Star Light, Star Bright

Star (17)

The Star is a card of peace, harmony and balance. It reminds us of Temperance, but because the Star follows the Tower, it appears as very welcome light at the end of the tunnel.

The Star is a card of fresh hope and renewal. If you went for a job interview, you will get the job. If you have just been through a really painful experience, the worst is over. Whatever you are wishing for most, can come true.



The Star is one of those cards everyone loves to receive. When this card appears, you know somehow that life is just about to become easier and brighter.

It all falls down

Tarot is a funny beast, you get the devil card and we say it’s not all bad, you get the death card and we talk about rebirth… Well you get the Tower card, and things are crumbling.



It can feel like a lightning bolt from the blue, or like a river inexorably rising. You can know it’s happening or it can sweep you from behind, but sweep it does. Some edifice, something you’ve built that had substance and importance in your life, is breaking. And when the tower comes, although we can talk about things being better in the long run, in the short run it feels bleak.



I saw this card as I was looking for images, and of course it fits perfectly: - that shocking, awful, wrong experience that just crumbles things to the ground. When the tower appears, planes crash into buildings and we feel bereft…

From any loss, good can grow, in any tragedy, heroism can be shown. But the tower is about that feeling of everything breaking, the centre not holding, and we have to let ourselves feel the loss and mourn, before we can more on.



I like the Inner Child's Rapunzel image, because it shows that some towers were wrongly built in the first place. In an effort to protect the child she stole, a witch hides her in a tower. To the witch, the tower breaking is the loss of love, the death of a dream. To Rapunzel, the tower breaking is a total change, an escape from a weirdly loving prison, to the woods, where anything can happen...

I actually don’t get this card so often in readings, for which I am grateful (as no doubt are the people I read for!) But I’ve never found it to be about a trivial or simple thing – it’s about loss of jobs, breakups of marriages, foreclosure, bankruptcy. It’s an upheaval and if you see it in your cards, gather all the support you can because you will need it.

The Devil you know...

The devil, well he’s just so.. demonic in the Rider Waite card. All chains and misery. And that hand up, almost like stop sign.



I like the big bad wolf better, you can see the seductive element of the devil more clearly in that notion. When we meet the Devil our quest for excitment and adventure is leading us into the woods. We are putting ourselves in situations where we will be vulnerable to wolves, who do not have our best interests at heart...

More traditionally - our desire for physical and material things is out of balance, we hoard rather than rejoice, spend our energy collecting more things, rather than dealing with feelings. We long for material security rather than creative or spiritual fulfillment.



In this card, a woman is surrounded by addictions. The devil is about temptation, ambition run amuck, addictions over taking us…

One thing that the Tarot does emphasis is that all chains are of our own making. If we feel yoked to a way of life – too much materialism, too much competitiveness, then we can break those chains simply by becoming aware of them. Then again, if we refuse all joy, want everything extremely ordered and controlled, the devil card can be a message about breaking loose, letting go. It’s a very masculine energy, thrusting forward, fulfilling its needs. But, as the song says, the devil takes his dues, so beware of the costs, you may not want to pay them further down the line…

How's Life Flowing?

Temperance (14):

This is one of the hardest cards to interpret. It’s a card about merging, healing, synthesizing, blending. It’s about balance and fluidity. But mostly it’s a card about moderation (not a New York concept at all!) If things are going well, then Temperance means that negotiations will be successful, a good balance of life and work, there is co-operation and coordination happening. But if things are not going well, then it’s about imbalance, conflicting interests, things not pouring smoothly, one to the other. It’s about trying to combine too many or the wrong elements in too short a time. (Maybe it’s more New York than I first thought.)



One of my mother’s favorite saying was ‘everything in moderation’. Temperance is saying that we need to moderate, to look at what we are trying to mix together, to make sure that there is balance or if we draw the card reversed, we could get a chemical explosion…

Not Death, but Change

Death (13)
Everyone flinches when they see this card, but it is not a card predicting an actual death! Rather, the Death card portrays symbolic death - a change or transformation. It's the death of the caterpillar to give birth to the butterfly. After this card, nothing will be the same.


I chose this tarot image because as the artist says, the Death card reveals a permanent change--and what is more permanent for a tree than being cut? But, she assures us, the wood will live on--in paper, furniture, the flame, or even as food for other plants.


Tarot looks at cycles, and in this card it tells us a cycle in ending, and simultaneously, that another is beginning. Of course some people fear change more than they fear death, so this is a card about facing fears, to see how we can grow. I just came across this fabulous quote - “What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” Richard Bach, which perfectly epitomizes this card.


Here is my favorite death card image:- which shows it how I think it is, as a gateway card. None of us know what's beyond the gateway, but our expectations reveal a great deal about us and how we deal with life...