The Tower tarot card acts as a warning : change is nigh!

Usually this change occurs at a psychological level. It's not that this tarot card in a tarot card reading portends doom.

Tarot card readings call us into a different space within ourselves.

We might call that space a place of possibility.

How are things going to go? What might our future look like?

In essence, we are calling forth and structuring a vision.

But in doing that, how we view the future is likely to be heavily influenced by how we have experienced our past.

We'll often use a term like 'borderline', such as a statement along the lines of, well, that's a borderline case. Or then there's 'south of the border'.

Borders, boundaries. Boundary riders; edges.

Places in-between, neither specifically this nor specifically that. Mixed.

A line separating one place from another. A room takes on definition because the floor is bordered by the wall, the wall, edged by the floor.

The tarot card the Devil is a tarot card rich with meaning.

It suggest to us the unopposed pursuit of material and sexual gain has its costs. There's something in this tarot card which keeps showing us: if we wish to know ourselves, then we have to get to know our shadow sides as well.

This is a tarot card about temptation, those times, not when temptation in itself is wrong or bad, but where indulgence keeps taking over, and over again.

What of the signs and symbols of regeneration, other veneration?

In the DruidCraft tarot the fifteenth tarot card in the major Arcana is known as Cernunnos.

Here we see two young lovers lying asleep in a grassy glade. There are spiral tattoos on each arm of the man. Both the man and the woman wear garlands in their hair.

They look peaceful and satiated, unaware that behind them stands Cernunnos, who is known as the Lord of the Animals, the Wild Herdsman and Hunter.

He is the Antlered One of the Forest.

It's a fascinating portrayal here.

Tarot cards are like a dream. They sometimes, as Erich Fromm once wrote in another context, constitute their own language, and sometimes that is also a 'forgotten language'.

Forgotten language?

What might that mean in regard to a tarot reading?

Reading tarot card means exploring.

We could say working with the tarot is a voyage of discovery - into life and how we construct our lives and imbue them with meaning.

Whatever metaphors come to mind in describing those stories tell us about ourselves as much as each tarot card we may be studying or reading.

In each tarot deck, all the tarot cards will have a border. Some of these are somewhat lavishly illustrated, or decorated. Others are milder, blander, even starker.

Borders are places which define a space.

They reflect our definitions of inclusion and exclusion. They are markers signifying one thing from another.

So they are also points of meeting as well as demarcation.

Where are your boundaries?

'Myth is the history of the soul', wrote William Irwin Thompson (The Time Falling Bodies take to Light, p254.)

It's a beautifully apt phrase for the study of the Tarot.

Tarot cards, tarot card readings, reading tarot card: they're all an invitation to step into the world of myth.

In the DruidCraft tarot deck, the Temperance tarot card appears as the Fferyltt.

This title refers to a tradition of Druid alchemists, for the emphasis of the Temperance card in this particular tarot deck is to highlight the nature - and act - of balancing opposing or differing energies.

There's a sense of enrichment present here.

Put another way, this is a tarot card which in a tarot card reading would suggest great strength, inner conviction and power.

How do we focus those qualities in our lives?

What calls them into being?

Reading tarot card (http://www.infinitytarot.com)

The fourteenth tarot card in the major Arcana of the Tarot is the Temperance card.

Traditionally, this tarot card portrays an archangel-like figure who is pouring water from one container or vessel to another. One foot balances on the earth, the other foot seems to balance in the water.

This is a tarot card which speaks of patience, taking your time, moderation and balance. There's no hurry here.

How timely for us in our modern, rush around society!

Where do you find yourself rushing to in your life?

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In the Celtic Cross tarot card layout, cards seven and eight are placed in positions which highlight what strengths and weaknesses we bring to how we are dealing with - and also framing - our question. And they also reveal something of the interests of other people who are our 'significant others'.

For no matter what, we are all social beings even if we are recluses, for the very meaning of the word recluse only takes on its meaning and understanding by reference to other people and others' lives.

Tarot cards, tarot card readings, and reading tarot card, it's an immersion into the world of symbols, imagery and healing.

For healing is very much present in tarot cards.

How?

In the Celtic cross tarot card spread, positions five and six in the layout are pivotal.

They talk of what's 'behind' the person in terms of their past and what's immediately ahead of them, respectively.

So we have past and future balanced in this tarot card forming a straight line, a horizontal. This also acts like a lever (when we view the structure of this layout).

So it can have us ask: how is this person's life poised in terms of what's of importance to them?

The Celtic Cross, it's an evocative title for a tarot card spread.

Place one tarot card across another and what do you get? Crossed cards - of course, and also a sense of how one card will affect the energy of an another.

If you had the Hermit as the first tarot card, and you placed across that card another tarot card such as the High Priestess in the major Arcana, what you might then have is a person suddenly confronted with a different way of understanding himself or herself.

In the Celtic cross tarot spread, the third tarot card is placed above the first two.

It is usually assigned the meaning of 'that which crowns the person'.

In other words, it refers to the conscious mind, the concerns and attitudes which are paramount to the person seeking a tarot card reading. (http://www.infinitytarot.com)

It's what we bring to a tarot card reading.

The Celtic Cross spread is one of the most frequently used for reading tarot cards.

It's a ten card spread and it invites careful scrutiny of each tarot card and its relationship with the other cards nearby.

For instance, the first card laid out will tell us about the question being asked and the state of thinking of the person asking the question.

Again, it's that snapshot.

We have spoken of the death card in the tarot as a tarot card which confronts us with the question of fundamental change.

What if the card is reversed?

Does that mean there's no transformation, only resistance to change?

What makes one deck of tarot cards more interesting than another?

The choice you make will tell you a lot about yourself.

It may be you are drawn to the historical themes evident in the tarot deck of your choice; or the artwork. Or the culturally global visions of more recent interpretations.

Or the sheer whimsical. And theatrical.

At http://www.infinitytarot.com we have readers who draw upon many specialist skills.

When reading tarot card calls you into action, look at the type of tarot decks that appeal to you.

Tarot cards, Tarot card readings, and reading tarot card : they all point to an exploration of the paths and choices which confront us on our journey through life.

Tarot cards provide a map of that journey.

They speak of the terrain, emotional, intellectual, and physical, of that journey; the language of expression comes through the symbolic world we find in the major and minor Arcana. (http://www.infinitytarot.com)

Looking too closely can mean we miss the bigger picture. Not looking closely enough can mean we are blind to the opportunities around us.

Death as transformation, it's a key concept in the tarot. And most tarot card readings will have some mention of change.

But transformation is something far more than change.

It constitutes a movement from one state of being to another, and there's often a sense contained implicitly within that of change for the better, of some sort of improvement.

People say, "I transformed my life when....'.

Yet also within the Death card there is that sense of the inexorable, the inevitable - we are all mortals despite the attempts of cosmetic surgeons to keep the faces of Hollywood actors and actresses forever young looking.

Where do you want the most transformation in your life? What would letting go of the old and outworn in your life make available for you?
(http://www.infinitytarot.com)

The thirteenth tarot card in the Major Arcana is the Death card.

Increasingly I think it is a tarot card which lies at the heart of the tarot as a divinatory system.

And the reason for that is that it is a tarot card which speaks so eloquently of change, and not only of change but transformation.

How can that be?

What's happening when the Hanged Man appears reversed in a tarot card reading?

Reversed card usually denote a weakening of the impact of the meaning of a tarot card.

The Hanged Man, when reversed, implies acting without full authority, that authority which comes from within oneself.

It's like bowing to social pressure, or being flippant, self-centred.

The tarot card the Hanged Man has some elements of the Norse myth about Odin.

Odin hung from the World tree for nine days and nine nights. In so doing he discovered the Runes, the language of the shamanic and magical mysteries.

With the Hanged Man as a tarot card, there is something of that initiatory experience present.

In order to receive, to enter into the world of the collective unconscious, we have to be who we are and then let go of our preconceptions.

The Hanged Man tarot card is the twelfth card in the major Arcana.

It typically shows a man hanging upside down by one foot.

One of his legs is bent so that he forms a triangular shape.

The beam from which he is suspended is most usually a beam of living wood.

A leaf or two sprout from that beam.

The face of the Hanged Man is usually portrayed as serene.

It's a tarot card signifying patience, calm, repose.

The Justice tarot card in the Druidcraft tarot deck is a potent one.

The main figure in this tarot card is Brigh, who in pre-Christian Ireland was both a Druid and a Judge.

She's an imposing figure, powerful, forthright, flanked by symbols of her authority which in turn suggest an authority far greater than herself.

There's something both engaging and separate in her gaze and her relaxed composure as illustrated in this tarot card.

You know that in dealing with her - as Justice - you will also be starting to deal with what governs you in your own life.

Justice is the eleventh tarot card in the major Arcana.

Sometimes it will appear as tarot card number eight in some decks.

This Tarot card usually shows a woman seated on a throne; she holds scales in her left hand and a sword, often double-edged, in her right.Sometimes she is blindfolded.

She seems to urge us: evaluate and weigh up how you live your life, how you come to decisions, and consider how your actions and decisions now might affect those who come after you.