Tag: spirituality

17- The Star

This article is part of a series of posts that will compare each card in the Tarot across different decks in order to study and explore each archetype and concept more deeply. This is not necessarily meant to be a teaching tool for others, but if you like to study the Tarot as much as I do, I hope you find it interesting. Enjoy!

For more on the decks referenced here please see this page in my blog: Tools of the Locksmith https://wordpress.com/page/theramblinglocksmith.com/163

A major reference for this study was “Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom” by Rachel Pollack.

The Star

As we move along the road of the major arcana we now come to the Star after the Tower. The Star is the calm after the storm. It represents hope and maybe a little emptiness as you take the next steps after a big upheaval or loss from the Tower. Its a little bit like Temperance coming after Death, where you have undergone a major change and are now dealing with what you have left, only The Star is on another level.

In the Star a major structure in your life has fallen away, and you are no longer experimenting with what your medicine and you path are as with the Temperance card. In the Star you have clarity and connection with the path and important truths discovered by the Tower falling. At this point you are taking a brief pause to sit with this peace and this clarity before continuing.

Standard images from Rider-Waite in the card include:

  • Naked and relaxed figure representing freedom and relief
  • Two vessels of water being poured
    • One is being poured back into a body of water representing the faith that any contribution of your energy will always be supplied with new energy
    • one is being poured on the land representing the energy freed from the Tower flowing outwards as well as inwards
  • A pool of water even if small with the figure stepping into it – representing easy access to the subconscious. The figure still has one foot on the land representing the connection between the two
  • An ibis – symbol of the Egyptian God Thoth – an inventor of all arts.
  • Eight-pointed stars – reference back to the number 8 in the strength card now raised to a higher level. Also there is one main star, but its surrounded by 7 others.

The Way Home Tarot shows only the path and the 8 pointed star. In this way you can envision yourself in this scene instead of trying to relate to a figure already present in the picture. It also doesn’t show you the source or resolution of the path, just the path itself in the clarity that comes with the dawn after a long dark night of the soul.

What does clarity look like for you? Have you found it or are you still searching for peace? Are there more towers that still need to fall and choices that need to be made before you can see yourself in this card? What are they? Would it help if you try to only see the path itself?

The Artist Decoded Tarot visually highlights the Star itself and its proximity to the figure. It feels like the figure is connected or being pulled by the Star in a strong way. It gives the impression of an unmistakable sense of purpose that can no longer be detached from the self. Its so materialized and clear its almost heavy.

Have you ever felt this way about your own purpose? Do you feel this way now? If so sit with this feeling of being grounded and having extreme clarity at the same time. Let your muscle memory absorb it. You may need to remember it further down the line.

In the Sufi Tarot the start is prominent and patterned, and the figure contributes her own emotional and spiritual energy to the path leading to it. The two themes that seem to emerge here are weather the patterns in the star are newly formed and how much the person drawing the Star card is contributing to their own path.

Have you made a major change to your process or beliefs, so much so that you are able to see a new pattern emerge for yourself? Did you contribute to that change and are you still doing so? Is it a pattern you have fully embraced, or are you still getting used to this change? If so take the time to settle into it so it can stick, but embrace it. You did the work and you continue to do the work. Its your path, you built it with your own blood, sweat and tears.

The Brady Tarot embraces the Ibis as the central figure of the Star. And why not? All the other aspects of the card are almost identical to the Ride Waite Smith card except that the landscape is brought out in the block print artistry of Emi Brady representing the Everglades, where the separation between land and water is unclear.

If the Ibis is the inventor of all arts this card focuses on a renewed sense of creativity that is connected to your life’s purpose, maybe even a move toward a more creative path in your life. Would you like to be in more creative control of your life, or be allowed to use your creative side in a much stronger way? What are some ways you can see clearly and what are the steps you can take to get there? You are the writer of your own path, pick up the pen and draw where you want to be next.

The figure in the Star of the Santa Muerta Tarot has been here before. This person has been through so many iterations of this path that they are fully submerged in it and its work. They keep being reborn into it in fact. In this version of the life they keep repeating they are finally fully immersed in their environment and full of hope. They are not treading water, they are so deep and grounded they stand on the foundation of the emotional waters themself, and they can now move the water in subtle and important ways.

What iteration of your path and purpose are you on? Are you able to be fully submerged, and make your own waves, or are you still tiptoeing in the shallows and wondering if this is your true purpose? Stop wondering! Dive in! Be who you were born to be.

The Voyager Tarot Uses the figure of Kuan Yin as the prominent image in the Star. She is the water bearer of the universe and a Buddhist boddhisatva of compassion who pours out life giving waters and nourishes the universe. This card represents the law of luminosity in this particular deck where you recognize that you are the light that can lead others forward toward their own hope and their own path. You are the guiding light.

How do you relate to Kuan Yin? Are you looking for a version of her in your own life to help you find your way forward? Or have you realized that you posses your own light, and that you more than anyone else can show you the way? Or are you on a path that allows you to light the way for others? Reflect on how you relate here and above all recognize your own inner light in the process.

In the Osho Zen Tarot the moon is the star and the third eye of the figure floating through the universe. Its not on land, its not in the sea, it just is. The inner peace of the figure is fully met with the that of the Universe. The only resonance that is sought here is peace.

Are you in a peaceful place? If not what would it take to get there? Your minds eye needs silence in order to light the way for your intuition and show you your path. Surround yourself with environments and other people that have found a way to resonate with silence, and you will find your Star.

16- The Tower

This article is part of a series of posts that will compare each card in the Tarot across different decks in order to study and explore each archetype and concept more deeply. This is not necessarily meant to be a teaching tool for others, but if you like to study the Tarot as much as I do, I hope you find it interesting. Enjoy!

For more on the decks referenced here please see this page in my blog: Tools of the Locksmith https://wordpress.com/page/theramblinglocksmith.com/163

A major reference for this study was “Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom” by Rachel Pollack.

The Tower

The tower card features a bolt of lightning that will cause an existing belief structure in our life to explode and come crumbling down. This happens not because we are being punished, but because it has to and because we are ready for it. This tower is not serving a purpose anymore, if it ever did, and its time for it to fall to make way for truth, clarity, and a more solid foundation. The card prior to the Tower is the Devil in which we are trapped by the illusions of the material world, and in the Tower these illusions are blown away and removed in dramatic fashion, like the lightning that struck the Buddha under the Bo tree and brought forth enlightenment.

The Tower in many ways is a more difficult card than any other. The Death card and Devil cards are triggering because of the images put forth by society in connection with them, but the tower card has the largest amount of sudden change associated with it. Though the change is inevitable and unstoppable, it might come with some personal wounds and the need to grieve. Its hard to come away from a big explosion of truth unscathed.

Lets explore all of the different types of towers and the ways that they fall.

Standard images from Rider-Waite in the card include:

  • Lightning as an arrow representing a stroke of divine insight or revelation with a the tower as a prime target
  • The tower as a structure that gives us a false sense of security
  • Fire seen throughout the tower as a destructive but cleansing force
  • Two figures of the conscious and unconscious free- falling as the veil between them is destroyed
  • An unstable foundation at the base of the tower showing it was never going to last
  • Smoke surrounding the tower obscuring what lies ahead

The Lua Tarot shows the tower as a volcano exploding and showering all the surrounding land and water with ash and rock. In the words of the Lua Tarot author – the volcano “awakens in the night”. Its the break through that needed to happen to allow a new idea or landscape to surface and grow.

New ideas can’t be built on something that is old, crumbling or shaky. What shaky structure are you trying to build on? What will allow you to see that it doesn’t work? What are you willing to let explode and fall away so you can see what does work for you? What will it take for that volcano to awaken for you?

The Ancestral Path Tarot shows a tower made of several ancient structures. There are ancient stone temples upon which idols to Egyptian gods are built, and on top of that columns from ancient Greece and Rome , and on top of that a tall church reaching high to the sky but made mostly of stained glass. The lightning sees through all of the layers back down to the root, and it is going to clear the way back to that root.

In this case its more than one old structure that needs to fall clear back to the root structure, even back down the the essential elements of matter. This card shows how complicated things have gotten for us as a society, and also for each of us as people when we can no longer see or feel the ground beneath us.

Sometimes it takes a catastrophic event to break things down to simpler forms that can be understood and actioned. Is there something this complicated in your life that could be better seen and understood by breaking it apart?

The Brady Tarot shows the tower as a tree that is home to a number of pileated woodpeckers. The tree was already on fire and now a bolt of lightning has struck its base and it is falling.

In this card the emphasis is less on what the tower represents but more on the individual woodpecker’s response to this falling tower. Some have already left in anticipation, for some it took the lightning to leave and not just the fire, but they are in the process of moving on, and some are still in denial and cannot admit that the tree will fall.

What tower is falling in your life, and what is your response to this? What is the response to those around you? If you are in denial, what will it take for you to see things as they are? If you have clarity, who can you help to bring clarity to so they move on?

The Tarot of Mystic Moments shows a particularly heartbreaking image of the Tower. In this case the woman cannot move on to grieve the loss of this cherished home or institution. She continues to embrace and try to hold together something that is about to be blown up, and allows herself to become part of the destruction.

Sometimes grief is too strong an emotion to allow ourselves to feel, so we convince ourselves that the thing we need to grieve hasn’t left us. But it has. And not moving on doesn’t bring it back. And it prevents us from healing and participating in the present moment.

Is there trauma in your life that you never allowed yourself to feel deeply? Is there a loss that is too great to move on from? In this case you will need help moving on. You should not try to do this on your own. You aren’t really here experiencing life, you are in the past and hurting instead of healing. No one should live this way. Reach out to a therapist, spiritual advisor, trusted friend or family member. Its time to start the healing process from this incredible loss.

In the Santa Muerte Tarot there is a twisting and turning maze inside the tower that never leads anywhere. In this case the only way to escape the maze is to blow up the tower and leave it. Any energy or wisdom that might exist is stuck in this maze and is unable to be accessed. The tower is internally confused because the balance has somehow been altered in preparation for this impending explosion.

Is there an area of your life where leaving the existing structure feels like going against the current? Have you felt a shift in the energy that is hitting your intuition and telling you its time to go? Listen to this instinct. You may need to go against the current because the current is confused and following it will not lead anywhere good for you. Destroy old structures without fear to liberate the energy that is stuck in this maze.

In the Osho Zen Tarot this card is called Thunderbolt instead of Tower. It focuses on the Lightning that is coming to the tower instead of the emotions and meaning of losing the tower itself. The Lightning is a form of light and energy that is bringing new awareness and new knowledge. The meditating being is able to experience it with detachment. Instead of seeing destruction they just see a change and they don’t attach any emotion to that change. Its more about observing and feeling the flow of energy pour through them.

This is easier said that done for sure, but what would happen if you decided to step back from any large change or shift that either has happened recently, is happening, or seems like it is about to happen. How would you experience that change differently, and how would your perspective change? Would it change permanently because of this shift in awareness? What can you do to try this out even if in a small way?

The Patakis of the Orisha Tarot the scene shows the aftermath of the tower falling. There is one new sprig growing up out of the fallen tree representing new growth, the sun is out representing hope, and the axes are shown representing Shango, the Yoruba God of Lightning and Thunder, who will fight for those in these situations. There is a hook representing irrational action of trying to catch what is no longer there due to the grief of things falling apart.

Which are you able to focus on in the aftermath. Can you see the sunlight? Can you see the support of those like Shango who are here to help you? Can you see any new growth occurring? Or are you trying to use a hook to catch something that isn’t there?