Arcana Tarot Study Circle 2/8/2017

Our third Tarot study circle met on February 8th, 2017.
Four people attended.

We opened with a brief review of what we learned previously. The Elemental attributions of the Four Suits and the interpenetration of these Four Elements within the 16 Court Cards.

Here is a short video of that review.

We talked about how intimidating it can be for people who are new to the Tarot cards to learn to memorize meanings for all 78 cards. We can surpass this difficulty by simply opening up to the imagery of the cards and finding our own associations with them.

We also spent time discussing the meanings of 'Destiny' versus 'Fate,' and on the best way to form a question before shuffling and spreading the cards that includes the idea of Free Will.

We then shuffled our decks using only the Major Arcana, drawing first only one card and looking at that. We went on to draw two more cards to complete a daily 3 Card spread and helped interpret each others cards.

It was a very interesting and satisfying experience for us.

Arcana Tarot Study Circle 1/25/2017

Our second study circle was held on Wednesday, January 25th 2017.
Eight people attended. We started with a brief review of what was covered in the first lesson, especially the Elemental correspondences of the four suits of the Minor Arcana Cards:
WANDS are Fire, CUPS are Water, SWORDS are Air, PENTACLES are Earth.

Our main focus this night was on the sixteen Court Cards. 

In a Tarot card reading we often see Court cards as representing people in our lives or forms of expression that we adopt.

There are four Court Cards in each of the four suits of the Tarot's Minor Arcana.
These four are usually labelled as KING, QUEEN, KNIGHT and PAGE.
We still see these characters in regular packs of playing cards but without the KNIGHTS, and the PAGES have been renamed Jacks.

Knights of the four suits

Each suit represents a center of human experience: 

WANDS are Making or Doing. Sexual and Creative Energy.

CUPS are Loving. Emotional Energy and Feelings. The Heart.

SWORDS are our Being. Intellectual Energy, Thought and communication.

PENTACLES are Living. Material Energy. Body, Health and the Physical.

FOUR ACES
WANDS, CUPS, COINS, SWORDS

In a similar fashion, each of the Court Cards can be seen as corresponding to these energies.
All Kings are Fire
All Queens are Water
All Knights are Air
All Pages are Earth

Therefore, according to this way of reading the elemental values of the Court Cards....

The KING OF WANDS is the FIRE of FIRE, the QUEEN OF WANDS is the WATER of FIRE, the KNIGHT OF WANDS is the AIR of FIRE and the PAGE OF WANDS is the EARTH of FIRE.

Page, Knight, Queen and King of Wands

The KING OF CUPS is the FIRE of WATER, the QUEEN OF CUPS is the WATER of WATER, the KNIGHT OF CUPS is the AIR of WATER and the PAGE OF CUPS is the EARTH of WATER.

The KING OF SWORDS is the FIRE of AIR, the QUEEN OF SWORDS is the WATER of AIR, the KNIGHT OF SWORDS is the AIR of AIR and the PAGE OF SWORDS is the EARTH of AIR.

The KING OF PENTACLES is the FIRE of EARTH, the QUEEN OF PENTACLES is the WATER of EARTH, the KNIGHT OF PENTACLES is the AIR of EARTH and the PAGE OF PENTACLES is the EARTH of EARTH.

King, Queen, Knight and Page of Pentacles (Coins)

By understanding these elemental correspondences, and the suits in which they are personified as the Courtly characters, we can have a deeper understanding of each Court Card's personality. We learned some key words regarding the characteristics of these sixteen Arcana.

We finished the lesson with a brief and simple meditation using a singing bowl as a tonal device to bring us into a place of stillness. We focused on our breathing as I offered this meditative mantra I learned long ago:

Earth my body
Water my blood
Air my breath and 
Fire my Spirit

P.S.
A question was brought up regarding the significance of the numbering of the Arcana:
Why is THE MAGICIAN number 1 ?, and THE HIGH PRIESTESS number 2 ?, and THE EMPRESS 3 ? and so on. I gave a short summary introduction to the occult significance of numbers - Numerology - as understood by the systems of Pythagoras and the Neo-Platonists. 

In the writing systems of Ancient Western cultures, letters often had a numeric value (ex.: A = 1, B = 2, etc..) and even geometric associations. This is a very deep subject and so we only glimpsed at the significance of the mathematical relationships to the Arcana and the Kabbalah. As we are still working on introducing the basic structure of the Tarot, this will be a great topic for later study and discussion.

Please feel welcome to join us if you are living in or visiting the Kansai area of Japan as we study the Tarot in more detail and how to use the Tarot as a tool to enrich your own life with the 
ARCANA TAROT STUDY GROUP in OSAKA, JAPAN.

https://www.facebook.com/ArcanaTarotOsaka/

http://www.eikaiwa-artemis.com

Course Instructor : Sonny Gardner

Born in the U.S.A.. Over 30 years of experience with Tarot, Meditation and related subjects.