Journey Into The Shadow: Free Self-Paced Program
We don't talk a lot about shadow work in this space, though it is an important part of our practice, both personally and professionally. It can be a difficult thing to try to convey, teach on, or talk about though as it’s a very personal and inward affair. Despite that, we’ve wanted to broach it for sometime, we just hadn’t quite figured out how to do that. But, we also think it’s due time we explore it deeper, especially as we head into October; colder nights and darker days.
In light of all this, we have put something together that we hope will serve those looking to immerse themselves in a shadow work journey, with the aid of tarot. It’s formatted a bit like a tarot challenge, but we aren't actually challenging anyone to do this work in a month, or share it for that matter. We’ve structured it in this way because it allows us to offer complex topics in bite-sized packages, mixed with our own musings and brought to life with the aid of prompts for further integration.
In the Shadow of Thy Wings: A Primer in Shadow Work
This comprehensive overview of the concept of the shadow and shadow work, is meant to serve as a complement to the 30-day immersive we have also developed. You can keep reading this primer, if you haven’t already, and when you’re ready, you may begin your own journey into the deep.
Halloween Decks for Darker Days
Today, to usher in the beginning of Fall on this side of the world, I’m rehashing an old blog post from 2018! September and October are mine and Tim’s favourite months. They have such a unique feeling, not to mention the weather and natural landscapes are so beautiful.
Around this time, I also engage with my practice a little differently, and as such, tend to use different decks. In this post, I’ll be sharing decks from our personal collection that I love to use this time of year; ones that have a bit of a dark, spooky or shadowy vibe.
Elemental Equilibration: Bringing Balance to our Tarot Practice
During a recent mentoring session, we found ourselves on the topic of elements. This obviously isn’t an uncommon place to travel when discussing the cards, however, after the session ended, the conversation continued. Through that, we began to think of the elements not just as reference points to understanding the cards, but as a framework to becoming more proficient with them.
In other words, what can the elements teach us about becoming effective tarot card readers? How can we use these basic concepts to enhance our practice and ensure we’re approaching things in a balanced and whole way?
Musickal Meditations - Channeling The Hanged Man
We’re back with another track in our Musickal Meditation series. This installment features The Hanged Man. I’m excited to share this one because The Hanged Man has come to be a very special card both personally and within the context of our work here. Its mysteries have captivated us over the last couple of years, and we’ve learned so much from the themes it conveys: surrender, the law of reversal, altered states of consciousness and exchanging the material for the spiritual (while honouring both).
As with all meditations, you may opt to simply enjoy the music on its own, or work with some of the suggestions provided to perform a fuller ritual. We do hope you enjoy the sounds! We will be updating the YouTube page regularly as we add more tracks as well as storing all links on a separate page of this site, so they are easy to find! Keep reading to learn more about connecting with The Hanged Man.
Capricorn Full Moon Musings: Oppression, Restriction & Responsibility
Today (Wednesday the 13th) is the Full Moon in Capricorn and in light of this, we’ve been reflecting on the sign, its ruling planet (Saturn) and the tarot card associated with it (The Devil).
What can those three aspects show us and how can we engage with them to get the most of this full moon?
Getting To Know The Alchemy Oracle (by The Wild Unknown)
We don’t do a huge number of deck spotlights on this site, however I couldn’t not write about the final deck in the Wild Unknown Series, Alchemy, by visionary artist Kim Krans.
And even though we’ll be talking about the deck at length, I wouldn’t regard this article as a review in any way. These will be mine and Tim’s personal thoughts, ideas on how we plan to work with the cards, and any stirrings that come from our initial impressions. We are huge fans of The Wild Unknown series and regard both the Archetypes and Animal Spirit oracle as some of our most loved and most used decks. When we caught wind of this newest installation, we were extremely excited to get our hands on it, and even more thrilled that it overtly tackles alchemy; a subject that underpins much of our work, conversations and contemplations, especially as of late.
Exploring the Full Supermoon in Sagittarius (with tarot!)
June 14th marks the peak of the Full Supermoon in Sagittarius. Of course, while the effects of its charge are highest on this day, you may still feel the impact a couple days leading up to it as well as coming off of it.
If you’re astrologically savvy, you may already have a sense of what these energies have in store for yourself or even the collective. Around here, while we do take notice of what’s transitioning in the skies, we also love to explore things through the lens of tarot.
Musickal Meditations - Channeling Justice
We have been so quiet around here the last couple months, but I did want to share our latest musickal meditation, designed to connect listeners with Justice. We’ll likely post again soon with some updates, but for now, we hope you enjoy this latest track!
As with all meditations, you may opt to simply enjoy the music on its own, or work with some of the suggestions provided to perform a fuller ritual. We do hope you enjoy the sounds! We will be updating the YouTube page regularly as we add more tracks as well as storing all links on a separate page of this site, so they are easy to find! Keep reading to learn more about connecting with Justice.
5 Unexpected Consequences of Working With Tarot
Why did you pick up your very first tarot deck? What were you hoping to accomplish when you began your journey with the cards? Where did you expect that journey to take you? We all have our origin stories along these lines. For myself I was 10 or 11 when I sensed a deep calling toward the cards. I don’t remember it clearly enough to say anything other than that; I just knew they were calling and that I very much wanted to explore that.
But, what I do distinctly recall are some of my expectations at the start, one being this very grandiose idea that if I could just get my hands on a deck of tarot cards, I could know anything. Of course, my conception of “anything” was somewhat limited and my curiosities were not exactly sophisticated. I desired to know what my peers were thinking. I looked forward to getting a sneak peak at summer plans. I was anxious to know who my real friends were and who were the phonies.
Popular Occulture: Exploring the Esoteric Elements of Pop Culture
This is the first, of what I hope will be many posts exploring the esoteric elements found within pop culture. There is no shortage, to be sure, but before we dive into anything too specifically, I wanted to first introduce the series and what brought me to it.
We’ve all heard the stories and allegations - Jay-Z and Beyoncé are card-carrying members of the Illuminati… Dungeons & Dragons was designed to initiate impressionable young boys into the horrors of the occult… Disney is the main branch of a government-sponsored mass mind-control program… But are these assertions fact or fiction? Well… it depends on who you ask. There is certainly no shortage of armchair experts on YouTube, Reddit, and other online outlets who swear up and down that all of the above is true, and that all these and more are part of an ongoing plot to poison our youths and destroy the moral foundation of society. But have any of these folks earnestly explored the subjects at hand, or are they speaking from a place of well-meaning ignorance? In my experience, the answer is usually the latter. How do I know? I used to be one of them! Oddly enough, that is how my own esoteric studies began.
Musickal Meditations - Channeling The Wheel of Fortune
We are back with our 10th Musickal Meditation, the first, in fact, of 2022! This one plunges us into The Wheel of Fortune, known also as the game of life or karma.
As with all meditations, you may opt to simply enjoy the music on its own, or work with some of the suggestions provided to perform a fuller ritual. We do hope you enjoy the sounds! We will be updating the YouTube page regularly as we add more tracks as well as storing all links on a separate page of this site, so they are easy to find! Keep reading to learn more about connecting with The Wheel of Fortune.
Interview! Chatting with Thomas of Hermit's Mirror
Happy 222222!
We can talk about today’s interesting numerology in a moment, but first we wanted to share that we had the opportunity to sit down with Thomas of Hermit’s Mirror yesterday to talk about his latest deck - The Life Line Tarot: Colour Outside The Lines edition.
In our hour long convo, we discuss the Kickstarter process, the differences or changes from the first edition of this deck to the second, its connection to inner child work and the undeniable link between tarot and creativity.
Exploring the Tarot Pillars: Guardian of the Earth Gate
Well, it’s taken half a year but we’re back with another installment of our Tarot Pillar series. If you’re new to this, you may want to check out the introductory post where we lay the groundwork for the elements we’ll be exploring.
To summarize what has previously been written, we essentially began this journey by supposing that the pillared cards in tarot have something to tell us about the unfoldment of consciousness (individually and collectively). There are 3 apparent pillared cards in the Major Arcana which are The High Priestess, The Hierophant and Justice. Each of these cards represents one of the 4 elements and contains a different background colour. Given this, we speculated a fourth (hidden) pillared card also existed to fill the gap. We figured it was The Emperor because that would account for the missing element (fire) and also supply our 4th unique background colour (red).
Under The Microscope With The Fool
If you’ve been following along for awhile, you’ll know that Tim and I love to go deep into the cards, finding connections and contrast to help us better understand them individually and as a whole.
In our 78 Connections series, we take two cards and try to spot as many obvious and underlying links as we can. In doing this, we see just how interwoven this system is and how precise and intentional all the details are.
Today, in the spirit of that exploration, we thought we would begin a new series focusing on one card at a time. The purpose of this exercise will be to take a proverbial magnifying glass to the card in question, noting all the symbols we can spot, and then also considering where else in the deck they can be found. Think of it as a bit like a scavenger hunt!
January Bookshelf 2022
After taking a hiatus in December, we’re back with our third installment of this bookshelf series. Reading is a very important component to our practice, ongoing self-development and overall wellbeing. In this post, we’re sharing some of our December-January reads, providing a quick snapshot of the book’s contents, our reflections and a link to purchase or learn more if one happens to catch your eye.
We hope you find this series interesting and maybe even useful. Please let us know if you’ve read anything we’ve listed, have taken recommendations from these posts or have any suggestions for us!
Key Notes: An Exploration of Tarot & Sound
While not always discussed, Tarot and music share an inextricable link. We suspect there is some inherent quality to this, and also some conscious effort to ensure its symbols stay steeped in the imagery and lexicon of this tool. It also seems to us that it is no coincidence that many occultists throughout history have demonstrated this connection. You don’t have to look far to observe the crossover between an aptitude in music and an interest in magick, and we could debate the reasons for this, however the link remains. Notably, the following musicians have incorporated the occult, tarot and related symbolism into their work: Jimmy Page, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Tool, Andrew W. K. , Rush, The Beatles, Ab-Soul, Erykah Badu and so on. It’s not uncommon either to observe occult imagery in modern music videos, though, we’re not sure if that is a result of the artist having a genuine interest in this field or a capitalization on the mystery of it all.
Tarot Through The Holidays
Whether you celebrate a specific tradition this time of year, or simply wish to honour the turning of the year, we wanted to share some simple ideas for incorporating tarot into the the holidays - however they look to you! Please enjoy this list, take care of yourself and enjoy whatever the remainder of 2021 has to offer!
Musickal Meditations - Channeling The Hermit
Our 9th musickal meditation is complete, just in time to close out the year. Our goal was to have the first 9 done by December so that we could pair them with our personal year information pages. While the meditations have been designed to get one in touch with each tarot archetype, they would also be an excellent complement for connecting with the energy of numbers. In the new year, we’ll be back with The Wheel of Fortune, which seems very apt given the cyclical nature of the 12 month calendar year.
As with all meditations, you may opt to simply enjoy the music on its own, or work with some of the suggestions provided to perform a fuller ritual. We do hope you enjoy the sounds! We will be updating the YouTube page regularly as we add more tracks as well as storing all links on a separate page of this site, so they are easy to find! Keep reading to learn more about connecting with The Hermit.
November Bookshelf 2021
We’re back with another installment of our new Bookshelf series. In this post, we’re sharing some of our November reads, providing a quick snapshot of its contents, our reflections and a link to purchase or learn more if one happens to catch your eye.
We hope you find this series interesting and maybe even useful. Please let us know if you’ve read anything we’ve listed, have taken recommendations from these posts or have any suggestions for us! We’d love to hear it!