romanticism. There is no deciding factor of who started the tarot, who created the images, where the meanings came from or what they were originally used for. The tarot holds a great deal of mythology and when read from 0- 21 tells a mythical story of a boy or girl called the fool. A foolish thing to do is to try and make the tarot fit into a universal story as many have done before, yet it holds universal truths and patterns. Many of the imagery of the tarot relates to the Bible, but the Kabbalah, Egyptian Mythology, Norse Mythology, Buddhism, Greek and Roman Mythology even a bit of African folklore can all be found hidden or sometimes not so hidden in the imagery of the cards. It is our duty to unlock these images and find the hidden truths so carefully concealed by the creators of the tarot. These truths will lead you on a yellow brick road of finding your purpose. It is accepted that the original tarot cards of the major arcana are patterns of life that we all experience from time to time. It is also accepted that these patterns can be read like a road map, so you can judge or see where you are going. Personally I think or feel the origins of the tarot are as old as verbal or pictorial storytelling. To teach us about our past history, storytelling was used to help people to remember their life lessons and where they came from. This storytelling was then somewhere along the line changed from verbal into pictorial, through simple drawings depicting the energy of the story. Just think of the San/Ancients and how they drew animated images on the walls of their caves to depict what was happening in their lives.

My Tarot adventure

In my quest to find the perfect Tarot deck for my own intuitive needs, I bought many decks but was always left a bit disappointed either by the interpretation of the images represented on the cards. The Tarot cards are a useful tool to check your communication with the heavens and therefore the cards must be aligned and connected to your own energy. With this in mind, I decided to create my own personal card deck. Historically tarot cards, also called hidden wisdom cards, have been veiled in an air of mystery. I think most of us still envision a gypsy with a crystal ball spreading cards with strange pictures over a velvet cloth and then, of course, the death card appears and it sends shivers down the spine. In my research about the tarot cards I tried to find the original stories, the authentic symbolism to create clarity about these images. My quest was to find the original stories and then built my own deck around these symbols. Here and there I have researched the original meanings, the original names, but I was directed to the Egyptian myths continuously and find that a lot of Tarot readers agree that the origins of the Tarot started there. Through the years people have adapted, modified and changed these stories to fit into our modern-day framework of living.

Creating your own deck of wisdom cards will place your feet on your own spiritual journey of finding hidden information about yourself, helping you to discover who you really are. I must just mention that when you create your own deck you will experience the cards on a very intimate, personal level. This means you will go through energy shifts and changes as you journey through the cards. The beauty of this is that you can go through this journey as fast or as slow as you choose, but when you get stuck on a card, then you will first have to learn the lessons or the deeper meanings to be able to continue your journey.

Berto