Find Your Inner Teacher in the Year of the Hermit
Joy Vernon Astrology * Tarot * Reiki Teaching Manifesto: What I Offer As Your Teacher 2025 is the year of the Hermit. That is to say, the digits 2 + 0 + 2 + 5 add together to equal 9,…
Category Tarot Philosophy
Benefits of Using a Significator Card in Tarot Spreads
How to Choose and Use a Tarot Card to Represent Yourself I was talking with a friend yesterday and she mentioned she saw no point in using a significator card in the Celtic Cross tarot spread. I agreed that it…
Don’t Memorize Tarot Card Meanings—Do This Instead
Sadly, most tarot classes start students with memorizing card meanings. An intimidating introduction to the art and beauty of tarot! And establishing the idea of a “right” meaning encourages people to rely on cheat sheets or the book. At worst,…
Why Magic Works Better than Logic
Shift Into the Magic of the Dark Woods Often I am reading several books at once, as I was when I wrote this. And frequently they seem to comment on each other. Last year, just as I was putting together…
Tarot and Alchemy: Out of Body with Separation
Explore the Symbols of Separation In the third stage of the alchemical process, the soul and spirit — or Sulfur and Mercury — are separated from the body — Salt — in order to purify each before reuniting them. Splitting…
Reflecting on Love
The Two of Cups at a Table for One For the May Day blog hop, wrangler Raine Shakti proposed the topic “self love,” inviting us to explore how we can love ourselves better. As I contemplated the topic, the idea…
Tarot and alchemy: Melt Your Heart with Dissolution
Explore the Symbols of Dissolution After experiencing the desiccation of calcination, the second step of alchemy’s seven operations feels contrastingly unmoored. Feeling lost at sea, tossed up and down in waves of emotion, or dissolving in tears are common experiences.…
Fool’s Choice: Five Madcap Takes on the Unnumbered Trump
April Fools! Royal fools have wisdom in their trickery. These five (plus a bonus!) blog posts each explore the Fool from a different angle. This handful of essays includes a soup recipe, a love tarot spread, a wordless essay, and…
Tarot and Alchemy: Burn to the Bone with Calcination
Explore the Symbols of Calcination The first step of alchemy’s seven operations feels hot, cramped, threatening, vulnerable, and trapped. In this level, the alchemist burns away the dross, leaving nothing but bone, a symbol of the incorruptible body. This first…
Begin and Begin Again: The Compassion of the Tarot Fours
Take Five With The Tarot Fours Our topic for the Mid-Winter Tarot Blog Hop is “Beginning Again.” Wrangler Kim of Kimberly Essex Tarot and Meditation skipped through a series of word associations starting with “spring cleaning” to “cleaning the slate”…
How To Work with Magical Images
Meditations for Magical Images A mighty king sitting on a sapphire throne. A warrior queen standing in a red chariot. A golden-haired child with arms upraised. These are some of the magical images of the Tree of Life. What do…
The Great Granddaddy of Tarot Spreads
A Sample Reading with the Great Granddaddy of Tarot Spreads Years ago I came across Mary K. Greer’s wonderful article, “The Oldest Spread, by le Comte de M***.” She offered a fascinating peek into the first recorded tarot spread. All…
Q&A with Joy: Rephrasing Questions on Health and Other People
The Tarot Taboos: Reading on Health and Other People Reading on health and other people are two very common questions. And every reader’s Statement of Ethics says they will not read on these topics. But reading for clients includes looking…
Q&A with Joy: How Many Decks Should I Take On Vacation?
Be Sure to Leave Room in Your Luggage for Tarot Decks! “How many decks should I take with me?” A year or two ago, I was reading for a client who was preparing for a retreat that would last several…
“Tarot and Astrology Chat” Links and References
“Tarot and Astrology Chat” Links and References I had a great time talking with Chris Brennan of The Astrology Podcast while I was in Denver last month. We explored a wide-ranging variety of topics centering around and launching from a…
Summer Sun and Fun: Junk Mail Tarot
Transform Third-class Trash Into First-Rate Tarot Art Today’s assignment for the Tarot Blog Hop is to create a tarot card or two or three from your junk mail! As the wrangler, my suggestion was to stick to what comes through…
Connecting Lines: Tarot Symbolism
I love staring at tarot cards. I can gaze at a card a million times and still find something new in it. Last night, I was looking at cards with friends. As I contemplated the Ten of Wands, I saw…
Repertoire of Stories: The Tarot’s Unseen Traditions
The Stories we Know Bring Our Tarot Readings to Life Wrangler Jay Cassels of Jay’s Mystic Blog invited us to explore the interesting topic of “unseen traditions.” I wasn’t sure where to take the topic, but a three-card spread gave…
How To Shuffle Tarot Cards
Before performing a tarot reading, it’s important to randomize the cards. The standard practice for randomizing a deck is shuffling the cards. But with tarot cards, shuffling can be awkward when the deck’s too big. Fortunately, there are a variety…
Q&A With Joy: Astrology of the Tarot Pages
Astrological Correspondences of the Tarot Pages I was having lunch with a friend the other day and he asked me about the Pages in the tarot. He wanted to know if they had an astrological correspondence. Our discussion led to…