The Lifetime Cards - Personality, Soul and Year - how do we use them?

Ariana

I was thinking about how Hierophant rules my life as my soul and personality card plus the Temperance as hidden factor.
I think that the main purpose in my life is try to bring together my spiritual side and my terrenal one.

I have inherited Spirituality, mistics, etc from my father; from which I finally separated,now he has passed away. I think he was my first teacher in a way.

Anyway I am still trying to find an equilibrium between Earth and Heaven :)

I am realizing that this last year (more or less) I have found in Tarot a good way to find my path to my spiritual side.

I am wondering if Hierophant could apply to me dedicating to Tarot (reading and teaching), that is what I have been feeling deeply inside lately. The experiences are being extremely gratificant for me and others.

Ariana
 

Moongold

Here is some more information about the Mary Greer book and also somother threads links that people might be interested in:

http://www.newpagebooks.com/book263.html

[http://www.newpagebooks.com/book264.html

http://intraspec.ca/tarot0.php

http://www.denelder.com/tarot/tarot021a.html


The life time cards have been a favourite theme on Aeclectic from time to time and here is a discussion picked up recently from the past and facilitatedby MeeWah:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=471




Moongold
 

WolfSpirit

Moongold, thanks for your inspirational posts, this is a great thread ! Well I have given it some more thoughts and read the thread on the magician in this forum as well.

So my soul card the Magician:
the first card, well after the fool but the fool does not have a number.
I like to make a new beginning, I enjoy the challenge of starting something new, but unlike the fool, I will not jump into it head over heels but come prepared. In most cards the magician stands behind a table with all his tools before him, not yet acting but preparing to. He gets this great idea - from the divine or from his own mind, depending on your beliefs - and he cannot just have this idea without wanting to make some manifestation of it in the physical world. Ideas alone are not enough, I want to create something. I like to create my own world, not to depend upon the ideas of others.

It's just that my teacher, the wheel of fortune, is bothering me at the moment. I want to change my job, my house, but I feel capacity alone is not enough I have to have just that moment of luck for that job, that house to come my way. This is very difficult for me, to wait until the time is right - i want to create my own chances. Maybe that is why the WoF is my teacher card.
Or maybe I just have to call upon all my tools to help me create my own chances. Hmmm have to think some more on that.
 

Moongold

Greetings WolfSpirit,

I am glad you are finding the way with Magician. He has always seemed good to me.

The Wheel of Fortune is about change, good and bad luck. You are the kind of person who learns through change? I'm laughing in sympathy with you. My Teacher card is the Tower and I have to learn to change myself through various Tower experiences!

I'm not sure what would be worse, Wolf Spirit - to be stuck on the Wheel of Fortune or under a crumbling Tower :laugh: I have had a difficult day but tomorrow is a new one.

Back to business - You can drift with the Wheel, or you can make things happen. I suspect you are pretty flexible and you can make things happen when you need to.

You know, WolfSpirit, I think you can do both things - prepare and let go. In fact in the preparation ideas, openings and possibilities often occur. It is as though the answers are beneath layers of action and unfurl themselves as you work. That has happened to me so often....

My best wishes,

Moongold
 

Belladonna

Hello everyone. I've been working with Greer's book, Tarot for Your Self, and it has helped me immensely with understanding my Soul/Personality card which is the Chariot. I see that, Moongold, we share that, but unlike you, it has taken me a long time to connect with the Chariot. One exercise that began to break down the barrier for me was to "ask" the figures in the card what they had to teach me. Surprisingly, it wasn't the Charioteer who answered my question- it was the white sphinx. I came to understand that I was too focused on only one side of my personality, the dark side, the mysterious side, the intuitive side, the introspective side. I was letting the black sphinx alone pull me through life and it was leading me in circles without the counter balance of the white sphinx. The white sphinx called to me, brought my attention to the fact that for me to grow and evolve and move forward in my life, I had to acknowledge the other side of me as well. The side that could "lighten up" more. I realized I needed to come out more, connect with others, find my place within the greater whole, not hole myself up entirely. I know this is not the traditional meaning for the Chariot, but I feel like it's a beginning for me. Moongold, I'd value your opinion on this.
 

Moongold

Greetings Belladonna,

Here is a link to 49 Chariot images which you might enjoy. Dear MeeWah gave it to me.

http://www.goldenempire.com/chariots/

I think the insight you had is amazing and shows the creativity that working with tarot can evoke.

And it also demonstrates the value of the life cards in spiritual development. I would be interested to know what you have made of that insight in terms of your day to day life. The Chariot is quite a practical card. It does not let you dwell on insights that demand action.

Sleep demands me now, Belladonna. I'd be interested to hear more.

Moongold
 

Belladonna

Moongold,
Thank you for the link. It will definately go on my favorites list.
Practically speaking, one of the biggest changes in my life related to working with the Chariot card was finding the courage to come out of the broom closet with friends and family. (I'd been a solitary wiccan for about 12 years!) Immediately, friendships and relationships with family began to improve as I began to feel less misunderstood and related to the people closest to me in a more genuine way. I didn't need to feel secretive or ashamed,etc. It took a lot of faith on my part, but I've been rewarded many times over for the leap. In fact, I've subsequently taken on a student in the Craft and this special relationship has enriched both of our lives immensely.
Another big step was deciding to offer my skills as a tarot card reader to the community. I come from a big city (Montreal) and moved to a small, rural village about 6 years ago. It was a difficult transition and I never really felt accepted. Yet now I have a small, but growing clientele and I feel like I've found something that I can offer to my community, and become more a part of the community while not feeling like I need to pretend that I'm someone I'm not.
So maybe even though my realization about the Chariot was not exactly the traditional one, the lessons it taught me very much were associated with courage, faith, balance, initiative and connecting with others.
 

WolfSpirit

Moongold said:

I'm not sure what would be worse, Wolf Spirit - to be stuck on the Wheel of Fortune or under a crumbling Tower :laugh: I have had a difficult day but tomorrow is a new one.

Moongold - thanks for your wonderful post.
This just made me think of the Wheel of Fortune in the Halloween tarot: it has a man tied to a wheel of fortune in a circus and he gets knives thrown at him. :laugh:
Hope I can avoid getting into this situation. I will probably be able to work it all out but it needs a little more time than I expected. At least I don't get knives thrown at me :laugh:
 

Moongold

Dear WolfSpirit,

Can I suggest something? That you suspend all of what you do know about the Wheel of Fortune and meditate on the card again. Take notes of your impressions. Sleep with it under your pillow. Pray for understanding.

This is a wonderful way to put into place all the steps that will lead you to a new understanding. The understanding might come quickly with some flashes of insight. Or you might find that you are somehow putting the changes you want into place in an inexorable way..............Or something else might occur.

Have fun and peace and keep in touch.

Moongold
 

WolfSpirit

My take on the wheel of fortune

Thank you for your encouragement, Moongold. I don't think I had a fixed meaning for the wheel of fortune, it is one of those cards that you get in a reading, you think: ok, change...and then look at the surrounding cards to see what kind of change. If you get it as an outcome, you would like to draw a clarification card (although it is doubtful you will get it - after all, if the cards show you wheel of fortune then they cannot show you any clearer at the moment, probably).

So I started relatively fresh. :) Looking at my different decks, I see, roughly speaking, two ways to depict the wheel of fortune: some decks show it like the halloween deck, you are subject to change and forced to go with it, the other shows it as the natural progress from one level to the other - a cycle has ended so you start another cycle.

So I think I should try to aim for the change from within, feel when it is time to change. If the change is only on the outside, forced upon you, then you must stay true to your inner self that will be with you always, and that you will be able to express some time when you can better control the wheel. What is truely you will surface in every situation, so you always come back to yourself.

You must try to be prepared for changes, you cannot stop the change. If you think things are changing for the worse then try to get more options so you can change to something good again.

My thoughts so far :)