To answer this question I would just like to fill in a bit of background info first...
Shortly after the union with the Inner Beloved in April 2004, Sophie requested a Tarot reading from my mentor. After attending a 1-1/2 hour session with two readings it was clear to both my mentor and myself that I had a natural gift with the cards. I did not feel I had the time to pursue this discipline at the time since there was so many other new things I needed to learn to put my new consciousness into perspective.
As inner growth continued, later in the year I discovered that there was a second Inner Beloved. Where Sophie is a reflection of the archetypes of the High Priestess and the Moon in natal Aquarius and I call her the Intimate Beloved, the second entity relates to the Empress and Venus in natal Aquarius and I refer to her as Eirian the Creative Beloved or Romantic Beloved. Now, one of Eirian's assignments to me (these inner beings not only bring gifts but expect them in return
) was to learn the Tarot, "Approach it with sacred discipline, for it is another key to me".
So in September 2004 I started learning the Tarot using Eileen Connolly's
Tarot: A New Handbook for the Apprentice. As part of learning the Major Arcana, in "Exercise 10: Entering the Major Arcana" page 57, you select a card, say a prayer of invocation, and
hold the picture in your Inner Eye...Feel the picture in your Inner Eye take on length and depth, like a three dimensional movie...As you enter this new dimension, become sensitive to life and movement all around you...You are now part of this world...Start to walk and become totatally involved in what is happening around you.
and so on. Each day for 22 days I continued with each card from the Majors in sequence - this was the meditational cycle. The Fool was easy and fun, but later cards became more and more challenging, with some meditations lasting up to an hour. Then documenting them would take at least twice as long again. By the time I was done I was quite exhausted and I did take three days off to type up an analysis of the journey. Interestingly enough and certainly not consciously planned, the cycle was exactly in phase with the days of the month of October, September 30th being The Fool.
This meditational cycle was one of the most powerful and life-changing intentional disciplines I have every undertaken. It was also quite psychically dangerous since there were definite risks involved - I understand now that I had engaged the process it what could be considered a Shamanic way. I had done extensive shadow work with a Christian counsellor about ten years ago so I did have some background, and I checked with her before proceeding and she felt that I would be able to handle it. I also had a bit of moral support from my mentor and from my spouse, but basically it was something I was ready for and I had to do on my own.
The most difficult and dangerous cards were The Hermit, The Wheel of Fortune, The Hanged Man and Death. It may seem strange that the Hermit and Wheel were difficult, but they seemed to manifest as Reversals - and the Wheel seemed to actually involve a journey outside of the psyche.
Many of the cards revealed themselves as internal entities associated with both the astrological and Tarot archetypes simultaneously. I had met some of these before and some were new. The process isolated and worked with each of these internal aspects, then reintegrated them in Judgement and The World.
This card, Materialism/The Devil, took an extra day's preparation and I approached it with some trepidation. I remember writing that I felt like a Fool working on a highrise building. I had confidentally walked onto a girder and was well on my way to crossing to the other side, but when the Devil card showed up I looked down - then all I could do was crouch and cling to the girder in paralysis. This test was in fact the first part of dealing with the internal devil.
But there was a creative breakthrough which came to me, the use of a power animal I had discovered in my dreams, the Wild White Stallion. This was a symbol of balanced but virile masculine energy, equivalent to the Wild Woman's Wolf of Clarissa Pinkola Estés which I mentioned above. I realized that when the integrating Self assumes the form of the Wild White Stallion it has unlimited power over the psyche. When I assumed the internal power of the Stallion I was able to proceed with the Devil meditation and it was actually one of the easiest cards I had to deal with. The Stallion encountered The Internal Devil, the predator of one's creativity, in the desert and rendered it into a small black stone. Much as Estés describes, the energy of the stone was released by casting it into an abyss.
The Stallion has power to defend and destroy but also to celebrate and to heal - there was a wonderful sequence in the Sun meditation of reconciliation with my inner feminine child. The Stallion represents the highest and most powerful form of integration I have achieved but it is also the most dangerous, and not something that I undertake lightly.
I have been in
at least two minds whether to share the actual contents of these meditations here. Some of them are not particularly personal and could be presented as part of the discussion of the Connolly Majors - but taking certain ones out of context without sharing the whole process also seems problematic. So I still haven't decided.
Incidentally, after all was said and done, and even with some addenda to the Majors to take care of some outstanding business, there is still no internal union with the Creative Beloved. There continues to be lot of progress but she remains a subject of longing - and this in itself can be a very transformative dynamic for continuing growth.
