MAJOR ARCANA
0. The Empty Moon
What the Mask saw, before meeting Oblivion:
“This was a world far below, beneath the desert of my dreams. I saw a dark sea, much troubled by the dreams of other worlds, and a turbulent, changing sky, filling itself with clouds both real and imagined. Then I saw stars themselves break, the sea and clouds and air split apart. The moon smiled, and I saw a body emerge from it, a dim figure glistening on a fragile craft, its head a pale crescent, its arms and legs the residue of moon rock and a wandering mind, rowing forth on a troublesome sea. I have seen this creature many times in my dreams, on the periphery of my existence, but only now does it seem to recognize me.
“Then I realize what I am seeing: the Empty Moon, a wanderer like myself. Its face is a hole which bores holes in other surfaces, granting and denying answers, hollowing out illusions of their music. Between its horns, all landscapes become transparent, each in their own way. In the view encompassed in its form, one can see planets hidden by mountains, the countless dead beneath the sand, buried treasures, wars in other universes, they shift and interchange, no vision stays for long. The Empty Moon brings together many worlds which would never know each other, simply by sailing by. Its body is a telescope through which the many layers of reality emerge as one. We cannot know its thoughts, nor nor see the universe it assembles for itself. We know only by its gestures that the Empty Moon sings a song, silent but urgent. Only now, now that I’ve reached the end of my travels, can I hear the words.”
After saying this, the Mask settled into a thin dust, then a mist, then an imperceptible glint on the edge of everything.
The Story:
Emissary from the less-understood part of ourselves, the Empty Moon represents the “dark” side of things: that which we are blocked from knowing better, as the sun itself is blocked from seeing shadows by that which it illuminates. All things have aspects which are illuminated and other aspects which are left out, resigned to secrecy and obscurity. The Empty Moon empathizes with all those cast outside of wanted-ness, desire and interest. It has tried many times to serve as our guide, but its guidance often goes unaccepted, mistaken for sabotage or worse. One should note the Empty Moon is neither male nor female, but assumes aspects of both, and also of neither. As we follow the Inner Mask on its journey, know the Empty Moon conducts a similar quest, taking place in a landscape far deeper and stranger to us.
The Empty Moon begs not to be cast aside and ignored. This card, the first in the Oracle, number zero, refers to the critical unseen, both in the world and in the complex universe of one’s own mind. The critical unseen is that which we willingly disregard, even suppress, but which remains a part of us. Such things resist our desire for them to go away or be untrue, and without them we are incomplete. It is said that we all carry items of shame, hide things about ourselves, and in doing so present the world with an incomplete picture of who we are, all the while deepening our disgust with what we hide, increasing our desire that it never be seen. This card reminds us that none of us is alone in such acts of hiding: the sea beneath the surface is huge and thrashing with hidden things. All things we resist knowing, remembering, seeing, or recognizing, in ourselves and others, are in the domain of the Empty Moon. This card suggests we consider such things with sympathy, as these things become a source of suffering if they continue to be repressed. One must look again, look again, to see with sympathy. Sympathy means suspension of one’s usual qualms, allowing oneself to see value where it is normally absent. At first, this may feel like an infringement of one’s boundaries, or endangerment of one’s interests. Might it go against one’s ambitions to sympathize with the antithesis of all that one seeks to be? This card indicates it may be time to take such risks, to look again, look again: things which have been outside the reader’s attention now require it, things which seemed the nemesis come bearing needed gifts. If we dare to recognize the significance of our shameful truth, the importance of negative memories, and other things in our lives we’d rather were not there, we might build a richer version of ourselves, perhaps even drain them of some of their shadowiness, and be a more complete whole in the sun.
As we learn to recognize and accept more and more of our own selves, so we become more able to see others in their fullness, to allow others to be themselves more fully in our light. When we learn to see our whole selves more kindly, we learn how not to judge, and to see the world more for what it is. Everyone has things about themselves they hide, either from others or from themselves, but these things don’t cease being true when cast in shadow.
The Empty Moon is the companion of the Inner Mask, and makes appearances throughout its journey, striving to be known, to reconnect with its source of light. Both are empty, both are missing something. The Empty Moon, however, is aware of the Inner Mask, and bears witness to the Inner Mask’s journey from behind the scenes, from shadows, from another level of consciousness. The Empty Moon longs to say, “I am you, you are me, we hold each other’s secret to wholeness,” but its words are on another frequency than the one the Inner mask knows.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: The Shadow Self, Longing for Connection
All cards in the Oracle of the Inner Mask contain a message about healing, and none concerns the healing of the Shadow Self so strongly as the Empty Moon.All shadow work begins with the discovery and acknowledgement of the Shadow Self, recognizing it and learning to value it for what it is. This card is incompleteness seeking wholeness, isolation seeking connection, and the desire for two disparate halves to become one. This card indicates a desire to be whole, to be at “home” in a receptive and loving community, and a longing to find one’s creative “voice” or venue of expression.
The “shadow self” is the part of ourselves that gets suppressed somehow: that which we attempt to erase, but can never be erased. All people have things about themselves they regard as flaws, and hide from others out of fear of being judged. These things become a source of suffering, seeming evidence of our unworthiness of the light. The Empty Moon implores us to look again: such things do not make us monsters, and these features are not as monstrous as we believe. Suppressing truth causes invisible suffering. This card suggests an attitude of mercy, both towards oneself and one’s shadow, in order to pursue one’s own self-healing and self-acceptance and also, eventually, look on others with greater kindness. Know that you are not alone.
This card can signify what one wants most to find, and which is eluding the querent. To consider what has remained outside one’s notice can be the most difficult task of all, can take days of self-reflection to even know where to begin. Rest assured, what you seek is also seeking you, and is starting on its own difficult journey to the light. Know this: in the realm of shadow, your recognition is the light your other side seeks.
In some cases, this card can refer to an enemy or opponent in life, someone on the opposite side of an argument. The antagonist holds half the story, though we spend much of that story wishing they would go away. The Empty Moon might also signify another who is interested in you, and foretell of a long-overdue meeting, the long-awaited acknowledgement of one’s trials and troubles.
Reverse Meaning:
The Empty Moon in reverse means things being “buried” or suppressed, the creation of shadows. This can also mean hostility against the Shadow, a need to soften one’s attitude towards things one rejects.
There may be ideas in one’s mind, projects in one’s plans, or characters to occupy, which have grown old alongside the querent and gone un-shown the world. These things are real inside the querent but the world has no idea. Sometimes, the Empty Moon upside down can indicate a feeling that no one really knows the querent, or it can point to other things no one knows about. This can be a card of lonesomeness, but remember one is never alone in feeling lonely.
The Empty Moon reversed can sometimes mean the ground is not “fertile” for the sharing of one’s ideas yet, this may not be the time nor the place, or things need longer work to put in order, for one’s inner world to be made known. One may be right in one’s suspicions about one’s family or peers, that they will not be receptive at this time, if one were to open up. One may be, unfortunately, right in feeling that certain others just aren’t ready, and some people might never be ready, for deeper resonant meaning about the world. In truth, one cannot be the teacher of everyone. Even if everyone has a sacred spark within, it is no one person’s job to ignite it for everyone. One may need to start with oneself, foster confidence and certainty within, of things one knows to be true. Great and profound things must start somewhere.
1. The Inner Mask
What the Moon Sang:
“The one I dream of as myself went up those marbled stairs, to the Temple of Knowledge, the temple with the words “know thyself” above the door. We had traveled long to the temple of the sun, the temple of all wisdom, for the answer to the question: “who am I?” My friend, who doesn’t know I know them, went through the door. I waited outside, because I am the moon, and I rest in another sky. Some time later, I saw my friend emerge, but not filled with the radiance we had expected. Across its inward-facing face lay disappointment, and an emptiness more profound and deep than had been there before. My friend sat at the bottom of the steps for some time, still as a monument, while the sun set slowly behind its temple.
“I soon learned the reason. My companion had entered the Temple and posed the question, “who am I?” The answer had been silence. To have come so far, to the end of one’s journey, to the doorstep of Knowledge itself, and state the central question of one’s life, and for only silence to respond. The silence was enough to fill all the cracks in the temple, it was vast enough to contain universes. The Hollow One wondered if its worst fears had been validated: was it nothing, was there nothing within, no meaning beyond the void before its inward-looking eyes, or behind them? My companion sat in great discontent, looking inwards and outwards at the same time, the way it always does. In the darkening sky, the words “know thyself” remained visible amongst the stars like angels had scratched them there. They always make it sound so easy. These words now seemed to mock the Plastic One, who sat as quiet and contemplative as the temple itself, at least on the surface.
“Our shapes both sing of emptiness, but our poetries are differently aligned with it. In the turbulent sky above me, I often see the worries of my companion. I see my friend despairing at the possibility there may be nothing within: that its inward-looking eyes don’t lie, and that there really is nothing beyond the surface. I sing out to be recognized, on my raft in my world, but I am not on the right frequency. Now I could feel a steady rumbling in my world, unsettling the seas and its monsters, revealing the true depth of dissatisfaction that the silence had instilled.
“My friend saw this silence as the denial of knowledge, a verdict it could not accept. I myself wondered if the silence might instead be a direction pointing towards more knowledge than the temple could hold, but no sooner could I wonder this than the skies above my world grew violent. My friend felt cheated of its journey’s end, and refused to accept silence as the only answer to its only question. These feelings churned the sea around me, ruptured the skies, brought impatient creatures to its surface. In the turmoil, I saw my companion’s discontent unfolding to a road we hadn’t seen before- or was that path unfolding from the silence itself, pointing away from the temple towards where the answer truly lay? I could only cling to my raft, not answer such subtleties.
“My friend sat for some time staring at the stars, as though gazing directly at the injustice of the universe: the injustice of its own creation and of its form. The temple of the sun gave way to darkness, and the path became illuminated with dissatisfaction over what knowledge had left unsaid. My friend finally saw this path too and recognized it as a new way, away from the temple which had been the one source of all its answers before, towards something knew and unknown. The Inner Mask rose, and set off on its new journey, the light of its desire to know itself illuminating its inner world, and opening up myself to a new phase.”
The Story:
The Inner Mask is the primary seeker of the deck and represents the querent’s deepest questions. This card finds the Inner Mask at the fulcrum between two quests: the end of a journey that ended in failure, and the start of a new journey. The Empty Moon partly believes the first journey ended in failure because the Inner Mask was not ready to understand the content of the silence, but the raft of Moon-world tosses overmuch for the Moon to follow this line of thinking far. There is always much more yet to be known than what is already known. The Temple of Knowledge becomes, rather than an ending destination, a doorway to a new kind of search which will render us able to understand it, even when it doesn’t speak.
Fool and Magician in one, the creator of the disguise and also the one fooled by it, the Inner Mask is a being whose very form embodies the relationship between seen and unseen, surface and interior, inside and outside. Like the Empty Moon, the Inner Mask has no one gender, but can play either, as they’re equally alien. The Inner Mask is forged of a mismatch between the self known on the inside and the self seen by the outside, is a sliver of moonlight dripped into a wanderer, seeking the sensibility of its creation in a landscape of the mind. This card takes place at the inception of its journey of self-discovery, the initiation of its most profound quest, or at least the most profound one thus far. Given the mission “know thyself” by a temple that withheld this knowledge, the Inner Mask sets out to know itself more completely, that it might not give in to the suspicion, the fear, that it is empty.
The Inner Mask is at times childlike, having a willingness to believe, like the archetypal Fool. The Inner Mask is also like the magician, turning frustration into action and going inwards to reveal a world previously unknown to itself. The Inner Mask may not fully understand that it has begun a process of self-imposed metamorphosis, transforming itself from inside out to one which makes understanding out of questions, draws meaning from the void, and hears the music in the silence.
The ultimate fool is the one that allows themselves to be fooled, willfully ignoring reality and hopeful that, by way of sufficiently powerful desire, the fantasy might somehow become the truth. We all allow ourselves a little foolishness from time to time, we all sometimes act as though fables told about us, and each other, were real. The ultimate magician, on the other hand, is the one that fools nobody, because their magic isn’t a trick, but an act of true transformation. The true magician doesn’t need to trick anyone, their transformations are real. We are changing all the time, and we have powers we don’t often harness to change ourselves, each other, and our world. The Inner Mask also has the potential to be both a fool and a true magician, but the second thing is much harder and requires much more patience, work and practice.
This card refers to questions in the querent’s life, large and small. Smaller quests come and go, but over-arching missions make recurring appearances, pestering us from behind a curtain, making itself known and causing feelings of incompleteness even when everything else seems to be in place. These feelings of discontent are what inspire us to set out on journeys, make great sacrifices, and do incredible things. They are worth all risk, all sacrifice, and if ignored they imperil the deeper being inside the shell. Ignoring one’s higher calling moves one’s transformative powers further away into the distance, and creates bitter magicians.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: The Temple of Knowledge, “Know Thy Self”
The Inner Mask is shown at the end of a journey for self-discovery, and also at the beginning. Having come a great distance to ask the Temple of Knowledge “who am I?” the Inner Mask received but one answer: silence. The Inner Mask now sits on the steps of the temple, dissatisfied with this, and prepares to embark on another journey, one not of answers but of experiences.
This card describes a fork in the road or a sharp turn, a moment of reflection after a failed attempt. “Well that didn’t work, what do I do now?” This is a card of potential and also decision. The broken pieces of the last trial-and-error become the stepping stones to the next discovery, perhaps one that couldn’t have been imagined before. Solutions that worked in the past have lost their usefulness, its time to seek the new. Feelings of lack, feelings of injustice or things being out of balance, can be put to practical use, fuel momentum.
This card points to the difficult and complex questions of life, things which stump us, perhaps for a very long time. Sometimes the answer has already come to us, but we are not yet transformed into the being that can understand it, the shape of our consciousness must grow more complex to match the nuance of the universe trying to answer us. Once all the simple questions have their answers, it is the complex questions, the questions which seem to reveal paradoxes in all the things we’ve learned, that remain puzzling. Residual mysteries, the puzzles of life, continue to perplex us. They point to areas we have yet to fill in, in the expanding fractal of our understanding, our consciousness.
The Inner Mask is in the role of magician in this card, about to set out in a new direction, responding to its present lack, its turmoil and confusion, with action. Sometimes the tools at hand are insufficient for a new problem, but that doesn’t mean we cannot forge new ones. No one starts out with all the answers, and the wisdom of the universe is so massive that there will always be more of it to understand, requiring us to enter unto doors like this, transporting us from a state of believing the answers that await us are simple, to awareness the answers are outside our current reach, more subtle and elaborate and simple than we can currently comprehend. The journey isn’t over until the seeker is able to understand their discovery.
Reverse Meaning:
Getting wrapped up with thinking and planning instead of acting, being overwhelmed by the complexity of a problem, stumped by a shortage of ideas, tools, resources, or abilities. This can mean distraction by feelings of unfairness or inadequacy; a “bitter magician” whose transformative powers are out of reach, someone who seeks to enact change outside the domain of their influence.
The Inner Mask reversed is a person overwhelmed by the complexity, and possibly the beauty, of the universe. Concrete answers are unavailable for now- things are new and confusing and haven’t settled down into a form that can be “grokked” or made accessible yet. This card can indicate a person who is “stuck” or unable to make the next action, someone hesitating before choosing or not taking an active role in their own life at the moment, for some reason. This card can also describe a situation that is so complicated, or so unfamiliar, it is “over the head” of the querent or too difficult to make sense of. This can be a moment of frustration: what one wants is a simple, concrete, comprehensive answer, but all the universe gives is mixed clues and messages, strange talk, scenes from out of nowhere. This card may point to the next step in the querent’s spiritual path or development, may even indicate a preview of something which will make sense further up the road, later in life or after the querent has gotten a necessary piece of knowledge or had an experience they haven’t had yet.
This card reversed suggests someone unready for the extraordinary wisdom the universe has to offer, who must undergo a change, a long and possibly difficult quest, before it will make sense. Being at this place, the place where one knows what one doesn’t know, is frustrating, even if it is necessary.
This card upside down can sometimes suggest stubbornness, adherence to old ways of seeing things, familiar limitations on the possible, and being attached to old answers to old questions, all of which would fall into question if a truly new approach were breached. The necessary growth will never occur as long as this presides. The most difficult thing for some to do is consider changing, because sufficiently profound change sounds like dying. One does not end by changing, that is the first thing to understand.
Description:
This desert lies just beyond the realm with which we are familiar, and it is vast beyond comprehension. It is inhabited, like the sea, by creatures strange to us. It is a place of unlimited possibility and little understanding. Here, we must become different from the ones we normally know ourselves to be, separated from the normal comforts which allow us to be who we pretend we are every day. We have to transform ourselves in order to accommodate this place, to commune with its creatures, and learn its secrets. This is the wasteland where a person floats freely, a space between establishments, far away from ordinary restrictions. Treacherous, and continually threatening to the outsider, the Desert will not allow the visitor to relax into a role, nor sleep behind a dancing mask.
The Empty Moon interrupted:
“In the nothingness between the stars, we conduct our search with different eyes than those we use on earth. This is Mask Country, Maskworld, the surface wandered by the masks we dream ourselves to be. The Inner Mask is one of many that wanders through this place, searching for that which transcends surfaces.”
This place does not restrict our self-expression, but at the same time it silently forbids our presence. This place will never be hospitable to us, no matter how often we come. This is an arena of experiment, of changing roles, a non-place and non-time where anything might happen. This Desert remains inhospitable to the selves we play in society, and so it remains the habitat of the impossible; the breeding ground of things we cannot yet believe in, or acknowledge, or admit.
The Story:
The Desert is a location in Maskworld, the realm which the Inner Mask explores. It signifies a place and time to experiment, to discover what other selves or masks one might take on, and to experiment with going without a mask. The desert card can symbolize a circumstance which places different demands on the querent, causing the querent to need to adapt and change, become different for a time. In all, the desert can teach us how much more plastic and flexible we turn out to be, and how much more we are capable of, but only after some trial and difficulty.
The Desert card points to the imaginative potential of the querent to self-invent, reinvent, transform and expand beyond what they imagine possible. Many of the boundaries one believes in are as thin as thoughts, but they can still be difficult to break through.
This card can be seen as an indication to have courage in the face of risk, and that it might be time to take a needed risk, provided one is prepared. The Desert poses dangers that are unfamiliar to most of us, but also offers opportunities to experiment and try new and scary things, to find new stability outside of the familiar, to grow stronger. This card reminds us that most of what scares us are things which hold little or no true danger, but which we make more threatening in our minds. One lives but once and we must do that which scares us in order to live free. While The Desert card can be read as an invitation from the universe to take a needed risk, it is not without a word of caution: one is asked to remember not to proceed casually or voyeuristically, to take risks seriously, and to remain aware that one will thrive only if one is willing to adapt.
The Desert card can also suggest a place of solitude or contemplation, finding a space or taking some time away from the normal grind or one’s habits and life-patterns. Trying on a different life-pattern for size can have interesting effects. If one seeks to escape a habit or toxic cycle, a change of scenery, either spacial or social or intellectual, can sometimes lead towards freedom and eventual change. For the effects of the Desert to stick, one might need to walk completely through it to the other side, returning not to one’s ordinary, original life, but to a changed life, a new place to start from. Sheer distance from one’s usual routines sometimes puts things into focus. When one takes oneself so far away that one becomes a star in the darkness, seeing home as a point of light amongst many others, things click into perspective. By leaving behind the comfortable and familiar, one gains access to a broader view of the world. The Desert describes a landscape or moment which temporarily permits a different way of seeing, an opportunity for expansion.
Card Meaning:
Alternative names: Experimentation, Freedom, A Different Normal
The Desert card represents taking risks, exploring and experimenting, and finding new ways of encountering life. This card can indicate “taking a step back” to gain perspective, taking a needed risk, and also being prepared to shift and change in response to new situations. The querent may be considering a step that seems scary or risky, it will pay to evaluate where the fear is coming from and if that fear is sound, and whether what one might gain by taking the risk outweighs what one gains by keeping things as they are.
This card indicates beneficial exploration and expansion of one’s horizons. This is a good opportunity for the querent to explore abilities which have lain unused for some time, interests that have gone unexplored, and personas left uninhabited. There is benefit to be gained from these, even if one’s normal life or vocation haven’t called for them. The querent’s true range of abilities is far larger than ordinary existence tends to expose, now is the time to utilize some of that unharnessed territory.
This card can also suggest a challenging or demanding time, but one which the querent will realize, afterwards, they are stronger and more capable than they believed. Trials of initiation are a means of proving one is ready for the next phase, they also are the force that makes us so.
Reverse Meaning:
Adventures that come with risk, rational concerns, the need to prepare for dangerous situations. An inhospitable place or situation where it isn’t a good idea to “let go.” The Desert card upside down can represent the forces of nature, the world outside our control and impossible to predict.
This card upside down asks us to contemplate the possibility of disaster, and reminds us of life’s unpredictable aspect. Disaster meets everyone at their current state of development, leaving very little time to grow or adjust in response. One can prepare as well as one can for disaster, but one can only know one’s true preparedness when the storm arrives. A child enters the wilderness and proves itself able to survive, and comes home, its initiation into adulthood complete. When one has such an initiation in sight, one prepares a child to survive, to pass the test that is coming. Prepare for emergencies before they happen, they say. Prepare for what you know can happen and, to the best of your ability, for what you cannot know. This card’s lesson, when upside down, includes humbleness: remember you are not in control, and not the mightiest thing around. This reminder is an invitation to freedom. It is also a reminder to bring water.
2. The Desert
Description:
Far into the future, we are arriving at the edge of time, confronting mercy in the guise of angels, as our ultimate forms dance upon its crest. Our shadows become long in their light, this frozen moment, our flaws become known. We are illuminated in all we bring here, what we strive to become doesn’t matter anymore. Our imperfections make us merciful.
An assembled host of Inner Masks, winged as though cast as angels, stand transfixed at the foot of an ascending wave. On the wave’s crest dance the flying masks known as Liberated Voices, another inhabitant of Maskworld. The two worlds are about to come into violent contact with another, each populated with beings very different one one level, and very similar on another. In the foreground, a prominent Mask in the guise of an angel holds up a cracked mirror, in whose surface nothing is reflected. A broken mirror is a broken link between this world and another; a failed connection.
The Story:
The image in the “Sea” card takes place in a frozen moment, an instant at the brink of what might be a catastrophe, or an encounter from another world. Beings resembling angels wait by the edge of the sea, while actual flying creatures appear on its crest. The Sea card concerns our truth greeting us: truth as the angels see it, from their perspective at a distance. This encounter can mean calamity, or potentially revelation. The Sea is always much bigger than we are, though we only realize it when confronted with its full power. On top of the wave ride the Liberated Voices, which we might be seeing for the first time. These beings are also residents of Maskworld, though they experience it with carefree spontaneity, seeming to enjoy their embodiment, or dis-embodiment, taking to their existence with joy. Some say they represent what the Inner Mask wants most of all. The Liberated Voices seem to emerge from the foam at the wave’s peak, as though the foam itself gives rise to them once it gathers force. Or perhaps the foam reveals that they were always there, hidden in the water, like Lady Amalthea looking on her kin, visible only when the sea rises to a wave.
Like the Red Sea parting and forming a watery wall, this is the Sea revealing itself as both barrier and portal: it divides two different worlds but is traversable. This is the ocean of ideas, an interface which both separates and connects two sides. This is the border, though it shifts and moves, between the known and unknown. They say all places are touched by the sea, and are thus connected by their distance, by their differences. The “Sea” card describes change, which can be gradual or sudden, into the new and unknown. Change is inevitable and constant, edges are eroded away and continents drift. We can allow ourselves to drift where the sea takes us, or we can direct our course, using change to our advantage. We are always doing a little bit of both. If we are never shown our “vital flaws,” we never know to redirect our ship. The angels strike us with difficult gifts, they know we are capable of more than we realize.
This card can refer to personal change, but also change in the world around us. Wait long enough, and you can see society change. Such change is slow enough that it normally goes unnoticed, showing itself only at certain moments, such as when you see something which used to be impossible. Wait long enough and you start to see such things. The world changes in small increments, a constant subtle shifting of small elements, some parts faster than others, creating friction, gradually a new world crystalizes out of this one, society turns into something that didn’t exist before. The impossibility of something makes little difference in the end, all things can be arrived at by increments. We adapt gradually to a world that changes gradually, hardly noticing the change until we compare how things look now with how things looked in the past. Sometimes transformation falls on a society suddenly, creating more change than we can adapt to all at once: a calamity.
The Sea card concerns our flaws and limitations. The angel in front holds up a cracked mirror symbolizing the imperfections in the querent: things the querent still has to work on, areas where they must improve. One must not mistake this angel’s mirror for the harsh voice of self-criticism. The flaws which we believe ourselves to have, sometimes even hate ourselves for, are rarely similar to the problems which can be seen from a wider or higher perspective. The Sea reminds us of our own finiteness, we are also finite in our ability to fully perceive our own nature, and must sometimes seek assistance from beyond. One comes to the doorstep of the oracle in search of honesty. Honesty is, at times, a challenge to deal with, but if made with compassion and sincere insight, it is always a gift. Not a person walks who is perfect and has all their issues resolved, whose understanding is complete in all things. If one flees or hides from one’s flaws, one will stagnate, one will be unable to encounter one’s self on the other side, unable to cross the threshold of ideas, see past barriers, recognize oneself in the flawed mirror. Certain moments demand we face what we resist the most.
Regarding flaws, one’s own or others, can only be done productively with mercy, truly caring that the individual comes out ok. The vital flaw is that which drives two sides apart, and matters most once they are brought back into contact. The vital flaw will force a sequence of events on its own unless the seeker takes control, makes the sacrifice of enduring change for the sake of a better relationship with truth, with reality. This card doubles as the initiation of the suit of Mirrors, taking place elsewhere in the deck. The Sea sets us on a course for self-understanding that penetrates the glass and sees much deeper than the skin.
Like the Desert, the Sea points to our preparedness. The Sea asks us to consider our own relationship with expansiveness; with an ability to connect with something vastly larger than ourselves. The capacity to see ourselves as limited, that is, to see our own limitations without judgement, is to attain something of the perspective of the heavenly, if only for a time. One can only judge when one is without judgement.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Time, Judgement, A Vital Flaw, the Great Meeting
The “Sea” card is also called the “Vital Flaw,” and asks that we look on our flaws with greater mercy, and also with greater honesty. This card suggests an issue or reality within the querent must be faced, in order for this issue to cease being a barrier to one’s dreams, and become instead a conduit. New connections, new awareness, new wholeness, but only if we can overcome our reservations about the new. Two sides which have grown alien to each other are coming back into contact, estrangement resolved, we recognize things we have in common are greater than what keeps us apart. There have been fears around honesty, fears that the truth is worse than the fantasy: it isn’t. The angels understand and so should you.
The scene in this card depicts a great and momentous meeting taking place: the coming together of two worlds or two sides. This meeting could inspire great fear, both of the unknown, and of the impact it’ll have on both worlds when they meet. The Sea card urges us not to be afraid, either of the unknown, or of the idea of facing one’s flaws. Confronting one’s own imperfections is, for many, a dire prospect; but one is not alone in having imperfections and, once faced and understood, they will appear smaller than they currently seem. One is worthy of love even with one’s flaws; it is only the resistance to contending with them that imperils greater safety, puts the successful outcome of the Great Meeting at stake.
Reverse Meaning:
Key terms: the need to take responsibility and guide one’s own actions with intention
The Sea in reverse illustrates two finite surfaces coming into violent collision, and warns of the tendency of conflict and contention to arise when limited beings, who have not put effort into their own expansion, to come into contact. The Sea reversed suggests a messy first encounter or a bad first impression, a botched meeting or one that doesn’t deliver the desired outcomes. This can also mean culture clash. This card reversed warns of flaws which haven’t been faced by those who still carry them, which are liable to cause problems when we enter into a sensitive situation.
This suggests resistance to change, discomfort in the presence of the different, and dislike of the unknown. The sea isolates as much as it connects. There is a need to recognize, to relax, to open up, to accept the reality that is instead of the reality one would prefer.
The individual may need to find an independent trajectory of transformation, to facilitate the proper response on a small level, in order that the grand scale may learn to cope later. They say all one can control is one’s own reactions to things. One must, at times, make oneself the site of change one cannot yet observe in the world; sometimes this means one must play the game alone for several cycles.
3. The Sea
4. The Mind
Description:
From a tilted mask unfolds a maze, suggesting the labyrinthine wrinkles that characterize the brain, and the more etherial passageways of the mind. This is the mind in the form of a maze: its writhing paths spill from the senses inward, forming a special landscape which constricts, but also directs movement and, at times, offers liberation all its own. Outside the mask, a molten sun sets from a fractured sky, a sky that also arches over the maze and takes part in its unraveling in the distance. The mind is a trickster and gives us to thinking what we see is the whole reality, but it creates everything we see, our whole experience is as much its creation as the shifting pathways within. The “Mind” card reminds us to consider our own mind as a participant in our reality, as well as an aspect in the journey towards knowing the self.
A Different Voice Interrupts:
Many are lost in this maze, but few are trying to find their way out. Some walk its corridors, exploring as though it were always the way of things to wander down weaving hallways. Others float right up through the floor and set sail for the sky above, thoughts like balloons I call them. And then there’s those that swim up from the floor from time to time, wander around the halls and then submerge beneath the floor again, like the floor wasn’t even there, those are the Submerged Thoughts. They’re from an older maze that lies beneath this one and is differently arranged, and to go where they go you have to swim like they do, else be a stranger to them. I’ll tell you more about them later. The Inner Mask appears in different places, and at different times, in this maze, doing all kinds of things, maybe living out all its adventures in our bird’s eye view of the universe inside. It’s calling out for recognition in some places, it’s dawdling like it has all day in others, these clever paths don’t often allow the mask to meet itself, or have any other encounters that would badly disrupt the whole system, create a contradiction or conflict of thoughts. This place smooths out contradiction, it simplifies wherever it can (some folks call it forgetting). I have often wondered why nobody in this maze seems to feel lost, or realize they’re in a maze at all. Perhaps that’s what the maze avoids, by preventing these wanderers from meeting each other (themselves) such that they’d wake up to the fact its a maze they’re in. The biggest illusion of all is that there’s no illusion going on, that *all* of this is not a grand illusion.
The Story:
The Mind is the 4th card of the Major Arcana. This card is a reminder of the illusions of which the mind is capable, that the reality we experience is a product of the mind. To become consciousness of the role the inner world plays in the external, seemingly “real” world, is to add a layer of awareness to our journey. The “Mind” card portrays the mind as a maze, and suggests that as we become more aware that we walk in a maze, that these thoughts are not necessarily inescapable truth but sometimes emanations from its walls to compel us in one direction or another, the more free to move about, to solve our own puzzles, we might become. The mind is not an enemy, but it is interested in maintaining itself as a system, and sometimes needs assistance resolving its own dead ends.
The brain is a thing you can hold in your hand, but it is impossible to point to the mind. Never was there a mystery so strange it could only ponder itself, its own self its entire apparatus for exploring itself. How strange it is to try to understand that which does the understanding. However, what does it mean to stop going back and forth in a sectioned-off corner of the maze, realize one has been over this same area over and over, that the maze has put us here to keep things running smoothly and not necessarily to let us progress? What does it mean to recognize the chattering voice reverberating off the walls as nothing more than the walls trying to keep us in a place, what does it mean to ponder one’s own cognitive surroundings, as though one were not an inextricable part? The maze cannot prevent us from transcending it, it can’t stop us from realizing its walls are not all that exists. Once one starts to realize where one stands, and incorporate a measure of distance, access to the higher view, to an arena apart, starts to become possible.
The “Mind” card reminds us that a sector of our being is defined as process: the mind is a never-ending process and something executed by the brain. Why does it seem the mind is a place, why does it seem to be larger than the brain can hold and why does it seem there’s so many compartments and places we can go within it? It is partly the processes by which the brain does what it does, it is also a threshold to somewhere larger than ourselves, a stepping-off point with several access points, the shallow water leading to a deeper ocean.
This card also points to psychology and what is known about the brain and mind, the limitations and functions of one’s own unique mental landscape. It can also suggest techniques and tools for redirecting one’s own thoughts and reshaping one’s mind, eventually reshaping the reality one experiences in doing so.
The “Mind” card can additionally suggest an inherited quest or mission, extending long before and after one’s own lifetime. One can contribute to the growing stockpile of knowledge the world is amassing, adding one’s own experience to the greater arc of accomplishments. This card can be an indication of the work that the querent is now doing, in the context of how it will sit amongst other works., supported by the past, feeding into the future.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Underlying Dynamics, The Maze, Mastery
The 4th card in the Major Arcana is “The Mind,” also called “The Maze.” This card concerns our growing ability to transcend our own limitations and live with the puzzle of us, and learn to discern pattern from intention; process from consciousness. This card points to all things intellectual and also psychological, the underlying dynamics behind our reactions, our habits. Most of all it asks us to consider the ways in which we have become lost in our own maze, and it suggests that, if we direct our attention to our own architecture, we can see outside our confines with more clarity.
This card encourages taking a “step back” and making cognitive distance with that which seems to be a given. This card can also suggest outgrowing habits and patterns, expansiveness and growing consciousness. Knowing what it means to say “all is illusion” is not always easy: a lifetime of seemingly cohesive experiences have told us otherwise. To step into awareness, even to a degree, of that perspective is a mighty act, and goes against how one has been repeatedly instructed.
The world we think we live in is one of the mind’s many products, just as we ourselves may be. The mind cooks up a world for us to experience, seemingly complete, and allows us to believe that this experience is all that exists. The mind’s walls whisper thoughts to us, sometimes cruelly, to hold us back and in a place, and fools us int thinking it is us doing the talking. The mind does these things for the sake of stability, to make things easier for its own functioning, to avoid contradiction and support a seamless view. Who stands apart from all the noise, who comes to master it? Who remembers, though it was always told otherwise, that it is itself not the process but an observer of the process? Who stands independent of the thoughts and sensations that were seemed to be all there was of existence?
The biggest contradiction the maze may be trying to avoid is our own selves: our own discovery of ourselves, that we are more than the process going on all around us, all inside us.
Reverse Meaning:
The Mind card reversed can indicate inner turmoil, confusion, self-bashing, and forgetting how to reestablish control. When we forget to see the maze as a maze, we take our thoughts as a given and not emanations generated by its walls. Unconsciousness in the sense of acting without awareness.
5. Perspective
Alternative Names: Observation, Perception, The Magic Window
Description:
One Inner Mask hangs up a window, another Inner Mask observes the first through a second window. A telescope stands by, a wind seems to rustle the curtains of the second window.
The Mask heard someone speak through the wall:
The mind is a house, and windows are its eyes. The eyes are the entryway and exits of perception, allowing the inner mind access to the outer world, the world beyond the one we build inside. The mind has many windows, some expand or shrink or lengthen or extend our vision, as we reach out to grasp reality. But the viewer too is subject of examination, those windows go both ways. But the view is distorted and incomplete, one thinks one sees the whole story but only sees part, or sees only what one’s own mind puts in front of one. Does anyone truly see through those eyes, are there any true windows? The question is as important as the answers.
No sooner had the Inner Mask placed the window on the wall, it heard someone say something behind itself and looked, but found itself outside, hills in the distance and birds in the sky. It looked back at the window it had just hung, and saw inside the house at another like itself, hanging a window on the wall.
The Story:
The 5th card is the card of perspective, and it concerns the limitedness of our vision, as well as our experience. We may be drawn to criticize others for certain behaviors which would make no sense in our lives and our worlds, but we forget that everyone is in a completely different world, or rather, is seeing the same world from a completely different angle, such that we cannot call it the same. Difference in position is the root of misunderstanding, it is the predicament of the temporally restricted and non-gods to have a single point of view. It is what causes us to make some of our worst mistakes without knowing, it is also our doorway to forgiveness and forgiving others.
Our faculties of awareness are seated in a specific place and time, and go through a series of experiences, each a combination of choice and randomness, and uses these to make sense of the world. Past experiences lay the foundation for future experiences, creating groundwork for how we interpret things, imposing a filter. Perspective, though, is based on more than experience alone. Everyone brings something new to the world, a vantage point that is all theirs, and even twins who walk side by side all their lives will have a different view of it.
Just because all people have a perspective, does not mean all opinions are valid, all beliefs based on fact. Our perspective is limited, and this limitedness causes us to make mistakes. Being unable to see the whole picture, one makes judgements based on insufficient information, more often than one knows. Those in power create problems without realizing, those without power believe they are alone when they are not. One problem is
This card concerns the possibility of shifting perspective, expanding or adjusting one’s perspective, a thing which some would like violently to do to others, but which one can do for oneself out of caring, and in order to avoid making careless mistakes.
The “magic window” represents the possibly magical ability to see, if only for a moment, the perspective of another. Like forgiveness, this is no small task. Learning and listening can allow one to expand, intuitive openness can make one more receptive to others. Empathy is a capacity to feel what others feel, and Telepathy is a capacity to hear what others think. A “magic window” is a tool by which one can become aware of what another is coming from, see into another’s point of view. There have been movies and stories about inhabiting the bodies of others, walking around in the shoes of others, see through another’s eyes and take in the world the way they do for a while. Sometimes these experiences are merely done for the physical thrill, escapism or control. However, if we use the “magic window” wisely, the experience of walking in another’s shoes changes us, it makes us more forgiving, more understanding and less critical. Many religions encourage us to be more forgiving. This is something very difficult for those in our position, because the only thoughts we experience directly are our own. Other people are automatically more distant from the reality we can be certain exists, causing the reality of others to fall into doubt; the direst danger for the capacities for empathy, shifts in perspective, and forgiveness. The first problem is forgetting that one’s own perspective is only one of an infinite number, the second problem is forgetting that every other human has a perspective all their own. All perspectives are not fully based on reality, but all perspectives are real.
Like eyes, windows allow one to see outside one’s walls, but they also cannot help but enable others to see in. Some say they have seen the souls of others in their eyes, a living encapsulation, wordless and nameless of the spirit that dwells inside, a thing all its own with a shape unlike any other, that thing brings its own perspective with it from the other side and into this world. Just as perspectives cause us to be limited, they also allow us to bring unique gifts into existence. The cosmos did not make us this way out of total folly.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Vantage Points, Understanding, Mindset, Paradox, “The Magic Window”
The 5th card in the Major Arcana indicates the power and importance of Perspective. Perspective often means putting one’s problems in context, seeing them in a larger context and compared against far graver things, it can also mean looking at one’s problems from a different point of view. Most problems shrink easily when compared with other things, more severe examples are not rare. Also, when one sees more of one’s situation, considers more factors and more aspects of what’s going on, then things might not be so bad. These considerations are not to quell one into a false sense of security, but to reestablish a healthy and adept state of mind. This card also points the way towards healthy resolution of disagreements.
Even when one’s situation does fall into the category of comparatively severe, perspective can help connect one with others, as from a more distant vantage point more than just ourselves, our own problems, can be seen. Perspective eventually leads us to expansiveness of mind, and expansion beyond the boundaries of our own limitations.
This card reminds us that all perspectives are equally real, even if all conclusions are not equally informed.
Reverse Meaning:
A relevant point of view hasn’t been considered, another angle on the situation is needed. Possibly the perspective you haven’t been giving enough credit is your own, though this may sound remarkable. The important thing now is to identify your blocks, things that prevent clear insight into other vantage points, and seek to see past those blocks.
6. The Author
Description:
The scene depicts multiple acts of transmogrification. The Inner Mask takes in information from the world, breathes in some living essence springing from it, and sends a version of that essence towards a lighthouse to be projected near and far, even seeming to scatter stars across the sky. That lighthouse shines, and illuminating land and sky and sending forth stars, which are regarded by observers below.
The Story:
The 6th card in the Major Arcana is called The Author, and it concerns ideas, creativity, inspiration and one’s influence or impact on the world. Like all creative professions, authors take their influence from past voices, finding something in those voices which rings true. The works of brilliant minds can impact everyone, can move the world in a direction; but only the author, the artist and fellow maker of things, is motivated by these things to make works of their own, to join those voices and add their own momentum to the push. This card can refer to any creative worker, or it can refer to the querent’s own profession or work about which they are most passionate.
The creator’s job, some say, is to reveal reality as they see it, to expose their own view and experience of the world, as unique a vision as each person is to every other, and by exposing it express a “truth” of things. To bring truth out from chaos in a way that others can understand is to bridge the gap between perspectives, to provide tangible evidence of consciousness in the universe.
They also say a creator’s job is to entertain, which means to provoke feelings. “Truth” in this case means draw out a sensation, a shared reaction, to the universe. No two will have the same “truth” but other’s “truth” tends to be something we can recognize, when it is being made visible, when it is being lived.
This card suggests the possibility of deep and lasting meaning, conveyed from one creator to another and also from the creator to the rest of the world. This card also represents hope and encouragement: there is great importance to one’s journey, even when it seems meaningless or to be taking one in circles.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Inspiration, Ideas, Impact
The Author card signals a period of productivity, new ideas and inspiration. This card suggests built up energy ready to be unleashed, a time of heightened output, and a message that will resonate with others. This card represents the excitement of momentum, a visit from the muse, and also speaks to the long trajectory of one’s works over time.
This card suggests that you have everything you need to move forward; the tools of your communication are available and the time is right for bold action, creative risk, and new endeavors. Now is the time to apply what you know and create something new for all the world to see. This card speaks powerfully of momentum and new ideas, and “flow states” in which one connects with the spirit of the universe, attaining higher consciousness in the course of the productive act. This is a major arcana card and therefore speaks to profound insights and ideas of life, major accomplishments and works in one’s life, and one’s overall trajectory of improvement across life. This card concerns one’s “life’s work” and the direction it is taking the querent, the goals the querent has for their works and the nature of the impact the querent wants to have. One’s impact in the world, one’s ability to affect one’s life and the future of the world, is a matter of small moves mounting up higher. This card sees the seeker as a conduit, taking the “raw” stuff of lived experience and also others’ works, remixing and adding a new perspective on it, and projecting that essence to the world. This card can indicate a good time to revisit influences, honestly consider the truly resonant aspects of life and what they have given the querent.
This card also represents the “seeds;” small steps towards larger works which will take a long time. The movement towards the ultimate realization of great and important work is gradual, taking place over many iterations and tries. Both successes and failures lie in the path towards something that works. Having the core of energy, knowing that something is true and relevant, fuels one through both.
Reverse Meaning:
The Author card reversed can mean blockage or burnout, especially creative or professional; an exhaustion of ideas and will to move forward on a project, losing touch with some essential juice or magic that made the project effortless. It can mean losing track of the point: the point of one’s labors, the point of one’s quest, the point of one’s art; the creation of empty or hollow artifacts that contain nothing and mean nothing. There is a need to rediscover the light that motivates, the light that makes one’s works worth the effort and time.
7. The Stage
Description
On a stage stands a glass wall, partially reflective and partially transparent, through which stare three Inner Masks, transfixed by what is going on before them. Around the stage fly numerous winged beings, the mysterious Liberated Voices. These are playful mask-beings that seem to know no grief or worry, constantly enjoying what they are. The three Inner Masks gaze longingly at the scene, yearning to be part of that world, but right now they can only watch, blocked from entering that world, pressing their faces against the wall as though hoping they might pass through it. They appear to be the only audience in this theater, but they are also on display.
The Story:
The Stage card features myriad beings we might not have seen this close before: the Liberated Voices. These creatures signify entry into a new, higher level of seeking, the resolution of painful questions and advancement into a new set, whose weight is perhaps not known yet. The Liberated Voice represents the arrival at profound peace with exactly who and what one is, and exploration through revelry instead of toil. These creatures’ ability to fly suggests releasing the “gravity” of the quest for self-knowledge, and returning a carefree state. They are as much at peace with what one knows, as with what one can never know. They have overcome many invisible hindrances that hold others back from being themselves. They recognize illusions which others see as barriers, and now fly freely over them with ease.
An appearance by the Liberated Voices is often a reminder not to add gravity or seriousness to things which needn’t necessarily be heavy or serious, and to see this journey as a gift instead of a burden. The Liberated Voices gravitate towards what gives them the most joy, which is where self-truth may be found, and also a natural result of finding that truth. Authenticity is a state of revelry and a cause for it.
On the other side of the glass, the three Inner Masks peer longingly, seeing the Liberated Voices’ abandon and craving it desperately, not aware that in their attachment and longing, they draw themselves further away from what they seek, and put more inches on the glass. The Liberated Voices simply act the role of nothing more or less than their own selves, and it is on others to react as they will. Their liberation could serve as a great example for many seekers and explorers who’ve become bogged down by their quests, but that heaviness, the weight of wanting, of feeling lack, longing for something outside themselves, makes it hard for their example to come across clearly. The Liberated Voices cannot speak, but they have much to teach, it is hard however to say how often others learn from them.
In many ways this card represents a desire for happiness. Sometimes one chases after an idea of happiness, other times one embraces happiness in the form of one’s own being, of joy at being, even the gods are pleased when this occurs. They say every creature in the world wants to be happy, it is what the creators intended and how we best experience our kinship with them. Sometimes our thoughts can pose a barrier to freedom.
One can become weighted down by many things: resentment, sadness, bitterness, inauthentic desires, are all as heavy as they sound. It’s little wonder it makes us unhappy to carry these things, they don’t even sound like fun in theory. The Liberated Voices have learned how to release these things. None of that is a simple matter, but the Liberated Voices have forgotten this. Like the higher angels and spirits, they are baffled by the tendency to clutch one’s anger, and hold close one’s grief. The Liberated Voices sometimes try to send a message to others who have yet to become free like them, but it comes across very subtly. The wall between their world and ours blocks a lot of sound.
The Stage is the place where the Liberated Voices act out themselves, and the rest of us are invited to gather and observe.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Name: The Liberated Voices, Revelry, Longing
The 7th card shows carefree beings flying around in a theater, and three figures watching them through a pane of glass. That pane of glass separates the three figures from the state of joy and abandon; their goals and desires. The “Stage” card can signify happiness, awareness and acceptance of one’s own self in all one’s aspects and resounding joy in that being. The card can also signify the quest for happiness, learning to let go and become lighter, treat one’s journey like a gift instead of a burden, or on the other hand being blocked by thoughts when happiness could be in easy arm’s reach.
When there is something in life that we want, we can become very serious in our focus, and in our attitude towards it. That seriousness, however, can itself become a weight, preventing us from feeling joy along the road towards getting it, perhaps from recognizing our goal once we’ve gotten there. They say to tend more to the journey than to the destination. This is a lesson easily lost in the fervor of want and the anguish of competition to achieve the end. This card suggests one might be conducting one’s search for higher truth with so much seriousness that one is held down, kept from accessing the proper mental state by the very gravity one gives it.
This card suggests a barrier, though not an insurmountable one, between oneself and one’s goals and dreams, ultimate form of life, or pathway to excellence. Some change is needed in order to get through this barrier, either to the barrier or the person blocked by it. This card also reminds us a deeper love of life is available, it is in fact only “inches” away. One may need to allow oneself to be more carefree in the way one pursues one’s dreams. If one’s dream has not been reached by racing towards it, perhaps one might try colliding with it.
Reverse Meaning:
A problematic goal needs reassessment, or one is getting in one’s own way. One’s personal myths are not helping one reach the life one wants, or one may be pushing overly hard for a specific outcome. This card in reverse suggests the querent should take a second look at their desires, are they actually pursuing something that is theirs to pursue, or something that is instilled there as a goal by some external force? If it is the case that one is aiming for a thing untrue, acting untrue, obeying rules based on non-truth, how hard is it to let go? How firm is one’s grip on what holds one back from revelry?
Bliss is an integral part of wisdom, because a closer proximity to one’s inner truth allows more joy into life. Be wary of those that claim to be happier than they are, and claim to have more peace than they have. The most convincing signs that someone has discovered truth are their kindness, their happiness, their efforts to make others happy. Happiness is a kind of wisdom. Kindness is an even more extraordinary kind of wisdom.
8. The Dreamers
Description:
We both gazed out on the river Vltava, gazing at different times. At one time, I was chased by your father away but I escaped to the sky, as soon as I remembered I’m the moon. At another time, you were dreaming alone. The two of us dream alone but are together in our dreams, each gaze out on the same night sky, gazing from different towers. This is also the same tower, dreaming at different times. One day in the course of our dreaming, all things will come to pass and we will see our dreams be made into monuments, and we will be brought together, the dream come true.
Two Inner Masks gaze out of windows in brick towers, superimposed in such a way that they could be anywhere, staring out of any two towers, or even the same individual seen at different times. These dreamers think of escape, they think of romance, they think of metamorphosis and magic, they also think about intolerance and danger, loneliness and desolation. They could be visionaries dreaming of a way into another world, barred from meeting but unified by their dreams. They could be lovers barred from togetherness. They could be enemies unaware of all that they share. Or they could be the same Inner Mask, pondering a question in one timeframe, and coming up with a solution in another.
The Story:
The two dreamers both gaze at the same sky, perhaps in different towers, perhaps in different epochs, but share an idea. A bridge connects their minds, closing the gap in time and space, drawing them closer together. The Dreamers card can be a signal that there are others like yourself out there, whose experiences and perspectives are different from your own but bear some crucial, vital commonality, you can each benefit the other and are like pieces in each other’s puzzles. The Dreamers reminds us there a multiplicity of ways to approach one’s problems, and that sometimes it can take a radical new approach, or the help of another’s mind, to find a solution. With interpersonal crises, the problem could be made infinitely more complicated by the feelings of opposing sides who cannot let go, and who cannot form a common basis of agreement because the opposing identity-stories clash too drastically. Some problems are volcanic even to define. The Dreamers card suggests it is ok to consider a different perspective, even that of one’s nemesis; not to undermine oneself but to understand what’s causing the other to behave so.
“Looking at the same situation a different way,” is one of the themes of The Dreamers. We are, many of us, relatively confident we understand the world and know how it works, to a degree. We live in a forest of stories, telling us this works that way and that works this way; that this is what to expect in those circumstances, and that is what to expect in these circumstances. There comes a time when every set of world-knowledge must be updated with new information, often this information comes at from an unexpected source, at an unexpected time.
The Dreamers can also imply escape from confines, especially confines which entrap the mind. One’s inability to answer certain questions or solve certain problems can be because of the way one has forgotten that one is confined, blocked in to a certain way of seeing, unable to access a certain set of information. The two Dreamers are in towers, and could possibly be prisoners, dreaming of a way to freedom. This card can represent the beginning of a change in perspective, the cage around the seeker will start to show itself, on a large or a small scale, even at the level of daily routines and attitudes towards others which one had not noticed before. A growing ability to see through walls starts with seeing the walls at all. An establishment starts to become weaker when people’s belief in its right to be there starts to shake. The worst dictatorships are terrified of questions, because they know their power is inherently wrong.
This card can represent a moment in which a significant choice is made, the decision to alter some opinion which had remained unquestioned, a project to self-educate, to edit one’s own inner contents, become a different kind of citizen. Such changes become necessary once it is clear that change of outlook is the only option for survival. The Empty Moon sprouts wings and flies in the thoughts of one of the Inner Masks in the scene, an impossible move, or at least extremely unexpected. It then dissolves into the sky, is this a loss for the moon, a victory for the night, both? One must make wise decisions what to hold onto, and what to release, and have good reasons for doing either.
Someone willing to dream the impossible, to envision a better world, might be, in some situations, entering ‘dangerous’ waters. They may expose a dangerous treasure, a missing piece to incorporate into the puzzle, which changes the story entirely. Dreaming of better things creates desire which creates boldness which creates transformation beyond the self, in spite of dangers. A better world first must start with a bold dream, and we are all capable of bold dreams.
Any wall can be made transparent, one must simply see through the eyes of someone on the other side.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Name: Revolutionary Thinking, Kindred Spirits
The 8th card is the card of lovers, of connection, of big dreams and dreams which others share. This card refers to common ground shared with others, common perspectives and experiences that bring others together. These experiences can provide foundation for future friendships and connections, and also for great endeavors done together. This is the card of relationships and projects done collaboratively. It also suggests communication and the ways we connect to others. Dreams and plans are turning into action, says this card. Even if one is currently stuck, one has this in common with others and the both of you will find each other and make each other stronger, strong enough one day to break through the confining walls.
Reverse Meaning:
The Dreamers card reversed means separation and selfishness, and acceptance of established attitudes, opinions, agreed-on silence around certain topics, and an inability to shift in any of these. This card reversed suggests freedom denied, even mental freedom, an inability to ask questions, to pursue certain lines of thinking, or consider certain positions, the end of a discussion without a resolution. One may be guarding one’s position out of fear or protectiveness, rather than out of certainty that one is right. A closely guarded thing, a belief or story with which one identifies so closely they mistake it for their own life and existence, may have become the focus of a life. Sometimes one will create an extraordinary dome of defense around this most closely guarded thing, which is paradoxically fragile and prone to erupt at the slightest hint of contradiction. Feelings of elitism can arise from these kinds of separation, this kind of protectiveness.
The Dreamers in reverse can mean one has become cut off from reality, distant from others, or estranged from the true purpose of their quest or their true desires, ideals, or aspirations. Someone may have defaulted to cowardice, laziness, and allowing things to remain as they are, frustrated that someone else doesn’t do something.
9. The Stranger
Description:
The Inner Mask awaits at a non-door to a non-house, an empty desert undulating in the background. All is unknown, all is awaiting completion, all is at the start of knowledge before having been filled-in, thought-out, moved into and understood. This could be a rest-stop in the journey, or a destination all its own, for the one at the door. In this moment, the Inner Mask plays the part of the stranger, someone who could be anyone, an open canvas between the states of total blankness, and satisfactory identification.
The Story:
The “Stranger” card concerns encounters with the new, strange, or unknown. This card also concerns travel, visiting unknown lands or just joining in with a new community; the experience of the stranger. It also concerns exchange, giving and taking, and the gifts we can give to each other. This card also points to the risks and potential dangers inherent in the unknown.
This card suggests new insight, new ideas, and new perspectives that hadn’t occurred to us before. One may feel exhilarated by such an encounter, or defensive. To some, the new and unfamiliar are unwelcome by default, because they threaten what has become familiar and apparently safe. The Stranger may indeed be a disrupting force, and disruptions can have unwelcome side-effects, even when that disruption is arguably needed in order for things to change.
Sometimes a Stranger is a source of insight, a fresh set of eyes or new perspective. There’s times when a solution, or new direction, comes from an unexpected source. Inversely, we might at times limit ourselves by listening too much to what others say, or might say. Insight is valuable when it comes from a place of awareness; when one is attuned to the uniqueness of another, looking at them with honesty, then insight can come from a true place, and truth can be known. However, “insight” that comes from generalization isn’t insight, but an opinion that applies to no one in particular. Such opinions get thrown around in the course of social politics and identity-making, and get applied casually to everyone, and such “observations” are careless. To have true insights, we must first remember the way we hope others see us, whether we are home or far away: as unique individuals before generalities. When one is far from one’s own “origin” environment, one might have to work harder to be seen as an individual beyond generalities, characteristics alien to one’s truth but held before the eyes of those who’ve never seen it. In one vision of the aspired-for world, all people are seen through “honest looking.” “Honest looking” means seeing others both as residents of whatever background, and as standing apart from that background. A clouded or dishonest view will see through a person only at the landscape behind them, even if that background is our own creation.
“Honest looking” is humble, it admits when we know nothing about what we’re looking at, and doesn’t presume to insert fantasies or delusions in place of knowledge. “Honest looking” also gives credit when we have an insight, derived from the senses or intuitive ability, detective-like assembly of clues or empathic awareness. It is possible to become aware of a system of patterns in another and see with honesty, but one must be honest with oneself and the universe, which sees our assessment and far beyond our best capacity to assess, in our looking, its limitations. This card asks that we look on others with honesty in order to see their truth, and likewise on our own selves, regarding ourselves with the same honest view, neither harsh nor focused on things not truly us. In the end we are all strange, in our own world and any other we may travel to.
The Stranger card can refer to travel, either geographic or mental, and arrival in a strange new place: a place in which one is strange. One travels to have experiences, to learn and grow and be influenced, however one also leaves behind influence wherever one goes, which can be for better or for worse. A stranger can bring gifts unlike any other: new perspectives unreachable before. An encounter with the strange can broaden one’s view, whether one is the traveler or the traveled-to. We are all on journeys, we all become experiences on each other’s journeys. Experiences can be good or bad, and in the course of every journey there will be good and bad experiences, all travels involve some degree of risk, stepping outside the comfort zone.
One of this card’s themes is exchange: giving and taking, or giving and receiving. The Inner Mask does not come empty handed in this card. We are called on, in many sacred texts, to provide shelter to the stranger, because we ourselves can be thrust into the role of stranger at any time. Some are called away from their home by desire, others by need. Willingness to house the traveler is part of the mandate that we give more than we take in this world. This mandate is an ancient means of making the world less difficult for its inhabitants with lesser fortunes. When those who have, give, then those with less will not fall deeper into misfortune. One has to be in a somewhat comfortable state before one can give, however even in our direst state of having nothing we all still have gifts.
A gift is different from a trade. Giving is done for nothing in return, otherwise it is a trade. Gifts are given out of a desire to give, however in the course of politics many gifts become trades. When a gift is given to heal a relationship, to make up for some wrong, or to even a playing field, then it is a trade. Actual giving is done to enrich another person and enrich the world, and such enrichment is sufficient reward for one in touch with holiness, in fact enriching the world has been known to bring a person closer to holiness.
Trade isn’t bad, it’s only different. Trade is only possible between equals, otherwise it is selling (sales are always at risk of being unjust, because they give things prices, and who is in charge of the price?) Trade can force two who might be on seemingly unequal footing to find equilibrium, something each has that the other doesn’t, and by exchanging might make these assets more valuable than they were before, which may make the trade have some of the benefits of a gift. It could be said that only children receive gifts on Christmas, adults engage in trade. Gifts, like strangers, are unexpected, and unknown before they are received.
Not all strangers are benign guests, it is on us to learn to decide between those who come with intention to take, rather than give. Another theme of this card is the “giving mindset” and the “taking mindset.” Our purpose on earth always concerns what we are here to give, not what we are here to take. A “giving mindset” will lead to greater satisfaction, however it is easy to fall into a “taking mindset.” Because it is so hard to live without one’s needs met, and so easy to become distracted by the things one lacks, it can become rather hard to retain a “giving mindset.” The “taking mindset” can lead us to believe we are owed, that we deserve to get what we want, that others or the world owe us, and all of this is erroneous and will lead to disappointment. The “giving mindset” may feel unsafe, and one may be sensible in feeling that way, however the “giving mindset” is the only door the world has to becoming a safer place. Also, those with a “giving mindset” are far less harmed by theft than those with a “taking mindset.”
One cannot expect that everyone that one meets has a “giving mindset,” sometimes you meet a thief, or a vampire. The Stranger is usually someone unrelated to us, whom we owe nothing and who we might dismiss without consequence. The decision to engage with the Stranger, to offer or to ask, invites a degree of unpredictability into one’s life, and exposes us to some risk. One does not know the Stranger’s intentions, nor what they have to offer, until one gets to know them. One merely knows they are another like oneself, and this alone may be a source of worry. We cannot control the Stranger, we can only control ourselves, our own tolerance for risk, our own generosity, our willingness to give. The truly strange has a layer of resistance around it, and if one can get past it, if that layer can come off it makes a space for extraordinary expansion.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: The Unknown, Opportunity, Risk, Gifts
Wildcard. Can indicate a new belief or new idea, or going somewhere new and becoming unknown. Card also points to gifts: our gifts to the world, generosity, bringing one’s gifts far and wide. This card depicts the moment just before things become clear, the gift is still wrapped. A mystery. This card can also indicate a clean slate or chance to start over. Card suggests we see people for who they are, and remain open to the new and unexpected; that we give newcomers a chance to express themselves and make themselves known before we lay our assumptions upon them.
The Stranger can signify a new opportunity, experience or situation which could be good or bad, a new thing to explore, or a newcomer into the seeker’s life. The card also points to the gifts the Stranger brings, which can bring calamity or revelation, and the expansion which the act of opening up to the strange can bring. It is possible to unlearn what one “knows,” oftentimes unlearning comes from an unexpected source.
This card could point to some new influence that’s come into the seeker’s life, some unfamiliar circumstance, perhaps uncomfortable, but whose reward might be something that couldn’t have been come upon any other way. This card suggests leaving one’s comfort zone, entering into opportunity and potential risk, and unexpected gifts.
Reverse Meaning:
The Stranger in reverse suggests someone in the querent’s life who is here to take more than they give, someone who betrays trust and abuses guest privileges, someone whose greed or lack of humility makes things worse for everyone. This can be a difficult colleague, a hostile partner, or a new neighbor who doesn’t want to get along. It will take a supreme act of generosity to maintain one’s values in their presence, or at least one’s peace of mind. Sometimes a clear act of generosity can be the jarring act a taker needs, to remind them that we are all here in this life to give of ourselves, to give our gifts.
This can also be someone who the querent already knows, who suddenly breaks drastically from expectation, from who the querent knows them to be or who their acquaintances are familiar with, someone who becomes strange, shocking those around with their actions. One might wonder if they changed, or if this is who they were all along, only now showing their true colors. This could also suggest overcoming illusions we clung to, and a rude awakening ensuing. This card reversed can suggest we haven’t really known who someone truly is, and have been looking past them at their background instead, or some other means of classifying them.
10. The Martyr
Description:
The Inner Mask is being burned at a stake, the smoke of the fire becoming a raincloud in the distance, emptying itself on a charred and burning city. The Inner Mask’s features disappear as it gazes towards the sky.
The Story:
A violent card, but not one without good outcomes. The Mask’s journey, encounters and discoveries have become an agent of change in the lives of others. The Mask has therefore become the enemy of those that dread change. The Mask’s face seems to be getting erased in the scene, but something is left behind. The smoke from the fire rises to the sky, to rain relief on a city far away, releasing others from their suffering. Death transforms, as does the fire. From both, new things emerge.
The Martyr card signifies a slowing down or pause in progress, something hindering motion or momentum. This card can indicate an incredibly difficult obstacle to one’s growth, success or movement, or alternately an incredibly tough opponent blocking one’s progress, intentionally or not, such as an institution, corporation, government or other powerful entity. The Martyr must make the ultimate sacrifice because the opponent is so strong that normal action is insufficient. Important change is not easy or simple, and takes time, and usually the efforts of many. The next step in the querent’s journey is likely a significant one, and therefore it poses a more significant challenge. One does not grow by conquering challenges of the same size as one already defeated. Ascending to the next mountaintop will require more out of the querent: more hours, more sweat, more emotional stamina. Something will needed to be traded, whether that be social time, free time, money, or other resources, in order to accomplish “the next big thing.” The querent’s willingness to make the needed sacrifices will determine how well the next project or challenge goes.
The Martyr is a card of hope. Martyrs sacrifice themselves so that others can benefit, and that the righteous side will eventually be victorious. Hope is real and of great importance. The Martyr would have us remember this, even as he or she goes up in flames. The rain which falls as a result of The Martyr’s sacrifice does not fall on infertile ash, but puts out fires, brings needed things to survivors, enabling the world to become a little better. The Martyr card may indicate a time for patience: although things are not moving forward now, the seeds are nevertheless being sown for future revivals, phoenixes to rise from the current crisis. Something survives destruction, escapes persecution, and influences others, even when it appears that all is lost.
The Martyr suggests surrender to something grander than one’s own self. This thing can be a society and the future of the world’s people, it can also refer to a spiritual state. There are two kinds of self-surrender: one is destructive, throwing oneself to the fire, the other means opening up to receive and embody the divine. One may turn one’s cupped hands skyward to receive blessings, to ask the heavens to send down something of themselves to the earth. There is an infinite reservoir beyond the visible. However one must nonetheless be willing to give up something in return, this often means the ego-self, the small self, so that the Higher Self can be brought into view. The loss of ego looks, to the earth-bound self, like death, but from the perspective of the soul it is rebirth.
The Martyr also symbolizes freedom discovered within restriction, routes to higher knowledge that open up when one gives up normal comforts, rituals and habits. None of these things are easy; to be meaningful, to be impactful, a sacrifice must hurt a little.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Hindrance, Sacrifice, Devotion to a Cause
This card suggests hampered movement and things being obstructed, it also suggests the seeds for future action are being planted. Apparent setbacks may be necessary for future movement, a sacrifice of some kind is sometimes needed in order to make overall progress. One must see the bigger picture to put short-term suffering into context. Things are moving as they should.
This card reminds us that difficulty, however unpleasant in the moment, is sometimes a necessary part of our evolution on the way to our goal. This card also asks that we think about others in a similar situation, either of stagnation or other difficulties, and focus on the greater mission of world-improvement that our gifts lend themselves to.
Reverse Meaning:
The Martyr in reverse suggests fruitless sacrifice, or a silencing. Martyrs commit to their self-sacrifice in order to oppose vastly powerful and unjust forces, however sometimes those forces win. Some say a Martyr that does not affect change is merely a victim. However, even seemingly wasted efforts have some effect, sometimes they aren’t what was sought, or aren’t as dramatic or immediate as hoped. One may feel that one is shouting into a void, that no one is listening, that one’s efforts are being lost somehow. One must choose to persist, or to have patience.
11. Empathy
Description:
Two Inner Masks embrace, seeing the catastrophes at the back of each others’ minds.
What the Moon whispered to the sea:
We are figures derived of different landscapes.
When we look inside each other,
We see anguish not unlike our own.
On being seen, the anguish shrinks;
Monsters are the strongest when their victims are alone.
We could be the source of each other’s pain forever,
Or we can be the means of its release.
Fruits of the pains and joys of different lands,
We are alike in suffering,
In the rage of the fire, in the cold of the sea.
The Story:
This card concerns the force of Empathy and attaining a better understanding of those around us, in our close relationships and amongst all those we share a planet with. The Empathy card suggests we can find strength through connection and, by helping others through their tragedies, make ourselves more whole and complete. This card suggests that you have the ability to ease the pain of others, and that practicing kindness will make a person more wise, aware, wise and skillful in other arts. Empathy strongly emphasizes the distinction between true kindness and kindness done for show: true kindness has a healing power, even if subtle and gradual. Another theme of the Empathy card is strength, because dealing with tragedy, our own and those of others, requires strength. It also requires strength, and also courage, to be generous with one’s feelings, time, and well-being, to not fear the peril it does one’s own path to lend assistance to others’.
The card of Empathy places the focus not on our own solitary quest, but on the context of our own quest amongst the quests of many others, all of which will undergo triumphs and calamities. Empathy stresses the importance of recognizing the reality of others’ journeys, acclimating to the idea of the equal importance of others. Empathy does not require one sacrifice one’s own needs, rather it reminds us that a valid quest will do no harm to the quests of others, that somewhere paths do merge, and we become part of each other’s destination. This card teaches that there is a balance between one’s own need to tend to one’s own mission, and the need to enable others to grow and thrive.
Sometimes kindness is a thinly veiled performance, motivated by self-interest at its root. The self-interest instinct is so effortless one cannot deeply blame anyone for feeling it: selfishness is a lesson taught by nature, and animals and children are well aware of it, even well-meaning adults have a hard time forgetting it. Most people must first feel safe before they can be generous, and much of the time we just don’t feel safe enough. The elementary instruction is “do unto others as you would have others do unto you,” putting kindness in terms that make it familiar and easy to the self-centered, presumably where we all begin. There is, however, a sense that morality comes from somewhere. Some credit their religion with their ethics and some credit their upbringing, others credit their own maturity, or a voice within that makes the most sense. Something prompts us to be fair, to be kind, and this voice becomes clearer and louder with increasing wisdom. This voice flows naturally from the awareness that other beings are real.
The drive to preserve one’s own organism is amongst the oldest of instincts. Next comes the desire to preserve one’s kin, especially one’s children. The urge to preserve all the world, and those with whom one has no connection, is a stage beyond instinct, a door opened by consciousness onto the world of other beings, the truth in their existence. To understand parallel realities, one must first understand we have billions of parallel realities all around us, in the form of other perspectives. One must also however tend to one’s garden, one cannot be everyone else’s keeper. There is a balance to minding one’s affairs, and being a good neighbor. One must practice self-reliance first before we can support others with less means. Empathy doesn’t ask much of anyone, it merely asks awareness, or an effort towards awareness, of the equal veracity of others’ perspectives. This is the bedrock of future expansion of kindness, the world cannot start to become wiser, kinder, until one by one its people see it worth the risk.
As one becomes more wise, one outgrows easy narratives and becomes more intricate. As one gains perspective, one becomes less an obstacle in the paths of others. All paths intertwine, no one person can untangle theirs alone. Every human is implicated in the revelations of every other human, even if it doesn’t always seem that way.
Compassion and Empathy are similar, but with a key difference. Empathy implies that one actually experiences the joys and pains of another, at least to some extent, while compassion means one sympathizes, but keeps an emotional distance. Some say compassion is the more valuable trait for this reason; if someone’s suffering is extreme, then empathizing overmuch may render someone unable to help. Both compassion and empathy have their place. Both knowledge and feelings contribute to understanding. A particular sort of stamina, emotional strength, is required by Empathy. It opens us up to special powers, but we must be able to endure the cost.
One can be moved to help others by the threat of social punishment or bad karma, or thoughts of rewards, the promise of heaven. True empathy is like true love; it cannot be artificially induced, it cannot be forced on anyone. True Empathy is complicated and must be allowed to enter into a life and grow there. Such feelings can only do so when a person is open and willing to receive them, willing to endure and be inconvenienced by them, because they have an importance all their own. Each has their own road to this revelation, this card indicates a good moment for the querent to investigate and build on this virtue.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Caring, Catastrophe, Healing Power
The Empathy card represents the force of Empathy in the world. It signifies the sacred impulse to be kind, and the ability to share in others’ trauma as a means of helping heal them. Empathy helps fill the void created by unloving action, empathy is something we will all need at a certain point. The universe becomes very annoyed when its creatures only help others in an effort to help themselves, whether that be motivated by thoughts of punishment or rewards in this life or the other. The universe doesn’t always reward kindness, it is more important that we learn to be kind without reward before this feature activates. This card signifies the value of kindness in itself, of understanding others’ suffering, and expanding our individual viewpoint. This is a card of generosity and gratitude, endurance and survival, and a capacity to help others, and eventually ourselves, to find our own healing process.
Empathy is a superpower given to humans; it can lessen the effects of trauma and build bridges across gaps of knowledge and experience, it creates a common ground where there would have otherwise been none. Empathy is one of the ingredients in world-mending, and it makes us more adept at handling our own suffering. It does require its own particular kind of stamina in order to engage with the power of Empathy. Its power is underused, however the first step in letting more people use it, is that more people understand the powers it brings.
This card can sometimes indicate it is you who needs the healing power of compassion, and that you should open yourself to it. Be reassured that such power exists, don’t give up hope.
Reverse Meaning:
This card reversed can mean selfishness, isolation, or being overwhelmed by one’s own needs and problems, such that one cannot allocate other emotional energies and resources to the difficulties of others. This needn’t mean one is bad or evil; remember that another lesson of empathy is understanding when others cannot care. Reversed suggests a shallower feeling of dedication and passion than one is capable of.
This card reversed can also point to the propensity of the world to seem uncaring. It can mean divisions, bitterness, acts that disregard the reality of others, possibly on a wide scale. Selfish acts may be being rewarded in the short term, but will have colossal cost in the long-term. The withholding of empathy leads to a world that still abuses its creatures. The question for the querent to consider is, do you care?
Reversed can suggest someone thinking “not my problem,” or “thank god that isn’t me.” People think these things all the time, reversed Empathy reminds us that we have the power to impact these situations sometimes, and also that, one day, it will be us experiencing misfortune, and we may find great value in even the smallest expression of caring from another.
12. The Reabsorption of the Empty Moon
Description:
The Inner Mask contemplates a candle, then gradually looks up to consider the stars outside the window, becoming the Empty Moon as it does so, and taking up new residence among the stars.
This is a metamorphosis, a moment drawn out in space. We see it as a series of places at a long table. stages in a growth that makes one part of the sky outside, a growth that is also a kind of falling apart, losing elements and features that aren’t needed.
One can see this scene through the Moon’s perspective: the Empty Moon enters the room through the mask, and leaves the room through itself. The creature has become part of the surrounding world. This symbolizes Nirvana or enlightenment, entering into non-space or non-being, unprecedented freedom, profound self-awareness. The Mask becomes everything by becoming nothing, achieving an awareness that wasn’t possible before.
The Story:
This card illustrates a momentous shift in consciousness, an ascension into a new plane of existence, an extraordinary moment in self-knowledge and world-knowledge, when secrets are exposed and fear is shed like water. This is a becoming which is not made through change, but through acceptance.
The candle on the table symbolizes the inner guiding light, one’s guide towards truth, making things seem innately right or less-right. When we recognize this light for what it is, it grants us a sense of confidence and lets us see more clearly the lights of others, the truth that goes deeper than surfaces. When we see our own truth, our own small doorway into the infinite, we are better able to release our grip on things that don’t matter, both in our own lives and in our perception of other people.
The window symbolizes going outside oneself, to recognize one’s place in the world and amongst other people, each a unique star, each one as important as every other, all needed to make the sky as we know it. When one looks at one’s own gifts in terms of what they bring to others, then self-love takes on a different meaning; self-love becomes much easier and more natural, because others need you to love yourself as you are.
This card can indicate a guiding light, a true guide, perhaps an inner one, or a trustworthy guide from outside. This guiding light burns quietly, and may lie small and unknown inside for years. However, when this guide is recognized for what it is, it wields enormous power, enough to consume all the world, all its voids, illuminate all shadows and show them as they are. This formless, all-knowing light, shining without fail, produces in those who see it a sense of urgency unlike any other. It is a source of inspiration, a beacon by which to orient oneself, a basis of awareness of what one is here to do. Great joy arises from the encounter with it, as one feels when practicing one’s true art or pursuing one’s true path. It can also be a source of mystery, revealing its secrets only when it is time.
This card points strongly to profound and life-changing transformations, realizations that change everything, and transitions into completely different stages of life. It is the single card in the deck most associated with major shift in where one stands in life and how one sees oneself. This card can be a reference to the course of one’s education, or one’s religious or spiritual journey, or climactic events in one’s mental awareness. This is also a card of departure, and an extreme purging of things from one’s life. This may also refer to a risky but exciting new venture, taking a “leap of faith” towards something unknown. This card also implies becoming a source of inspiration to others, taking on leadership roles, and pushing boundaries. The querent may be doing something, or be about to do something, in a way they never have before, and should take note of the significance that this change makes in their overall direction.
This card involves a staggering act of transformation, re-alignment to the universe and the self, it also suggests learning and significant advancement in knowledge. Enlightenment can happen over a course of years or occur within a second, which takes a seeker from their ordinary state into a condition of higher being, a more joyous and conscious state. Sometimes one receives a spark of insight which makes everything suddenly makes sense.
Some say enlightenment is like a small death: one has a glimpse of the ocean one is really from, the void we’re all headed for at the end. Reabsorption means a return to one’s deeper truth, reclaiming realities deeper than the visible, discovering the sea one is part of, things of profound relevance and importance. What is most important cannot be seen. We do not need to be perfect, in fact perfection in the flesh is an impossibility: one will be accepted with one’s flaws, it is what lies behind those flaws, and the rest of the veneer, that counts.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Nirvana, Enlightenment, Metamorphosis
Major transformation in mental and spiritual ability to experience life, ascension into a higher state of being, a fuller embrace of who we are. Necessary transformations help us become more whole, complete in ourselves, and real with ourselves, alive to who we are and what we are capable of. Necessary transformations take us closer to ourselves, when we have drifted they take us home, when we have never seen home they take us where we are a stranger who belongs.
This card describes life-changing moments, ecstatic states of connection with eternity, it can also indicate increased confidence and the sudden uncovery of profound answers to long-unanswered questions. This card can also suggest transformations in one’s thinking: if one feels unsure, one will become confident; if one questions whether others care, one will find receptivity and acceptance; if one feels overwhelmed by injustice, one will feel empowered to take action; if one feels desolate, one will become filled with gratitude; if one feels unlovable, one will become exuberant for everything one is. Whatever one has felt lacking this whole time, this thing will be revealed in abundance. One will need to believe things one didn’t dare believe before, in order to move forward.
This card suggests a moment of great joy and celebration, something which sends us into the stratosphere with joy. It represents moving on one’s instincts, taking moves which one “knows” is right, a major move towards one’s destiny. This is a card of trusting one’s internal knowledge of oneself, even if others don’t understand. This card can also mean overcoming fear.
Reverse Meaning:
Suggests being not ready for a jump or change, not a good time for an earth-shaking transformation. Some work needs to be done first, before making a major transition. Also can mean a major change isn’t needed, only a small one, if any at all.
13. Balance
Description:
Two masks balance on edge, peering into each other’s eyes peacefully, as though seeing into each other’s inner worlds. One appears to contain a gladiator pit at the moment of a kill. Within the other, two lovers promise themselves to each other beside a river: the declaration of a union, the beginning of an era. The world above and the one below are two different visions of victory.
The Story:
The Balance card suggests a new state of balance, peace, or knowledge. This card suggests the end of uncertainty, even if only temporary. This card can also indicate agreements, understandings, perhaps compromises coming at the end of struggle. It can suggest peace between persons or within the querent’s own self.
In the lower mask, two figures sit together, holding hands beside a river. In The Urantia, it is said the first two humans were members of a tribe of violent ape-creatures. Tiring of the war-like ways of their people, they left, it was the first true act of humanity. They made a promise to each other beside a river never to go back, not to be like the ones they ran from anymore, not to be animals; to start something new. According to The Urantia, this promise was witnessed by many angels, who stopped what they were doing and came down to witness this remarkable event. The Balance card can indicate peace and equilibrium achieved within one’s self, but it can also indicate the achievement of outward peace, between relations, or groups, or between ones self and one’s gods.
Peace can stay illusive for long periods, and at times seem hopelessly out of reach. Sometimes a person can give up on peace, and give themselves over to war, but if you look closely there are many roads to peace. Peace can come through an agreement on boundaries, acts of diplomacy, an increased understanding of one’s own self and others, or a deep exhaustion and disgust with conflict and desire for the future to be better. Peace may be imperfect, it can also be fragile or even temporary. In the eyes of the lower mask the colosseum flags fly, violence the occasion to celebrate. Humans have not always stayed true to the original two’s promise by the river. However, in the moment when peace is achieved, that moment of equilibrium, it is possible to rejoice. Even brief peace opens a window to a better world. Those who dream of a world worth building, who visualize peace before it happens, can create moments that catch the attention of angels.
Times of stability may be brief, but they also might provide a foundation on which great things can be made: discoveries, appreciation and understanding, relevant change. Equilibrium and victory allow many to work towards a goal together, across differences, bringing different attributes and perspectives and abilities. Only with certain agreements and understandings can productive work across boundaries be made. Both differences and commonalities have to be appreciated, in order for bridges to be crossed. Letting differences be, but not letting them jeopardize peace, is also a balancing act. Imbalances of power make true peace very difficult to achieve. Sometimes harmonious practice seems unattainable because two sides of misunderstanding are impossibly different, but there is kinship between all human beings, the promise by the river; it might benefit us a while to define humanity as a promise, and reflect what that promise means, what was promised at the start.
This card can also mean a healing of the past. We may be coming from a past that is cluttered with conflicts, influencing our direction, contributing to who we are today. The lullabies over our cradle might’ve been drawn from battlecries, but now it is our desire to have peace. We long for peace even if peace is a new concept, a situation still being invented. Reenactments of past conflicts, gone past and over, are now reduced to cartoon, to harmless entertainment. Past aggressions are losing their teeth, their ability to incite fresh rage in a new world. Violent terms are being drained of their power, and the enemies of our history books are becoming our friends. This is a period of recovery, a patch of quiet after a harmful storm, or a long period of frequent harm. Even when it seems that we were forged in the fires of others’ hatred, or mere carelessness, it is possible to look back further, on a common origin that no amount of harm can deny or remove. This origin can be historical or biological or spiritual or merely symbolic, either way it stands as a road towards peace, an initial wish. Recovery can accompany renewal. This is a renewal of self, and also a renewal of trust: trust in others, trust in oneself, and trust in the universe, knowing that it will all be ok. One cannot always feel safe believing this, but now one can believe. Faith means that trust is a responsible move this time. These balancing masks represent brief glimpses of another’s reality, moments of clarity, forgiveness.
Glory is the inflation of certain traits or attributes associated with violence, but there are real costs to this. Eventually, those costs become too high. The weariness of hating, of maintaining illusions of superiority or eternal conflict, become so burdensome, that a people are ready for peace.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: end of conflict, celebration, hope
Signifies peaceful relations, establishing trust, healing the past, letting the sun set not on anger. Satisfactory agreements and seeing eye-to-eye on an issue, finding common ground, letting up on contentions, keeping promises, mutual respect. This card signifies greater balance in life, between people and within the self. Some states of balance are temporary, however small wins are needed to find long-lasting balance. Life’s wounds will not be healed overnight, trust may crumble again, but one can use periods of calm to make observations, feel the way one wants to feel.
Reverse Meaning:
Conflict, disagreement, contention and broken or forgotten promises, the glorification of immediate, short-term wins at the expense of long-term good. Balance reversed can also signify loss of balance in one’s life, between different interests or endeavors.
The shadows of discord hide in the walls of utopias, and dreams of a better world exist during times of terror. Reversed, the card also reminds us that the seeds of a better future are buried in the soil, in the ashes, and there is hope for reconciliation, once we remember that which is more important than revenge. We are capable of grace enough to cause the angels themselves to marvel, and also cruelty enough to cause demons to look away in horror.
14. Continuum
Description:
Two interlocking rings of masks revolve around an axis, a vast galaxy behind them. In the for corners, the four characters of the Inner Mask Oracle observe and relate to the masks as they come into their vicinity. The masks seem to have a consciousness all their own, at least when in proximity to one of our characters. The center around which the scene revolves is empty, or it is filled by light from a distant source.
The Story:
The 14th card in the Major Arcana features two intersecting rings of masks turning as a wheel does, bringing with them different experiences, different roles to play, each one opening certain doors and closing others. They stand for different pathways to enlightenment, different lessons, different ways of relating to reality, to the center, the void, the light. The four corners are occupied by the four main characters of the Inner Mask Oracle: the Inner Mask, the Empty Moon, the Liberated Voice and the Submerged Thought. Each one of these four has its own interaction with the masks in the cycle, and relate to these masks differently at different times. Like the four elements coming together to manifest more than the sum of their parts, they gather together to observe, from their different worlds, something that extends past all of their boundaries.
This card stands for the many roles we play in life, the masks we go through in the course of a day and also a lifetime. This card also points to masks as an artifice lying outside of creation’s source, but also as a gateway to that source, a means of interacting with it, if indirect. A mask can limit and hide, but it can also provide a means for truth to escape. In our passing between masks, we might notice a space, not unlike the quiet between thoughts which can be observed when meditating and looking for it. This space is a gateway all its own. The fact that we play many parts, and go between masks as easily as we go between conversation partners (who I am on the bus, who I am at my job, who I am at the dinner table) is itself a message written in the sky for masks to learn about themselves. The gap teaches us how masks operate, where they begin and where they end.
This card marks the boundary between the divine and the psychological, the spirit and the mind. “Who I am” in the immortal and mortal sense. This card suggests a common ground and intersection of the rational and the intuitive, guidance by deduction and by inspiration. There is room in ourselves for things that would seem to clash, that which appears to contradict can in fact be two sides of the same coin, completing each other by filling in gaps not covered by the other, answering questions the other cannot answer.
This card can be read in a way similar how one would read the Wheel of Fortune: one’s luck goes up and down, we must seek stability in wisdom to weather the storms of life. This card can also be ready in a way similar to The World: as a card of completion, the final stage in a journey, the culmination of efforts and ascension to the next level. Each of the four quadrants depicts a being in its own state of self-contemplation, bringing its own experiences to the larger cycle and being given lessons about itself by that same cycle. The Continuum card is also about reincarnation: either literal reincarnation, or existence as a series of phases extending back and forth forever.
Consciousness is a mystery, as some things will forever be. However there are many gateways through which we can approach, if not total understanding, than an angle on it. Every set of eyes is another way to view infinity, every mind is a window; a lifetime its process of becoming clear, of opening.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Cycles, Completion, Roles
Expansion and expansiveness, the completion of cycles and projects, passing between many roles we come to see the spaces between and the nature of the fulcrum of all these identities. Clinging to the solid, believing in the validity of each, we forget the void between, but when we become aware of the resonance of the void we take a step closer to the center. Making sense of things.
Reversed:
Incomplete processes and projects, broken cycles and patterns, alienation. Becoming overly oriented or grounded in a single state or way of being, disconnection with multiplicity and multiplicities. Disorientation.
15. Peace
Description:
An abandoned mask sits atop a mound of fabric. Only crumpled folds inhabit the mask now. The seeker is gone, the deserted face smiles, at peace with whatever was achieved during the seeker’s stay on earth. Meanwhile, another wanderer, still journeying and still swayed by pains and needs and longings, crosses the desert, a crusader on a mission. Above, vultures haunt the sky.
The Moon said, from far below the sand:
Masks on the wall, the only one at peace is the mask of death. All the rest are straining against something. The only one that strains against nothing, that doesn’t strain at all, is the one that has let go of everything including itself.
Story:
The final card of the Major Arcana is the card of conclusions, peace and completion. It signifies peace and rest at the end of journeys, a release from other obligations, and becoming able to finally let go. This card, more than any other, signifies acceptance, of oneself and the world around oneself, and of one’s eventual mortality, the ultimate target of resistance. This card points us to radical self-acceptance; the end of judgement. The universe invites us into total acceptance of ourselves exactly as we are, and by practicing this become more able to accept the rest of creation as it is. The birds in the sky may be buzzards or carrion-eaters feasting on those who have passed on, this is definitely an aftermath shot, post-journey, post-struggle, post-excursion.
Radical self-acceptance means accepting the gift of one’s life as one would accept all gifts from the cosmos, with ease and gratitude and even joy. Acceptance of self, of the limitations and also the wonders incarnate within the self, is a profound act amongst beings encouraged to self-judge, who are often lost in thought-patterns which deny, distract, emphasize, do many things besides accept. Acceptance does not need to mean dismissal or inaction, or anything else we worry might come attached to it. There are many things we worry might happen if we were to “accept” and this causes us to hesitate to accept ourselves. Acceptance does not have to mean an end to improvement, it merely means an end to resistance.
Our own mortality is something we resist with act and word and thought, but it makes no difference in the end. True acceptance of what is means being unafraid, even of one’s own conclusion. This card speaks of releasing one’s resistance to the flow of things, allowing oneself to be carried by life instead of trying to force things in one direction or another. There are times when one must steer the ship, and other times when it will serve one better to move with the current.
This card can also stand for satisfaction with what one has learned and where one is, a momentary satiation of the urge to journey. What’s left behind looks upwards, to the vast sky, ready for a voyage with no return. This is the card of non-attachment, letting go, release and forgiveness. It is the card of moving on, and the card of no regrets. The wanderer is at last unmasked, having assumed the state of undefinable all. Beneath the shroud of death, mask and wearer are finally free of each other.
This card can mean solitude and independence, being whole and complete in oneself. It can indicate someone who is unconcerned with others’ misunderstandings, and no longer needs acceptance or approval. This card can suggest an end to one’s duty to placate or please, to live up to standards, or fulfill the duties set by others.
The pile of cloth in the scene suggests a tall, pointed mountain. The spiritual journey is sometimes depicted as the climbing of a tall mountain, reaching the top brings you closest to your gods, the highest achievement. This card suggests arrival at the peak of a quest or some ultimate height in one’s introspective journeys. One has seen the gods, dwelled in their house in the sky, come to know peace in a new way. This can represent many things in the life of the querent, the culmination of one’s education or practice, or a realization that brings new wisdom. It can also indicate the need to end a certain struggle, or to let go and allow things to move as they will, and for others to be who they are. The world turns without one’s moving it.
This card also serves as a literal reminder that one’s time on earth is brief. The world keeps on turning, with or without the seeker. The time to make one’s impact is now.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: The Mask of Death, The Shroud, conclusions, un-attachment, end of the struggle
This card signals peace, tranquility, going with the flow, letting things take their course. This card indicates stepping back, not forcing or pushing things to manifest, but letting things set in motion to complete their trajectories. This card can be a message to rest, to step back, to get less “entrenched” in a situation, or to give oneself healing time and space to recover and prepare for what’s to come. This card suggests the end of a process, the conclusion of a difficult period or struggle. Whatever the outcome of that struggle, this card suggests acceptance of both self and situation: one’s work is done and now the effects can be allowed to “unfold.”
The mask gazes at the sky, as though it is taking in its expansiveness, with an expression of peace, tranquility, and ease. This card is post-excursion, post-trial, post-difficulty. It is a card of death in the sense of rest, of letting go of things not in one’s control. It is the card of conclusions, and of non-judgement. Allow the world to be the world. Allow this planet to be the planet which we have, later it will become clear what can be done.
This card marks the conclusion of the Major Arcana, and is an ultimate card of finishings, serenity in what has been accomplished, and entry into the next journey. Sometimes the best way to make progress is to identify what cannot be changed, conserving energy for that which can.
Reverse Meaning:
Suggests incomplete-feeling endings or unsatisfactory resolutions. Things left “dangling” or loose ends, something remaining unsaid. Perhaps the end is not really arrived, or we cannot let go of the journey yet. This card reversed can also suggest the feeling of ineffectiveness: what has our quest accomplished? Will it matter to anyone? This card reversed can also suggest things getting lost or annihilated, never having the chance to be completed.