By Gary Meister, CTM
We have followed the Sephiroth (Spheres) from #1 to #10 looking at the steps of creation, ANY creation. We assigned the first ten “pip cards” to these ten steps. Now we need to account for the Court Cards. I’m assigning them to the Major Arcana of the same numeric value (without reducing them as one does in numerology).
So, from here on, we will look at the 22 paths of the Kabbalah and see how the Majors apply to them and, concurrently the Court Cards of the Minor Arcana—up to #14, Temperance, and the Kings. Beyond that, are the purely spiritual paths, again—in the creative process.
Traditionally, these paths are numbered 1 through 32, taking the Sepheroth (Spheres) and the paths together. This involves a great deal of numeric “jumping around’’ and it can get quite confusing. My purpose in this course is to make things “UN-CONFUSING”. So I am taking the paths as they relate to the numbers on the cards. This gives you an easy to follow progression.
I’m using the BOTA deck as I told you at the beginning of this course. I hope you got a deck of them for yourself and colored them according to the directions in the booklet. In case you haven’t and would like to, Visit www.bota.org; they are very reasonably priced. However, these cards aren’t good for divination purposes because they aren’t coated and will fall apart if shuffled too often. For divination, I use the Rider/Waite/Smith deck. They are very similar to the deck we are using for study.
We’ll start with #0, The Fool.
This card symbolizes a soul “stepping off” this cliff and entering into a new life in the material world. He obviously hasn’t a care in the universe. He is pure spirit and, since he hasn’t passed through the Veil of Forgetfulness yet, he knows that nothing in this world can possibly harm him—the real “him”, pure spirit. So, he can enter this reality with no fears and unlimited potential.
He takes Path #0, bringing the Awareness of Sphere #1, to the Wisdom of sphere #2. The Wisdom is inborn in the Creator. The Fool picks it up as he goes along, ever gaining true awareness. After having traveled this path, he returns, temporarily to The Crown, the Source.
As we’ve said before, this path can be reduced to a baby’s growth in life as well as any type of creative process in adulthood. Actually, it can be extended to the teen years as well. But I’ll leave it to you to fill those middle years. You’ll see that it fits in very comfortably.
So, It can be seen by simple observation how the baby’s development fits in to this process. At first, the baby is totally instinctual, crying for whatever s/he needs—food, comfort, diaper change, and/or simple cuddling.
Then we see him/her becoming aware of himself. She sees her hands and very obviously becomes aware of the fact that they are a part of her. He holds them in front of his eyes and learns to manipulate them; in a simple way at first, but then increasingly more complicated with practice.
The next step is becoming aware of her feet as part of herself. With her newly established control of her hands/arms, she takes hold of her feet and brings them up closer to her eyes to learn what she can about them.
The whole early development of any baby is the development of AWARENESS. Little by little, this awareness takes the pathway to knowledge, which is a baby’s form of WISDOM. Each night, in sleep, he returns to The Crown to process the new information.
Now—we take this process into adulthood and adult creativity. We become Aware that there is something we want to do (or create). In the process of getting ready to do or create it, we learn everything we can about it. That brings down the “0” path to the sphere of Wisdom. Now—we know what we need to know about it, and we return to The Crown to absorb the new knowledge.
In A Reading: In this system, The Fool stands for being Aware. It tells the client (or you) that it is important to maintain an awareness of what is going on in ones life at this time. Some aspects of ones circumstances may be hidden—Look for them; become aware of every aspect of whatever is important to you right now. Now, it is up to you (the reader) to fill out the word, Awareness, with details the spiritual message it may be bringing. (Remember the things I told you in my introduction to The Fool.)
Now: The Fool has no Minor Arcana cards attached to it. He is pure spirit—He should be described in that way.
Okay, that will do it for this month. Work with The Fool and the Path of Awareness. Absorb the deeper meanings which may come to you. The activity of working with these courses will expand your horizons. Look for inspiration in the symbols of the card. And—write it down in your Tarot Notebook so you won’t forget. If you don’t have a Tarot Notebook, please, for your own sake, get one! And use it! You’ll be amazed at the ways it can help you learn Tarot.
See you next month. Stay well!
Bright Blessings ~ Gary Meister, CTM