Sacred Days of the Vernal Equinox

[Joan Marie]

Due to Nemia's absence at at the moment, I have decided to go ahead and open up her next Seasonal reading, The Sacred days of the Vernal Equinox.

I know a lot of us have been waiting for this and it's time to start preparing. The reading Starts on March 15th.

Below I will be using some text from Nemia (with small changes) in order to inform those of you not familiar with how this spread/ritual works. I want to thank her for preparing all this and for doing it in advance for our benefit. I hope Nemia will be able to join us soon and take part in this important exercise together with us.

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We have now entered the month of March. It is time to prepare for our next seasonal group reading - it's the Vernal Equinox. If you want to know more about the history of this reading - here you'll find the story.

My own journey with these readings began in Midsummer 2017 and I did all the readings since then. It has enriched my spiritual life and brought insights - and a wonderful atmosphere. Knowing that so many other tarotists do the same reading with me while our planet passes a very special signpost - I can't tell you how much I enjoy that feeling. It's a feeling of connection to the tarot community. And for me, that's an even stronger argument for these readings than the insights themselves, connected to the multi-cultural special days that we celebrate together.

Choose a deck that you feel has the spirit of this oncoming season.

Copy the text of the reading, and on March 15th, we'll all meet here and start the reading. Enjoy the late winter/early spring here in the Northern hemisphere, and the opposite if you live on the Southern hemisphere, and may all your readings be blessed.


The Sacred Days of Vernal Equinox Spread:

Day 1: 15.3. Cybele and Attis Festival - Today is the first day of week-long celebration of Cybele, the great Mother Goddess, and her youthful consort Attis. Today's card talks about love and eros in your life, and how you can celebrate them.

Day 2: 16.3. Gahambar Hamaspathmaidyem - Today begins the Zoroastrian Holiday Gahambar Hamaspathmaidyem, celebrating the life cycle of human beings, from creation to death, and the presence of angels. Today's card connects you to your own path in life and the angel/power/energy that protects you.

Day 3: 17.3. Liberalia - On this day, the Romans celebrated the Liberalia festival of freedom. Today's card tells you how you use your freedom and encourages you to be really free of bonds that limit your personality, talents and longings. What are the bonds you have to break to be free?

Day 4: 18.3. Ugadi - The Hindu holiday Ugadi is celebrated in some parts of India as New Year. Its traditional food represents the different tastes: sour, salty, sweet and bitter. Today's card shows you how to balance the flavours in your life, to be able to enjoy it to the fullest in the months ahead. How can make you make your life more flavourful and enjoyable?

Day 5: 19.3. Eostre/Ostara - The Germanic goddess of spring is celebrated with eggs, rabbits and the ringing of bells. Today's card reminds you of a bell ringing in your life, a bell that calls you forward and that you didn't heed or overhear until now. Understand what this bell wants to tell you, and in the coming month, try to make its voice heard.

Day 6: 20.3. Spring/Vernal Equinox - This is the day of balance between day and night, when new things grow and push through the earth, when Kore/Persephone returns from the underworld and brings flowers with her. Today's card calls you to contemplate on creativity and renewal in your own life. Where do you resist change, and where should you embrace it?

For Southern Hemisphere tarotists who experience Autumn: what are the wilting things and feelings in my life that I should let go?

Day 7: 21.3. Harmony Day - In Australia, Harmony Day celebrates inclusiveness and acceptance. Today's card asks you to probe your own hidden prejudices, and what you can do to become more open and tolerant. Challenge yourself to inform yourself and get to know cultures, topics or people that until held irrational negative associations for you. How can you become an ambassador for inclusiveness and harmony in your society and immediate surrounding?

Day 8: 22.3. Minerva Day - Minerva/Athene is the Roman/Greek goddess of intelligence, rational thinking and objectivity. Today's card asks you how you use your intelligence and talents, whether you give them the proper place or whether you feel you have undeveloped potential. What can you do to make the best use of your mental powers and intelligence?

Day 9: 23.3. Hilaria = The Roman holiday of Hilaria celebrates laughter and fun. Today's card throws a light on the place light-hearted fun and humour have in your life. Do you laugh often enough? The card challenges you to find things that make you laugh and forget your worries, and do them regularly from now on.

Day 10: 24.3. Earth Hour - On this international day, people stop to think about the environment and the use we make of it. Are you doing all you can to keep and preserve this earth? Today's card asks you to find your own connection to the Earth you live on, whether through environment awareness or the voice of your spiritual tradition. How are you connected to this Earth and how can you honour it?

Day 11: 25.3. Palm Sunday - The Christian holiday of Palm Sunday celebrates peace, hope and new beginnings. Today's card shows you where you have to make peace - with memories, people in your life or other painful matters. Let them go and don't beat yourself up any more.

Day 12: 26.3. Preparation of the Temple of Luna - On the final day of our 12 days, we prepare for the annual Roman festival in the Temple of Luna, the Moon goddess. Today's card tells you how you can become more attuned to the intuitive, quiet side within you, how you can make your spiritual work more meaningful, and how to integrate your shadow into your life. It's the message of the Moon for the spring days ahead while the influence of the Sun is rising.


It's obviously possible to do these readings alone but for me, the group feeling made them even more special, more like a ritual that connects people from different places and background with cosmic events and of course tarot.

For readers from the Southern hemisphere, the seasonal feeling may feel off. It would be necessary to re-write the spreads for the Southern hemisphere, incorporating festivals and holidays from cultures on the Southern part of the planet. I think probably only someone from the Southern hemisphere can get it right.

If one of the dates means something else for you - if in your culture or your life, this date "means" something else, you can change it. I'd advise you though to remain in the realm of festivals and holidays with a more than individual meaning because that's the character of these readings - they reflect the importance of these days celebrated in many cultures.

Another problem is the difficulty in doing this reading every day for twelve days. I think it's totally okay to break up the spread into chunks - either three times four or four times three - it's all sacred numbers anyway. Then it's easier to follow through with it.

Any questions and ideas are very much welcome.

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If you wish to participate (and I highly recommend it. I have done the other "Corners of the year readings" and I find it a very powerful experience and a beautiful way to connect to the seasonal and celestial changes happening around us. -Joan

[Myperception]

I would like to give this a first try as a learning path, i am totally new to this. If i am from asia country, i think i am in southern part.

[Joan Marie]

I'm really looking forward to this exercise. These 4-corner of the Year readings are really powerful.

I have decided to use this amazing deck i just acquired called The Wise Fool Tarot by Cade Burkhammer.

The colours and themes are really inspiring to me for welcoming the Spring and new life awakening from the dearth of winter.

The Wise Fool Tarot

Who else is joining in on this and what deck will you be using?

[dodalisque]

I'd like to participate this month, though I haven't decided yet which deck I'll be using.

[chiscotheque]

i'm in too. i'll be using the Shakespeare Tarot, in part because it one of the few decks i have, but also because i'm hoping Dodalisque will use his commercial shakespeare tarot deck, in contradistinction.

[Myperception]

I am using The Dion Fortune tarot deck. I am from Southern hemisphere, may not be able to do readings with you all at the same time here, due to time zone differences. But i will carry on myself here and keep the readings posted up.

[litefoot13]

I'll participate in this one!
I'll probably use my Shadowscapes deck, it's the one I'm learning on, but I'll pull the others out and see if any of them yell at me to use them.

[Joan Marie]

For everybody who would like to keep their whole 12 days of readings together in a single post, you can go ahead and copy/paste the following into your post:

The Sacred Days of Vernal Equinox Spread:

Day 1: 15.3. Cybele and Attis Festival - Today is the first day of week-long celebration of Cybele, the great Mother Goddess, and her youthful consort Attis. Today's card talks about love and eros in your life, and how you can celebrate them.

Day 2: 16.3. Gahambar Hamaspathmaidyem - Today begins the Zoroastrian Holiday Gahambar Hamaspathmaidyem, celebrating the life cycle of human beings, from creation to death, and the presence of angels. Today's card connects you to your own path in life and the angel/power/energy that protects you.

Day 3: 17.3. Liberalia - On this day, the Romans celebrated the Liberalia festival of freedom. Today's card tells you how you use your freedom and encourages you to be really free of bonds that limit your personality, talents and longings. What are the bonds you have to break to be free?

Day 4: 18.3. Ugadi - The Hindu holiday Ugadi is celebrated in some parts of India as New Year. Its traditional food represents the different tastes: sour, salty, sweet and bitter. Today's card shows you how to balance the flavours in your life, to be able to enjoy it to the fullest in the months ahead. How can make you make your life more flavourful and enjoyable?

Day 5: 19.3. Eostre/Ostara - The Germanic goddess of spring is celebrated with eggs, rabbits and the ringing of bells. Today's card reminds you of a bell ringing in your life, a bell that calls you forward and that you didn't heed or overhear until now. Understand what this bell wants to tell you, and in the coming month, try to make its voice heard.

Day 6: 20.3. Spring/Vernal Equinox - This is the day of balance between day and night, when new things grow and push through the earth, when Kore/Persephone returns from the underworld and brings flowers with her. Today's card calls you to contemplate on creativity and renewal in your own life. Where do you resist change, and where should you embrace it?

For Southern Hemisphere tarotists who experience Autumn: what are the wilting things and feelings in my life that I should let go?

Day 7: 21.3. Harmony Day - In Australia, Harmony Day celebrates inclusiveness and acceptance. Today's card asks you to probe your own hidden prejudices, and what you can do to become more open and tolerant. Challenge yourself to inform yourself and get to know cultures, topics or people that until held irrational negative associations for you. How can you become an ambassador for inclusiveness and harmony in your society and immediate surrounding?

Day 8: 22.3. Minerva Day - Minerva/Athene is the Roman/Greek goddess of intelligence, rational thinking and objectivity. Today's card asks you how you use your intelligence and talents, whether you give them the proper place or whether you feel you have undeveloped potential. What can you do to make the best use of your mental powers and intelligence?

Day 9: 23.3. Hilaria = The Roman holiday of Hilaria celebrates laughter and fun. Today's card throws a light on the place light-hearted fun and humour have in your life. Do you laugh often enough? The card challenges you to find things that make you laugh and forget your worries, and do them regularly from now on.

Day 10: 24.3. Earth Hour - On this international day, people stop to think about the environment and the use we make of it. Are you doing all you can to keep and preserve this earth? Today's card asks you to find your own connection to the Earth you live on, whether through environment awareness or the voice of your spiritual tradition. How are you connected to this Earth and how can you honour it?

Day 11: 25.3. Palm Sunday - The Christian holiday of Palm Sunday celebrates peace, hope and new beginnings. Today's card shows you where you have to make peace - with memories, people in your life or other painful matters. Let them go and don't beat yourself up any more.

Day 12: 26.3. Preparation of the Temple of Luna - On the final day of our 12 days, we prepare for the annual Roman festival in the Temple of Luna, the Moon goddess. Today's card tells you how you can become more attuned to the intuitive, quiet side within you, how you can make your spiritual work more meaningful, and how to integrate your shadow into your life. It's the message of the Moon for the spring days ahead while the influence of the Sun is rising.

[Myperception]

The Sacred Days of Vernal Equinox Spread: The Dion Fortune Tarot Deck

Day 1: 15.3. Cybele and Attis Festival - Today is the first day of week-long celebration of Cybele, the great Mother Goddess, and her youthful consort Attis. Today's card talks about love and eros in your life, and how you can celebrate them.

Ace of pentacles - root of the powers of earth
In my middle age now, i embrace life in very basic way, the more simple life we live, we tend to be more happier. We eat healthy ways, more exercise, reading books, sleep well, spend time with our family and love ones. Life can be this simple yet happy. I practise minimalist lifestyle for years. I don't purchase unecessary goods, so i do not need to think how to make decisions while dealing with too many choices. Therefore i save those time to be with myself enjoy me own time, also spend time with my family, love ones and friends.

Day 2: 16.3. Gahambar Hamaspathmaidyem - Today begins the Zoroastrian Holiday Gahambar Hamaspathmaidyem, celebrating the life cycle of human beings, from creation to death, and the presence of angels. Today's card connects you to your own path in life and the angel/power/energy that protects you.

9 of pentacles - material gain
I am a typical capricorn girl, and stable job and income is very important to me, and in career path i will plan for the timeframe to achieve my goal. I do not give up easily in work when there were obstacles, but keep moving forward till i reach my target. I always train my mind to upkeep my will power, when your mindset is firm, positive and strong. There is nothing that you can't make it in life. There is a will, there is a way, for sure.

Day 3: 17.3. Liberalia - On this day, the Romans celebrated the Liberalia festival of freedom. Today's card tells you how you use your freedom and encourages you to be really free of bonds that limit your personality, talents and longings. What are the bonds you have to break to be free? 

The lighting struck tower
I think in some way, i am a technical person, sometimes i need to learn to be more flexible, more accommodating in every aspects in life. The solid rules, foundations, procedures, standards etc i need to learn to let my free will lead the way instead, in order to let myself learn more things in life.

Day 4: 18.3. Ugadi - The Hindu holiday Ugadi is celebrated in some parts of India as New Year. Its traditional food represents the different tastes: sour, salty, sweet and bitter. Today's card shows you how to balance the flavours in your life, to be able to enjoy it to the fullest in the months ahead. How can make you make your life more flavourful and enjoyable? 

Knight of cups
It's a young character with passion but holding a cup on his hand. He is energetic, but not too aggressive or blunt, cups always an emotional card. It's time for me to back to more active lifestyle, also at times have some drinks and good chat with friends. I had been isolate myself in gym everyday, it cuts me off from my connections for quite awhile, maybe now is time to spend some meals hour to catch up with all those people. To keep myself updated about the market etc.

Day 5: 19.3. Eostre/Ostara - The Germanic goddess of spring is celebrated with eggs, rabbits and the ringing of bells. Today's card reminds you of a bell ringing in your life, a bell that calls you forward and that you didn't heed or overhear until now. Understand what this bell wants to tell you, and in the coming month, try to make its voice heard. 

2 of swords - peace restored
Ever since i join the new working place on mid of February, the peace of my life and mind was seriously affected. I do not prefer to come back to this industry but at that point of time, i didn't have any options. Today i attended an interview and it helps me to see a better picture that why I felt bored towards current job as it has reach the peak, it will not bring additional enhancement in my skills and knowledge. I would like to learn new stuff. Therefore i am now waiting for any possible opportunity for me to move out from my current job in the following months. I need peace.

Day 6: 20.3. Spring/Vernal Equinox - This is the day of balance between day and night, when new things grow and push through the earth, when Kore/Persephone returns from the underworld and brings flowers with her. Today's card calls you to contemplate on creativity and renewal in your own life. Where do you resist change, and where should you embrace it? 

Ace of swords - root of the powers of air or the mind
This is an intellectual power. I resist the changes anything that related to my experiences in work and personal life. Any form of changes may not comfortable to me in past. But most of the time if i need to pull through due to no choice for my situation. I will still be able to do it. Responsible, courage are my quality.

For Southern Hemisphere tarotists who experience Autumn: what are the wilting things and feelings in my life that I should let go? 

Day 7: 21.3. Harmony Day - In Australia, Harmony Day celebrates inclusiveness and acceptance. Today's card asks you to probe your own hidden prejudices, and what you can do to become more open and tolerant. Challenge yourself to inform yourself and get to know cultures, topics or people that until held irrational negative associations for you. How can you become an ambassador for inclusiveness and harmony in your society and immediate surrounding? 

Page of pentacles
I need to be more responsible, conscientious, humble/down to earth, caring, considerate while i deal with people or daily life. I am not an emotional, or compassionate person, at times i am cool, distance and cruel. Need to change on my approach and interactions to promote more harmony.

Day 8: 22.3. Minerva Day - Minerva/Athene is the Roman/Greek goddess of intelligence, rational thinking and objectivity. Today's card asks you how you use your intelligence and talents, whether you give them the proper place or whether you feel you have undeveloped potential. What can you do to make the best use of your mental powers and intelligence? 

2 of wands - dominion
I need to have more control over the environment, rather than always let the nature takes it course. I rarely demand or having any specific or special request for my own self. Wands more related to work. In work, i have more undiscover potential, but at times i just don't want to have any dispute, and choose to follow the flow. Well, to stand firm and control over the environment may helps me to discover the unreveal potential Me.

Day 9: 23.3. Hilaria = The Roman holiday of Hilaria celebrates laughter and fun. Today's card throws a light on the place light-hearted fun and humour have in your life. Do you laugh often enough? The card challenges you to find things that make you laugh and forget your worries, and do them regularly from now on. 

8 of cups - abandoned success
I had been forgetting the feeling of laughing out loud and happily since 2015-2018. I broke up in a relationship and hurt badly, and my beloved grandma passed away... with the ship shown in this card. I need to go on a short getaway to recharge. I will make it a short getaway every 3 months once to embrace our life, and to enjoy freedom!

Day 10: 24.3. Earth Hour - On this international day, people stop to think about the environment and the use we make of it. Are you doing all you can to keep and preserve this earth? Today's card asks you to find your own connection to the Earth you live on, whether through environment awareness or the voice of your spiritual tradition. How are you connected to this Earth and how can you honour it? 

Page of wands
Be kind to all the creature on earth, be it animal, human nor plants etc. When you embrace those creature, you will learn how to appreciate life, be connected to the mother earth as you love her. Be sensitive with everything surrounding us.

Day 11: 25.3. Palm Sunday - The Christian holiday of Palm Sunday celebrates peace, hope and new beginnings. Today's card shows you where you have to make peace - with memories, people in your life or other painful matters. Let them go and don't beat yourself up any more. 

9 of wands - great strength
I need a strong will and mind to persuade myself to let go those past hurtful experience. It's always easy to fall back instead of letting go and move on. I had baggages for past be it my ex, work, fame etc. Well all of these suppose to go off from my life, my ex, job no longer suits me, fame that nk longer important to me. Now i had been learning live simple since 2016 regardless in work or personal. I am more suitable for this kind of lifestyle.

Day 12: 26.3. Preparation of the Temple of Luna - On the final day of our 12 days, we prepare for the annual Roman festival in the Temple of Luna, the Moon goddess. Today's card tells you how you can become more attuned to the intuitive, quiet side within you, how you can make your spiritual work more meaningful, and how to integrate your shadow into your life. It's the message of the Moon for the spring days ahead while the influence of the Sun is rising.

5 of pentacles - earthly trouble
Be more firm and trust my own instinct, be more confident, not to doubt it all the time, at times need to be realistic also, to ensure i am not carry away. It has to be moderate, cannot be over conservative too... LOL

[chiscotheque]

The Sacred Days of Vernal Equinox Spread: The Shakespeare Tarot

Note: because my life is somewhat quotidian and readings for oneself, while often informative for the querent, can be confessional and rather boring to the outside viewer, I have decided that the cards I pull for the Vernal Equinox will comment on the global political and social events of the day.

Day 1: 15.3. Cybele and Attis Festival - Today is the first day of week-long celebration of Cybele, the great Mother Goddess, and her youthful consort Attis. Today's card talks about love and eros in your life, and how you can celebrate them.

This is the 9 of Coins card, represented by Portia from The Merchant of Venice. Given today's allocation to the great mother goddess of creation, Cybele, my initial interpretation of this card focused on it's surface - namely, the beautiful landscape of earth, air, and sea before which stands Portia. Her image here is of Venus, taken from Botticelli's painting Primavera. Venus was Aeneas' mother, and the Romans adopted Cybele as their own, conflating her with Venus and her son Attis with their Trojan founding father, Aeneas.

Portia, like a scale of justice, holds in her hands 2 items - her beautiful estate Belmont and herself dressed as the fake law expert, Balthazar. House and home - hers at any rate - seems to outweigh legal concerns, and my immediate response was to see this card as representing the thousands of children leaving school today in hundreds of countries to protest the political inaction of the adult world on issues of Climate Change. The protests were sparked by the impressive 16-year-old Swedish activist, Greta Thunberg, recently nominated for a Nobel Prize (the Thun in her name is derived from the Italian name Anthony, itself derived from the smallest pig in a litter - the tantony - connecting it with the name Portia, derived from Porcus, meaning pig; Anthony, of course, is the name of the merchant of Venice). It will be remembered that the so-called justice in Venice is fake, and Portia - like Greta - takes matters into her own hands. The beautiful landscape as it turns out is a tapestry, what lies behind it is anyone's guess. Being a coin card, everything here hinges on money - it's the wealthy who have their way. The Jewish Star of David alludes to Shylock's attempt to get to the heart of the matter, and the scapegoat the Jewish people have been made historically for the sins of Western Society.

This, then, brings me to the 2nd, deeper suggestion this card holds for the Ides of March (it may be worth noting today, on the anniversary of Caesar's assassination, that Brutus' wife's name was Porcia; what's more, Brutus was Caesar's son, just as Aeneas' son was named Brutus, who went on to found New Troy - Britain). It's the white wealthy Christians who run the prosperous trading city-state of Venice; the underclass Jews are tolerated insofar as they can be exploited by the ruling class. The Merchant of Venice, with its prominent Jewish question, is intimately paired with one other Shakespeare play, also centred around Venice, namely: Othello, and its prominent question of race. In Christchurch this morning, a White Nationalist shot and killed 49 Muslims attending mosque. This white-wing extremist, praising Donald Trump, called for the death of all people of colour and the Jewish financial cabal that runs the world. As it happens, today also sees thousands of school kids protest in America against the abhorrent scourge of gun violence in that country, on the anniversary of the Parkland school shooting. Guns are a distinctly male way of taking the law into one's own hands, and yet also reflects what really rules our world: violence. Its outcome is the desolation the tapestry's beautiful scenic splendour conceals.


Day 2: 16.3. Gahambar Hamaspathmaidyem - Today begins the Zoroastrian Holiday Gahambar Hamaspathmaidyem, celebrating the life cycle of human beings, from creation to death, and the presence of angels. Today's card connects you to your own path in life and the angel/power/energy that protects you.

Today's card is the Ace of Swords. On it is represented all manner of bladed weapons, as well as quills and paper, stressing the word aspect of swords - thoughts, discernment, evaluation. Feathers are gotten from birds, alluding to the suit of Air. The news is replete today with talk of the mosque shooting in New Zealand. That act of terrorism is represented in the foundational card of the suit of violence, and the word aspect highlights the incessant commentary and reflection going on around the world today. It also underscores the sub-culture of hate speech and radical indoctrination permeating the internet. The murderer live-streamed his assault on Facebook and released a web-savvy manifesto which coincided with his rampage. One of the attributes being discussed today about this manifesto is its "meme-ability", designed to facilitate mass promulgation. Another device it utilizes is irony, a device used by the alt-right to claim deniability. A similar linguistic tactic is to use outrageousness to destabilize rational debate, divert attention by being "entertaining", and make the unthinkable thinkable.

This doesn't seem to have much to do with Zoroastrianism, except that it's a very black & white, Manichean religion. Curious about the accuracy of my card interpretation, I pulled another, hopefully focusing on a more personal angle - the card I got was the Queen of Staffs - Viola

Viola's boat is destroyed and she washes up on a foreign shore. Here, she is in an opera house, which looks a little like a mosque. I took this to represent the Muslim refugees in Christchurch, integrating into their new homeland.

Curious about the killer himself, I pulled another card -

This is the 10 of Swords - Coriolanus. He is a man twisted with hate and a merciless purveyor of violence. He hates politicians, despises the average person, and is literally ripped to pieces in a neighbouring country.

Day 3: 17.3. Liberalia - On this day, the Romans celebrated the Liberalia festival of freedom. Today's card tells you how you use your freedom and encourages you to be really free of bonds that limit your personality, talents and longings. What are the bonds you have to break to be free?

Being Sunday, and a slow news day, I decided to focus on the fact it's St. Patrick's Day. Saint Patrick liberated Ireland from snakes, even if while doing so he infested the island with Catholicism. I decided to pull a card which would comment on the ongoing Brexit issue of a hard-border between North Ireland and the Republic, and what it will all mean in the long run. I pulled The Magician/Prospero -

Prospero was the Duke of Milan, who was usurped and exiled by his brother with the help of the Duke of Naples. A tempest occurs which shipwrecks Prospero's brother on his exiled island. Through the use of magic, Prospero is reinstated as rightful ruler. Atop Prospero's staff is the emblem for Milan, but it could be the emblem of Ireland - the tail of a snake (St. Patrick) with its head a tongue (Irish Blarney). How I read this card vis-a-vis the tempest that is Brexit is that, in the long run, N. Ireland will be somehow reunited with the south. Rightful rule will be returned to the island, as seen between the continental concerns of Prospero and his brother and the marriage of Prospero's daughter and the Duke of Naples' son, and also in the magical island being returned to Caliban at the play's end. It will be remembered the island belonged originally to Caliban the primitive as well as Ariel the muse - Ariel did Prospero's bidding while Caliban rebelled against him. How this unification will transpire is unclear, or even if it will be the complete absorption of N.I. into the Republic, but it seems certain it will necessitate some sleight of hand.

unsure if I was reading this card right, I pulled a second to further comment on it -

This is the 8 of Cups - Alcibiades from Timon of Athens. Alcibiades was a general who was unfairly cast out of Athens. Exiled, he raised an army and conquered Athens - his retribution was to exile all those politicians who exiled him. The similarity with this story and Prospero's appears to corroborate the idea of a unified Ireland. Perhaps Brexit will cause an economic and/or political crisis in Britain such that N. Ireland will unite with the Republic to save itself?

Day 4: 18.3. Ugadi - The Hindu holiday Ugadi is celebrated in some parts of India as New Year. Its traditional food represents the different tastes: sour, salty, sweet and bitter. Today's card shows you how to balance the flavours in your life, to be able to enjoy it to the fullest in the months ahead. How can make you make your life more flavourful and enjoyable?

The foremost headline when I awoke today concerned a shooting in Utrecht. It seemed to be an act of "terrorism" perpetrated by a Turk. At the time of this writing, he is still at large. The card I pulled regarding this incident was The Emperor -

At first, I was a little baffled by the card's relevance. The Emperor concerns mundane power of the male persuasion, but the comical aspect of Falstaff seems miles away from religious and ideological divides. But then I remembered who Falstaff was in real life - his name was John Oldcastle, and he was a 15th Century Lollard. Lollardry was a religious reform movement antagonistic to the Catholics, and Oldcastle was a military man who was considered a heretic. Eventually placed in the Tower of London, he escaped and became the leader of the Lollard rebellion. He avoided capture for years but was eventually captured and executed. Oldcastle's proto-Protestantism was the same religious schismatic which divided Europe during the Reformation of Shakespeare's 16th Century. I assume then that the shooter in Utrecht was acting on religious beliefs, in all likelihood in response to the mosque shooting in New Zealand. Like Oldcastle, it seems the shooter had been in the military. As for how Shakespeare chose to portray Oldcastle in the comic Falstaff, perhaps it suggests that we in the West are not taking Muslim concerns seriously or are otherwise misrepresenting them.

With an eye to how one should approach the news of these recent acts of violence and the Ugadi idea of how to find balance in the New Year, I pulled a second card for clarification -

This is the 2 of Swords Volumnia. It relates directly to the 10 of Swords Coriolanus I drew about the Christchurch killer Saturday. Here, Coriolanus' wife, son, and mother supplicate the murderous military man for peace. It is a card which pleads for civility, concord, and the cessation of violence as a solution. It takes place in Rome, the epicentre of Christianity.

Day 5: 19.3. Eostre/Ostara - The Germanic goddess of spring is celebrated with eggs, rabbits and the ringing of bells. Today's card reminds you of a bell ringing in your life, a bell that calls you forward and that you didn't heed or overhear until now. Understand what this bell wants to tell you, and in the coming month, try to make its voice heard.

With no news item particularly taking centre stage today, but with above readings touching on religious schism, I decided to pull a card concerning Pope Francis, the clergy abuse scandal, and the recent summit on sexual misconduct held at the Vatican. The card I pulled was the King of Cups Henry V -

First of all, The King of Cups is associated with the water signs, and the Shakespeare Tarot specifically links it with Pisces. There are 2 Henry Vs - the young reprobate Hal who dives into the underworld of the lower classes, and the king Henry V who is all surface. The pope wears the Ring of the Fisherman, as the first pope, Peter, was a fisherman who became a fisher of men; Christ and Christianity are represented by a fish; the Christian church dominated the last 2000 years, the Piscean age.

This said, the King of Cups is a card about deception, manipulation, and historical revisionism. Henry V begins with the church fathers debating the legality of England invading France - the king has come to them for their blessing and they decide to give it, not on moral grounds but quite the contrary - for their own personal gain. Henry's reasons for invading France are also unethical. At the famous battle of Agincourt, Henry is the first king in recorded history to break the Chivalric code and murder captured prisoners in cold blood. Henry is a master manipulator, finely attuned to controlling the hearts and minds of those around him and his nation. The play itself continually points out the discrepancies between Henry's stated motives and intentions, and underscores it all with a chorus which appears between acts to report the official story to the audience - a story blatantly contradicted by the actions on stage.

I can't help but view this card in relation to the current situation with the Pope and his abusive clergy as little more than an exercise in Public Relations damage control. Perhaps Francis means well, but his first allegiance seems to be less with God than with maintaining the outward credibility of the church, and less the morals and more the morale of his rank and file Christian soldiers. One thing I would note about Henry V - it's a very male-heavy play. Almost the only female in the play is Katherine, the Princess of France, and all the rest are the happy band of brothers. Just before Henry rashly attacks France, word comes of a settlement with the French king which, besides giving in to most of Henry's demands and so avoiding needless bloodshed, offer's Henry Katherine's hand in marriage. With no glory and certainly no vainglory in that, Henry attacks France anyway, taking it and Katherine by force. The ludicrous scene of Henry "courting" Katherine, when she is nothing more than his booty, speaks I believe to the abuse of nuns which has gone unchecked in a conspiracy of silence very similar to those clergymen who have abused children. The lack of females in Henry V and the total denial of any female power in the play point to the culture of an all-powerful male priesthood.

All this has little to do with today's allocation of Eostra, except she is a female diety, compelling one to hear what's been unheeded. Most churches have bells - in fact, the Church is the Bride of Christ, hence His belle - and really, what's a bell but an upside-down cup?

"Woe to you teachers of religious law- Hypocrites! You are so careful to clean the outside of the cup but inside you are filthy - full of greed and self-indulgence!" (Matthew 23:25)

Day 6: 20.3. Spring/Vernal Equinox - This is the day of balance between day and night, when new things grow and push through the earth, when Kore/Persephone returns from the underworld and brings flowers with her. Today's card calls you to contemplate on creativity and renewal in your own life. Where do you resist change, and where should you embrace it?

Unsure of what to focus on today in the news, I decided to pull a card concerning the recent 4-hour documentary Leaving Neverland, which reveals Michael Jackson to be a paedophile. The card I pulled was The Hierophant William Shakespeare -

The mix of black and white on the card reminds me of the album cover of Jackson's Bad. Looked at another way, it's a bit of pap. I must confess, The Hierophant is my least favourite card in the Shakespeare Tarot. Having attended Catholic school but not being a Catholic myself, my opinion of the pope and organized religion is severe but accurate. Here, The Hierophant card represents William Shaksper, the man Stratfordians have for centuries erroneously attributed the works penned under the nom de plume William Shake-speare. On the left of the card are a number of trinkets one can purchase in Stratford upon Avon, which has become a mecca of bardolatry and an outsized gift shop. In this reading, Stratford could be said to symbolize Jackson's fairy-tale ranch, Neverland, and Stratfordianism the millions of dollars tied up in both men's legacies. On the right of the card is Edward de Vere, the true author who wrote surreptitiously under the name William Shake-speare. The Hierophant is a fraud, claiming to represent God, and the card itself represents a massive cover-up.

Jackson was the so-called King of Pop(ery); de Vere was nobility (some Oxfordians even conjecture he was the son of Queen Elizabeth I). As a young man, de Vere dressed outrageously. Not only did he have bisexual leanings but returned from Italy with a young boy who remained close to de Vere despite allegations of sodomy. Like Jackson, de Vere was charged with a handful of crimes and - even as he spent time in the Tower of London - he always went free. In a college play of the time called Return to Parnassus, Shakespeare is ridiculed for talking too much about Ovid and Persephone. Parnassus is the Greek wellspring of the muses where Shakespeare, quoting Ovid, claims he drinks from in Venus & Adonis. Persephone's other name is Kore, as in core: the pith and the root. Curiously, today is the Vernal Equinox, the reason for this seasonal reading, and de Vere has in his name the Latin for spring: ver. Writers of the day and Shakespeare himself used the term Ver as a double entendre for the true author, and today we move from d'iver to ver. Ver also means "truth", as in verity and de Vere's motto: Vero Nihil Verus - Nothing Truer than Truth. What's more, the word never - as in Neverland - along with ever (ned & ed vere) were also code words used by the author to refer to himself. When de Vere was dead but Shaksper was still alive, Shakespeare was referred to by those in the know as "ever-living" - not a thing one says of the living - while the title page of the Troilus & Cressida 1st quarto reads: "A never writer to an ever reader: news".

News, indeed - the 2 men who were abused as boys by Jackson testified in Jackson's defence during his lifetime against allegations brought forth by other boys. At the time I remember rationalizing that although Jackson's behaviour was suspicious, he himself was like a child, these boys close to him adamantly denied any misconduct, and heck, there surely are some parents out there who would exploit their children to get their hands on some of Jackson's money. That kind of thinking now seems naive, self-delusional, and ignorant, just like the arguments for William Shaksper of Stratford.


Day 7: 21.3. Harmony Day - In Australia, Harmony Day celebrates inclusiveness and acceptance. Today's card asks you to probe your own hidden prejudices, and what you can do to become more open and tolerant. Challenge yourself to inform yourself and get to know cultures, topics or people that until held irrational negative associations for you. How can you become an ambassador for inclusiveness and harmony in your society and immediate surrounding?

Taking today's suggestion to heart to get to know topics and people that hold negative associations for me, and today being another slow fake news day, I decided to pull a card for Donald Trump. The card I pulled was The 10 of Staffs Richard III

Richard III is of course not only Shakespeare's most obvious villain, he is probably one of the greatest, in fact he is the greatest villain of all time. really big. Just incredible. Here, the deformed Richard stands in front of a violent melee of his own making, holding a hobbyhorse like a child. Richard is based in part on Robert Cecil who was, unlike the real Richard, a hunchback. Like Donald Trump, Robert Cecil attained his status with the help of his powerful father, Lord Burghley. Richard got to be king by killing his brothers, killing his nephews, killing numerous other people including his wife, and wooing his niece. Right from the outset of the play, Richard is a creep, and he only gets worse. Of course, it's a very entertaining worse - he tells us the audience of his evil intentions as if we were his co-conspirators, and so in a sense we are. "Since I cannot prove a lover" he says, "I am determined to prove a villain" recalling to mind Trump's elegant words "I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."

Incidentally, President Lincoln loved Shakespeare, and Richard III in particular. Residents of Richmond, Virginia, saw Lincoln as a tyrant and hoped Richard's line "I should not live long after I saw Richmond" would apply to the president. Two weeks after visiting the defeated Virginia city, Lincoln was assassinated in a theatre by John Wilkes Boothe, a Shakespearean actor who had played both Richard and Richmond. Having shot the President, Booth cried out the state motto of Virginia (named for Shakespeare's Queen Elizabeth): "Sic semper tyrannis" I'd say let's hope for a similar fate for Trump, president of the rich, but in the interest of inclusiveness and harmony, his death would only see Pence take his place. SAD.

Curious about the bevvy of contenders throwing in their hat to run against Trump for the Democrats, I decided to pull a card indicating how that race will turn out. The card I pulled was Death Titus Andronicus -

This couldn't be more perfect. The Democratic presidential primaries will end, like Titus Andronicus, with a heap of dead bodies - some baked in pies, some mercy-killed, some buried up to the neck and left to starve. After all the carnage, power falls to Titus' handsome, internet-savvy son, Beto O'Rourke. For the good of the nation, Richard Ojeda will not stop until every human pie is eaten. Undeterred, and undeturd, Wayne Messam will declare: "If one good deed in all my life I did, I do repent it from my very soul." The part of John Hickenlooper will be played by Pete Buttigieg. Theatre buffs will feel the bern. When Elizabeth Warren wins a Tony for her role as Tamora, Queen of the Goths, she will send a Native American in her stead to refuse the award.

It may be worth noting that while Titus is an incredibly violent play, there are actually more deaths in Richard III, they just mostly happen off-stage.

Day 8: 22.3. Minerva Day - Minerva/Athene is the Roman/Greek goddess of intelligence, rational thinking and objectivity. Today's card asks you how you use your intelligence and talents, whether you give them the proper place or whether you feel you have undeveloped potential. What can you do to make the best use of your mental powers and intelligence?

With today's emphasis on intelligence, I thought I'd focus on the "collected information of political value" definition of intelligence and pull a card on the Mueller investigation. I had no idea the Mueller investigation would end today with Mueller handing in his report to the Attorney General. The card I drew was The Wheel of Fortune X The Printing Press -

First off, it's a trump card. I've always considered the Wheel of Fortune card in the tarot to be like a "spin again" section of a carnival prize wheel or a scratch-and-win lottery ticket where what you win is a free ticket. This may suggest the investigation doesn't end here, but only leads to more investigations. In The Shakespeare Tarot, the wheel is actually the printing press, which revolutionized society rather like computers and the internet have in our own age. This connection is underscored by the 1 and the 0 of the card's numerical number, 10 - 1 and 0 being the binary code that computer language is based on. How this relates to the Mueller probe is the hacking of the DNC computers, Wikileaks, and the manipulation of Facebook and other social media sites by the Russians. On the WofF card there are numerous books shown - so many that it becomes a jumble, one book blocking another and making it nearly impossible to distinguish any one line of thought. This may suggest the complexity of the investigation, but also certainly suggests the fact that the A.G. will interpret the probe and present its findings to the Senate, but that probably the probe itself will not be made entirely public.

One of the characters on the card is Dogberry - Trump certainly is capable of Dogberry-grade malapropisms - but being a policeman, he could represent Michael Flynn, the former national security adviser who has worked extensively with the investigation. There's Puck, who could be Trump's one-time fixer Michael Cohen, or more likely and less likable the self-proclaimed trouble-maker Roger Stone. Also here is Bottom with the head of an ass, and this could be almost anyone in Trump's inner circle, but is probably Trump's campaign chairman Paul Manafort, in charge as he was of overseeing the rude mechanical's revels. Ben Jonson, who edited Shakespeare's Folio, would be Mueller, trying to make sense of all these divergent storylines. "Honest" Ben is part monkey based on a poem by Jonson called Poet-Ape about a deceiver and fraud who pretends to be something he's not - a poet, when really he's a second-rate huckster.

As to whether this card indicates Trump's guilt or innocent vis-a-vis collusion with Russia is very hard to read. One thing the printing press famously promulgated was Martin Luther's criticism of the Catholic Church and thereby its schism and the great Protestant Reformation. This implies either a rewriting of regulatory laws and practices regarding future political campaigns or an even greater divide between the left and right in America, or more accurately: between the anti- and pro-Trump camps. Hoping for a bit more clarity, I pulled another card: The Star XVII Cordelia -

Another Trump card. This is an explosion of information, but it's hard to make sense of. In King Lear, goodness and honesty in the person of Cordelia is rejected by the king and the nation proceeds to go to hell in a handbag. Cordelia shows that it will be costly, but eventually the truth will out. Here, she also represents Shakespeare's youngest daughter who helped secure his legacy - therefore maybe she represents Trump's favourite daughter, Ivanka? Taking a different tack, perhaps this card alludes to Kent Starr, the former solicitor general who investigated Bill Clinton and eventually impeached him for lying under oath about an affair. Hoping for a bit more clarity, I pulled another card: Temperance XIV Measure for Measure -

Another trump card. MforM is a play about law and ethics. Perhaps the play's bedtrick and concern over extra-marital sex reflect Trump's paying off of porn stars? In the play, a nation's ruler retires and places in his stead a hard-headed idealist - I hope this doesn't imply Trump will quit &/or be impeached and Pence will take his place. One thing all these cards have in common is what they're saying in part is that there's too much information at play to make any one clear-cut decision on things. Hoping for a bit more clarity, I stopped pulling cards.

Day 9: 23.3. Hilaria = The Roman holiday of Hilaria celebrates laughter and fun. Today's card throws a light on the place light-hearted fun and humour have in your life. Do you laugh often enough? The card challenges you to find things that make you laugh and forget your worries, and do them regularly from now on.

Because I must stick with my news readings, and because I find the on-going Brexit nonsense borderline hilarious, I decided to pull a card on the governmental disfunction and possible outcome of Britain's divorce from the European Union. The card I pulled was The High Priestess II Elizabeth I -

Elizabeth I is seen here in a kind of cave, which could also be a stage; this may suggest parliament, and being cut off form the real world. The cave seems to be an island, so this may be Britain, cut off from Europe. ERI oversaw exploration to America, so enhanced trade with the US could be implied. ERI was vilified by Catholic countries in Europe, which may indicate how Europeans are beginning to feel about England. ERI undertook the idea of Britain as an empire, so this card may reflect the attempt by Brexiteers to return to Britain's glory days, or it could spell the final nail in its coffin. ERI could allude to today's Queen Elizabeth, but I rather think she alludes to Theresa May. One of The High Priestess' allocations is The Papess, or Queen Joan, the female pope who was discovered and cast out of the Vatican, reviled. This could indicate Theresa May will be unceremoniously cast out of either the Tory Party or Government. Another of the HP ERI's epithets is Astraea, believed to return to earth to usher back in the golden age, or: to make Britain great again. Understandably enough, it was during ERI's reign that the female figure of Brittainia came to signify the personification of Britain. Britain was founded by the Roman Brutus, grandson of the Troyan Aeneas. Brutus figures in Shakespeare's poem The Rape of Lucrece, which lies at ERI's feet. Brutus made Rome a Republic, which I doubt is going to happen to Britain. Rather, it's more likely the Republic of the EU will reject England and its monarchy, which may be undergoing a rape and seems intent on committing a kind of suicide. That said, ERI is also represented by the Phoenix, which dies and is born again from its own ashes. As it happened, today saw a million-person march in England of people demanding a 2nd referendum on Brexit. Curious what would happen if a 2nd referendum was held, I pulled a card to answer the question: The Fool 0 Launce/Autolycus

This card represents Shakespeare's first Fool, Lance, and his last, Autolycus. And as regards today's allocation of hilarity, it seems we've come full circle. The first fool on the left proudly sports England's St. George cross; a sleeping dog is left to lie. The last fool is being pursued by a bear, and barely has a leg to stand on. He's become a huckster and is on the skids. Really, there is only a slight difference between the 2, but the first fool is walking towards America, whereas the last is headed towards Europe.

Day 10: 24.3. Earth Hour - On this international day, people stop to think about the environment and the use we make of it. Are you doing all you can to keep and preserve this earth? Today's card asks you to find your own connection to the Earth you live on, whether through environment awareness or the voice of your spiritual tradition. How are you connected to this Earth and how can you honour it?

Taking today's allocation as focus, I pulled a card to elaborate on what it is that's preventing humanity from making the imperative changes needed to address climate change. The card I pulled was The Devil XV Othello -

In some ways The Devil Othello card suggests man at war with woman, black against white, evil against good; but in a simpler way, it sees man at war with himself. Aside from everything else going on here, there can be espied a bull's head, indicating the card's affinity with Taurus, implying the self-satisfaction with earthly pleasures. Its eyes are upside-down scales - somehow, maybe through black magic, these scales refuse to fall from these eyes. This hell we are in is an endless labyrinth, suggesting obfuscation and exhaustion. The hands of the man and woman are just barely holding on. Their feotus - which is also the head of an upside-down skeleton - hangs in the balance. At the centre of the card can also be espied a phallus, indicating a man-made world and male hegemony - even as it's excused as in the service of women and the future of humanity. The green-limbed Iago at the top centre of the card orchestrates everything, as both ego and devil, teasing out the hell in Othello and the demon in Desdemona. He is headless, seemingly without motive or aforethought, but just pure impure inclination. The white, or nothingness, which rents his torso open and takes the place of his face is as the phallus' ejaculate, impishly implying orgasmic self-gratification, or what the Victorians called self-abuse.

This all clearly points to the fact we are having too good a time to stop or modify what we're doing, caught up in it like a crime of passion.

Day 11: 25.3. Palm Sunday - The Christian holiday of Palm Sunday celebrates peace, hope and new beginnings. Today's card shows you where you have to make peace - with memories, people in your life or other painful matters. Let them go and don't beat yourself up any more.

I'm not sure why today's allocation is what it is - today is neither Sunday nor Palm Sunday. But given that celebration as a framework, connected as it is with the Holy Land, and with Netanyahu calling short his visit to the States because of renewed strife between Palestine and Israel, I decided to pull a card on the Middle East; the card I pulled was The Lovers VI Romeo & Juliet -

There's a certain comical aspect to pulling this card for this issue. Obviously, no real accord could be accomplished by the individuals Romeo and Juliet, when everyone around them and the weight of history repeatedly insists on the insoluble schism between their families. In the end they kill themselves over the other - for love, for hate, it makes little difference. Funny how Friar Laurence is trying to broker some kind of union here in the crypt - I don't see him as America, but as religion itself - the Judaic religions - trying to mediate matters of the heart and soul but making a hot mess of it. If America is represented, it would be off stage, in the person of Tybalt, a character who is alluded to as the Prince of Cats, playing on the Italian word cazzo, slang for prick. The Tudor rose which crowns the card suggests that some compromise can possibly be reached, involving a truce and integration of both factions. At the moment, however, it's all high melodrama that's fated to end in tears.

Day 12: 26.3. Preparation of the Temple of Luna - On the final day of our 12 days, we prepare for the annual Roman festival in the Temple of Luna, the Moon goddess. Today's card tells you how you can become more attuned to the intuitive, quiet side within you, how you can make your spiritual work more meaningful, and how to integrate your shadow into your life. It's the message of the Moon for the spring days ahead while the influence of the Sun is rising.

With today's final allocation, I pulled a card to signify what kind of attitude to take the global news cycle in the upcoming months. The card I pulled was the Page of Swords Thersites -

This is funny in a couple of ways. One is that I had just thought to myself recently that this is a card I almost never encounter in readings. Secondly, given today's question, it's as darkly sardonic a reposte as one would expect from Thesites himself. The play is Troilus & Cressida, where every character is an ego-centric hypocrite. Thersites is no less self-centred, but unlike everyone else he admits it. He is a servant of the Greeks warring against the Troyans, forced to participate in a stupid conflict against his will, and hating everyone and everything as a result. Thersites, like the only other somewhat respectable character in the play Cassandra, goes totally ignored. He is a fool character who has been driven mad - but his madness makes sense juxtaposed the insanity of the idiotic warmongers who enslave him. The Page of Swords represents free-thinkers and iconoclasts; the bileous enmity that Thersites drowns in suggests one would do best to respond to this wicked world philosophically, lest one succumb to its lunacy.

Addendum: I found reading for objective news events, as compared with reading for my own subjective life, revealing and entertaining. As fantastic and poetic as Shakespeare can be, he is also a naturalistic writer in many ways, and his works include much observation, history, and news of his day. Out of 20 cards pulled, 11 were trumps - a sign perhaps of Donald Trump's domination of media content, but essentially an indication that the gravity of the concerns at hand demanded a response from the Majors.


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[Joan Marie]

The Sacred Days of Vernal Equinox Spread

Day 1: 15.3. Cybele and Attis Festival - Today is the first day of week-long celebration of Cybele, the great Mother Goddess, and her youthful consort Attis. Today's card talks about love and eros in your life, and how you can celebrate them.

Day 1

We begin with Ace of Swords/Spades. This deck is organised a bit differently and this is the first time I am using it so I'm learning as I go here.

The image of the Buddha with the capital-dome and city-scape makes me think of the oneness we need to achieve as we nurture our inner life and engage with the outer one. This season is one that invites us to exit the comfort of home and engage with nature and with society as friends are now able to meet and enjoy each other's company in comfortable open spaces.

I am reminded that the best way to enjoy the world is to be at peace with one's self. This comes through meditation and contemplation of one's place in the world and the important roles we play in the lives of others.

Day 2: 16.3. Gahambar Hamaspathmaidyem - Today begins the Zoroastrian Holiday Gahambar Hamaspathmaidyem, celebrating the life cycle of human beings, from creation to death, and the presence of angels. Today's card connects you to your own path in life and the angel/power/energy that protects you.

Day 2

This beautiful card, the 9 of Discs/Diamonds shows a goddess in the process of creation, of forming a man. It is not her first, as the one lying on the ground proves. She is creative and works hard to bring her visions and ideas to life. There is a sort of faith at work. I use that word because I can't think of a better one. But there must be one. It's not so much a "faith" as it is a knowing that there is no other way to be. To attempt any task or build any kind of life, one has to trust that the energies will combine and be met by other outer energies that will produce something more than can even be imagined.


Day 3: 17.3. Liberalia - On this day, the Romans celebrated the Liberalia festival of freedom. Today's card tells you how you use your freedom and encourages you to be really free of bonds that limit your personality, talents and longings. What are the bonds you have to break to be free?

Day 3

The Page of Hearts/Cups.
This card reminds me of the sweetness and innocence of love. And on this day I am reminded that love really is free. Forgetting that and treating love as a kind of limited commodity or something that needs to be protected and doled out carefully is a limiting thing to the heart, to the soul. Spring is a time to let love flow freely and to not be afraid of doing that.


Day 4: 18.3. Ugadi - The Hindu holiday Ugadi is celebrated in some parts of India as New Year. Its traditional food represents the different tastes: sour, salty, sweet and bitter. Today's card shows you how to balance the flavours in your life, to be able to enjoy it to the fullest in the months ahead. How can make you make your life more flavourful and enjoyable?

Day 4

On this day I was on a very special adventure with my son and his girlfriend in their quest to start a new life in a new place. We stopped for breakfast in a really interesting place and I ordered a dish with a a name I unfortunately don't recall. It was a really interesting take on hueves rancheros that included all kinds of slight undertones of flavors i couldn't identify, there was citrusy things and there was banana and an amazing sauce, I could go on and on. But what I could not get over and kept saying was that all the tastes combined perfectly but remained individual. It was remarkable. I wish I had it right now! I had ordered it because it looked so interesting (though I could not have known just HOW interesting) and I thought I'll never get this again. It's a few days later now and I am back home in europe and reading that this day is about balancing the flavours of life and I realize it was the same day as I had that magical breakfast. In trying to describe it to my son I said it felt like it was striking all the different parts of my tongue at once but triggering different reactions.

The Knight of Pentacles represented here as a Zapatista riding in the rodeo of political upheaval and reminding us of the importance of protecting the earth. This card reminds me to have courage of my convictions and that to know who I am and what I believe will always lead me down an interesting path in life. Be open, take chances, believe in people and in good ideas.

UPDATE: I looked up the restaurant where I had this amazing breakfast and found the name of the dish: Huevos Motulenos

Day 5: 19.3. Eostre/Ostara - The Germanic goddess of spring is celebrated with eggs, rabbits and the ringing of bells. Today's card reminds you of a bell ringing in your life, a bell that calls you forward and that you didn't heed or overhear until now. Understand what this bell wants to tell you, and in the coming month, try to make its voice heard.

Day 5

This Ace of Pentacles, this particular image with this particular message of the day is very powerful to me. I have gathered up a lot of strength and experience in past year, two years really. I have made a lot of mistakes, hedged my bets, but now it feels like some very important lessons and truths about myself and my endeavors are beginning to become more real. I am feeling the energy of this card as it encourages me to expand myself and allow myself to reach out with confidence and intelligence and to put away the old ideas that served me well to an extent but are now too limited for what I can accomplish.


Day 6: 20.3. Spring/Vernal Equinox - This is the day of balance between day and night, when new things grow and push through the earth, when Kore/Persephone returns from the underworld and brings flowers with her. Today's card calls you to contemplate on creativity and renewal in your own life. Where do you resist change, and where should you embrace it?

Day 6

This amazing deck, The Wise Fool Tarot, has 5 Fools. There is the regular Major Arcana one, and then each suit contains it's own fool. I really think it's brilliant.

This is the Fool of Clubs/Wands, the Fool of Anarchy and Passion who tells us to WAKE UP!. And there is an interesting detail in the booklet, which was written by the deck creator Cade Burkhammer who at one time in his life was a clown. He calls that extended middle finger, the "Archer's Finger" and says this Fool is flaunting it to his enemies to show them they didn't cut it off. That's right, they tried to hurt you but failed! HA!! (Interesting historical explanation of the gesture!)

The card is about remembering to be irreverent and have fun and make the gods themselves laugh. And don't waste precious life. The long nights are gone now and I am reminded to embrace the gift of life with joy and laughter and spiritual intelligence. To remember each day to renew myself and then to proceed to live and experience and enjoy. (and f**k the haters!)


Day 7: 21.3. Harmony Day - In Australia, Harmony Day celebrates inclusiveness and acceptance. Today's card asks you to probe your own hidden prejudices, and what you can do to become more open and tolerant. Challenge yourself to inform yourself and get to know cultures, topics or people that until held irrational negative associations for you. How can you become an ambassador for inclusiveness and harmony in your society and immediate surrounding?

Day 7

This King of Hearts celebrates Love and Drink! The King is dressed in some kind of Carnival or other celebratory finery. Sharing love and kindness and food and drink and happiness is how we can best experience others. To bring out the best in others you must show the best of yourself.

I want to make a small plea now to anyone who might be reading this. Be kind to the homeless and avoid the tendency to judge them or place them in some shoebox of people Not Like Me. Treat them with dignity and see them as individuals. Imagine someone you love and care about in each one you see. Don't add to the difficulty of their plight with your looks of pity, scorn, fear or indifference. The smallest gesture and recognition of their dignity and humanity goes a long way and offers hope.

This is really true of all people who live on the margins of society, who live there because we push them there. No person is marginal. All deserve dignity and basic human kindness and understanding. People who have suffered much, who've been bullied, very often possess a depth of spirit, an understanding about life and people that is unmatched and yet unshared because their voices are not heard. Extend yourself to the margins. There is so much to learn there.


Day 8: 22.3. Minerva Day - Minerva/Athene is the Roman/Greek goddess of intelligence, rational thinking and objectivity. Today's card asks you how you use your intelligence and talents, whether you give them the proper place or whether you feel you have undeveloped potential. What can you do to make the best use of your mental powers and intelligence?

Do you ever draw a card and think, "this can't be right." But of course it is.
I was very drawn to the theme of today. It's something I think about a lot, how to be better, accomplish more, etc etc. So I was really anticipating this draw. and here is what I got:

Day 8

The 6 of Cups represented by two elderly people in the throes of memory lane. I have (like many I suppose) a conflicted relationship with memories, with reminiscing. Even really good memories tend to be wound up with not so good ones. Looking through old photos, which tend to focus subject matter-wise on happy times, still dredge up the unpleasant. There's a look in the eye, a memory from earlier in that day, or later. Something. And the older I get the more memories I have accumulated and it seems they can become this inescapable depository of sadness or negativity or pain.

But I also know I have been luckier than many. I think everyone has this problem, the way memories are all tied up creating this complex web of just what life is, pretty messy really.

Now to apply this to the theme at hand, about my potential, my mental powers and intelligence. I turn to the companion book for this deck about this card and he writes that the two old people know they are responsible for how they deal with their nostalgia. They can be dragged down by it or lose memory altogether. Then he writes, "Pursue happiness, joy, and fulfillment. Enthusiastically generate strong ecstatic memories."

So what if I were to live conscious that I am constantly creating memories? And what if I were to take this advice and create strong ecstatic ones? That would be a remarkable way to live. And a remarkable and very real way to maximise my life's potential.

Yes, I think this was the right card after all. This is a message I need to keep hold of.


Day 9: 23.3. Hilaria = The Roman holiday of Hilaria celebrates laughter and fun. Today's card throws a light on the place light-hearted fun and humour have in your life. Do you laugh often enough? The card challenges you to find things that make you laugh and forget your worries, and do them regularly from now on.

Day 9

I love how this card, the 4 of Clubs/Wands seems to represent a serious person engaging with his higher self in feat of acrobatics. And I really love that both of their heads are on fire.

Laughter is something there has never been a shortage of in my life. To me is a basis of existence. I am allergic to the morose and humourless. To not see the humour in life shows a dangerous lack of imagination. We support each other through tough times and good times with an eye to absurdity, irony, awkwardness and all the things that keep us honest.


Day 10: 24.3. Earth Hour - On this international day, people stop to think about the environment and the use we make of it. Are you doing all you can to keep and preserve this earth? Today's card asks you to find your own connection to the Earth you live on, whether through environment awareness or the voice of your spiritual tradition. How are you connected to this Earth and how can you honour it?

Day 10

Well this card pretty well depicts my feeling about the state of the Earth right now.
I really don't want to go on a rant just now. But I think we won't be forgiven for what we've allowed to happen.

I'm looking out right now onto my beautiful garden that we keep half wild and make it a home for animals and insects as everything natural around us shrinks and shrinks with housing developments and luxury apartments and ...here I go.

I do what I can. Every day I think about it. I'm just trying to be able to live with myself as I see this beautiful planet, our home being run over by people who have no idea what life is worth and how wonderful it can be.

Yeah, I see the little orange balloon in the back. To be honest, I don't hold out a lot of hope. I wish I did.


Day 11: 25.3. Palm Sunday - The Christian holiday of Palm Sunday celebrates peace, hope and new beginnings. Today's card shows you where you have to make peace - with memories, people in your life or other painful matters. Let them go and don't beat yourself up any more.

Day 11

The 5 of Diamonds/Discs
Spring is a good time to drop some baggage for sure. Lose some heaviness that I've been carrying around.
This card has a rich person and a poor person and makes me think of the role that power and position play and how those roles are so relative. How much of our opinions and feeling for others, especially family maybe, is grounded in some way in the role their successes/failures in life have played out. And again, how relative all that is. We judge and we feel judged. And it's all really bullshit. We give some people too much credit and others not nearly enough. Based on what?

We've got to help each other when we can. Not helping someone when you could have is a regret that would be hard to live with.


Day 12: 26.3. Preparation of the Temple of Luna - On the final day of our 12 days, we prepare for the annual Roman festival in the Temple of Luna, the Moon goddess. Today's card tells you how you can become more attuned to the intuitive, quiet side within you, how you can make your spiritual work more meaningful, and how to integrate your shadow into your life. It's the message of the Moon for the spring days ahead while the influence of the Sun is rising.

Day 12

Well isn't this a lovely ending to this beautiful welcoming Spring exercise? Regarding the question of the day about how to become more in-tune with my spiritual work, intuitive side and integrate my shadow, this card tells me to let in the light.

I do not feel I need to add anything. This card feels so perfect to me and this message of light is exactly what I need to know.

[litefoot13]

[Life the last couple days have been crazy, getting started a couple days late. xD]

The Sacred Days of Vernal Equinox Spread:

Day 1: 15.3. Cybele and Attis Festival - Today is the first day of week-long celebration of Cybele, the great Mother Goddess, and her youthful consort Attis. Today's card talks about love and eros in your life, and how you can celebrate them.

I approach this first part with a sort of hesitation and uncertainty - I'm asexual and most likely aromantic, firmly single and very much content with it. Love and eros are not a priority in my life in any way, shape or form. >.>



[Six of Swords]

I get a feeling that my cards sensed my hesitation with this particular question, and is telling me that it's okay, that that is a viable life choice. In the card there are a number of crows clustered together, seeming to talk to each other and a couple even seeming to pair up, while in the back a figure is travelling alone upon a white swan, but is very comfortable with it.

I am also struck by the fact that I pulled a swords card - cards of the mind, of detachment, of the Self. To me the swords are among the LEAST emotional of the suits - I'm reminded of how in Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series there are the Swordsworn, characters who are sworn to their goddess and are celibate and detached.

All in all, I'm getting 'hey, you're not interested in any of that, and that's okay. Despite what the world may think, and specifically the town you live in might think, you're okay.'

Day 2: 16.3. Gahambar Hamaspathmaidyem - Today begins the Zoroastrian Holiday Gahambar Hamaspathmaidyem, celebrating the life cycle of human beings, from creation to death, and the presence of angels. Today's card connects you to your own path in life and the angel/power/energy that protects you.



[Queen of Cups]

I opened my meaning book for this card and found my breath catching in my throat - the VERY FIRST line reads 'the very being of the Queen of Cups is a creative nexus.' As someone trying to rekindle my artistic side, I'm...struck, almost to the point of blinking back tears to see that my path, the energy that swirls around me, might be...creativity itself. I can't even find the words to express the feelings that sparked through me...

Day 3: 17.3. Liberalia - On this day, the Romans celebrated the Liberalia festival of freedom. Today's card tells you how you use your freedom and encourages you to be really free of bonds that limit your personality, talents and longings. What are the bonds you have to break to be free?

[Three of Cups]



Another cups card, interesting. I don't actually get them very often, swords and pentacles crop up more often in my cards.

Everything I'm looking at and reading is telling me that this card is a card of friendships and companionship and celebration. I can't imagine it's telling me to break those bonds, of course. x3

However, I am VERY much a loner kind of person, very content with spending my time alone. Maybe it is THAT that I am supposed to deal with. Relationships I am not interested in, as mentioned above, but friendships I could use a few more of, even if they are awkward and uncomfortable and take a great deal of work. >.>

Day 4: 18.3. Ugadi - The Hindu holiday Ugadi is celebrated in some parts of India as New Year. Its traditional food represents the different tastes: sour, salty, sweet and bitter. Today's card shows you how to balance the flavours in your life, to be able to enjoy it to the fullest in the months ahead. How can make you make your life more flavourful and enjoyable?

[Seven of Cups]



Wow, ANOTHER cups card. This is very interesting indeed.

I get a feeling of goalmaking - one of the pair has her sights on a far off floating island, even though they both stand in a place full of all kinds of things. Perhaps a sense of looking and working for more than you currently have?

I mean, right now I'm very focused on the day to day parts of life, I'm not doing a ton of planning ahead, other than a few big things that are 'somewhere in the future'. So perhaps it's a sign to focus on more than just the 'now'?

Although, taking a look at the book's meaning for the deck, it points out that he's also planning out future goals, he's just focusing on the more attainable castles on the ground, rather than the impossible one in the sky. And there are many possible routes, many options. Maybe I just need to keep all my options open and not block off any of them yet. x3

Day 5: 19.3. Eostre/Ostara - The Germanic goddess of spring is celebrated with eggs, rabbits and the ringing of bells. Today's card reminds you of a bell ringing in your life, a bell that calls you forward and that you didn't heed or overhear until now. Understand what this bell wants to tell you, and in the coming month, try to make its voice heard.

[Nine of Cups]



How about I pull every cup in the deck for this thing? I've got a chunk of the odd cups so far.

Swirling, eddying chaos on this card. The expression on the merman does not appear to be a pleasant one, as he's caught in chaos and...something drawn out of him and into the cup. Considering that cups often represent emotion, perhaps he is being forced to feel emotions he does not want to feel.

Interesting, then, that I react to this card rather negatively at first sight, since the definitions I read declare it a VERY positive card, a card of receiving what you want, a card of wish granting, of peace and harmony. What does that say about me, that my reaction to a card that promises happiness sets me at unease when I look at it in this pull?

Well, actually, that's kind of a simple question, and it's answer might answer the day's question as well - I periodically suffer from depression, and can almost feel when it's rearing it's ugly head sometimes, and lately I've been fighting it off more often. Maybe my 'bell' tells me to watch for the happiness and hold onto it when I have it, to help with the days when I do not.

Day 6: 20.3. Spring/Vernal Equinox - This is the day of balance between day and night, when new things grow and push through the earth, when Kore/Persephone returns from the underworld and brings flowers with her. Today's card calls you to contemplate on creativity and renewal in your own life. Where do you resist change, and where should you embrace it?

For Southern Hemisphere tarotists who experience Autumn: what are the wilting things and feelings in my life that I should let go?

[9 of Swords]



Ah, finally I get off the cups train.

Although perhaps I miss the positive card of wish granting already? x3

This card is very cool, almost aloof. A figure in the front up looks up with appears to be concern at a flurry of dark birds that appear to be spiraling down towards them. My first sensation is one of dread or threat, but then I noticed there is one of the birds perching upon their shoulder - no sign of attack there, so perhaps the arriving birds are greeting, not massing for an attack.

The book meaning seems to agree with my first thoughts, though not in quite the same way - the figure is struck with inner turmoil, unable to listen to the guide landing on their shoulder, seeing only the threat of the storm.

As far as how this pertains to the question...hm. Well, I do sometimes get locked into a vicious cycle of my own thoughts that feedback into each other and take it darker and darker, kind of like the storm in the sky spiraling in the card - perhaps the change I need to embrace is reaching outside of myself, either to someone else or to other thoughts or perhaps to a deity, for help in escaping the vicious downdraft of thinking.

On a brief aside, I was also struck by the fact that spiraling features so prominently in this card and the last one - it is possible to have negative spirals and positive spirals of thoughts, and too much of either is not a good thing.

Day 7: 21.3. Harmony Day - In Australia, Harmony Day celebrates inclusiveness and acceptance. Today's card asks you to probe your own hidden prejudices, and what you can do to become more open and tolerant. Challenge yourself to inform yourself and get to know cultures, topics or people that until held irrational negative associations for you. How can you become an ambassador for inclusiveness and harmony in your society and immediate surrounding?

[Two of Pentacles]



Hmmm. This is a difficult question. Mostly because I live in an EXTREMELY conservative town. EXTREMELY. Prejudice is alive and well here and accepted very casually (just the other day at work, I nearly had to bite through my lip to stay quiet as one of my coworkers spoke about 'the cause of people having fewer kids being because of LGBT being more common in the news - it's like how people have always done no meat diets, but when it got in the news it started being this big fad.'

Having some VERY strong liberal views and having some major personal issues with religion in this town have left me feeling like the person on the card - preciously balancing and juggling desperately to keep from dropping everything. Sometimes I not only want to drop it, I want to THROW the dang things at people, but small things like wanting to keep my job make take deep breathes, grit out a smile, and try to gently work on changing people's minds.

Even if it's frustrating as all get out.

Day 8: 22.3. Minerva Day - Minerva/Athene is the Roman/Greek goddess of intelligence, rational thinking and objectivity. Today's card asks you how you use your intelligence and talents, whether you give them the proper place or whether you feel you have undeveloped potential. What can you do to make the best use of your mental powers and intelligence?

[Six of Pentacles]



'What is not watered will not grow.' That's the feeling I'm getting from this card. The musician plays, which makes the water flow, and the plant grows beneath the spray of riches sent out, even though it is surrounded by thorny plants.

I admit I have been focusing on the creative in my life a great deal. I used to read a phenomenal amount - I finished somewhere around 630 books last year. And then I've suffered burnout and have barely finished a book every week the past few months.

Art and crafting is very good and important, but somewhat mindless. I tend to watch youtube videos while working, most of which are not the most intelligent of choices. Perhaps I need to water my brain with slightly more difficult subjects.

Day 9: 23.3. Hilaria = The Roman holiday of Hilaria celebrates laughter and fun. Today's card throws a light on the place light-hearted fun and humour have in your life. Do you laugh often enough? The card challenges you to find things that make you laugh and forget your worries, and do them regularly from now on.

[The High Priestess]



Ooooh, my first major arcana in the reading series.

I think...this card is telling me I'm taking my concerns about religion and spirituality too seriously.

It's...it's complicated. I think this is a matter I will have to set aside for now and consider before I write about it, perhaps in rambles in my ramble spot on the board.

Day 10: 24.3. Earth Hour - On this international day, people stop to think about the environment and the use we make of it. Are you doing all you can to keep and preserve this earth? Today's card asks you to find your own connection to the Earth you live on, whether through environment awareness or the voice of your spiritual tradition. How are you connected to this Earth and how can you honour it?

[Seven of Swords]



Hmm, interesting in how for a question about the Earth, there is a card with many swords stuck deep into it. A figure considers one sword, perhaps they had taken it? while a large white swan keeps one eye on what they're doing behind its back.

This is a card I've pulled multiple times before in readings, and have a decent knowledge of. I know that it commonly indicates deception and dishonorable actions, but in this case...

I try to do my best to live a earth friendly life, but it is difficult when my workplace trashes whole piles of recyclables, when my city cuts down its recycling program to a fraction of the possibilities, when everyone donates to a thrift store proven to throw out a large percentage of their donations... Sometimes it gets to be too much, and sometimes I wonder what's the point, and do things to avoid the effort of dealing with them, which then makes me feel guilty as well as frustrated.

Like so many of these readings, maybe the solution is to get out of my head. Stop wondering whether I'm going to stab the earth with a sword like so many others, and just keep doing my best without getting dragged under.

Day 11: 25.3. Palm Sunday - The Christian holiday of Palm Sunday celebrates peace, hope and new beginnings. Today's card shows you where you have to make peace - with memories, people in your life or other painful matters. Let them go and don't beat yourself up any more.

[Knight of Cups]



Back to cups now. x3

Riding a graceful unicorn steed, this knight seems to be chasing after a goal - in this case, a shining cup perhaps similar to the holy grail. The way there is difficult, the sea itself riding up to block the way.

Tonight I struggle fiercely with depression and a sort of existentialism - I feel for the rider, the goal so close and yet so far away. Water might not seem like such a barrier to some people, who might say 'why don't you just reach out and grab it? Why can't you just be happy?', but they don't understand that I want to...but I can't.

Depression is the epitome of constantly beating yourself up, for me...it's dark words whispering in the back of your mind saying nothing you do matters.

This is a question I did not need a card to answer. I think I shall stop here, my mental state is not in a position to find a positive answer at this time.

Day 12: 26.3. Preparation of the Temple of Luna - On the final day of our 12 days, we prepare for the annual Roman festival in the Temple of Luna, the Moon goddess. Today's card tells you how you can become more attuned to the intuitive, quiet side within you, how you can make your spiritual work more meaningful, and how to integrate your shadow into your life. It's the message of the Moon for the spring days ahead while the influence of the Sun is rising.

[Eight of Cups]



Well, that's 3, 7, 8, 9, Knight and Queen, now. Holy cups.

I've recently had another chance to ruminate on this card...I even technically pulled it reversed this time, too, just like last time.

The most striking thing I get from the book for this deck are the lines 'follow and delve within for personal discovery and answers. Turn away and disengage from the material world for the spiritual.' As far as spiritual practices, I am still very much hesitating on a fence while considering what I want to do, mostly due to my own mental blocks.

I still get a little bit of the same kind of answer I got the last time I got this card - 'Pick something and run with it, dangit.' x3

[dodalisque]

The Sacred Days of Vernal Equinox Spread:

For these readings I am using The Alice Tarot by Baba Studios (2014), based on the two novels by Lewis Carroll, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass". Carroll's best friend was the actress Ellen Terry, who was the guardian of Pamela Colman Smith, the co-creator of the great Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot.

Day 1: 15.3. Cybele and Attis Festival - Today is the first day of week-long celebration of Cybele, the great Mother Goddess, and her youthful consort Attis. Today's card talks about love and eros in your life, and how you can celebrate them.

Today's card the 3 of Cups, which is traditionally the card of friendships, shows Alice talking to the Red Queen and White Queen from the book "Alice Through the Looking Glass." This seems to suggest that the way for me to celebrate love and eros in my life at the Vernal Equinox, the time of the year's reawakening, is to socialise and party.

However, this specific card shows a scene from the book that implies the reverse of the usual RWS meaning. Socialising is depicted as a time-wasting bore. Notice the three figures are sitting down rather than dancing in a circle. The Red Queen is a self-important bully, the White Queen is a querulous fool, and what passes for conversation between the three is frustrating and absurd.

The deliberately ridiculous "plot" of the book finds Alice trapped in a world that is a kind of living chessboard. Alice, who began the game as a lowly pawn, has reached the furthest rank at the other end of the board and so, as in a real chess game, has become promoted to the rank of Queen. She is quite proud of her new status and feels obscurely flattered that she is now allowed to sit down as an equal with the two opposing Queens from the game. But the Red and White queens do not treat her as an equal, and the quality of their conversation is much lower than Alice is accustomed to in her normal life. The message seems to be that to awaken new energy in my life at the vernal equinox I need to spend less time in idle conversation, and to overcome my exaggerated respect for my "elders and betters."

Details of the relationship between Cybele (the great Mother Goddess of the Romans, though a minor deity for the Greeks) and Attis (her "youthful consort"), also seems to underline the above message about misplaced energies. Cybele, an immortal god, falls in love with the beautiful mortal boy Attis, but he rejects the goddess and chooses instead to love a mortal girl. In other words, he squanders his supply of spiritual energy on sex. In the same way, Alice wastes her time on mere socialising. Cybele punishes Attis by driving him insane. He castrates and kills himself. The Cybele and Attis festival celebrates Cybele's resuscitation and restoration of Attis. He is now ready to undertake an intimate relationship with the Divine. It is a myth about the need for sexual purity in the spiritual life.

The followers of Attis in Rome, who were known as the Galli, were a cult of mendicant eunuch priests who were notorious for their outrageous public effeminacy. They were excluded from all official celebrations of Cybele, though the figure of Attis himself was retained as an important part of her story. That's pretty smart of the Romans. You don't attain spiritual purity by castrating yourself - literally or figuratively by becoming a celibate monk, or scorning and repressing one's own sexual drive. As the poet Robert Bly said, "The only way to learn sexual discipline is to keep horniness alive!" Sublimating or transforming sexual energy, which is formalised in Hinduism as the path of tantric yoga, is the positive way advocated by this festival at the Vernal Equinox.

In simple terms then, the card is telling me that I can celebrate love and eros in my life by using that energy to enjoy the world more deeply rather than by tossing it away on selfish indulgence or by pretending to be indifferent to pleasure.

Day 2: 16.3. Gahambar Hamaspathmaidyem - Today begins the Zoroastrian Holiday Gahambar Hamaspathmaidyem, celebrating the life cycle of human beings, from creation to death, and the presence of angels. Today's card connects you to your own path in life and the angel/power/energy that protects you.

The angel/power/energy that is protecting me is the Page of Cups. In the Alice Tarot this is a Fish Footman, who is delivering an invitation to the Duchess's house inviting her to attend a croquet party at the Queen's palace. In the RWS deck the Page of Cups is holding a goblet that contains a cheeky little fish, but here the fish has taken over and has become the Page of Cups himself. Pages are often interpreted in the tarot as being the bearers of messages. Perhaps my guardian angel is perpetually bringing me messages from the depths of the ocean of the subconscious. I need to get into the habit of responding to his knock and answering the door.

He's a faithful servant who is gentle and harmless, and is perhaps particularly suited to be my companion because of his fish-out-of-water oddity. The Page of Cups is generally interpreted as being youthful, creative, loving, and romantic, but the fishy Page in the book is more of an ineffectual dreamer.

This Zoroastrian holiday is meant to celebrate the "mid-path of all," when it is traditional to remember the souls of the dead who live on as our guardian angels. Their physical death, represented by winter, now transitions into new life in the world of spirit as our personal companions. Perhaps the Page is bringing messages from the world of the dead - an invitation to recognise their continuing role in our life on earth and feel the spiritual support of a wider loving community. There is no need to feel isolated and alone in the world.

Day 3: 17.3. Liberalia - On this day, the Romans celebrated the Liberalia festival of freedom. Today's card tells you how you use your freedom and encourages you to be really free of bonds that limit your personality, talents and longings. What are the bonds you have to break to be free?

The limiting bonds I need to break free from are represented by the Moon card. This shows the moment when Alice begins her dreamlike slow-motion fall down the rabbit-hole into the world of Wonderland. It has something of a "descent to the underworld" feeling about it, and is also a sort of journey through a birth canal into a wider, stranger dimension. Alice manages to remain brave and relatively unperturbed by all her peculiar experiences, keeping her wits about her and her commonsensical attitude intact.

She teaches us that our surrender to the forces of the unconscious need not be a source of fear. To dream and to create is not to be confused with madness. Perhaps that is what I fear. In my spiritual life perhaps I am still clinging desperately to the roots of the oak tree above Alice instead of allowing myself to relax and experience the sensation of falling. This card seems closely connected to the ideas more usually related to the Fool card.

The Liberalia festival, among other things, celebrated the maturation of young boys to manhood. Did I never grow up? Roman boys, usually at 15 or 16, would remove the "bulla praetexta", a hollow charm of gold or leather which parents placed around the necks of children to ward off evil spirits. At Liberalia the charm was removed and laid on an altar dedicated to the Lares, or minor household gods, presumably because the boys were now thought to be capable of protecting themselves, or rather of being ready to devote themselves to more elevated and powerful deities. Once the bulla praetexta was removed the young men were considered full citizens with the right to vote, and were allowed to discard their purple-bordered togas in favour of the pure white toga of manhood. Perhaps it's time to have a clear-out of all the sentimental relics of my childhood I keep stashed away.

Day 4: 18.3. Ugadi - The Hindu holiday Ugadi is celebrated in some parts of India as New Year. Its traditional food represents the different tastes: sour, salty, sweet and bitter. Today's card shows you how to balance the flavours in your life, to be able to enjoy it to the fullest in the months ahead. How can make you make your life more flavourful and enjoyable?

That's funny that Ugadi, a festival associated with balancing the four flavours of life, should be represented on the 8 of Coins by the famous nursery-rhyme tarts stolen by the Knave of Hearts. "The Queen of Hearts she made some tarts all on a summer's day;/The Knave of Hearts he stole the tarts and took them clean away./The King of Hearts called for the tarts and beat the Knave full sore;/The Knave of Hearts brought back the tarts and vow'd he'd steal no more."

Even though this card is usually associated with the patient repetition and perfecting of a simple task, the nursery-rhyme suggests that greed might also be a negative quality I need to pay attention to - stealing and gobbling down other people's ideas rather than working away by myself to be able to claim credit for my own achievements.

Sure, life would be more enjoyable if I could learn the discipline of sticking to a task, until I learned to make "the perfect tart", rather than giving up quickly due to laziness. But giving all my attention to "sweetness" rather than the other three flavours of sour, salty and bitter also suggests that I tend to avoid harshness and difficulty in my life. I pamper myself with an unvarying diet of saccharine niceness, and maybe need to add some variety to make my days more lively and unpredictable.

Just before Alice wakes up and finds herself back home in the ordinary world, there is a trial to determine who stole the tarts. The Knave of Hearts is in chains in the dock as the defendant, and he maintains his innocence, even though of course everyone who knows the nursery-rhyme knows he is guilty. He took them but the court is too disorganised to prove his guilt and proceedings are unresolved. Perhaps this preference for unrelieved sweetness is a sort of crime, and maybe my luck will run out some day and I will be found guilty and made to suffer by the forces of the universe that always work to restore a healthy balance.


Day 5: 19.3. Eostre/Ostara - The Germanic goddess of spring is celebrated with eggs, rabbits and the ringing of bells. Today's card reminds you of a bell ringing in your life, a bell that calls you forward and that you didn't heed or overhear until now. Understand what this bell wants to tell you, and in the coming month, try to make its voice heard.

The bell in my life is ringing out the message of the importance of Strength. It's a wake-up call to tell me that it's time for me this year to show some bravery and self-control. On the Alice Tarot Strength card, Alice is calming down the Lion and the Unicorn, who seem to be embroiled in a half-hearted never-ending battle. A lion and unicorn appear on the Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom. The lion represents England and the Unicorn represents Scotland. The scene on the card is based around the old nursery-rhyme that begins: "The Lion and the Unicorn/Were fighting for the crown." The Strength card illustrates the concept of gentle, firm discipline. I need to take the same approach as Alice to the resolve the constant potentially self-damaging inner conflicts in my psyche.

Oestre or Ostara is the Gemanic goddess who is the probable source of the tradition of associating eggs and bunny-rabbits with Easter. Ostara changed her animal companion from a bird, who lays eggs, into a hare. This is particularly fitting for the story of Alice since her main guide in the underworld Wonderland, if she has one, is the White Rabbit, and later at the famous tea-party scene she meets the mad March Hare. "Mad as a March hare" is another folk saying to describe someone who is running about so frantically that they seem insane. The bell that rings on this holiday seems quite similar to the pocket watch that the White Rabbit is constantly consulting. Perhaps the submerged message of this card is that I need to slow down and take my time rather than run around in aimless circles like the White Rabbit, too distracted and busy seeming busy that I never actually get anything worthwhile accomplished.

Day 6: 20.3. Spring/Vernal Equinox - This is the day of balance between day and night, when new things grow and push through the earth, when Kore/Persephone returns from the underworld and brings flowers with her. Today's card calls you to contemplate on creativity and renewal in your own life. Where do you resist change, and where should you embrace it?

The Knight of Wands is an excellent card to represent youthful creative energy. Traditionally he is an energetic passionate man who rides a red flame-colored horse and whose clothes, even the plume on his helmet, look like flames. The Knight in the Alice Tarot is represented by the "Rocking-Horse-Fly", one of the Looking Glass insects that Alice is shown by the Gnat she meets on her journey.

A rocking horse is something made out of wood, which fits the Wands suit, and which is designed to rock on the same spot without moving forward - a symbol of the constant expenditure of energy devoted to getting precisely nowhere, much like the March Hare (cf. yesterday's entry). The other half of this creature's personality is a "horse fly", whose wings allow it to move around but who also has a nasty bite. Perhaps by combining two creatures in one, Lewis Carroll is suggesting that aimless frantic motion can sour one's temper and make one want to snap at people.

Today is the first day of Spring, when Persephone, a goddess of vegetation and fertility, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, is released from her 4 month winter captivity by Hades, the God of the Underworld. The Eleusinian Mysteries, based around the worship of Persephone, were the life-transforming ritual ceremonies meant to re-enact the release of Persephone from Hades. The celebrants would first be kept in a gloomy dark place and subjected to a series of terrifying experiences. This allowed the participants to emotionally experience an ecstatic expansion of consciousness when, like Persephone, they finally emerged from darkness into light. I've been underground long enough, it's time to start enjoying myself while I'm alive on Earth.


Day 7: 21.3. Harmony Day - In Australia, Harmony Day celebrates inclusiveness and acceptance. Today's card asks you to probe your own hidden prejudices, and what you can do to become more open and tolerant. Challenge yourself to inform yourself and get to know cultures, topics or people that until held irrational negative associations for you. How can you become an ambassador for inclusiveness and harmony in your society and immediate surrounding?

The people against whom I hold an irrational dislike are represented by...the Knight of Coins. Yes, I do have a knee jerk response to young people who are materialistic, money-mad capitalists. They tend to be dull plodding individuals from an early age, in the spiritual sense, regardless of how much time they pour into making money. Money itself is not the problem, since it can be used to bring tremendous comfort and joy into the world. But to accumulate money for its own sake, or simply to gain power over others and increase one's own status, is not admirable trait. There seems to be an element of fear in such individuals, who need to insulate themselves against reality or compensate for the absence of genuinely nourishing resources in their own personality.

In the Alice Tarot the Knight of Coins is the White Knight from the chess game in "Through the Looking Glass". A "White Knight" is an expression similar to "Knight in Shining Armour", meaning a man who comes to rescue a woman, or girl in need. It's also used in stock markets to mean a company that rescues another company that is in danger of being taken over. "Rescue" in the economic world invariably comes at a price. When the US government puts together an "aid package" for a struggling country, it is always dependent on that country agreeing to surrender long term control of whole sectors of its economy.

Knights are usually young and dashing but this one is old before his time and, looking remarkably similar to our idea of Don Quixote, is wearing light armour and carrying a protective helmet as though not quite prepared for actual battle. Don Quixote's tired old horse Rocinante is white too. The name sounds sonorous and romantic but "rocin" in Spanish means a "work horse" or an illiterate or rough man. So why should I not continue to dislike this sort of person? Because there is an air of gentle melancholy and regret that makes him ultimately pitiable. While your landlord is evicting you, you have to retain a particle of pity for him, because you know that cash is his substitute at some level for genuine happiness, and that his wife and child at home, if he has a wife and child at home, find him ridiculous.

The White Knight is always falling off his horse, and his inventions, though ingenious, are worthless and absurd. He sings Alice a mournful song and it genuinely moves her. The Knight of Coins in the RWS is a firm dependable character, and while the White Knight is the reverse of this, he is gentle and kind. So not all boring uncreative people who work hard are necessarily mean and hateful too. They may have other admirable qualities, and I need to remember that and judge each person on his or her merits. Orange is the official Harmony Day colour in Australia, so I will find something orange to wear today to acknowledge this. And I will smile at my landlord and cry out in a broad Australian accent, "Fair dinkums, cobber!" in order to drive him crazy.

Day 8: 22.3. Minerva Day - Minerva/Athene is the Roman/Greek goddess of intelligence, rational thinking and objectivity. Today's card asks you how you use your intelligence and talents, whether you give them the proper place or whether you feel you have undeveloped potential. What can you do to make the best use of your mental powers and intelligence?

The Queen of Cups comes forward to inform me how I can make the best use of my intellectual powers. This is the simplest card to interpret so far. Intelligence itself is only valuable when it is used to promote happiness and love. We hear a lot nowadays about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and about how wonderful it will be when we are attached to computers that make us 100 times smarter. No, but if they could somehow make us all 100 times more loving, or write poems that were 100 times more moving, then I think we'd really be getting somewhere.

In the Alice Tarot the Queen is represented by Alice herself at the moment she reaches the other end of the chessboard in Through the Looking Glass and becomes transformed into a Queen, as in a real chess game. It is a moment of achievement and happiness at her success in the chess game, and anticipates Alice's final triumph on the World card, where she does not need a crown to feel on top of the world.

The sad thing about Alice's transformation into a Queen is that it is so short-lived, and even ultimately a little disappointing and anti-climactic. Lewis Carroll seems to be saying that such moments are rare and should be enjoyed while we have the opportunity, but that we should not expect momentary victories to satisfy us for long (cf. Day 1 - 3 of Cups). The intellect dreams of constructing structures that will last forever and become enshrined as everlasting Truth, but there is no such thing as permanence in the intellectual world. This year's spectacular new idea - the crown on Alice's head - is next year's old hat.

Alice uses her intelligence throughout the book to keep an even keel through all the mayhem she is subjected to. When she becomes Queen she does not feel self-important or become arrogant like the Red Queen, nor does she slump into inactivity like the White Queen, but remains the same pleasant person she always was. Small intellectual achievements should not go to my head or tempt me to put on airs and graces.
Apparently in ancient Rome it was a tradition for all women to consult diviners and fortune-tellers on Minerva Day.

Day 9: 23.3. Hilaria = The Roman holiday of Hilaria celebrates laughter and fun. Today's card throws a light on the place light-hearted fun and humour have in your life. Do you laugh often enough? The card challenges you to find things that make you laugh and forget your worries, and do them regularly from now on.

I should laugh more and be more like...the Page of Wands. Yet another court card - the tarot seems to be telling me I need more people in my life. Maybe that's all I need to cheer me up. The Page of Wands is represented in the Alice Tarot by the White Rabbit Herald. This is the same White Rabbit that Alice meets when she first enters Wonderland. Then he was running around frantically with a pocket watch, always feeling as though he was late for something, but when he reappears as the herald in the courtroom scene at the end of the book, he seems to have a completely different personality. At the beginning of the book he is fussy and pompous; as the herald he is a fluffy bunny with an attractive new seriousness about him. I need a new personality.

The White Rabbit Herald is not the naive character we normally associate with the RWS Page of Wands - someone whose Wand is bigger than he is - someone who has bitten off more than he can chew. Instead, as seems common in the Alice tarot, the card seems focus on the reverse meaning - that is, someone who is disciplined and responsible. Nevertheless, he is a rabbit, so the connotations of enthusiasm and energy are still fitting. The rabbit also has a small role in the royal court, just as the Page of Wands does, and rabbits are small and cute, as we expect a Page to be.

Perhaps it's because the White Rabbit is finally in his element - taking his position in the royal court and advising - even controlling the King himself. He has a job now and a clearly defined purpose. He is an advisor, or perhaps a teacher, as well as being a herald, delivering important messages. This herald is also dressed in a smart uniform. So I will get a lot more pleasure and fun out of life if I dress more smartly and take on a teaching or advisory role. Apparently, dressing-up and wearing costumes was very common on the Roman feast day of Hilaria, another festival in honor of the mother goddess Cybele.

White Rabbit was also the title of a famous song from the 70s by a group called Jefferson Airplane. The lyrics compare an LSD trip to Alice's journey down the rabbit hole. Some Class-A drugs might be just the ticket.

Day 10: 24.3. Earth Hour - On this international day, people stop to think about the environment and the use we make of it. Are you doing all you can to keep and preserve this earth? Today's card asks you to find your own connection to the Earth you live on, whether through environment awareness or the voice of your spiritual tradition. How are you connected to this Earth and how can you honour it?

Page of Coins...the mad March Hare. Another court card. 5 in a row! Alice spends a lot of her time talking to Kings and Queens in the royal court, so this seems fitting. Considering this is Earth Hour Day then the Page of Coins - the suit of Earth - seems to fit. But once again the Alice Tarot turns the RWS world upside down and gives us a character who is the direct reverse of the practical, down-to-earth, even dull RWS Page of Coins.

The March Hare takes the "mother" role at the Mad Hatter's tea party, being in charge of serving tea and cakes for everyone. He is like a debased Mother Earth figure, providing for everyone. He seems fairly content to be stuck in an unending routine, but then he decides to fix the Mad Hatter's Watch with "best butter". When this impractical plan doesn't work he tries dipping it in tea.

All of them are stuck at a perpetual tea party that never ends because the Mad Hatter's watch isn't working. Isn't this the same as our attempts to halt environmental damage to the planet: we are living in a never ending feast of consumption. Attempts to end the tea party by starting time up again - to put an end to the stalemate over who should be responsible for saving the planet - are half-hearted or ridiculous. Nothing changes and the nightmarish farce continues.

Since Pages can often be messengers in readings, the way I will honor the planet today is to send a letter to the HQ of America's Tea Party containing a bundle of literature from various environmental groups concerned with the damage being done to the planet by oil-friendly right-wing political parties. Even "best butter" is a kind of oil, but more of it won't mend the Mad Hatter's watch and start time up again.

Day 11: 25.3. Palm Sunday - The Christian holiday of Palm Sunday celebrates peace, hope and new beginnings. Today's card shows you where you have to make peace - with memories, people in your life or other painful matters. Let them go and don't beat yourself up any more.

What I need to let go of is...The Lovers. Oh yes, that relationship that ended 15 years ago...maybe it's time to think about letting it go. The Lovers in the Alice Tarot are represented by two flamingos at the Queen's croquet ground, their necks combining to form negative empty space in the shape of a heart. There is a third flamingo in the background who may be a rival rather than the mediating angel we expect from the corresponding RWS card.

As is customary in this consistently upside down reversed deck, the meaning of the card is more or less the opposite of the RWS card. Perhaps that old relationship I need to forget about was itself love turned inside out. It certainly ended that way. The flamingos are used in the book as croquet mallets, which seems an apt depiction of the way we argued. Maybe the whole thing was con job, the way the Walrus and the Carpenter trick the oysters into coming to a picnic at which the oysters become the meal itself.

This card presented a difficulty for the deck creators because there are no loving couples in the Alice Tarot. So there are two Lovers cards in the deck. The other one features the Walrus and the Carpenter, two very mean and loveless characters, both male. And there seems to be no great love lost between them either.

Lovers in love feel like the most important people in the world, but the flamingos are insignificant minor characters in the book. The fact that there are 3 is meant to make us think of the Tarot de Marseille Lovers card which shows one man choosing between two women. That card is often titled The Choice. I made mine 15 years ago but there isn't a day I don't wonder about the wisdom of that choice. What a lot of wasted effort.
Palm Sunday celebrates Jesus' triumphant arrival in Jerusalem. In the end, that didn't turn out too well either.

Day 12: 26.3. Preparation of the Temple of Luna - On the final day of our 12 days, we prepare for the annual Roman festival in the Temple of Luna, the Moon goddess. Today's card tells you how you can become more attuned to the intuitive, quiet side within you, how you can make your spiritual work more meaningful, and how to integrate your shadow into your life. It's the message of the Moon for the spring days ahead while the influence of the Sun is rising.

The spiritual, intuitive, shadow aspect of my consciousness will benefit if I learn the lesson of...the 2 of Coins. Coins are the suit of the element of Earth, which seems odd for a card about spiritual matters. In the RWS this card is represented by the image of a sort of jester juggling two options. It's a card about trying to gain control of a fluid, unpredictable situation, or perhaps of taking a playful approach to work.

During the croquet game, the flamingos that are used as mallets, evident in the Lovers card that came up yesterday, keep turning back into flamingos and running off. So the game dissolves into chaos and Alice is shown on the card trying to catch them and restore order. Dealing with the absurd practicalities of everyday life is not something I do very successfully. Things are pretty much out of control as in the croquet game. So my shadow side is an obsessive need to restore order. The way to honor the Moon aspect of my consciousness is to see the funny side of things and not to take the craziness and nonsense too seriously. I wore orange for Harmony Day on Day 7. Now it's time to invoke the Moon by wearing something pink.

Final note: I normally don't like reading for myself very much. It always seems as though I am "projecting", making the cards fit my own already established ideas rather than being surprised by new insights. But as a result of these seasonal readings I realise that that is exactly their value. We get to see reflected back at us our prejudices and pet theories. This is very valuable, since during readings for others we become better at recognising when we are talking about ourselves rather than being true to the cards and the client's concerns.

[Joan Marie]

Just a little reminder that it isn't too late to jump into this exercise. It really is a remarkable way to contemplate this important celestial change and to feel it in a very real way.

[Joan Marie]

Today is the final day, day 12 of this welcoming of the new season.

Thank you Nemia for bringing this exercise to us. Thank you to everyone who participated and who followed along. And thank you to The Wise Fool Tarot. An absolutely inspired and inspiring deck.

[Nemia]

I did this reading alone, and it was very powerful for me.

I used the Cosmos Tarot, and I can't copy the reading here because I wrote it all in my native tongue.

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The picture is not very good. It was a private reading but I did it together with all the people who do these readings. For me, it was my eighth reading at the celestial turning points of the year, and deeply meaningful.