IN OUR ONENESS...KNOW THY SELF

The cards of the Tarot deck are a wonderful tool for a witch.  Each card has the power to increase knowledge and intuitive ability.  The cards offer ways to achieve personal growth and prepare you for what's coming.  

The Major Tarot card Hierophant is ruled by Taurus, element earth, key words, 'I believe.' The Hierophant card represents above all union, conciliation, transmission of the earthly and heavenly principles. This Tarot card revolves around learning a great deal of information on a profound level.  Learning is a great deal of information on an esoteric level.  

The Hierophant can be an older person who has reached a good station in life, who tells the secrets of life.  Based on high standards and moral character, they give advice in love and compassion to help others comprehend spiritual power, divine law, laws of tradition and the law of nature.  The learning, teaching, listening, and speaking brings positive results. 

The Hierophant is able to transform the mundane into the spiritual.  

Symbols have their own natural virtues to stimulate the mind, to think more clearly about Self, and about life.  Symbols are used to represent various ideas, something that expresses the image of something else, or any hidden knowledge.  All living and non-living things and colors have symbolic image value.  All serve similar magical functions.  There is more than one definition that can describe the association and effects of particular symbols, because each can cause a different impulse within the subconscious.  A witch identifies each with the forces of nature and of their own psyche.  

The grey background symbolizes the balance of opposites.  The W on the crown, the Triple Crown, the triple cross and accepter is a Hebrew letter, Vau, meaning nail.  It links humans to Divine Powers through inner voice.  The Triple Crown symbolizes the divine number three of Trinity that represents the Crone, Mother and Maiden, as well as Father, Son, Holy Spirit.  

The cross over the heart signifies purity and love.  The cross over the solar plexus, the seat of emotions and the cross over the genitals, physical world, generative power.  The robe symbolized ritual and the color red, passion, and vitality in action.  The blue material peeking just below the hem is personal intuition, peace and calmness.  

The Hierophant sits on a throne of power.  Beneath his feet is an orange box for support.  The color orange represents passion, desire and fiery energy.  The white shoes indicate purity in comprehension and support in progress.  The keys open the mystery to the hidden doctrine.  One silver, one gold, lunar and solar power to unlock the gates of heaven and earth.   The yellow Y's on the disciple's wear symbolizes three paths.  Two paths merge into one with the faith of Divine Power.  The color yellow means logic and communication.  The white lilies on the shirt of the disciples on the left hand side represents purity of knowledge, abstract and desire.  The black leaves, words negativity in growth and night. It is ignorance of growth.  The red roses on the wear of the disciple on the left indicate fiery action in love and compassion.  Both cultivated flowers represent cultural negatives and cultivated of will power.  

The two stone pillars on either side of the Hierophant are decorated on the top tier with a mystic symbol of sexual union. The pillars are known as the Tree of Life Pillars.  The top tier represents creative world, the middle, the formative world, and the lower tier of trefoil, the material world.  

The Hierophant's right hand raised represents positive, masculine and spirit gives blessings.  

The Star is very positive energy.  It is about the active conscious - you know - because hope, inspiration, and insight have been given by Spirit.  When the Star appears in a reading it signifies peace, rest and tranquility within self because you understand life is full of unexpected blessings.  You have healed self.   The Star symbolizes the energy which contains Divine knowledge that pours into your being, which one must decide how to apply in every day life. 

The Star signifies that one has learned how to live a peaceful existance with all things and self by experiencing difficulties and working through them with a compassionate heart and open mind to balance the extremes in thoughts and activities.  The experiences have earned knowledge to transform how one expresses their true self.  One thinks and acts with compassion that comes from the inner self.  One has been awakened to the truth and accepts the unity of life.   The Higher Self is awakened and one rises above their Lower Self. The mind is open to all the potential that lives within and around.  By being stimulated to a higher level, one acts positive instead of negative and the soul radiates outward.  One has embraced their beauty and uniqueness by realizing their inner strength.  

The nude female is a symbol for freedom from the materialistic world.  She is free from excess.  The human body is our temple or Kingdom of the Divine.  The left hand is negative, feminine and receptive.  The right hand represents positive and masculine nagative energy.The jug of water that pours out onto the land represets the unconscious matter to consciousness.  Awareness is expanded.  The land is substance in the material world.  The color green, the desire to heal and grow.  The red flowers in full bloom, full growth, passion, desire and vitality.  

The key words of the Star are discovery and ambition. 

The Zodiac sign Gemini, element air, the sign of freedom and ruled by Aquarius.  There is a lot of activity that takes place on the Star Tarot card to allow one to know that the past self, the defense mechanisms have transformed by acceptance and moderation, to a divine expression.   

The pool is feminine and indicates the subconscious mind and the universe.  The ripples, designed as circles, signifies cosmic force or cosmic mind.  It is a beginning without end.  The pool is a spiritual symbol of the realization of perfection and the blending of the negative.  The mountains in the background are the heights of abstract thought and an obstacle far off in the distance, to be dealt with.    

The eight-pointed yellow star in the center represents cosmic order and radiant cosmic energy. The Star, Spirit, guiding light and truth.  The color yellow symbolizes intellect and knowledge.  The blue background, intuition, peace, life and intuitive understanding and attainment.  The seven white stars at the top of the card - the color white symbolizes truth, purity and perfection.  The seven stars are lesser aspects of humans, the eighth one incorporates all in perfect unity.  

The bird is known as the Ibis bird that represents immortal life and vigilance.  Birds themselves symbolize freedom and messengers.  The tree, regeneration, shelter, nourishing the nerves and spine.  The tree is an olive tree, a symbol for peace and passion.   In meditiation, one can hear the deepest messages of your own heart and become in perfect alignment with your inner tools. 

As the Star, one can distinguish reality from illusion, the positive energy from the negative.  The heart and mind have blended.   A star is a shining celestial body seen as a twinkling point of light.  It neither moves left nor right, but stays centered. 

On the Star Tarot card, the stars above make their way through heaven accompanying a nude body.  Humans are capable of sending and receiving messages and feelings from earth and the universe.  Earthly forces are originally triggered by magnetic vibrations from outer space where the planets live and from where they send forth unseen waves.   The mind takes responsibility for packaging and filtering the data down to the emotional and physical plane.  The mind is illuminated by the light of Divine Powers.  There is mental excitement for one has a growing sense of dedication to an ideal. 

Every living thing consits of star energy.  The stars offer brilliant solutions.  As a star one controls their destiny with free will.  An individual, pure heart, mind, body and soul, that glows with personal worth and becomes noticed and and admired for your beauty, hope and faith.  

The Star stands for harmony, the end of an ordeal, a happy fate.  Faith is born out of desire, trust, and love of another's good.  Faith in yourself and the future is restored.

The Hanged Man is a mysterious card which contradicts itself in many ways.  The lesson here is, to move forward in life one must stand still.  When we most want to act we should wait, live in the moment and surrender to the experience suspending the expectation of the outcome. 

The Hanged Man is ruled by Neptune, the planet of dreams, prophecy, fantasy, illusions, and the beauty by the sea.  The Tarot card's element is water and is connected to the Zodiac sign, Pisces.  The key words are sacrifice and reversal. 
  
The crossbar denotes earthbound and completion.  The green leaves on either end of the living wood, the situation is not dead, just inactive before growth.  The Hanged Man is inverted upon the Tree of Life to which she is tied by a robe.  The legs are crossed as an upside down number four to represent involvement in the material world. 

Her hands behind the back which indicates involvement in the material world, and indicates a time to do nothing.  The head is pointed toward the ground to show concern with Earth on a spiritual level. 

The yellow glow that surrounds the head symbolizes knowledge, communication, and reasoning.  The face is  one of deep enchantment, not suffering.  The blue shirt worn symbolizes one's intuition, peace, life, understanding and attainment.  The red pants, one's desire, passion, action and vitality.  The gray background says there's harmony in the balance of opposites.  

The Hanged Man signifies that one needs to prepare to make some sort of sacrifice in their life to achieve something that is of great value. 

Change  comes in it's own time and cannot be rushed by personal ego or time lines.  It is a moment of limbo which will presage, reverse or change.  This is when one should not worry or try to shape the future to their liking by interfering in the present situation.  Live for the moment and view the situation exactly as it is, let it be and allow events to develop.  

The chief message of this card is to pause and release the struggle for instant gratification.  This is not the time of action but contemplation is called for.  The patterns of thought and the dissolution of former thoughts leads to growth.  One's thoughts are to be the well-being of others.  They are likely turned upside down as the spiritual descends on one's emotional level and allows a thought to incubate before acting on it.  By doing so, one sacrifices their negative thought patterns.  The pause in one's life, the suspended decisions, the surrender would lead to transformation of one's personality. 

The voluntary sacrifice is for the greater good.  There is gradual change in the direction of one's life.  To evolve, the process of withdrawal is necessary.  The sacrifice is everything.  It leads one to their heart and soothes out difficulties for a better life.  Humans are very adaptable and need a break to regenerate themselves.

The Wheel of Fortune corresponds to the number 10 in the Tarot deck, completion, perfection, and beginning a new cycle.  The wheel is the center of all life, of all existence and, from the center, we operate outward to the world. 

The Wheel of Fortune is ruled by Jupiter, the planet of expansion.  Its element is fire and it symbolizes major change in life. 

A spinning wheel, it offers success or failure, depending on the individuals emotions, will and thoughts to create the form.  

Each soul is given its chance at physical life, to make of it what it will.  Those who attempt to live positive make the best of what the Wheel of Fortune offers.  Those who dwell in the negative live in their own personal hell and opportunity for change is passes by. 

The Wheel of Fortune offers unexpected encounters, twisted by fate, that are part of a greater plan.  We each can create our own world with the opportunities given, a master of all conditions, circumstances and outcomes.  As human beings, it is our duty to encourage others with love.  

On the four corners of the Wheel of Fortune and in the second circle, the four elements are depicted.  The four symbols, Mercury, Salt, Sulphur, and Ether represent the elements, Air, Earth, Fire and Water in their natural states.  The letters around the wheel spell Rota - The Royal Road and also Tarot.  The record of truth, measure of time and the Akasha, memories and hidden knowledge. 

The eight spoke wheel is like the eight pointed star which represents channels of the universe radiant energy, Divine Light, that spirals inward toward a point of perfect balance.  The circles drawn, one within another, represents the levels of moving toward central equilibrium, the rotation of events. 

The blue background symbolizes intuition, peace, understanding ans attainment.  The gray clouds or storm clouds represent unwise thinking.   The sphinx watches the wheel of karma slowly turn.  It shows justice from above.  The jackal below is known for his keen eyesight.  The fiery red wolf-like creature represents the raw animal passions of each individual's lower mind, signifies self consciousness - the evolution of consciousness from lower to higher levels.    The Serpent represents sexual energy, temptation and wisdom applied to she old skin. 

The flying creatures symbolize mental thoughts, telpath and messengers.  The angel, the sign of Aquarius, is the symbol for Man and humanity.  The Eagle, Scorpio, a symbol of aspiration, power and rising from the ashes.  The Lion is the King of the Beast to
symbolize desires and actions.  The Bull, sign of Taurus, represents perseverance's, power and strength.

 The book each reads from is the knowledge of the fifth element, the omnipresent spiritual power that permeates the universe.  It is the Akasha, the energy out of which the elements are formed.  The four Holy Creatures, the Man, the Eagle, the Lion and the Bull are four great teachers who teach, console, lead and inspire.  

The Wheel of Fortune implies cyclical nature and the importance of motion.  The revolution of experience and progress by the counter-changing influence of positive and negative energies, good fortune and luck.  The word Karma means action.  The Law of Karma states, 'As we sow, so shall we reap.'  We are accountable for all our actions. 

The Wheel of Fortune turns slowly, either with positive or negative influences which is decided upon by each individual's emotions, thoughts, soul and actions.