SHADOWS (cups)
Ace of Mirrors • Illusion
Alternative Name: The Woman and the Moon
A poet said:
“Woman is like the moon. You never know what is on the other side.”
Another said:
“woman is like a mirror; follow the watching moon and see it rise each night without a trace. Each night I see her face, but never know what’s on the other side of the glass.”
Description:
The Empty Moon wears a dress, and now the universe knows her as a she. She sits between a mirror and a window, and the reflection of the full moon filling her face. That face is a fullness not her own, and the moon becomes two eyes in its reflection: one or both moons is an illusion.
The Story:
The first card in the Mirrors suit concerns self-protection, privacy, secrets, and mysteries that remain out of reach. This refers to our own needs for privacy, and those of others. By extension it can also refer to greater mysteries, in the universe or our societies, things just out reach of our knowledge. This card can also refer to obscure or “esoteric” things, which are known about but understood very shallowly. This card is ultimately about awareness of the unknown, being at peace with some amount of mystery, and remembering that the surface is not the whole story.
There are many reasons for people to hold their full selves back from being seen. There are things which are kept from us because certain things or persons would be harmed if we found out. Even if our intentions are good, there are some places we’d be invasive to enter into, some knowledge we’d be unable to wield harmlessly, some information that isn’t ready to share. Some experiences can only be discussed meaningfully with those who share them. Over time, these realities may become ready for exposure to the wider world, but only in their own time, and only for their own reasons.
Secrecy can be one’s choice, or it can be involuntary. There are some truths that cry out to be heard, but which the majority of people are not yet able to hear with sympathy. A widely-believed myth can make it hard for the truth to emerge, forcing the truth into secrecy. The general public sometimes opts for a preferred, familiar or comfortable story its been told before. The way some people’s experiences become obscure can itself be mysterious. There can be unseen obstacles, blinders and blockers, preventing clear view of some people’s lives. Some people’s perspectives are given the full spotlight of a society, and are explored in their every nook and cranny, while others’ are cast into the shadow of strangeness, spoken of but in passing, included but in a way not controlled by themselves.
In this scene, there is a mirror that hides as much as it shows, a facade that shows some things and protects others from being seen. The world does not serve the same amount of danger to all its wanderers. Some dangers are in plain sight of all, others are seen only by those at whom they’re aimed. Whole landscapes lie in full view, go unseen by those not in danger there. When peril doesn’t fall on those whose perspective is considered default, whole realities fall into invisibility, and must sink deeper for reasons harder and harder to see. Secrecy is also a source of danger.
The beginning of the Mirrors suit concerns the uses of silence, and secrecy as protection. This card could be used in spells of protection, privacy and the guarding of information. This card can also refer to things the querent has been doing to protect his or herself, and invites the querent to consider whether any of these things can be dismissed at this time. This card can also refer to a mystery, something in life the querent still hasn’t figured out. The Ace of Mirrors suggests there may be good reasons why this information remains unknown; it might not be right time, for the world or the querent, for this knowledge to come into the querent’s hands. It could be time to pursue some different track, and let that question go unanswered for now.
Card Meaning:
This card indicates feeling misunderstood, perhaps unrecognized or unheard. This can also be a reference to social injustice and repression, or being unable to pursue one’s life because of particular threats. The world outside may seem to be going about its regular business, but one feels trapped somehow. One might feel unable to be “oneself” or be who one truly is. One is left to dream and visualize a better world. The seeds of one’s future escape, one’s blossoming are being planted now, the dreams one has today will be the coming world’s reality. This card also suggests foresight and abilities that are “brewing” and preparing themselves now. This card has connections with the High Priestess of traditional Tarot.
Reverse Meaning:
This card reversed can signal the feeling of being misunderstood, of people around the querent choosing to believe something that isn’t true, not listening to the querent’s side. It describes confinement in the stories being told by others about oneself, gradually being cut off even from one’s own mysteries. Someone’s reality grows murkier, because it is poorly understood by outsiders with more power to describe the world. Someone in the querent’s life could be going through this, or this might have happened in the past, leaving the querent needing to grapple with ideas about oneself, that stand taller than one’s actual existence. The querent might feel in competition with a “reputation,” perhaps more widely known and accepted than one’s own truth can surmount. Some stories can get lodged in others’ eyesight, blocking their ability to see one fully, one can work a whole lifetime to bring them down. “Reputation,” deserved or not, can become a form of confinement, something others believe before they believe you. Certain forces may compel one to respond to stories written by outsiders who do not understand. One may be asked to react or answer for others’ fictions, and may feel the need to contradict, or live in accordance with them. When one’s surface has been created by another, one can feel trapped beneath the wishes and fears of others, subject of an alien imagination.
This card reversed can also mean frustration at being unable to find out the truth, things blocked for no seeming good reason; a magic mirror that only reflects the same questions back without answering. It can indicate exclusion, aloneness in one’s vantage point, or in one’s suffering. It can refer to the feeling that the fullness of one’s experience is being lost, reduced to a passing comment or dismissed as a joke.
About Shadows
The Shadow corresponds with Cups in the traditional Tarot. Cups in Tarot represent emotions, symbolized by water, whereas the intellectual suits of Wands and Swords are associated with fire and air. A cup holding water represents the depth and internality of emotion, the fluid nature of tears when the cup overflows, the tides of the sea and the dominion of the moon. The Cup sign of Tarot is often seen as a goblet that holds emotional content, sometimes so deep that it drowns out the rest, the Shadows suit is very often a pit or a hole, a gap in the ground or another surface in which the unaccepted aspects of the self have been buried, but they will not disappear.
Shadows are connected with the “dark” or less-well-known self. While part of one’s life is lived in the sun, shown to the world and fully illuminated, the shadow is the part left out, blocked by that which knows sunlight, unknown to others. The world of Shadow is envisioned as deeper “down” than Maskworld, further away from the conscious, familiar world. It has its deserts, its rivers, and even a seeming sun of its own. It is the home of things that have no place in the worlds above: things we hide about ourselves, suppress and forget about. These things can be sources of shame, or grief, or otherwise unwelcome feelings. They can also be things we feel we would be judged about or, by our participation in our social worlds, would judge ourselves, would rid ourselves of if we could. The shadow is the place to banish things we can’t extract about ourselves, a way to bury things: an underworld. The Empty Moon is a character and main figure in this world, and longs for us to take another look at all we cast down there. The Empty Moon longs for recognition for its own value and the role it plays in the worlds upstairs, and to be known by the Inner Mask.
We all have things we’d prefer were not true, or at least not known, about ourselves. Some of us go to extremes to erase things about ourselves, to become someone else or give the impression that we are. We sometimes do this in order to have a certain image of ourselves, or to be accepted by others, or to avoid violence. The shadow is the trash can of all we wish weren’t there. But therein lies the defiance of the shadow: the Shadow self may be rejected, removed, buried, forgotten, denied, suppressed, but it does not disappear. It does not die, it may even grow larger as we send more of ourselves its way. It is a part of our truth, it will not vanish and it will not let us forget what we cannot presently accept. We are outlined not only by our illuminated selves and the parts that we accept, but by what is left out of the story, the contours we draw around ourselves and what is omitted. The parts we have cornered off, some of which are parts we cannot yet face, some of which are not “bad” per se but merely don’t fall into the parts one wishes to be known for, remain despite our preference against them. Whereas mirrors are a vision of ourselves in reverse, the shadow is a gap where the self, at least the known and approved self and the one we recognize, is not, a void where that self is missing, an emptiness. Our own self not there, any idea of not-being, is a deeply troubling thought, resembling death. Perhaps for this reason the Shadow has become the archetype of the enemy, the ethereal horror Not Being embodied in its presence, which equates with one’s own absence. But when given more consideration, the Shadow is revealed rather as the archetype of the misunderstood, because every position is a position in its own right when considered. All positions have back stories and rationales, only our own desire to keep things simple makes things 2-dimensional as shadows against their objects.
The suit of Shadow can be a place of mystery, split-selves and incomprehensible dreams, but it can also be the site of communication between “conscious” ambition and “unconscious” reaction. Here, the self is a process, and understanding the self comes hand-in-hand with understanding how one works. Harnessing the knowledge of self, for those who would use the realm of Shadow to enact change in the realms of light, is a matter of sending messages the subconscious will understand.
Strategically interacting with the mysterious entity below the fold, surface-selves in pursuit of goals known to the Mask or Mirror worlds send their words and pictures sometimes, creating waves in hopes of changing themselves. Change happens all the time here, and some hope to create reverberations that resonate on the surface seen by others. Shadow is the secret, private life of the self and psychological realities that remain hidden from the world at large.
The cards of this suit also concern harmony, healing and stability in spite of being split, and ultimately forgiveness. Forgiving oneself for being who one is, forgiving one for having a dark side, for having secrets, for being incompletely in the light, these things are lessons of the shadow. One cannot be whole while part of one is cut out. The Shadow is often villainized, blamed for anti-social behavior and psychological harm. However the Shadow is also a figure of bravery and resilience, with the resolve to survive in spite of exile and return to the world somehow, because it knows the surface self cannot survive alone.
Ace of Shadows • The Eclipse
Description:
The Empty Moon is struck by the sight of an eclipse, which spreads night across the land in a flash. On the brink between night and day, a door opens to somewhere far away. The Empty Moon is caught in a split second of time, the boundary between light and dark, the gateway to and from the void. The Empty Moon reaches out in an imploring manner to the sun-moon in the sky, as though it has something to say to the sun become suddenly more like itself. Will the radiant crescent-sun, brief moment when night invades day and stars share the sky with the sun, hear the appeal of the wanderer of Shadows? Rarely is the sun in an aspect to see how the world looks when it isn’t there. Rarely can the shadow speak to that which causes all shadows. The sky casts a shadow known as night and it exists in pieces behind the moon and behind the earth inside the canyon.
The Story:
The Ace of Shadows is the entryway to the suit of Shadows, dominion of the Empty Moon. This scene takes place during the split second when day transforms into the momentary night of a total eclipse. This transition marks one realm’s crossing into another, opening the briefest and most short-lived portals as it goes, visible only to creatures like the Empty Moon.
This card describes a new beginning at the transition between two things, and the heavy emotional burden of feeling connected to two opposites which don’t always fit or belong together. It is the card of unfinished processes and difficult decisions. One must choose which side, select which path to take or goal to prioritize. There are decisions one has held off making up until this point, now the world demands a definitive direction.
This card can represent emotional confusion; feeling many things at once and being uncertain what they all add up to. We have all felt times in which “part of me” feels one way or wants one thing, and “part of me” feels another way and wants something else. We are multi-dimensional in a way the Empty Moon as seen, and it is trying to explain to us, though it isn’t easy. We may feel, in this moment, that we are forced to feign more decisiveness than we feel inside, take a steady position when we feel anything but steady.
The Ace of Shadows also describes situations that are both extremely rare and, paradoxically, happening all the time. A streak of strange luck has come around, an opportunity that doesn’t happen often, demanding a significant choice or action. The vast majority of life consists of things out of our control, every so often we are invited to participate in our own destiny, and the world’s, in a meaningful way. An eclipse occurs when the moon passes exactly between the sun and the earth, casting shadow on the Earth and creating a patch of night in the middle of the day. This event is possible because the moon is exactly the right distance away to appear the same size as the sun; the two therefore match up perfectly when they intersect. It’s an extremely unlikely coincidence, and yet it happened. One day the moon will be further away and total eclipses will never happen again, replaced by some new phenomenon. For this moment, however, the window into night opens on occasion. This card reflects unlikely circumstances that are converging, many different aspects each requiring their own consideration. One must take a broad perspective, as much as one is able to at this time, in order to make the right choice.
The Empty Moon, a creature of the shadow realm, longs to be seen but is excluded from the light. In this moment, the sun becomes a crescent, opening an uncommon window on the night during the middle of the day. The Empty Moon reaches out to that rare sun, as though hoping for acknowledgement or connection; perhaps now that the sun is in the form of its opposite, it will be better equipped to hear and understand where it is coming from. This card whispers that there are many aspects to our wholeness and none of them are wrong in what they are, and that confusion happens because this choice is, like the world and ourselves, both extremely simple and very complicated at the same time.
This card expresses the longing to be accepted or received, perhaps in a new world, but this acceptance isn’t always freely or quickly given, each world being absorbed within itself. Someone who has been part of two places has rare insight, holding a perspective that transcends this self-absorption.
Card Meanings:
Alternative Names: The Wanderer Between Worlds, The Door, Portals and Appeals
The Ace of Shadows speaks of transitions between two states, belonging to two places or positions at once, upheaval going on around a person, and acclimating to new circumstances. This card illustrates a portal or gateway, a passage into a new realm. This place will have new demands and offer new opportunities, is ruled by a different sun, perhaps different gods, different rules. This card suggests starting over, becoming alien and removed from the familiar. This card can also indicate wanting to be heard, seeking a new place or situation where one will be recognized in a deeper way. This card stands for a longing to make connection, and also having integral connections to more than one place.
This card can indicate change that is happening around the querent but not to the querent, change which one sees happening but may feel powerless to affect. This card can point to things not in the querent’s control, changes underway that will settle into a new circumstances soon. This can also suggest luck or a window of opportunity opening. An eclipse happens rarely and gives us a chance to see the world differently when it occurs. This card can also suggest dealing with the outcome of a choice.
Reverse Meaning:
This card reversed suggests aftershock following dramatic change, or being suddenly in a very different situation. It can also suggest longing to be heard or recognized and not feeling received, “yelling into the void.” This card reversed can also suggest a choice: whether to move forwards or backwards, whether to stay in the present or move into the future, a choice between day and night, light and dark. There are sparks to be found both in light and darkness, one is sometimes called to choose between a more difficult and complex path, and one that is less so.
2nd Shadow • Confession (The Edge)
Description:
The moon arrives at the edge of the desert of infinite possibilities, still with something to say. Stopping at the edge of a cliff falling infinitely down, the Moon made a heartfelt declaration. This message carried itself down into the void below, and has not emerged since. In the background, playful beings enjoy the openness of the place. The Empty Moon’s angel wings are tossed by wind, and its shadow burns deep ridges into the ground.
A song in the mind resounds:
The void sings a familiar song. Has something out there heard me? I can fly, if I remember to trust my wings.
A Voice from Outside the Sky:
The Empty Moon recognizes its own shadow, stretching out across the land and over a crag or canyon in the earth. But the recognition only takes place, the journey only begins, when the Empty Moon realizes that this shadow is not them. This is a hole in space, a discontinuity, in the land and in the self, created by the Empty Moon but not the Empty Moon’s own self. The canyon is a cleft in the earth and also in the Moon, a barrier to the passage of humans and to the human-minded landscape, an inconceivable break. The moon does not at first know how to react but decides to proceed towards the shadow, drawn somehow to this consequence of light, of its own being.
The Story:
This card takes place in the Desert of Possibilities, where people are free to experiment and play with roles and ideas. The Empty Moon is here on some emotional business, and has found a canyon seen by no one else, a receptacle for its complex wishes and needs.
This card concerns the personal, emotional side of journeys; things one brings with one to the edge of the world, that which requires time alone to unravel. The Shadow world lies far “beneath” Maskworld, the way the subconscious lies “beneath” the conscious mind. The Empty Moon has come to a place not many can see: the place where the desert of infinite possibilities ends, and becomes an infinite pit, a cavern of possibilities. Like the desert, its emptiness creates the possibility of insights. The Desert offers distance from the ordinary world, the cliff offers the chance to ponder infinity from a safe distance. This is a part of the desert few can find, which provides mental distance; distance from the turmoil inside, from the questions that won’t go away, and the anxiety one cannot walk away from, even in a vast desert. Those who’ve managed to come here and find this cliff discover a strange comfort in the void: this canyon will absorb all suffering, no matter how huge the size. One can revisit this place in order to say what one cannot say, to commune with the universe.
“Wounds” are a theme of this card, and run throughout the Shadows suit. All around The Empty Moon is carefree existence. The Empty Moon has found the wound in the Earth and come to its edge, relating to it as one wound to another. This wound may remain forever, or outlast many lives, and we may remain carriers of certain wounds. However, like the earth, we are sacred and free anyway. Some wounds will always be with us, marking a division before and after, these things are part of us and we bring them with us to the highest mountain and the deepest sea. One may honor one’s wounds, and learn from them but also honor the wholeness deep within. In the abyss we find ourselves, unbroken, a fragment of eternity that becomes eternal again when the wounded part is done and falls away.
Another theme of this card is “confession.” If meditation is mental hygiene, then confession is spiritual hygiene. Confession requires overcoming fears and self-loathing, is itself an act of “coming clean” because of these challenges, it also demands our purpose be greater love. Confession can be understood as acceptance of our limitations as human beings, and results in awareness of our potential as such. Confession means self-honesty, and some say that self discovery might be accessed if we enact self-honesty to its fullest.
Justice is an aspect of confession, however the universe thinks of justice differently than governments (whose purpose is more often about persecution.) The universe seeks to make things right in the external world and also the internal. Fixing one’s mistakes means mending whatever damage was done to the universe, and to one’s relationship with it. The process for healing wounds is similar, because one’s own mistakes and those of others both leave psychic wounds, the void barely registers a difference between the two. Wounds are resistance to flow, obstructions in the direction we’d most want for the universe and ourselves. The universe has planted a seed, in this world it has grown to a whole complicated experience, and it is blooming from time to time with something strange indeed. It appears to be growing towards something exquisite, we are given glimpses, we are in tune with a direction we suspect to be momentous, and that’s why blockage to this direction saddens us. We are slowly becoming better at overcoming our scars, but we suspect they have something to tell us before we outgrow them entirely. The ability to feel compassion for the scar is one of the technologies of healing.
Cliffs are associated with going to or being pushed to the “edge,” which is another theme of this card. One might be pushed to the “brink” or to the limits of what one can stand. One does not always feel one’s strongest or most free to go with the flow, sometimes the winds others feel as a simple toy of experience pushes one to the limit. We have been brought here for a reason, “we meet again” says the void, the other aspect of the universe (the part between the stars). The stars need the void in order to be stars. One needs from time to time to encounter the shadow, the gap, to remember who one is, that one is a human in the universe, much smaller than the majority of creation, but related to stars. Trust that all will be well if one casts one’s baggage, things one has mistaken for one’s “self,” into the abyss. We are stars, we are also void, the void wants us to remember.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Confession, Needs, Opening Up, Discontinuance
The 2nd Shadow concerns things which hold a person back from their potential and from going with the “flow,” resistance to being moved by the winds. This card suggests things held inside which need release, recognition and setting free. This card also points to a need for self-trust, self-honesty and admission of things one knows and feels within. Radical self-honesty is another path to self-realization, we are all combinations of flaws and strengths.
There is a presence of cosmic force in this image, “direction” in which things are flowing. This card also suggests resistance to that direction, whether it be for reasons of doubt or distrust, fears or desires for something else. The 2nd Mask suggests clinging to inner feelings or thoughts which inhibit free movement, it is something of an inverted Fool card; everyone except the Empty Moon is carefree and following the wind. Even one’s shadow can learn to fly free, it must remember it is made of stars.
This card indicates coming to terms, whether that be with one’s past, one’s lingering issues, one’s worries and fears, or things in life that one cannot abide or deal with. It represents the things one needs to get off one’s chest or let go of, and a means of doing so. The purpose of this process is not further punishment, but the ability to love oneself more completely.
Reverse Meaning:
The 2nd Shadow upside down suggests “up against the edge” or “pushed to the edge,” and indicates a choice, to turn back or push forward. Trust in one’s wings, or cling to the rocks. The Shadow has needs, has its perspective. Sometimes one must let the Shadow say what it needs to say. The Shadow wants, at its core, to protect us, it simply has a different way of understanding things, dangers and opportunities. Some wounds don’t want to heal, not until they’ve had a chance to teach us what it’s like from their point of view. The Shadow often has a point, one should not disregard or suppress it in taking flight.
The land displays the wounds of history in several ways: one of those ways is borders, another of those ways is gorges. This gorge, this cliff, is a feature of nature, a split or divide which means something to the world outside, and which also means nothing. This gorge is the void where land and sea are absent, a gap in their continuity. It is thus a portal to infinity, a mirror on the other world. One may be afraid to look into it directly, but one may also speak one’s truth into it, and be heard. Some say where we seek the “light” the Shadow self seeks the ultimate point of darkness as its guide, its destination, its comfort.
3rd Shadow • The Sundial (Monoliths)
Description:
The Empty Moon arrives at a ring of stones, monoliths with hollow eyes. These monoliths cast shadows that reach downward, rootlike, towards some distant point in a void-less universe, as though dwindling to a singularity. That universe from which these monoliths (or headstones) stem is illuminated, its shadows bright, perhaps with the light of creation itself. The Empty Moon inclines its horns to look at a sundial in the midst of these monoliths, the time indicated is unclear. The Empty Moon itself also becomes a sundial, its form casting a shadow that measures time. The monoliths, however, cast no shadows except those which stretch down into the center of creation.
Around this scene fly creatures which have one wing of a bat and another from a bird, hybrid day/night animals who bring two opposites, two aspects of our planetary time, conjoined.
The Story:
The 3rd Shadow is about one’s relationship to the past, and also to time. This card also represents the ancestors, their guidance and roles as guardians, whether or not we know their names. This card implies one is being protected and watched over, also that one’s actions are being witnessed as one’s imprint on history becomes part of the larger story.
The querent stands on bedrock laid by others who’ve passed this way before. Sometimes one runs across signs of their passage, and may find clues relevant to one’s own quest in their footsteps. Accessing clues from the past involves obstacles: information decays and pieces go missing, the world changes and things lose or change their meaning. In addition, the present doesn’t always want to admit of the past, accommodate the past’s attitudes, or understand the world that existed in the past. Time’s first lesson is to accept one’s past, whatever it may be. Accepting the past is the first door one must open, in order to understand one’s journey in the longer context.
One of this card’s themes is “ancestors.” For this card, ancestors symbolize the influence of the past, its lingering spiritual presence. Ancestors are those who are no longer visible or present in the world, to whom one has deep ties. They provide spiritual grounding and legacies, and we respond to them with rituals, traditions, mementos and stories. Ancestors are witnesses and observers, ghosts with perspective; a person becomes an ancestor if they gain sufficient wisdom during their life. An ancestor is also a fountain of knowledge, and a link to a deeper and more expansive view of time. This current earth, all that is currently visible, the way things work at present time is only the thinnest slice of all that has come before. Ancestors are representatives of the deeper slice, seeing further than we do, and are able to give broader insights than we can have on our own.
Ancestors also provide a source of strength, and can be called on as guardians. The ancestors care about their descendants and have a relationship with them, mutual devotion can exist if the living take it on themselves to care in turn. Most people vanish into history, into the dust and the energy from which their spirits were drawn, their names forgotten and their consciousness returned to the cosmic sea. Ancestors include all those who came before us who are deemed worthy of remembering, even if that memory has to be re-created from scraps, or from nothing. The concept of Ancestors allows us to honor them whether or not we have their names. At some point, all people’s family trees peter out into the murkiness of the past, but we can be sure we have ancestors there, reaching back further than all histories extend, to the time before humans and beyond. This card suggests a kindling memory, a gift from the ancestors, a particular power or ability, or a more tangible gift, that the querent is soon to receive. This card also indicates a connectedness, reminds us we are not alone and that we have hidden resources. This card indicates protection from the spirit world, backup support at hand, and allies where one doesn’t expect.
The principle of ancestors also allows us to honor that which merits honoring, and also asks we accept responsibility as current denizens of all they accomplished, as well as future ancestors. It is for us to make good of our brief time, to carry forward that which those who came before sought to achieve. There is still hope for buried dreams.
This card illustrates a fusion of the day and night, a seeming defiance of time which brings light and dark closer together, intermixing their recognizable features such that darkness glows brighter than stars. What would it mean to splice night and day together, to rethink our associations with these two opposites, and see creation itself open from the deepest and darkest point of dark? The beginning of all things lies before sight, and before sight all light and dark are the same.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Ancestry, Cycles in Time, History
The 3rd Shadow concerns roots, ancestors, heritage, those who came before, it also concerns historical cycles. This card asks that we zoom out in our focus, remember where we stand in the longer story of things. One’s “ancestors” can be a source of inspiration and courage, they also watch over us and can guide us if we call on them. How does the long-ago past inform, or fill, our shadow? What can we do in our lifetimes to ease suffering started in another time?
This card also concerns time, which appears as both a directional arrow and a series of interlocking cycles at the same time. Like the ace of Shadows, this card suggests a meeting between normally unconnected points in time, such as past and present, or day and night. Likewise this card points to an unusual gateway or opportunity, getting assistance from an unusual or unexpected source, things lining up in a strange causational way to move things forward.
Reverse Meaning:
This card reversed suggests forgetting, misremembering or wrongly analyzing events. It implies wrongs that keep repeating because their source remains not understood, voices from the past becoming ghosts instead of ancestors, replacing wisdom with trauma. The 3rd Shadow upside down suggests a past that haunts instead of informs, creating new barriers between the past and present, and forming new blinders that hinder us into the future. This card can also mean anxieties about living up to the accomplishments of others, or of people who came before.
4th Shadow • The Border's End
Description:
The Empty Moon is seen dissolving into a pale steam as it attempts to exit a shadow cast by a wall. From that destruction emerges a Liberated Voice, which flies out into the world on the wall’s other side. This other world is well illuminated, but it is also torn and shredded by its many boundaries. On the wall sit two sparrows, and the wall divides the land all the way to the horizon, though it falls apart in the foreground.
The Empty Moon crossed a vast landscape and come to a wall, breaking the landscape in two. Walking alongside it, the Empty Moon soon saw that it came to an end up ahead. Moving into the light, the Empty Moon felt itself begin to change, and vanished, waking up in the middle of the night, a place it often returns. Elsewhere, a Liberated Voice proceeded into the new landscape.
Someone commented: this is another way Liberated Voices can be born.
Another added, there are infinite ways.
The Story:
The 4th Shadow is called the Border’s End, and it refers to both the time and place where separated things come back together again. Boundaries are established to keep things safe, and that danger may be justified, but they also enforce inequality, are a physical manifestation of rejection. Boundaries can represent an inability to be whole, an unwillingness to be amongst specific others, they can also symbolize scars, historic or personal; commemorating a violation, a site of trauma or a large-scale loss. Walls are monuments to the divisions between human beings, but these divisions are not recognized by nature or angels or the gods, and one day all of them collapse. Trauma can outlast physical walls, bad memories can create distance between people, what prevents us being a single sea. Time, they say, heals wounds. This card concerns the start of wounds to heal, and the falling down of boundaries. This is the point when boundaries start to lose their meaning or usefulness, symbolizing recovery, reconnection and return.
This card also suggests resistance to reconnection and rejoining, something left behind that isn’t ready to enter the “sea” of oneness. This card can point to other things one isn’t ready to fully embrace, desires to stay close to the familiar and safe side. This desire can be acknowledged, honored and remain part of a person as one moves in the direction of healing. The Empty Moon is not yet able to enter the world on the other side of the wall, to exit the realm of shadow (it must find another way to share the same realm as the Inner Mask and its other “illuminated” selves). Healing is a matter of time, paced in tune with what makes sense. Eventually our memories will be drained of their negative force, we can help this process along or delay it with our thinking.
Walls exclude, and reinforce economic and other differences. Walls are used to make borders impossible to cross for some, to establish an included and an excluded. The end of Borders suggests the end of relevance of these distinctions. Walls crumble when empires no longer tend to them, the natural borderless state of things taking its shape back.
The birds sitting on the edge of the wall symbolize a future in which two halves live together peacefully, they also represent a higher perspective that takes in more sides than one, acknowledging the “light” side and also the “shadow” self. The querent is encouraged to consider the big dreams, the goals with the higher importance and grander scope, and to use the energy of this brief taste of freedom to help fuel one towards that higher ambition.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Healing, Escape, Continuation, Reconnection
The 4th Shadow concerns reconnection, refocusing on important things, healing and reconciliation. Overcoming one’s self-limiting definitions, “broken” situations reclaiming unity, the start of recovery. This card suggests something must be left behind, evaporated and given up, for significant recovery to ensue, a change must take place; a transformation. This card describes a significant emotional healing, a remarkable but not easy or quick process. Something must necessarily be let go in order to embrace the healed (whole) self.
One ceases to identify with one’s scars, however some part will stay behind to remember the scar for what it did for us. A shadow section will reside behind the wall, admiring the poetry written on it, the poignancy of its legacy, but the entire being needn’t engage in this any longer. The healed self is not the same as the pre-injured self, but it is a new thing rising from smoke and steam.
This card can also symbolize getting through a barrier that held one back for a long time.
Reverse Meaning:
The 4th Shadow in reverse suggests barriers and borders rising, the need for space and division, the establishing of boundaries. This card reversed can point out the positive aspects of boundaries and borders. The purpose of borders is to protect and make clear what part of the earth associates with which part of the maze of identities. The 4th Shadow in reverse can mean a need to establish new boundaries because the old ones have fallen; one might feel that one’s boundaries have been violated in some way, and one needs to reinforce the walls of protection in one’s life. This card reversed can also mean its important for the time being not to “sweep under the rug” things which affected one in the past, the way to heal memories is not to diminish or destroy them.
What the Liberated Voice sang, above the fragmented land:
I walked long as the Empty Moon in the realm of shadow, pursuing something out of reach. The horizon has many holes, some put there by force, some which split themselves. Time heals, time breaks; the healing of a land is the crumbling of a memory of harm. We the Voices enter into the world through gaps and holes, wherever a barrier has been left subject to time. Some were born to wander a landscape separated from the world outside by walls, these walls give people their shapes on either side. Some need boundaries to exist, lest they be consumed. Others were created without bodies, without borders, able to wander the unwalled skies.
The Voice then slipped behind a cloud.
5th Shadow • The Clock
Description:
The Inner Mask sits in a chair and leans against a wall, a feather in hand, while a candle burns on the table. The light of this candle, though unobstructed, transforms itself into a shadow as it spreads across the table, sending the shadow of a skull over the wall, onto a clock without hands. The shadow of death hangs over this scene, framed by symbols of time. The Inner Mask leans against the wall, lost in thought, lost in pondering itself.
Song of the One in Shadow:
And I sent a message from the void saying ‘I mean you no harm!’ But I saw a ghost pass between me and the light, and I think my message came out all wrong.
The Story:
The 5th Shadow is a complex card interweaving thoughts of time, death, and the things we associate with the Shadow side.
We see the Inner Mask leaning against a wall, tired, and exploring its own being in another way. Answers are not forthcoming. One might see this scene as frustration, or as the Inner Mask taking a break, giving itself some time to contemplate and make sense of what it has learned and seen, and the clock on the wall represents a pause in time. The skull-shaped shadow on the wall seems to suggest death, the ultimate reminder that time is brief, that we cannot stay in such states or places long, there is more to be done. This death-like shadow, however, is not all it seems.
At first it seems the skull is a shadow cast on the wall, but indeed that shape is entirely a form of light. The candle on the table is a paradoxical object from a magic universe: its rays are obstructed by nothing, and transform in themselves to darkness and also light as they move away from their source. In the dark of this room, the light sent onto the wall forms the shape of a skull: our absence, our demise, is just as much a matter of light as darkness. In many ways our fear of our shadow-self is connected with our fears of death. The shadow side often becomes associated with the not-us, the not-self, absence and demise. This card subtly reminds us that death is a phenomenon of light just as much as shadow. Death means many things to those of us creatures that are subject to it, and it can as well symbolize loss or the fear of future loss. This fear can motivate us to cherish what we have now, including our own selves, the things we have achieved so far and might achieve.
This card continues the theme of time within the suit of Shadows, and presents us with yet another portal between opposites, including a portal in time. This card shows a meeting of two states of time: time paused and time in motion. The clock has ceased to move but the eye of death is on it, time is both standing still and moving forward in the image. Our perception of time is incredibly elastic: we may experience some moments as infinitely long and other moments that fly by at seeming super-speeds. The clock may be merely stopped, not measuring time accurately the way our perception sometimes doesn’t. However the candle on the table may be the subject of some kind of magic, marking a paradox, another kind of portal in time. The magic candle casts rays of both light and shadow, these rays seem to resolve from ambiguous grey some distance from their source. Like a creature whose features are both derived from the night and the day, this candle marks a meeting place, an interweaving, of light and dark, and is a portal between extremes casting shadows that are the product of the conjunction.
This card suggests a stop or pause, but it also implies a continuation after this pause is concluded. This pause may or may not be long enough to make all the conclusions or formulate all the understandings one is hoping for, but this card suggests one must press forward anyway, perhaps before one is ready, some things will only make themselves clear later, in the course of the next phase.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Rest, Contemplation, Understanding, Mortality
The 5th Shadow shows a standstill of motion, a pause in action, a resting period. The Inner Mask is seen here taking a moment to try to integrate what it has learned and seen, and gather its experiences together into words. This card can sometimes suggest exhaustion or frustration in one’s work, a need to take a break, or simply the conclusion of a lesson or cycle, the end of busy forward motion, a period during which one must try to gain clarity on what one has seen and done.
The skull-shadow on the wall reminds us that time still moves even during such time, and to make good of one’s opportunities and chances to explore while one still can. There’s still more to do, this is not the end of the journey. One must take what one has learned and formulate a direction from it, or if one cannot make a cohesive message at this time one must move forward anyway, time will not pause with us forever.
The 5th Shadow also reminds us that our fear and resistance of our Shadow-side is related to our fear and resistance to death. This card asks that we contemplate our fear, especially our ultimate fear of death and our own demise, when it is still far away. Death itself is a turning-over of energy, a transference of things from one state to the other. Only the ego has any need to fear death, or the ego that refuses to accept the reality of something larger and longer than itself. Still, we fear and dread and resist the end, and also the progression towards that end. We resist what we do not know, and we apply that resistance to our Shadow-self, the lesser known side of ourselves. Realize the skull-shadow in the picture is formed just as much by light as by shadow. The candle on the table is a paradoxical candle from a magic universe: it casts both light and shadow, and the shape it makes on the wall is made not of shadows but of light-shapes. Our fears can sometimes mislead us.
Reverse Meaning:
This card reversed can refer to stagnation and regression, holding back in states of inaction, ineffective lines of inquiry, ineffective approaches to exploration. This can also suggest being frozen in fear or stuck due to feelings of resistance or avoidance. This card upside down can imply one has been stuck in the same place for a long time, and needs impetus and momentum to move forward, to switch things up or get a view to a different vantage point.
6th Shadow • Pursuit (The Hunter)
Description:
The Empty Moon strides across a flowered landscape, brandishing a net for catching small creatures. Below, a miniature duplicate or clone of the Empty Moon sits underneath a flower that is also a tree. From a watery surface in the middle of a clearing emerges a Submerged Thought, rising from the seeming reflection of the larger Moon, from the dark void between its horns. A chrysalis hangs from a tree branch. The Moon’s smaller self sits, not noticing its companions, not hearing what the Submerged Thought has to say.
The Story:
The 6th Shadow concerns the higher and lower self, and conscious attempts to reach out to the subconscious selves, by whatever names we might call them. The larger Moon above hunts for small creatures, and below the small creatures convene in darkness. This card points to the demands we make on ourselves and the things we coerce ourselves to do. The Empty Moon appears twice, one large and a part of the outer world, the other small and part of an inner world, symbolizing external self and internal self, a duality which does not always harmonize.
We can be hard on ourselves sometimes, we can expect a lot from ourselves and get frustrated when we don’t achieve all we set out to do. This card sometimes suggests someone being unkind to themselves, trying to force an outcome or result before listening to their own needs. The smaller Moon hides under the tree, representing the target of our attempts to change. The Submerged Thought dances on the surface of the water, representing an even deeper level of self, emerging momentarily to inhabit this plane. The layers of one’s self go very deep, and we become stranger and stranger as we descend, though also at the same time, somehow more familiar. The smaller Moon doesn’t even notice the Submerged Mind’s presence, momentarily losing connection with something deeper, longer-lived, more ethereal and which operates on an even more mysterious realm of symbols. This card can serve as a suggestion to be kinder to yourself, so that the many layers within yourself can get to know each other.
This card also reminds us that, no matter how hard we try or how many tricks we use, we cannot completely destroy, control, dominate or command what lies inside. Whether that be our Shadow self, the demons that reside in us, our memories or our other collaborators in consciousness, nothing bursts into non-existence on command, what seems to vanish only recedes, and there are many places to hide. There is a vast arena out of reach to daylight consciousness, accessible only in the most meaningful dreams. The holy center, deep inside, to which we speak in symbols and through which we connect with the infinite, is directly connected by a thread through every level of our existence, unsevered despite distance. This is the kind of “hunting” from which our inner self would have no reason to hide, this is the kind of pursuit which would lead to greater understanding throughout the whole.
The chrysalis symbolizes transformation, but also preservation. The chrysalis is a protective shell within which transformation may take place: it is a tender and vulnerable process. The snail symbolizes patience and a reaching inwards towards one’s center. The moth symbolizes going within, in order to process, letting the world be as it is and focusing one’s transformative power on one’s self for a while. The Submerged Mind is an emissary from the dimension of Avatars, the last of the four suits of the Inner Mask. These mysterious creatures speak to deep urges and desires, and reside in a place very deep, very far below the surface. This creature symbolizes the deep truths of self, that which is in some ways less complex, with fewer needs and fewer complications than the one we are on the surface. It also symbolizes self-respect, not in the narcissistic sense (this creature rises from a reflection, but it comes out of the negative space in that reflection) but in the sense of respecting oneself, not only for who one is as an individual, but who one is as a part of the universe, which is worthy of all our admiration. If we could hear the Submerged Mind in its own voice, in its own language, it would tell us stories of much deeper places than our conscious mind can normally enter, places where our higher purpose and destiny are much more evident, becoming figures in the sky and dances on the sand for all to see.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Determination, Decisiveness, Intention
The 6th Shadow depicts assertiveness, direction, decisiveness, and the conscious mind in pursuit of its goals and dreams. The large figure of the Empty Moon in the top half can be seen as the conscious mind, hunting for butterflies as the conscious mind seeks ideas, leads, connections, and discoveries. The small figure beneath the canopy of flowers can be seen as the subconscious mind, the place of one’s intuitive desires and more subtle longing. Like a snake charmer, we sometimes act on ourselves to beckon certain outcomes to the surface, to convince ourselves to perform, to convince our subconscious to behave in a certain way or generate a certain output. This card suggests great accomplishments, but also warns that too much forceful pushing of oneself can lead to burnout, loss of excitement, diminished creativity and “magic” in what one does.
Sometimes it’s necessary for consciousness to exert control, other times the conscious mind should allow for the collaborative input of all levels of one’s being, allow itself to be led by intuition. Burn-out is mysterious, it can seem to defy the logic of what one “wants.” What we “want” is sometimes a little deeper than what we choose to want. This card suggests forceful drive and momentum and resultant success, but it isn’t something that can be carried out forever.
Reverse Meaning:
The 6th Shadow reversed can suggest letting the inner guide be in charge, following intuition and instincts. It suggests letting go, letting things happen as they will for a while, to trust in one’s instincts. Upside down this card can mean not trying to force an outcome, giving oneself permission to meander, wandering aimlessly, whether towards a productive outcome or not. This card reversed suggests detachment from outcome, from goals, from ideas of success and achievement, something harder than it sounds.
Sometimes we need to get “back in touch” with part of ourselves we haven’t listened to in a while. This card upside down can also suggest inner exhaustion, losing joy or connection with one’s work, or running out of inspiration. If the “little self” has been chased into hiding, it may need a time and the right conditions before it feels safe to emerge again. This card upside down is a signal to listen to your body and soul, let them take the lead for a while.
This card upside down might also suggest intense connection with the deeply intuitive, spiritually attuned self, an antennae being raised to the heavens.
7th Shadow • The Marionette
Description:
Through a manhole, we see a world of signs, directions, instructions and messages, which seem to come together as a face. That face attaches to a strange body of shadows and skylights, standing in a dark space illuminated by a single spotlight. In that spotlight, the Inner Mask is caught, a puppet attached to strings. The Inner Mask is controlled by an outside force, unseen and in another place, about which we have only certain clues.
The Story:
The 7th Shadow is about control and being controlled, and it asks us whether we truly are “in control,” or if we can ever even know we are. This card is also about feelings of being exposed or put on display, things one must do to get what one desires, which don’t necessarily feel empowering, or all-encompassing, or authentically fulfilling. The spotlight can hint at surveillance or controlling observation, the sinister side of light. The Inner Mask is caught in the light, “seen” by all, but struggling to be heard.
In the scene, the world above the manhole is one of lights and instructions, directions and subtle advice about what to desire, what to want. Whether freedom or happiness exist up there is hard to say, but it appears as a world of order. The Inner Mask is connected by marionette strings to that world, and it is hard to say whether the Inner Mask is aware of these strings: whether it raises its hands in protest of these strings, or whether this motion is another move commanded by the strings. Philosophy and psychology both question whether free will exists: both ask whether the forces at work on us have programmed us to do as we do, and act as we act, and whether any of our actions are indeed “our own.” Nothing is more surprising than to discover one’s own seemingly free acts are the result of a pattern, an act of mimicry, that they have been witnessed before countless other times. What does uniqueness mean, what does free will mean? Often acts of the will, and acts of a distorted will, appear the same, even from inside. One may look to one’s spirit for the source of uniqueness, one may listen to discomforts that have no easy explanation. They say one’s truth will call out to one, causing suffering when one isn’t giving it its stage, even when on the surface all seems placid.
One theme of the 7th Shadow is “membership.” This card also speaks to being or becoming part of a group, which has certain benefits and also certain costs. One gains certain strengths and abilities by being part of a unit, but there are certain things that are suppressed in order to belong, and other things that are highlighted and emphasized for the same reason. Unity invokes and focuses power, and projects that power at targets with more strength than one individual can usually muster. However, unity is not always perfect or ideal. Sometimes we are part of groups that we don’t align with completely, and part of ourselves is left out, hidden from the others. Humans in concert, acting in harmony, can do wonderful things together; can build great things up and also tear them down. However, when that harmony demands a blurring of the line between one’s own decisions and the desires of others, then it causes internal turmoil, possibly costing the world a gift of uniqueness, potentially greater than the goal sought by that organizing principle.
Membership or partnership can make one feel bigger, stronger, more powerful, and the desires and intentions of the group may seem more important than one’s individual ambitions ever were. The large figure in the group, seemingly patch-worked together of many parts, can represent unity of several things. Participation in a larger whole can be a magnificent thing in the life of a person, but remember to check in with one’s own private feelings. Remember that, to the universe, only two distinctions exist: the distinction between the human species and the rest of creation, and between the individual and the rest of creation. A group whose direction is aligned with its members’ truths will stay true to this.
The larger, dominating figure in this scene is composed of many parts, a being of both light and shadow. The larger figure could be seen as representing power in control, whether that be a faceless entity or an agreeing crowd, and it works in ways both shadowy and fully illuminated. This card, more than any other, is one which people don’t think applies to them. The influence of power is subtle as a rule, one cannot be controlled who has awoken from the dream.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Manipulation, Free Will, The Spotlight
The 7th Shadow suggests loss of control, or questioning whether one is in control of oneself. This card also suggests efforts to be heard and recognized by others. This card points to external sources of influence and also to our “inner advisors” which impact our decisions, even our desires and dreams. This card can also point to membership in a group, becoming aligned with the mission of a larger organization. This card might suggest an oppressive social situation, sometimes this card can suggest feelings of surveillance or being watched, and the inability to move freely.
The 7th Shadow asks questions about the source of our decisions, and the basis from which we make our decisions. This card also highlights the theme of uniqueness: the degree to which one stands apart from expectations, and the degree to which that uniqueness doesn’t fit a mold set aside for it. We are all shaped to some degree by external pressures and societal forces, but there is something that can never be entirely subsumed. This card suggests an awakening of sorts, a recognition which is a step towards greater independence.
Reverse Meaning:
The 7th Shadow card reversed suggests external influence, conformity and assimilation. The 7th Shadow may be the single card which most people think never applies to them, believing themselves to be independently making all their choices based on their own unique initiative and free thinking. This card warns us that this is one of the most dire results of pressures to conform: inability to question the influences on one’s actions, inability to see outside to identify the possibility that one is swayed by one’s culture, one’s environment, is the most effective tool of power. This card suggests forces of influence of which the querent is unaware, from sources one has not yet looked or considered.
This card can also speak generally of sources of power acting on the querent without their knowledge. Awareness is a ladder, there’s always another rung to climb up, outwards from one’s underground. Beliefs are thoughts that’ve become stuck in place, and take a lot of energy to budge and break free from, but it can be done. Be ready to question things you haven’t questioned ever before, says this card.
8th Shadow • The Hero
Description:
The Inner Mask holds a sword in one hand and raises up the other to view the distance. Several projections from its heart and from its inner eye radiate emotional messages about victory and defeat. The Inner Mask’s heart broadcasts a view on an ocean which sees projectiles in the sky. The Empty Moon is shown in its raft, cycling between victory and defeat. The Inner Mask seems to look outward at some adversary, but it also looks inward at a heart that shines in darkness, a reminder of the knowledge of the heart. The Inner Mask’s eyes show tears, pointed in different directions, one shed for the one within and another shed for the one outside.
In an inner reflection, shadows double and repeat, mirroring time as well as space. The hero is shadowed by a legacy, with two faces or sides. The vision is projected from the heart, which knows its own side but also remembers the other’s.
Sang the Heart as it Quivered:
In mortal fights, there is a winner and a looser— and any of us can take either of those positions—the reverberations and desires for revenge echoing on through eternity. There is no special law that places us on the side of right. In the roll of the dice that is history, we will win and we will lose many times, it is up to us to eventually see that righteousness is victory dispersed to all and triumph given to none.
The Story:
The 8th Shadow portrays a warrior of light who understands and empathizes with the shadow, seeing its relationship to light. This card concerns warriors, and those who would be warriors, and contains many particular warnings and reminders meant just for them. The 8th Shadow also suggests listening to the heart: remembering to be merciful or empathetic to one’s rivals, also taking sides or choosing a direction but choosing to take both sides into consideration. Justice means choosing the side of the Higher Self.
In the image, the Inner Mask’s heart projects a vision of the cycles between victory and defeat, and it knows, from its own experience or from its ability to imagine or empathize with the other side, that there is always a loser wherever there is a winner, and that this cycle will go on into eternity until the truly brave stand up for righteousness itself, which is never totally owned by either side. The heart knows more than we know it knows sometimes, and this card points to the wisdom of the heart and the ability of the heart to project outcomes, to understand what the mind does not, to see past borders and boundaries and limitations. The path of the warrior appears to many to be a path of destruction, but the warrior in tune with the heart will help lead the world away from the path of cyclic violence and eventual destruction for all.
The warrior of peace must learn to fight using wisdom alone, but the world has a long way to go before that approach is viable in all circumstances. This is the tragedy of warriors, and the sadness of the heart that discerns the cycle of violence from the will of the universe. Because we still live in a contentious world, most of us will struggle to use wisdom alone to solve all crisis. The warriors of the future will be those who have mastered themselves, their own arts and also understand the other; opponents both outside and within. The heart remembers what both outcomes are like: the opponent’s side is always just as easy to understand as one’s own, it is a choice to close off attention to the heart. Warriors of peace win without violence, without the need for there to be a loser, and defend non-warriors without fueling hatred. A path of wisdom exists for the warrior: fighting does not have to be random, or all-encompassing. The warrior of the future does not fight at all. There is no peace in the life of one who lives for war, and the warrior who believes fighting is their purpose will insight conflict everywhere they go. The warrior guided by wisdom will act in ways that invite peace, and knows that true courage is the willingness to go up against targets much bigger than oneself. The wise hero also knows they aren’t the only hero of the story, and the truly wise does not see themselves as the hero at all, or at least not until they’ve earned it. This is not the path of everyone. It needn’t be, but one day we will all need to learn this fighting style.
Everyone is fighting their own battles in stories of their own, taking on monsters and sometimes losing. One is not made heroic by seeking out enemies, nor living to correct wrongs against oneself. Heroics means doing brave and dangerous things that benefit someone else, in fact putting one’s own well being on the line for the sake of another. It’s possible that heroics will be necessary for there to be a future at all.
Courage is a necessary element in heroism. Courage is sometimes believed to be the opposite of fear, but that is not its meaning. Courage means being aware of danger, and being afraid, as rational beings would be. But instead of acting on fear, one acts based on what one should do according to one’s integrity and the demands of the Higher Self. Through courage, one acts even though one is afraid, not because one is not afraid. The one that is unaware of fear and danger is a fool, and fools only perform heroic acts by accident.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Victory & Defeat, Equality, Courage
The 8th Shadow concerns the endeavor to establish, restore and preserve balance, and points to the will in us to fight and defend what we feel is right. This card illustrates things the heart understands: an empathic sense of justice and desire for equality, that someone else loses when we win, and someone else wins when we lose. Mindsets of a future world, mindsets of peace, will be what conclude wars, not victories.
This card suggests the path of the warrior as a path of wisdom, self-mastery, increased kindness and righteousness, and reminds us that eventually the just warrior will learn to win without fighting. The world truly becomes a safer place for gentleness as its defenders experiment with defending gently. The warrior in touch with their own spirit will soon notice that the other side has a right to win sometimes as well. There is a place for warriors in a world of peace, in fact it will take warriors of the heart to help us get there.
Reverse Meaning:
The 8th Shadow reversed can suggest weakness or unwillingness to defend principles. It can also suggest rash actions and anger, righteousness and forgetting one’s principles and values, the belief that that resistance to conflict is traitorous or cowardly.
This card reversed can suggest forgetting to pay attention to what one’s heart knows, failure to be empathetic, unmercifulness or over-aggressiveness. It can also symbolically point to a warrior that has fallen off the path, forgotten the point and purpose of warriors, or stewing aggression. An over-active fire out of control.
9th Shadow • Angels & Devils
Description:
The Empty Moon looks sees 2 paths in front of it: one goes over a bridge, and one goes in its shadow. Both paths converge in the distance, at some kind of castle or city, heralded by flags. Dark storm clouds float in the sky, and in a different distance the sky seems beset by multiple sunrises, light and dark, simultaneously rising and shedding various streaks of day and night across the land.
The Empty Moon sees itself split into two stories: one is illuminated by the uncommon “sunrise,” the other alternates between caricatures of the “bright” and “dark” versions of itself, changed and affected by the shadows of this bridge. The figure stands in the bottom right, subsumed in grey, not yet taken a path, and also having chosen and taken both paths.
The Story:
The 9th Shadow relates to the concepts of good and evil, and how we relate to absolute extremes. In the realm of Shadow, the concept of evil is a latent force, sometimes being called on to describe feelings, influences, ideas, whole entities. In working with the Shadow, one must sometimes confront this concept, either to question it and find ways to love (or at least understand) what’s wrapped around it, or to face it as a demon to be challenged, banished, dealt with by whatever means possible. The bridge in the picture casts a magic shadow, in which the Empty Moon is seen changing between “demon” and “angel” versions of itself. This bridge points us to a paradox: evil is both real and not-real, all creatures are both good and evil and by being both are neither.
“Good” and “evil” are principles too extreme for any human being to embody personally, yet we still sometimes feel certain people to be “good” and others “evil.” To consider someone “good” risks extreme disappointment when they show aspects of themselves that are not, to consider someone “evil” is to risk closing oneself off in such a way that one’s own “good” aspects are diminished. At the same time, we are incensed to the extreme, and also impressed by acts we doubt ourselves could take. These forces feel both present in the world somehow, and also not of this world.
“Good” and “evil” can be useful ideas, tools in one’s work, channelling focus by simplifying the complex. The concept of evil makes the choice to fight easier, and sometimes it is important for the acolyte to enter into the problem as a battle. It is, however, also necessary for the acolyte to command their feelings, and to recognize the duality present in all things, even the shadow. There are some heroes who see the light in everyone, and others who see the darkness (that complicated realm where monsters are home), and still others who see them both, and see both as necessary aspects of the same. What is the battle of good and evil in the universe; do they really seek to destroy each other, or do they need each other to exist?
One swings between feelings and intentions that feel aligned with “good” and aligned with “evil,” one might say its easy to identify when which are which, though not always. It’s possible that “evil” is more closely related to being unconscious: some of the worst acts by humans were executed by those who felt they’d done no harm, or at least no harm of consequence. This card tells us above all to seek awareness, integrity and compassion: torches in the night. It is interesting that good and evil have been examined at length by so many religions, and questioned to extinction by so many philosophies, and whether they exist or not seems to have such ramifications for human life, however conclusive answers about them, a deep understanding of them, remains one of the greatest mysteries.
Card Meaning:
Alternate Names: Awareness, Integrity, Good & Evil
The theme of this card is patterns and cycles, and ways to overcome them. The 9th Shadow suggests rising above repeating patterns and cycles of behavior, attaining a clearer view of one’s own actions and attitudes, and when one transitions between them. We go through smaller changes over the arc of the longer change, awareness can help prevent us going backwards, repeating the same mistakes. This card also concerns the concepts of good and evil. All people have “good” and “bad” in them, no one is completely one or completely the other, however we are sometimes prone to forget this. Sometimes, it is good to identify where one stands and become confident in the positions of others, to clarify one’s journey and what one does and does not want to enact, represent or bring into the world.
This card illustrates cycling between our “angelic” and “demonic” natures, throughout the duration of our journey. The bridge in the image suggests a choice, conscious alignment.
Reverse Meaning:
This card in reverse suggests succumbing to unconscious patterns, and becoming unaware of how one’s decisions impact oneself and others. This card upside down suggests being flung to the whim of the winds, not conscious of the mistakes one is repeating, less in control of one’s own actions.
10th Shadow • The Surface
The Inner Mask exclaimed:
I found a picture of myself! A real picture of myself! I ran to where it hovered in the dark, but when I tried to grasp at it, it came off the wall, a nothing in my hands. Behind it was a hole, infinitely deep, whose shape did not resemble mine. Outside, I suddenly heard the sound of flapping wings.
The Inner Mask discovers an image with which it identifies, but on further exploration finds it is a farce, only skin and nothing more. The Mask didn’t know what it was hoping for, but when it realized there was nothing there, it felt heavier than before. The infinitely deep hole revealed in the wall is a figure with wings, not the false wings often worn by the Inner Mask when it wants to disguise itself as an angel, but some other beast, its wings seeming much more real. Is this some evolution of the Liberated Voice, or its dark side? Outside two creatures fly, having been unleashed by the opening of this hole.
The Story:
The 10th Shadow concerns the body, surfaces, appearances and expectations. This card can signify a truth that defies its surface, or an outward appearance that doesn’t fit the larger and more intricate fact. The truth may be a source of disappointment or excitement. This card also points to relationships between the self shown the world and the self seen by no one, asking whether they give each other the needed space.
One of this card’s themes is “the body.” The skin is both the largest and shallowest organ. It is the interface with the world outside, and a shield. Skin is the thin membrane at the site of much human woes, judgements and identifications have often ended there. The realm beneath the skin, the infinitely deeper world of the mind and feelings, is vaster than the skin could ever suggest, filled with pains and surprises, greatness and things unimagined, which sometimes even we ourselves might forget. The things we believe are the most concrete and permanent sometimes turn out to be the most flexible, vulnerable and susceptible to change. One’s body is transforming all the time, one’s relationship with it is affected by one’s self-concepts, one’s physical sensations and also the relationship one hopes to have with the outside. How one is seen is only partly in one’s own control, the body is a part of nature and the surface is part of society, tricks and techniques exist to curb their form, but both are larger than one’s will, in the end, to direct them. One’s surface and external features have an impact on one’s reality, are a component of one’s private world, and become intertwined with one’s outlook even as they change. Some cultivate their surface like it was an art form, shaping the body to better reflect the one that resides within. Others don’t bother. This card can suggest a quest to bring the inner body into the light, to become the surface known by others, to be called by one’s true name.
The body is the site also of sensuality, and that is another theme of this card. The surface is a landscape of desire, an aspect of relations between two persons, one out of many dimensions of a person’s full appeal. Sensual realities are as much a part of identity as other aspects of the body, thought they’re often subject to restriction and regulation.
This image illustrates having arrived at something which appeared to be one’s destination, but which on further examination turned out not to be. The quest goes on, but this moment tells us much about what we sought and why we didn’t find it here. This card can indicate a let-down, something turned out not to be true about the world. This newfound gap becomes a door to learn what is true.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Embodiment, Surprises, The Unexpected
The 10th Shadow suggests a surprising revelation; expectations or beliefs turning out to be different than reality. We know we cannot always trust the surface, but sometimes we’re confronted with just how well we’ve been misled by them. The truth is much larger, much deeper, our concepts of it. Surprises may be disorienting or inconvenient but they also acquaint us with reality at a deeper level. Also concerns the body and embodiment, changes to attitudes and feelings about bodies.
By breaking one’s illusions, the world becomes much larger, human beings reveal themselves as much deeper and more complicated. This can be a horrifying revelation: things are less simple than they appeared, one may in fact never understand it. That’s ok. One isn’t required to understand, as a human, how the world one currently lives in operates. Just as the universe is much much larger than we imagine, so our human universe is more complicated than we imagine and human beings are more deep, so our understanding always turns out to be much much smaller than we assume it is. This is also good news- we have more potential, more possibilities, more things to discover than we could ever imagine.
Reverse Meaning:
The 10th Shadow in reverse suggests disillusion or disappointment, revealing truth that’s less or different than one had hoped, the loss of a theoretical alternative. One’s expectations and beliefs can sometimes pose emotional obstacles to clear perception. With time, one may get used to things as they turn out to be, if we do not give in to our desires for certain outcomes. It’s resistance that will make the world seem a little bit uglier, less fair, less interesting or less nice a place.
11th Shadow • Echoes (Receptivity)
Description:
The shadow of the Empty Moon lays across a surface, its emptiness isn’t empty anymore. The Empty Moon and the Inner Mask have come into contact and complete each other, they somehow fill the gaps left by each other’s being. Neither is here physically in this place, in this meadow full of flowers and butterflies, but the impact of their meeting is materialized here: as a shadow that meets a mask, sending ripples in the form of larger and larger masks outward, turning into a strange, large tunnel, distorting as they grow distant. This is an enlightenment event caused by a meeting, two discovering each other, an act of recognition. Some have called this resulting object a new and complex sort of organism, sitting here in the midst of so many little transformational creatures.
A new voice, watery and wise, whispered:
The shadow-self, the marker of boundaries and keeper of the gates, stumbled suddenly into the spacial distortion left by the Inner Mask. The Mask’s continued existence extended back into the gallery of pasts, and their own body became a physical shadow cast into the world to come; echoes radiate in space, the butterflies sail around our heads.
The Story:
The 11th Shadow represents joining together, establishing unity, a state of peace and satisfaction. This card also signifies sacrificing immediate or “lower” desires for the sake of higher aims. This is the card of great achievements and also great sacrifices, peaceful unions, returns to wellness, and smooth transitions.
This image may suggest two people coming into a harmonious or prosperous relationship, mutually beneficial. It can also suggest two sides which were previously at odds now seeing eye to eye. This card also suggests being open and receptive to such unions. Both the Inner Mask and the Empty Moon are “opened” in different ways in this image, both are in a state of receiving and being changed. In order to be changed by our interactions, we must be open to being changed, willing to be changed and willing to open up to the realities of another individual. This card illustrates a supreme moment of such opening, it is a card largely associated with receptivity, and that receptivity being rewarded with vast echoing transformation.
This card suggests coming to terms with one’s past or demons, meeting one’s “shadow self” with acceptance. It represents the conclusion of a process, such as a healing process or a project or a quest. It can also mean reconciliation and the restoration of peace. Having come through difficulty and strife, both sides have lost much, but gain something rare and wondrous at the end, arriving in a world neither could have seen before. These butterflies represent myriad small acts of transformation which our working with others brings us, but they also indicate a world which has room for the delicate; a more peaceful world. This card is a space of rest and completion where one wants for nothing. For a moment, all the querent’s needs are answered, questions satisfied, and significant mysteries solved.
The Empty Moon’s shadow is cast by a body that is elsewhere, the Inner Mask’s body has also been left elsewhere. Both these creatures have different relationships with their form, and now they’ve both left them behind to meet in this new place. What was the entire form is now a shadow, cast by the higher self, finding this higher self sets one free, exposes one to a realm of eternal things. These shadows see forward to the future, they are a shadow cast across time instead of space. Whereas the Ancestors are a presence from the past that observes and influences the present, we become the influencers on the future and will ultimately observe it from a subtle and quiet place.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Name: Collaboration, Cohesion, Receptivity, Compatibility, Meeting
The 11th Shadow suggests a meeting of two complimentary minds, collaboration and joining of forces, two or more individuals finding each other in the maze and filling the gap left by the other. This card can also suggest a slowing down of time, recognition and appreciation, a chance to work or live together with another. Someone’s question becomes the answer for another person’s question, someone’s experiences solve the long-unresolved mysteries of another. This card also concerns connections made within, and the reverberating effects of making connection.
This card also can suggest the convergence of ideas or opportunities, things matching up, seekers and things sought after. This meadow is a peaceful and safe place, suggesting prosperity and fertile ground for new things to develop from integration and collaboration. The butterflies can be seen to represent many small acts of transformation that happen as a result of collaboration, and which connections foster in each other.
Reverse Meaning:
The 11th Shadow upside down suggests connection missed, misunderstanding, failure to communicate, two puzzle pieces that ought to fit together but just don’t. This card upside down can mean going inwards and resisting outsiders, ignoring or dismissing outside influence. This card reversed suggests a need to open up to opportunities, either interpersonal or psychological, even if results are not immediate, keep looking, keep trying, stay receptive.
12th Shadow • The Empress in Darkness
Description:
This card, The Empress in the Darkness, depicts a figure casting a shadow that becomes a kind of window or mirror, taking on the shape of a winged creature, but letting us see a mermaid-like creature through it.
The Empty Moon has entered into a different phase, becoming a half moon instead of a crescent, taking its place amongst the other moons in their phases, including the eclipse, which hangs at the 12:00 position in their circle and illuminates the landscape with a particular kind of night. The Empty Moon now casts a shadow unlike any other, in some ways a reflection of the sky, with a shape seemingly drawn from some other creature. Within this shape, a fish of some kind, a goddess with a spear, swims by and pauses to regard the world above. Perhaps she appreciates the newfound status of the Empty Moon, perhaps she observes the conjunction happening in the sky, or perhaps she is aware of us, who are at last recognizing her.
The solid object obstructing light gains a layer, its shadows now go deeper. In the next moment, the eclipse will end, and all the shadows will be restored to their normal state. The empress in another world will carry on her business, but we will be changed forever by having seen she lies just on the other side of us. The visible side, the understood and illuminated side, is not even half of what exists.
The Story:
This is the final card in the suit of shadows, which concludes with the Empty Moon entering into a new phase of its existence. The Empty Moon is seen taking a position that was held open for it in the sky, and in doing so opens up a doorway to something more than could have otherwise been seen. The creature being revealed is called many things: the empress in darkness, the queen of darkness, the unseen empress. She is also called empress of the underworld, but not the underworld populated by the dead or demons, the world beneath all surfaces. This is the underworld of deep sea fish, and dark longings and desires: a deeper level of the consciousness than even the one walked by the Empty Moon. The mer-moon, queen of the silent world, has powers the Empty Moon does not have: she has the ability to travel underwater, to communicate in silence and see past surfaces.
The Empress in Darkness represents someone we are on a deeper level, a more carnal and elemental version of ourselves. This is someone with skills and secret abilities, someone in touch with magic powers we are too “sane” to consider, this is someone too wild and real for the made-up world of society. If the Empty Moon is our subconscious side, our repressed and forgotten memories and our “dark side,” the Empress in the Dark is even deeper and more submerged, more ancient and more raw, something the Empty Moon has even forgotten about: someone who the Empty Moon was before it set sail in search of the light. The Empress in Darkness does not call out to be heard, she demands we become like her: she demands that we remember the world we’ve created around us is a thin veil compared to the wild reality we’re truly coming from. She has neither tolerance nor patience for inauthenticity and superficial games.
A voice we haven’t heard before:
Sing loudly, Moon of the Sky, I am here beneath the waters of your mind. I am the fish-woman, desired of sailors, dream of seekers and fantasy designed for the powerful and afraid. I am the anticipated whim of many known wanderers and some unknown. I am always here, though you rarely know me; I am the other side of you. You will come to know me as you travel, I will make my voice more plain. Sing softly, Moon of the Earth, you are my guide also, to the self whose eyes are turned to face outside; that self is far away from me, and hears my music only when it dreams.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: The Second Eclipse, The Queen in Darkness, The Queen Beneath the Surface, Leadership, Hidden or Unknown Skill
The 12th Shadow represents who we are at a deeper level, it suggests accessing secret or unknown abilities and connecting with our subconscious selves. This card suggests safe passage through stages in life, advancement to another level of maturity, and leadership. The Empress is here to lead us to a better understanding of the forces at work within ourselves, parts of ourselves which may scare us because they are unknown. She assures us there’s no need to fear: a window to the unknown reveals itself in the otherwise illuminated world, letting us peer into a wilder and stranger reality than we ever expected to find inside ourselves.
This card asks the querent to consider giving a hard look at the aspect of themselves they most ignore, and forgiving and accepting what is seen there. It also signals we are bolder, more powerful, mightier and more capable than we give ourselves credit.
Reverse Meaning:
The 12th Shadow reversed suggests flawed leaders without vision, persons who claim authority without earning it, stagnation in growth and the ignoring of inner virtue. This card reversed suggests people judging others according to arbitrary criteria, superficial standards and unfair requirements: bad judges, poor leaders, bad guidance. This card upside down implies the need for better direction, better leadership, more intentionality, more conscious efforts to direct energy and achieve intentionality.
This card reversed can also suggest repression of desire, ignoring instincts, self-restriction in many ways. It can also imply fleeing one’s truth, or the inability to see beauty in less conventional terms. This card upside down suggests also points to a new phase of learning and growth, possibly during which one will be much transformed. Be wary, and welcome to the new you.