This month, we are taking a little break from our journey through the cards. You see, here in Minnesota, it is still cold (only 10 degrees the morning I wrote this) and snow still covers much of ground. So I’m devoting April to welcoming April and with it, warm weather, energy, and bursting forth with new beginnings. What card marks the idea of new beginnings better than the Fool? And what a bonus…tomorrow just happens to be April Fool’s Day. Our image for today is from the Spirit of the Flowers Tarot. This darling little Fool, as the flower Geranium, also embodies the spirit of spring. In Victorian times, flowers (and even the method of presenting or holding them) were

This card has changed a lot throughout history. It originally meant a traitor; someone who had betrayed someone or something. Later, it meant sacrifice, and some still read it as that. But more commonly, now, people read it as being in a kind of comfortable limbo waiting for a revelation or realization of some sort. In this image in particular, there is a sense of balance. Many tarot cards suggest balance: Lovers, Chariot, Justice, Temperance. Even the cards with pillars, such as the High Priestess, or the Moon with its two towers. Examining all the different flavors of balance in the tarot...now that would be an interesting study. I usually read it as a kind of time out, a

The Justice card was, and sometimes still is, numbered as 8. Here, it is number 11. I prefer 11, probably because it is the way I originally learned it and because years ago I read 78 Degrees of Wisdom by Rachel Pollack. She made an argument for Justice being 11, for it being the dead center of the Major Arcana journey. That theory shapes my idea of the card,a s you will see. Some people read this card as worldly or earthly justice—that is, justice based on your culture’s or nation’s legal system. Others take a broader, more spiritual approach. Or both, depending on the question and what other cards are in the reading. I mostly see it as a card of karma, playing off the idea of

Here we have another instance where the we can look at the active suits together and the passive suits together. As the elements near the end of their cycles, as they do in the 10s, each element responds differently. The active elements become heavy and discontent. The Wands becomes unbearably burdensome. The Swords turn on their creator, utterly doing him in. Passion and intellect apparently do better when new, fresh, and agile. The passive elements also become heavy, but in their heaviness they find completion and fullness. The Cups are the fullness of love and the Pentacles are the fullness of abundance. Here, both suits do well being “grounded” – they have