Today is World Tarot Day, so get out your decks and give yourself or someone else a reading! World Tarot Day was started in 2003 by DenElder and is celebrated every May 25th as a way to promote to use of tarot for personal and spiritual growth while trying to break down the boundaries that are sometimes are built up around tarot. It provides a great opportunity for those who enjoy practicing tarot to share it with those that might not be aware of the depth and layers of what tarot offers. Remember, most people just look at tarot as a way to “tell the future”. Those of us that use the tarot and have spent the time really learning and growing with it know that there is so much more to be gained from the tarot.
There is a great interview with DenElder on the ATA website that you can read here to find out more about the founder and what World Tarot Day is all about. A lot of different websites and tarot blogs are offering great opportunities to take advantage of this unique tarot holiday. Some are offering discounts on readings, others offering some tarot insights for the day. Tarot School is offering a $10 discount on the downloadable correspondences classes off their site for all their Facebook friends through midnight (eastern time). You can find their Facebeook page here.
Are you working with tarot? Have you wanted to start working with tarot but haven’t taken up a deck yet? Here are a few links to decks that I would highly recommend. These links will take you to the deck pages on Aeclectic Tarot where you can read reviews and see sample images from the deck. Today is the perfect day to go ahead and order a deck and commit to a year of tarot study!
Spiral Tarot
Robin Wood Tarot
Glastonbury Tarot
Universal Waite
Legacy of the Divine
I was going to offer some sort of discounted reading thing but I thought that was a little too opportunistic really. Instead I thought I would pull three cards, doing a three card linear spread, to see what, in general, everyone could possible learn from the 2010 World Tarot Day. I decided that I would bring out a deck that I don’t usually use (actually I think I’ve only used it a few times since I bought it last year). In honor of World Tarot Day I brought out The Fifth Tarot. It’s definitely a different deck, but it’s beautiful. So here we go…a three card linear spread to reveal some of the potential energy behind this year’s World Tarot Day!
Card 1 – Ten of Stones (Sacred Ground)
The image in the card shows what looks like a family, a man and woman with a small child between them, with their backs to the viewer. They all stand naked before a large oak tree that looks as though it could be the world three. Superimposed over the top of the tree is a golden image of the Sephirots of the Tree of Life.
You stand on solid ground at a sacred doorway. In order to really walk through that doorway and to experience all that it has to offer you need to be “naked”, stripped of preconceived ideas and especially free of ego. Let your child-self come forward and be full of the wonder and awe that this experience and this doorway deserves. There is work to be done and it’s going to be the beginning of a great journey, but if you remember that you have the ability to do and create anything you wish, nothing will seem out of reach.
Card 2 – Nine of Stones (Full-fillment) and Initiate of Feathers
Two cards stuck together came out in this position so we’ll look at them together. The Nine of Stones shows nine green tourmaline standing stones in a circle (eight making the circle and one large one in the center) with nine bunches of purple grapes and nine deep purple roses. around it.
The Initiate of Feathers shows what appears to be a person in a snake costume with feathers on it, breathing fire (this is Kukulkaan from the Mayan mythology), rising up into the sky over a Mayan temple. In the sky the sun has set and the shy is transiting from yellows to pinks to deep blues and the stars are coming out, specifically Pleiades, the Seven Sisters.
Now is a time to start working to reap the benefits of your work and your efforts. Use the power of the green tourmaline to call on the ability to manifest while letting the spiritual work and your spiritual side remain at the forefront so that the fruits if your labor will grow for you. This is a great time to find a group of lightworkers, other tarot readers, and people that can help you learn and grow in your tarot study. There is more here than you might think and the help of others will bring that out for you. You are walking the path of the initiate and you are deepening your awareness and understanding of yourself and the world around you. Your consciousness and awareness is will be shifting greatly and you’ll find that your higher consciousness begins to really connect for you.
Card 3 – Seeker of Feathers
Here we see a Native American dancer, dressed in feathers, doing the dance of the hawk, calling on the power of this animal. As he does the spirit of the hawk is depicted flying in above him in the form of an ethereal looking hawk spirit.
Knowledge is more than just knowing, it’s experience. Life is not about just sitting back and learning it’s about learning and experiencing. Just as the Seeker of Feathers has taken time to learn the dance to honor the hawk, he hasn’t stopped there but instead has gone beyond, doing the dance to experience the hawk, honor the hawk himself and apply what he has learned and experienced. You can’t just take what people tell you as truth, you need to experience it. With tarot, this can’t be more true. You can read books on tarot, you can learn the symbols but until you make them part of your life and work with them regularly you can’t truly know them.
Together I would say that all of this shows that starting a tarot practice now, making a serious commitment to learn and experience the power of tarot on all levels will lead to some amazing experiences. This is truly an initiation in many ways and by putting yourself fully in it, you can learn some amazing things. This year’s World Tarot Day is going to be a powerful one for those that come into the tarot today and have that door opened for them today.
