What is the Major Arcana in Tarot? They’re the cards that represent major events and archetypes in our lives. Read on to find out more.
Tarot Cards
The Major Arcana cards are the heart of a tarot deck. It’s made up of 22 cards. The Major Arcana is not associated with suits or court cards like the rest of the Tarot Deck, but instead, the Major Arcana are represented by Archetypes in psychology as well as life and its cycles from birth to death. It symbolizes the physical, spiritual, intellectual and emotional aspects of society and our relationships to ourselves and to each other.
For the archetypes, there is a nurturing mother, a commanding authoritative type, a traditional religious figure, a mystic spiritual figure and so on. These archetypes represent either literal or figurative people in our lives.
The artwork on a Major Arcana cards has scenes that have symbolic elements. There is so much symbolism! Within all of that symbolism, you find different meanings. This is what I love so much about Tarot. You can pick up on certain symbols for certain questions – this is where intuition comes in! You can’t just rattle of memorized keywords and have a deeply resonating reading.
The Major Arcana relates to our interactions with ourselves and others, but also our position in the universe and our higher purpose for being on the planet. It tells of our journeys in life especially in relation to personal development.
The Fool’s Journey
Now, the Major Arcana can be read and learned as a story. NO MEMORIZATION (Yayyyy)
The numbers on the card from 0 to 22 depict the fool’s journey from birth to death, and from innocence to wisdom and ultimately enlightenment. Although personally, I see the “Enlightenment” idea as acceptance. Peace after all you’ve been through and all you’ve learned. The Major Arcana shows the journey we have to take to reach that acceptance (or enlightenment) in our lifetime.
Go read about The Fool’s Journey here and then go through your cards and see how the story is told based on your intuition and your cards.
Overall, the Major Arcana represents several aspects of the human experience that we all experience in our lives. It shows us our spiritual selves, our hopes, our fears, our joys and sadness. And then it gives us guidance about what actions to take or what we need to accept or let go of in order to move on. Ultimately though, it only tells us what we already know. It shows us what we need to hear, but we’ve been hiding from ourselves. It’s a little bit of magic, and a lot of psychology.
What’s your favorite Major Arcana card? The one that makes you the most uncomfortable?
Sometimes a Tarot Reading is not the answer and you just need a journal. You need to find the answer yourself.
When someone says, “I went to another reader and they said this… can you confirm?”
Absolutely not.
Not because I think they were wrong or right… but because I can see that you’re shopping for a message. You are going to go from tarot reader to tarot reader until someone finally tells you want you want to hear.
That tells me that you’re not ready or willing to listen to the message of the cards so I will not spend my precious energy to give a reading to someone who has shown that they are not ready to listen to the message.
My advice to you is to take a break, take a step back and reflect about what you’re afraid of and or what you want so badly that you just want someone to tell you that it’s coming?
If it’s something you’re afraid of… do some shadow work. (Get your Free Shadow Work Journal here). Dig deep into what is causing the feel and ask yourself how to address it.
If you keep asking about something you desire, reflect on that. This one is less about shadow work and more about asking yourself what you want specifically and then map out steps to reach that thing or that goal… and then put in the work.
If it’s about love though, then shadow work may be helpful. Dig into your childhood wounds and figure out why you want it so badly. People can smell desperation from a mile away and it’s a repellent. Do your shadow work, and suddenly you’ll start attracting people again.
You can do shadow work with tarot, but if you’re shopping for a message, you need to do this on your own.
This is not the message you want to hear, but it’s what you need to hear.
When giving readings, I often talk about listening to your intuition, but what does it mean and how can we do that in a practical way?
The world today can be overwhelming, now more than ever. It’s easy to get caught up comparing ourselves to people we see on social media, or to feel overwhelmed by being plugged into the news 24/7. Of course we end up getting caught up in cycles of anxiety, fear, and stress.
Luckily, we are born with a tool that can help us overcome some of these modern struggles. Something that can guide us through life and let us know when we’re on the right path. This is our one true superpower…. an ancient wisdom buried within each of us, honed by our ancestors. Of course, we’re talking about intuition!
Intuition is, “Understanding something immediately, without the needing conscious reasoning”. It’s bridging of the gap between our conscious and unconscious minds. For example, if you’ve ever felt an unexplainable feeling in your gut that just instinctively told you that something you were doing was right or wrong? That was your intuition speaking.
Listening and trusting that gut feeling is amazing on its own, but working to develop that little voice can make it even more powerful. Everyone has the ability to grow and strengthen their intuition. And, like a muscle, the more we use it, the more it can expand and evolve, and grow.
Let’s talk about some practical ways to grow and strengthen your intuition!
Nature: Spending time in nature, all by yourself, is one of the best ways to quiet the mind to tune into your intuition. It’s my personal favorite! Nature helps us to get in tune with our ancestral self and our primal intuition. Our ancestors relied on their intuition for everything, and that’s where we come from. They used intuition for finding food, avoiding predators, finding the right path. So, intuition was one of the most important aspects of life. Every time we immerse ourselves in nature, we have an opportunity to dip our toe in another world, a world where intuition rules.
Get in touch with your senses: Your intuition can come through any of your five senses. It might come as a strange sensation you feel physically within your body. It might be triggered by a specific scent, or even taste. Start noticing and paying attention to all of your senses.Throughout the day stop and check in with your five senses. We have all heard that we should, “stop and smell the roses”, but it really can help in developing your intuition. The more you practice getting in tune with your five senses, the more your “Sixth Sense” can thrive as well.
Get creative: Do something creative! Craft, write, draw, build, sketch, anything that awakens your creative mind. When we are young, our inner voice is loud and has no problem shining through. As we get older that inner voice is quiet or silenced do to social pressures and the stress of life.Tapping into this creative part of our brain can help re-ignite those pathways and amplify our intuitions.
Meditation: We know it’s good for us but… If you’re like me, you find meditation haaaaard! I don’t care how many people tell me it’s good for me… I just couldn’t do it. But, I discovered two things that helped. First, binaural beats – you can look it up on youtube or spotify. And, visualizations that I learned from the book Psychic Witch by Mat Auryn.
But what does it have to do with intuition?
Generally, intuition has a soft voice. When our minds are busy with the stresses of daily life, it can be challenging to hear that little voice. Meditation can help calm the constant inner monologue and make room for our intuition to come through.
Here’s a meditation to help you tune into your intuition
Rather than setting a timer, I use a song and that’s the timer. Usually just 2-3 minutes before doing the visualization.
Find a quiet place to sit.
I like to close my eyes.
I take a few deep breaths and settle in. Just listening to my breath, not trying to control it.
I just observe the breath. I notice any sensations that come up.
When my mind wanders, I just observe the thoughts and let them float by.
When I’m settled, I start my visualization.
You can search some guided meditations on youtube.
When you’re finished, open your eyes and take a few moments to write down any important thoughts, feelings, insights or messages you may have received during your meditation.
Dreams: When we’re awake, our cognitive brain is in control. Our brain uses logic and reasoning to override our subconscious mind. But, when we’re sleeping, that conscious mind gets to rest, allowing our inner subconscious to speak up. We can learn a lot about solving our problems and overcoming our issues by listening to this inner consciousness.
Keep a dream journal to keep track of your dreams and see any patterns or messages that come up. You can keep a notebook and pen next to your bed, or use a notes app in your phone (that’s what I do). When you wake up, try to record everything you remember about your dreams. We forget our dreams quickly, so get in the habit of writing it down right away.
Over time, you’ll be able to see patterns and times where your inner consciousness was trying to help you solve problems or guide you in the right direction.
Follow your hunches: Another way to develop your intuition is to test out your hunches. When you’re going about your daily life, keep a journal and write down every time you have a hunch. When that little voice chimes in, write it down so you can record and see how these hunches play out. It can be as simple as seeing the weather saying that it’ll rain tomorrow, but you have a feeling it will be sunny. Maybe a friend’s boyfriend or girlfriend gives you a bad vibe, write down your feelings and see if it plays out. Follow your hunches by writing them down and see what you can learn about your intuition.
Switch up your daily routine: The conscious brain loves routine and order, but the more structured your life is, the fewer opportunities you’ll have for your intuition to speak up. Also, when the brain is busy it can be even harder to hear that little voice. Switching things up can throw off your cognitive brain, and let your intuition shine through. So, escape the daily routine every once in a while, slow down and do something different. Your intuition will thank you.
Replay past events: Take some time to sit down and try to think back to a situation where things didn’t go as planned, or didn’t go as you wanted. Visualize yourself back in that situation, and notice any feelings or moments where you felt like something was wrong. Was there an opportunity for you to go a different way? Did your inner voice speak up for a moment, only to be overpowered by your cognitive brain? Try to find and evaluate some of these occurrences. Look for patterns and for ways that you could do things differently the next time. Look for some ways your intuition was trying to guide you and think about the things it was trying to tell you.
Think less, feel more: Our cognitive brain thinks, our intuition feels. Our brains are always reasoning, questioning and thinking their way through the day. After years of this, we don’t even realize it’s happening.
Take time to slow down and “feel” more. Feelings that are grounded in and come from your body, are also grounded in truth. Learn to pay attention to them more. Pay attention to the signals that your body gives you. Your heart beating faster, that knot in the pit of your stomach, feeling hot, or suddenly feeling cold for no reason. You know the feeling – you meet someone and immediately know something is off about them, you can just feel it. Maybe they are dishonest or not genuine or maybe they’re treating someone poorly. Either way, your physical body can feel what’s going and it can alert you. If you pay attention to these physical cues, your intuition could help you avoid many uncomfortable, painful or awkward situations.
I love music. I love meaning. I love tarot. Music and Tarot are a match made in heaven.
Shufflemancy – What is it?
Basically, divining with music. It’s a very intuitive form because, unlike Tarot, there are no prescribed meanings.
How do to it:
One way to do it is to ask a question, push play on a playlist, then interpret the song as your answer.
You can use your own playlist or something mostly disconnected to you, like turning on the radio to a station you don’t usually listen to, or a random song generator like Chosic, which I just discovered.
Steps:
Ask a question
Shuffle a playlist or pick a random song
Interpret
Example:
I was listening to a pre-made playlist on Spotify and asked, “Will this blog be famous?”
2. Song: Cath by Death Cab for Cutie.
3. Interpretation: I know that this is not a happy song so I immediately know that the answer is no.
Interpretation
But, let’s dig a little deeper into the interpretation because that’s the fun part.
Vibe: Sad = no
Lyrics for more insight:
“And soon everybody will ask what became of you ‘Cause your heart was dying fast And you didn’t know what to do”
Well… ouch. I feel called out just like my Tarot cards love to do. Every interpretation will be personal in shufflemancy because there are no prescribed meanings, right. Anyway, for me personally, this makes a lot of sense because I’ve quit my job and moved away to France and I worry that people forgot about me… and it didn’t magically solve all my problems like I thought it would… we’ll just leave it at the, “Heart was dying fast and you didn’t know what to do,” resonates with a negative feeling… so a strong, “No” to my original question.
“But it’s so random… How is it even relevant?”
Ah, the beauty of divination. For me, divination, whether Tarot, Tasseography, or Shufflemancy, is a mirror into your mind and heart. People always know the answers to their questions, they’re more looking for confirmation and things like Shufflemancy can help you answer your own questions.
What do you think?
Have you tried Shufflemancy? Insightful or bullshit?
