That’s a good point. I liked how you linked it to Crowley’s sigil (I believe that that is a traditional place for the creator of deck to place his mark – I wonder if your point of view links into this tradition?). I also like the concept of something starting from Earth.

The High Priestess is a great example. In occult decks this card is often associated with the Qabbalah and the position given to it and the importance placed upon it, does not always translate well in an actually tarot reading.

I’ve been enjoying your lessons on Elemental Dignities which is just one technique that we can use to assist our readings; but more importantly, it’s one technique that shows the need to balance out how much importance we place on individual cards and their divinatory meanings. I look forward to reading more of your posts.

Life itself, it seems to me, doesn’t really go any place or evolve into anything ‘higher’ so to speak.

There have been a lot of documentaries on television recently that discussed or celebrated Darwin’s 200 year old evolution theory. It got me thinking that life simply reacts and adapts to changing circumstance that ‘life’ finds itself. The changes in circumstances tend to be chance or random as does the adoptions that life itself takes. In this sense there doesn’t seem to be any evolving to a higher state of consciousness; or that life itself, or more specifically, human consciousness is evolving. If it does then it will simply be a reaction to, say the threat of global annihilation, forcing an adaption in how humans relate to each other, the planet and life itself.

With all those musings in mind, a circular approach to exploring the Tarot and in framing a Tarot reading make absolute sense to me.

Each Major Arcana represents an Eventful/Larger point in our lives, but the Minor Arcana fill in the details. To me the details are more important, because as humans, we have more control and understand the details more than we do the Eventful/Larger points in our lives. The details are what ultimately cause and affect the major events in our lives. A minor change is always easier and more successful than a major change. And the minor changes eliminate the need for a major change down the road.

Just as our life is a circular journey, the cards that appear in each reading progress until all the cards relevant to our path, have come and gone or returned as the case may be. One card, be it Major or Minor, is never more important than another, each represents a moment, but that same kind of moment is more important to some than it is to others! So any card can have more importance if it applies to some thing that really matters to the querent.

Thanks for the thought provoking articles!

If we consider the High Priestess particularly, her high spiritual status and seemingly other worldliness, in a reading, we could tell the client to use their intuition more, or apply self trust to a situation that they’re not comfortable in – a loose association when you consider how highly we place her in the hierarchy of the Tarot.

Despite the ranking, or the number of the suit, I agree that we have to allow the interactions between them remain on an even keel as they each bring a unique quality to a Tarot reading.

Love this idea by the way – and the name I’m looking forward to reading what other people have to say about individual cards and how they see them within the hierarchy we’ve all at one time applied.