Learning

I started reading tarot cards when I was a teen. Of course, tarot cards are so fun, and my girlfriends and I spent hours asking all these intelligent, sensitive, and in-depth questions about the squirrel-brained young men we were infatuated with.

As an adult, I continued to regularly consult the cards, but the questions I asked them had changed. Over the years, I have found that sometimes the Beings that live in the spirit world will communicate with me about the world that we live in. I have learned a lot about their perspective on how this material world, the world of the living, functions. Here are the most important things that I have learned.

The laws that govern the movements and distribution of souls and soul stuff are Love, Learning and Sacrifice. This story is about Learning.

I started to use my tarot cards to ask the spirits the classic questions. Why are there bad people, and why do such horrible things happen to innocent people?

I was living on our fishing boat with my partner at the time I began to ask these kinds of questions. When we had a good fishing trip, we would get a hotel room and get off the boat for a few days. Of course, we would watch Forensic Files, cheap cable’s preeminent murder show. I would watch the program about all the horrible shit people do to each other and think, why? On a whim, I asked my tarot cards why, why do people murder other people to solve problems. Seems stupid.

They answered me, and continue to answer me in the same way. They say it’s because we have to learn.

And it’s not so simple as, like, one man or woman learning not to murder others. An act of violence this drastic creates a huge learning event, involving many people. Sometimes even whole nations.

Nothing is wasted. All of our actions, and inactions, teach us lessons, and we also furnish lessons for others. All the time. We live in a web of constant learning of lessons by all souls present.

The past and present is filled with people being miserable to each other, nakedly ruining the lives of countless others for their own furtherment and enrichment. Why, I ask them, are the innocent allowed to suffer so thoroughly and consistently. Of course, this is a classic question that humans have grappled with since we invented civilization. The bible talks about the poor, the religion of Buddhism is based on an empathy for worldly suffering. Buddha said this world is a wheel of misery we are bound to.

The cards told me everyone has to get a chance to make all the mistakes, so they can learn. Learning and growing consciousness seems to be the central reason humans are on earth. Consciousness is really tricky to handle, and we are super stubborn too. Souls can take centuries to learn simple, but powerful emotional and spiritual lessons.

There are two types of learning which are favorable to the gods.

One of them is intellectual learning, and this expands our minds, and our consciousness and furthers the human spirit. One of the foremost things about the human spirit is how alive it is. We struggle with stagnation and bondage, our history is a long series of leaps forward into the unknown. To explore and expand our horizons is truly a core trait of our species. The gods love someone who loves seeking knowledge. Voluntary learning especially attracts the attention of the gods who patronize that sort of thing. If you love a thing that a god also loves, you are on their team, whether you realize it, or not.

People who love educating themselves still have life lessons to learn, but it is surely a sign of an old soul.

The other type of learning, and the most critical, is the soul learning that comes from our life experiences, and that changes who we are as entities. One part of it has to do with the process of learning about ourselves, and recognizing and integrating our various traits and drives, learning how to operate ourselves, basically. The other part has to do with learning not to be shitty humans and selfish bastards, and not to treat the people and creatures and environments around us like things. We have to learn to value consciousness, all types of consciousness. We learn how to value life itself.

They tell me this second type of learning is very important, and forms the main of the gods’s work with the human race. The first type of learning is more like, the icing on the cake, as far as they’re concerned. If a soul becomes so advanced as to care about educating itself, and exploring this wondrous universe, then that person is close to perfect, as far as They are concerned. They also really like people who try and help other people. People who don’t need a lot of lessons from the gods tend to live quiet, humble, happy lives. You don’t notice them.

But then… there’s the dramatic ones, who need to learn major lesson about themselves, and life. These souls need lots of work, and get a lot of attention.

To understand this viewpoint, I had to learn a new description of the soul.

I was not a big fan of the idea of souls. I wasn’t really sure they existed, I thought they were just something made up by religion to threaten people. But I had always believed in Love and Magic.

Through the spirits I spoke with in the cards, I learned a different view. A christian soul, the one I’d been taught to believe in, is like a pure snowflake, always perfect, always the same. Each “unique” but somehow identical, lasting forever and never changing.

What I saw in the tarot cards was a radically different view. In this pagan view, the soul is more like a plant that grows and changes over time, over long periods of time. The soul is like a tree, growing. An old soul is like bonsai tree, growing up on the mountain, shaped and scared by its environments and events that happened over its life time. These souls are beautiful and unique from this long process of shaping and scaring and continued efforts to grow. Very new souls are similar to each other, but it doesn’t take long for them to begin to develop more character, and to begin to show their unique traits.

This is what our souls are like. Growing things.

To understand the deep importance of learning, you have to understand how old our souls can be, and that brings in the concept of reincarnation.

I did not believe in reincarnation, I was raised a christian, catholic to be specific, just like every one else raised in America during the 70’s and 80’s. The idea of reincarnation is old and from another culture. This idea reconciles what we see happening on earth, with what we feel like should be happening. It seems like wishful thinking, like so much theology does. Basically, the idea is that things are working out for the good, you just don’t know because it’s taking a real long-ass time. Just try to be good and then things will work out better for you next time.

Well, the spirits said that this was true. Perfecting the art of managing conscious is so difficult, that it takes a long, long time to properly develop the skills.

What the tarot taught me was age-old religious insight, with a slightly different emphasis. They insisted that nothing that happens to anyone is a punishment. There are no punishments in the Underworld. Everything the gods do with us, or have happen to us, is all efforts to educate us.

Another difference is that I don’t see them saying anything about us all becoming one, or detaching from the world, or anything like that. The focus seems more on us developing as distinct individuals. They say that one of the important and desirable features of material life, is that it keeps producing totally individual entities. No two trees are exactly alike in every way, nor any two animals. One of the appealing things about humans, according to them, is that we can exhibit a very high degree of individuality. That is important.

The gods in the cards do not tell me what the end goal is or what the results should be of these lengthy processes that develop these unique individuals. I have the feeling that, not only are we here to learn, but that we are also here to be learned from. It is classroom, and an experiment, as if the beings that created these systems are still educating themselves as well.

It is impossible to exactly pin down the lessons we are supposed to be learning, as in, offering rules to explain how we’re supposed to behave. The spirits in the tarot never serve up, like, a 10 commandments style document. They say we all know right from wrong, even if we try and pretend sometimes that we don’t.

The lessons people are learning are each in turn, very unique. Some people are learning the beginning, more crude lessons, such as how to work with and temper their egos. Other’s have mastered the beginning things, and their lessons are more subtle. More sophisticated souls, which in the world of souls, seems to mean “already been traumatized a lot”, are learning things that are just slight adjustments of perspective, or corrections of small blind spots.

One of the most interesting things I have learned, from years of reading tarot cards for people, and studying astrology, is how very different we are inside from each other. Although all of our psyches are made up of the same couple of elements and drives, there is an amazing diversity in how these elements are arranged, used, learned with, loved with and presented as.

One of the most helpful things I have found, for giving people personally tailored advice on what direction they should be moving in, is a part of the astrology chart referred to as the Nodes of the Moon.

The Nodes of the Moon aren’t planets, they are the points in space where the Moon crosses the Earth’s elliptic. I know it sounds esoteric, like so much of astrology. But like so much of astrology, it’s easy to find out about, and you’ll be able to see for yourself whether it makes sense for you or not.

The South Node describes a well develop aspect of your character or skill-set from the past, which is kind of your fallback position.

The North Node describes, by house and sign, the direction you need to work toward for you to continue to develop in a holistic manner.

Here’s a link to figure out your North and South Node.

I think this is very useful knowledge. I have noticed that people who try and go against their Nodal direction face major life consequences and uphill battles all the way. If you’ve ever observed someone whose life seems to collapse into disaster on the regular, you might be watching someone fighting to stay with the South Node, instead of moving forward towards the North Node. The gods have little mercy for those who refuse to learn and progress.

Because they want us to become beautiful trees, they, like gardeners, force us towards balanced growth. They frown upon a soul that wants to continue to develop in the same direction, in a one-sided way. They frown even more when a soul doesn’t seem to want to develop at all…

Each of us has been given the precious gift of consciousness and each of us is capable of furthering the evolution of the human spirit.

The misery and oppression that’s a constant fact of life on earth is hard to ignore. No one goes untroubled.

If it was good and nice and easy, we wouldn’t learn. Our souls are very stubborn. Unfortunately we seem pretty attached to learning everything the hard way, even if it takes a hundred thousand years.

The gods who arrange things are not concerned about gratifying our egos, or emotional fantasies. That is a human desire. That’s why we have to see things like, bad people hurting a lot of other people, and going unpunished. The gods just give people a lot of rope to hang themselves with. They won’t stop us from making mistakes, they can’t protect us or coddle us. We have to learn.

We don’t get to see too many of those good, reassuring endings, like we see in the movies. The person who is doing bad is creating a sheaf of opportunities for humans to learn lessons. The person doing the bad is going to have to spend lifecycles, thousands of years, being the victim, and understanding why people in power shouldn’t do mean things. The person who allows it to happen, or knows about abuses and doesn’t stop will also have to learn how it feels to have the bad things happen to them. All the people around them have to learn what it’s like to go through suffering and loss.

Each soul is unique, and each soul is at a different point in its journey towards understanding. And there are so many of us, all here learning at the same time. We are in the vale of learning. Because our life on earth is for the purpose of learning, it almost can’t be a good safe place. It is supposed to be fucked up and bad, because bad experiences are mostly how we learn.

Learning is THE priority.

The gods give us a lot of rope to hang ourselves with. They’ll let someone carry on and do bad, successfully, from when they can walk until the day they die. They have to let the cries of the suffering rise into the air. It becomes a test for all of us, not just the oppressor. And then it becomes a lesson for all of us, as we carry and nurse our feelings of shame and guilt, or carry on oblivious to anything but our own little world. When something shitty happens to our little world, in the back of our minds, we remember our lack of empathy in the past. These little moments are the seed moments of learning and soul awakening.

For them, it isn’t important that our feelings be vindicated. The gods aren’t working to make us feel good. That’s why we see the bad go unpunished, in our lifetime. That’s why we look back in history and see 5,000 years of violence and oppression. The wheel turns round, and we’re all the wiser for it.

Although, I’m old enough now to see, that for most people, bad behavior doesn’t work out that well for them in the end. Everyone’s life has ups and downs, doesn’t matter how rich and powerful you are, you will suffer, and you will learn.

But in any case, the point of life almost simplistic, and we don’t get to see those human ego gratifying endings too often. It’s just not a priority for Them. The person who’s getting away with being bad, is setting themselves up for some exactly perfect lessons that will happen at the perfect time, and in the perfect place for them to learn them.

Meanwhile, we all have our own things to learn, and our own lives to occupy ourselves with.

This is not to say that all victims are culpable for their situations. The souls stories are way too varied to be able to make blanket judgement calls about why someone is or isn’t in a certain situation.

Sometimes we are sacrificed. An unfortunately feature of the system is that sometimes good people have to be hurt, for bad people to learn. In fact, this is a very important part of the process.

Most people are middle of the road, but some people are truly good, like, some people are just little saints or something. You can feel it. Or at least you should be able to recognize it… When bad people hurt good people, there will be a powerful effect on the bad person. They can fuck up a bunch of mediocre people, and kinda get away with it for a while. But when they hurt a really good person, the gods are instantly angry and they find a way to react. The gods are deeply embedded in life and are with us all the time. Something unpleasant will happen to the bad person. We pretend to ourselves that these instant karma events are just coincidence, but inside, we know when we are bad.

This process is largely invisible to most of us. What are you going to do, follow some pyscho around and see if the bad things happen to them? They do. Bad things happen to bad people all the time. Eventually, once the bad person begins to fear harming good people, they kind of have to realize that there is such a thing as good people, and by extension, goodness. And this is the beginning of learning.

The original nature of consciousness is very neutral, ethically. Raw consciousness doesn’t have a strong sense of ethics build in, these are gained. We all know right from wrong, but we are clever creatures, and until we understand the true importance of the rules that must govern our behavior, we can rationalize anything we do to make it feel kinda right.

The nature of consciousness is truly infinite in nature. We can think ANYTHING! This makes consciousness tricky to operate. Also, they tell me, the human ego is very difficult to deal with, and a lot of our most important lessons are about how to handle our egos. We have to learn to enjoy being ourselves enough to remain individuals, but, not get carried away by the intoxicating sensation of being a Self.

Empathy and consideration are gained. Selfishness and cruelty must be overcome. As a great person once said, “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution”) This is the kind of person I speak off, when I talk about a natural saint. See how he has grown in stature and prestige since his lifetime? That is power of goodness. I think what he is saying is true, because over time, more and more souls move into a stance where they don’t want to hurt other people’s lives, or see them being hurt.

The gods are happy to be invisible, in their dealings with us. They don’t WANT us to see what they’re up to, and are perfectly fine being disbelieved in. They don’t have egos like we do. If we figured out how much they were messing with us, we’d be more in a position to interrupt their carefully laid out machinations. They don’t want us to understand what they’re doing, because they want us to figure this stuff out for real. They can’t just tell us to be good. It doesn’t work. We have to learn to want to be a part of the flow of life, and want to help.

Of course, I complained about this system where the good are made to suffer. To me it seems horribly unfair, and gruesome. The spirits tried to soothe me. They told me that when a good person is unjustly killed, or their life is injured, then they hook that person up in the Underworld with powers. They give them extra energy. They said this process applies to whole groups of people. You do see amazing, talented, powerful individuals who change the course of nations arising from oppressed groups. The spirits say when a person is oppressed or sacrificed, they are given these gifts of power in the Underworld. When they come back, the power is with them.

I personally don’t find that very reassuring, but as I have learned, their viewpoint is very different from my own. The spirits tell me death is no big deal, and I’ll forget it all about it, and their gifts are worth everything.

Another thing the gods want us to learn, is to defend ourselves. That is not something I ever read or was taught as a religious principle, but the cards have insisted again and again that this is so.

The gods want us to be alert, and quick to defend our beingness. Our individuality is very precious, part of our jobs as conscious beings is to defend it. It’s not your fault if like, someone jumps out of the bushes and kicks your ass. What are you supposed to do about that? That’s not what they’re talking about. But it seems the gods aren’t very sympathetic to people who willing remain in situations where they are being abused and degraded. Just get away, life will find a way to help you out if you’re sincerely trying to be free to be yourself. If the people you are with have problems, and they don’t want to solve those problems, it’s time for you to move on. Don’t stay with problems, don’t let problems stay.

Sadly, even when the person is in the bad situation because they are too nice, the gods still aren’t moved to pity. Being kind to people who are trying to destroy or degrade your individuality is wrong. In their eyes, our individuality is a precious gift, and they want us to protect it. They want us all to stick up for ourselves, and each other. This was a surprising lesson, but it made sense once I got used to it.

People need space and freedom to develop and evolve. Sometimes we need harsh or negative expereinces to make us understand things, but too much pressure and suffering halts the growing and learning process. The gods don’t like that, that is wasting precious time when souls could be quickening, and it is the opposite of the purpose of life, which is to continue to become more connected and complex.

It’s as Hannah Arendt said, we must always be giving each other our rights. If you want to do something about bad people, join law enforcement, the justice system, politics, journalism or become an activist. If you don’t want to do those things, there’s not much you can or should do to control the conduct of other people who are not your own young children. The gods seem to like if we mind our own business, for the most part. After all, we all have our own problems and lessons to work on.

Letting yourself be abused is no where near as bad a sin as abusing people, but… They will step back and let us go through some bad experiences until we learn better.

There seem to be times of intense learning that arise throughout our lives. Friends reach out to me in times of distress, and a look at their astrology chart often reveals that some harsh outer planet has made contact with the Sun or the Moon, or some personal planet, and disrupted their lives.

These contacts between the planets in our birth charts, and the planets in their present position are called transits. They happen to everyone, and their timing can coincide with great upheaval in our lives. I think these times of stress and change are fateful times when we are scheduled to encounter major life lessons. Of all the transits, I think transits from Pluto are the most powerfully educational.

Over my time of studying and reading, and observing how the motions of the planets seem to effect the world I live in, I have come to associate the planets in in our solar systems with the gods. I agree with the ancients who considered them so.

I understand that it isn’t fashionable right now, to talk about the planetary gods, and say they’re real, but I am in love with them, and so I want to talk about them all the time.

I know a lot more about the planets than the ancients did, and I think it’s good for our spiritual ideas to evolve over time, just like everything else does. Astrology can help you learn more about yourself, which is very important and helpful. But if you like to learn, astrology is also an excellent research system, dealing with the mysterious energies that create the events in our lives.

I do not believe it is just a straight one-across association, exactly between greek gods and the planets, such as the planet Jupiter and the god Jupiter. I think of them more of communities of gods and spirits that work together. Most of the planets have many moons associated with them. Planets with multiple moons, such as Jupiter and Saturn, are complex entities, with big jobs to do. Some planets have whole kingdoms, whole trains of godlings and spirits that walk with them in their journey around the Sun.

I think these planetary gods are multifaceted in their identity and the ways they can manifest. They can change the mood in relation to each other and their position in the solar system. Is Mercury in Aries a different god than Mercury in Scorpio? Is Venus conjunct Pluto a different goddess than Venus square Saturn?

There’s so much we don’t know about these brothers and sisters of our Earth and our relationships with them. We are just now learning their histories, what their bodies are made of and where they go. Who knows what souls these bodies have? But I feel their presentation is fluid and multivalent. And also, evolving and changing over time as well.

Their work is us. Besides whatever mysterious business they have of their own, their job is to protect their sister, the Earth, and help Her raise us. The solar system is our family, and the gods work with us every day. We can use our astrology charts to track these processes and work with them, rather than being worked by them.

The two ways I’ve learned about the spirit world and its connection to the importance of learning, is through tarot cards, and observing the effects of planetary transits on people’s lives. Every culture has systems of divination that are part of its heritage, and I’m sure that all of these are more suited to telling you about what important life lessons you are currently learning, than about “telling your future”.

There are some times in our lives that are much more critical for learning important lessons than others. These times often can be discovered and understood by looking for any planetary transits you may be taking to your birth chart.

Looking at planetary transits does sound like the dumbest thing in the world. Astrology says that when one of the constantly rotating planets of our solar system form angles to the degree where a planet was the day of our birth, it affects our lives.

I know it sounds very fluffy and new age, but it is a very old technique that astrologers have used to help people understand their lives for as long as we’ve had a civilization, really. Those points on the chart where the planets were when you were born are very sensitive and reactive for the chart holder. When another planet occupies that position, or makes a mathematically perfect angle to a critical degree of your chart, your life can change. Especially if the transit is from an outer planet, they are particularly harsh and dramatic.

These important planetary transits seem to be times of learning pre-programed into our lives. You see people carring on with themselves for quite a long time. And then all of the sudden, you will see all their troubles all come home to roost at once. The gods prefer us to just get to run, to try out all our ideas about who we are, and how to live life. Then suddenly, they will take up the whole thing, and show us what the ramifications are going to be for our activities.

These transits come to all of us. There is no one born who will not have long Pluto or Neptune transits on their timelines at some point.

I find it odd that these mathematical angles rule these powerful interactions between our lives and the forces of the universe itself. These transits go in repeated cycles, like gears turning inside of gears, the same lessons come back to us until we work through them.

It reminds me of Alice trying to move through Wonder land. Like the rules in chess, once the Queen moves exactly opposite to you, she can suddenly see you very well.

But once again, these transits are not punishments. They are times of intense learning and development.

It seems to me that the outer planets deal out the fate that is bound to shape your soul. These are slower, longer lasting transits that often take the shape of unplanned events or circumstances that powerfully shape the course of our lives. The inner planets, with their quicker and more numerous transits, work with the issues in our more immediate environment and everyday life. They facilitate all the little everyday lesson that add up to changes in our understanding of things.

The inner planets are easy to connect with. They move quickly and repeat their contacts with your chart on a yearly basis. Around the time of your birthday, which is a solar return, you will also be having a Mercury return and a Venus return, when all these planets return to the exact places they were, the moment you were born. I have found that if I manage to catch my Venus or Mercury return, those are days that the universe will present me with some information about my self, and how I operate. You only have to be open and sensitive to these times and be looking for the patterns.

I think it makes these harsh, but influential, times much easier to deal with, if you can understand what they are trying to teach you. Looking at your astrology chart can help you understand more about what part of your life is being forced into authenticity. Try and find out what house in your chart Pluto is moving through, and if it’s making contact with important lights, planets or angles in your chart.

Other forms of divination also may be illuminating. Harsh or confusing transits can be a great time to take therapy as well, as things are really wanting to move at this time. Pluto transits are so intense, they can take years to unpack. Sometimes the best time to work with what you have learned is after you have survived the transit.

If your life seems to have come alive and twisted in your hands like a spitting snake, try looking at your astrology chart, or having it looked at, to see if you aren’t being visited by a god yourself. If astrology is not available or of interest to you, try your hand at some form of divination, and see if you can’t get a communion from the Universe. It’s worth knowing about, the spirits can be very disruptive in their teaching us.

We all come from cultures that are rich with symbols that can be used to come in communcation with otherworldly forces and beings. I have found much comfort in these means of “foretune telling”. None of these methods will ever tell you exactly what is going to happen in the future. That’s not how it works. What I have found, is that they provide context. These ancient symbols can tell you why things are happening, in your past and oddly, in your future too. They don’t provide information about events, as much as they do about in the inner pulse of your life that gives rise to the unique circumstances of your life. By learning the symbols, you can learn the meaning of certain times in your life.

Tarot cards, astrology, runes, I-Ching, throwing stones, observing the patterns of birds… There are so many ways to ask the spirits to give you the information you need to understand the events in your life, or why things are unfolding the way they are.

Even if you don’t completely understand the messages you receive, I think it’s very respectful to ask for advice and information. Show the gods you’re open to learning what they are tying to teach you, and maybe they’ll go easier on you. Don’t make them come after you! Hahaha….

There are two types of learning… both are important. There is soul learning which causes powerful changes in our psychological and emotional dynamic. And then there is the whole human world of knowledge, technology and art that has shaped the history of the human race. Both types of learning effect our lives.

Most of what I’ve learned about the gods has come through tarot cards. I’ve read a lot, but I’ve gained most of my new insights from working with the cards, and trying to understand astrology charts.

I believe the gods evolve as they gain experience, just like we do. We are always needing fresh revelations to understand the system we live in. I think science is so vital to the human spirit, for this reason. I think religion should also be a form of learning, and also be at the forefront of human progress.

I believe the gods are heavily involved with our lives, especially at certain points in our lives. I am going to share some of the cards that I think most indicate when these different lesson or transits are arriving or intensifying.

I encourage anyone to take up these symbols, or their own appropriate cultural symbols, to learn what the gods are constantly trying to teach.

I believe that western cultural symbols can belong to anyone. There can be no appropriation from a culture that shoved itself down everyone’s throats.

I would also encourage people to think image these planetary gods in new ways. There’s no reason not to appeal to any of these Beings as any sex, or any god, from any culture, that seems to fit the identity of the planet. I personally don’t speak much of other types of cultural symbols besides the greek, northern and western european, because I don’t have the knowledge or authority to do so. But I find it so exciting to think that people could explore their personal connection to our solar system with all kinds of myths and stories.

The Magician

I believe drawing The Magician card can be a signal that you have a Mercury transit in progress or upcoming.

Mercury of course, is associated with intelligence and connections, being the messenger of the gods, he has long been likened to thoughts themselves. In an astrology chart, Mercury describes the way our minds work. A transit to the planet Mercury in your chart can mean your inner Mercury is activated, and it’s time for some changes in your mental habits to occur. But a Mercury transit to part of your chart can mean the energy and consciousness of the planet Mercury has come to your life.

I feel like Mercury is very tricky, and represents the chaos of possibilities inherent in consciousness. We are intelligent, but we trick ourselves a lot too. Mercury I think encapsulate many gods and spirits that have to do with dealing with these wild and mutating aspects of consciousness, tricksters such as Loki and Eros. Perhaps Coyote and Raven would fit here as well. Mercury has to do with how consciousness can be infinite, there’s no end to the things you can think of or realize…. but consciousness is contained in a finite universe. How to, how so?

Mercury was considered the god that most enjoyed and was comfortable with spending time with humans. Mercury and the Moon have the most powerful effects on our day-to-day lives. If you want to know the mood of the crowd, study what will be happen with them on the day of your event.

The main effects of Mercury transits seem to have to do with His function of taming the human ego. I just caught onto this activity of his in the past few years, so I am still studying the effects. Feel free to join me. By tracking Mercury’s motion around my chart, and my family’s charts, I have come to believe that Mercury transits give Mercury a change to play horrible pranks on you. And boy is He mean! I mean to say, isn’t He the most beautiful and precious of the gods? He really is. He’s so gorgeously child-like and clever. He loves fun, and good times!

I think we attract him, and he enjoys us. But he can’t help but notice things, you know, and he noticed where we’re all pompous, and uptight. And then he can’t help just playing a little prank. You know, just a little poke in the old vulnerabilities. I have been tracking this phenomenon for a year now, and have noticed unfortunate events, such as unwanted encounters and the loosing of precious items, occurring when Mercury was conjunct my natal Mercury, conjunct my descendant, my North Node, and opposite my husbands natal Mercury. I was surprised to see how often contacts between our charts and Mercury coincided with unfortunate and embarrassing events, and surprising to see all the different parts of my charts that made opportunities for these pranks to happen. Embarrassment must be an important learning tool, because he gets a lot of tries.

Watch out for Mercury transits, they are fleeting, but give Him an opportunity to take advantage of weaknesses in your life, or persona, to play pranks on you. From the pranks played on me and mine thus far, I have concluded that His purpose, or delight, is to make us aware of our own egos, to keep us in check, and to keep us from getting carried away with ourselves. The best line is to try and lighten up, and learn to laugh at yourself when Mercury is in town. You can laugh along with him, or you can be all mad, which is just going to make him laugh harder.

Feminine versions of Mercury might include Iris, Psyche, Hecate and The Morrigan, any goddess that is a messenger or harbinger.

Trickster gods seem like they match with Mercury energy, and a visit from one of them would make sense if you were having a Mercury transit.

Cards I associate with Mercury and Mercury type spirits, besides the Magician card are, the Fool, and the court of the Swords cards, especially the Page or the Knight. Getting these cards could indicate that you are having some sort of Mercury transit to an important point in your chart. It could be that prankish energy is about to pop up. There could be secrets you don’t know about, or important information that you’re about to find out.

There are more scholarly Mercury-type gods such as Thoth. I think the keeping of records in a little understood activity of Mercury. Many cultures have scholarly or recording gods of some sort, or mention the importance of book keeping or record keeping in myths. The cards say Someone is keeping a record of all this, all that happens, all we say and feel, and all the lives, including the animals, plants stones, planets and stars. These records will be examined carefully later, as this is a very important and costly experiment, with much knowledge to be gained.

The Hermit card also seems to be a Mercury card. In ancient Greek religion, Mercury was a guide of the souls. As one of the only gods who could travel easily between the realms, he kindly guided the souls to the underworld, wielding an enchanted wand. The Hermit is Mercury’s Underworld side. It could also indicate a Pluto transit to your Mercury or to the third house of your chart.

Mercury was commonly called upon for help and protection in the ancient world. He is a good protector for people who are in transit, and is very fond of scientists, who are always busy making mischief. Also a natural to be involved with tech, financials that change on the day to day, and any busy business that is packed with communications, such as broadcasting, or big hospitals and universities. Mercury is extremely potent, but his influence comes and passes quickly.

Temperance

I associate the Temperance card with Jupiter and his kingdom.

Jupiter transits are very puzzling to me. I feel like I don’t fully understand Jupiter in action.

In our charts, Jupiter makes sense. Jupiter is one of the “social” planets, having to do with how we fit in with the mores of our times, how our personality meshes with the trajectory of human history. Jupiter is big, and fun for parties as well.

But I feel like a lot of what Jupiter’s kingdom of spirits do is under the radar.

There seem to be certain faucets of knowledge, knowledge growing and knowledge keeping, that are inspired by certain gods or spirits and there are some gods and spirits who have been historically associated with learning, education and information. I think these are Jupiter spirits, and if you keep pulling the Temperance card, you might be having a visitation from that tribe.

It’s really hard to notice the actions of the gods in our world. They are pretty invested in us not noticing, because they just want us to carry on unashamedly like the naked and depraved kittens that we are. But I think they constantly mess with us, much more than we realize. Jupiter spirits seem very invested in the twists and turns of human history.

One of the ways they mess with us, is through our access to information and advances in technology. Think how technological advances have changed human history time and time over. The amazing radical thing often isn’t even the technology itself, it’s the unpredictable culture ramifications multiplying and spilling over. And what about the odd fact that often, the same technological leaps are made by different people in different parts of the world at the same time?

Agriculture and then writing arose independently and simultaneously in Central America, the Middle East, Indian and China.

Or take the Renaissance. If you want to talk about the gods of knowledge. All of the sudden, a certain time period hit, and everyone just starts craving knowledge. All those old manuscripts just start coming out of the walls.

Even a lack of knowledge, knowledge withheld, can have a powerful effect, shaping people’s life stories.

Information and truth, can have that way about it. People try and hide information, and bury the truth, but somehow it has a way of leaking out eventually. Someone finds it and suddenly it starts just spreading everywhere till everyone knows about it, it, whatever it is. Sometimes, knowledge seems a bit… animate.

I feel like there is much more to learn about planet Jupiter and his (or her) many moons.

I believe that these spirits are active in our lives when it’s time for acquiring the sort of life wisdom that helps us operate life. As American’s especially, we’ve all been raised with all this “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” type stuff, and told all we have to do is work hard and go to college, and everything will be perfect. I have come to believe this is going at it with blinkers on. This philosophy totally ignores any agency life might have to affect us, and also that the fact that the state of the world we come into has a vast influence on what kind of life we are able to weave.

In ancient times, people were more likely to acknowledge life’s mysterious power and ambiguity. The fates could be so harsh, and no one knew why. The way to live life was not to attempt to stomp through it with your big boot straps on, but to navigate through the clashing rocks in a more wily style. Odysseus’s life was a battle of wits against the gods, and sometimes this is true of us as well. I believe the Temperance card comes into play when the gods of wisdom are making plans about us behind our backs.

The Jupiter complex appears to be multifaceted, and its transit’s effects are traditionally hard to predict. Jupiter coming conjunct to your Sun could mean it’s a good time to gamble and win big, but sometimes it’s a very quiet event with nothing notable happening at all.

I think Jupiter itself has to do with the destructive side of creation. The creation of our solar system was a powerful, dangerous event, and the planet Jupiter was a huge part of the crafting of our solar system. It captures huge astroids before they can hit Earth and disrupt the fragile life there. Scientists think Jupiter may have thrown Mercury at the Sun. Jupiter can be linked to titanic figures and giants and big scary clowns… Coyote, if I dare mention him out of season… In the tarot deck, Jupiter energies might be carried by The Emperor or The Hierophant.

I would associate Jupiter and the Temperance card with any stories about goddesses who are credited with bringing humans knowledge, especially goddesses who bring important new lifestyles for humans with technology upgrades. Athena and her mother Metis fit well here, as well as the Celtic crafting goddess Bridget. There are many stories of holy women who brought new technologies to their people, that are foundational for culture, such as goddesses who bring methods of farming or crafts such as weaving or metal working. I believe these can be associated with the Temperance card, and the planet Jupiter.

Information, education and new technology are life enhancing but they also have a destructive aspect, and to be truly human, we have to learn to embrace it.

The Devil

The Devil card is symbolic of gas giant Saturn. Saturn is absolutely the most important planet, as far as soul learning is concerned. I call him the Prince of this World.

His primary work is to lead us into temptation. My husband is the one who pointed this out to me. He said every time things are going just perfect… that’s when temptation comes strolling into your life. He was right, it’s true!

This is how we learn. When we give into our temptations, and do the bad thing we know we shouldn’t do, then generally, we have to live with the horror we have wrought. Sometimes we even try and cover up the bad things we did, and the Devil energy rises as we plot and orchestrate. Tempting us to indulge our egos, our lusts and greeds is Saturn’s function.

The purpose is to encourage you to create such a bonfire of your life, that you whip up a huge storm of shame and guilt. Feelings such as these are torture for the soul. You may be ale to carry them under the surface during your time among the living, but we are different beings in the Underworld. There there are no lies, and no masks. You will writher under the burden of these powerful, negative emotions. In time, you will choose to behave differently in life, in order to avoid feeling those excruciating feelings.

The thing about death, is that only some things pass across that barrier. We don’t remember our persona, or our street address, or the name of our wife. But feeling, a highly charged and primitive, primary energy, stay with us very well. Emotional energy is the primary motivator for change of consciousness.

Saturn teaches us by totally scaring our souls. We learn when we heal and then continue on with our growth.

Saturn takes thirty years to go around the Sun and so makes stately, repeated aspects to our charts throughout our lifetimes. Some of these aspects are justly becoming famous as markers for phases of our lives, such as the Saturn Return in our late 20s. The Saturn return is an aspect made to Saturn itself, Saturn returns to the position it was when you were born.

Equally impactful are Saturns transits to the Sun. Saturn rules the whole cycle of fortune in your life. You get seven years of good, and then seven years of bad. The seven years of good are when the money and resources flow easily to you, and you are popular. Then things decline, and tighten up, and you enter a period of obscurity. The cycle continues throughout your life as Saturn continues to aspect the Sun.

Both ends of these poles, these extremes of fortune, are excellent times for temptation to enter your life. When you have a windfall, do you squander it instantly on nonsense, confident there will be more? When things are going well, will you be tempted to declare yourself a genius, think the good times will last forever and go mad with power? Tempting, tempting…. When times are rough, do you blame others and take out your frustrations on your loved ones? Get all bitter and pout?

Saturn is constantly, constantly testing and trying us.

If you are responsible, and humble, and just do what you’re ment to do, and don’t fuck with people, and lie and cheat, then you calm the Devil down. If you are tested with temptations, and you don’t give into them, then you pass the test. You will then receive the rewards of Saturn, which is basically a nice, stable, not fucked-up life.

Basically, the best way to avoid trouble with Saturn, is to just keep things, and yourself, simple. Once you start coming up with a whole load of super complicated shit, you’re probably not on the high road anymore.

I have also noticed that sometimes I receive the Devil card when I am about to have an encounter with someone who has substance abuse problems. They are very emblematic of the Devil card, as they are beings who have succumbed to their temptations, and often encourage others to join them.

Saturn has many moons, and comes with a whole army of little demon bureaucrats, writing down your sins in their little books to make sure you just don’t get away with one little thing.

Saturn could also be represented by titanic, heavy-duty mother goddess such as Rhea or Demeter, or ancient goddesses of fortune such as Fortuna and Tyche. These entities may be signified by The Wheel of Fortune or The World cards as well.

The High Priestess

The High Priestess cards depicts the beings associated with Pluto. The High Priestess and Pluto have to do with fate. I believe the High Priestess card shows us when fate is taking a hand in events. She’s the woman who sits with us, but is looking outside.

Pluto is an interesting little planet. It is far out in our solar system, but it’s not just a dead item orbiting senselessly. Scientists demoted it from planet status because of it’s small size, and because it never got enough momentum up to devour the other bodies in it’s rotation, like the other planets did and instead shares orbit with several other good sized bodies. But, Pluto is alive, it has an atmosphere, and even seasons.

For some reason, in astrology, Pluto seems to have an outside power for its size and distance. In a birth chart itself, it’s hard to interpret exactly what its effect is. Unless it makes a critical aspect to one of the lights or a personal planet, you might not notice it much. But, when it comes transiting those lights and personal planets later in life, that is when you feel its touch.

Pluto is named for the Roman god of the Underworld, but I have come to associate Pluto with the goddesses of fate.

I think the goddesses of Fate are often confused with the Gods and Goddesses of the Underworld, but they are slightly different beings. They have a similar vibe and similar symbols when depicted in popular culture. The fate goddesses vibe is very dark and witchy, such as the Bene Gesserit in the Dune movies.

I think of proper goddesses of the underworld as either merciful, a welcoming mother goddess, like Santa Muerte or as a technician, like the Egyptian Maat. There are many gods and spirits of the dead, Pluto, Thanos, Charon and more. In mythology, the spirits of the Underworld have many different jobs assigned to them, as the whole process of death and what happens with the souls after is very complicated, and has different phases to it. Thing to remember is that Death is different, Death comes to us, but also to the stars, and these planets that we live alongside as well. Pluto itself will one day die as well.

Of all the planetary transits I have observed, Pluto seems to be the most devastating, definitely the most noticeable. Pluto moves slowly at the edge of our planetary disk, and so the transits last a long time, for a period of three to five years. If you have several planets in a row in part of your chart, then you can have overlapping Pluto transits that can take up a whole decade of your life. Because of Pluto’s stately pace, you will only have one Pluto transits to an important point in your chart, per lifetime. The most notable feature of a Pluto transit is a feeling of immense pressure. Your life is controlling you, you aren’t controlling your life. Pluto ruthlessly removes our defense mechanisms, forcing us into being our most authentic selves. It will destroy whatever structures in your life that you’ve been hiding yourself behind.

The activities of the fates have to do with teaching us the rules of life. Whereas Saturn seems to be involved with teaching us how to rule ourselves, Pluto is teaching us that life itself has its own rules.

One thing I have come to learn from the cards is that the life force is very important. The life force is central. It seems to me that the gods of life and death are those that tend to the life force.

It might seem odd to think of Death as tending the life force, but it you think about it, Death is the one that cleans away all the things that block the smooth flowing of the life force.

Life has a narrow set of parameters in which it must operate. This informs all life. The job of the fates is to teach us how to live within life’s parameters.

I think there is a purpose for the home of the fates to be so small and so far from the Sun, with its busy little hubbub of planets gathered so close and noisy.

Our solar system is 4.5 billion years old, but our universe is 13 billion years old. Life existed before our particular solar system did. I believe the Fates are a consciousness that is external to our solar system, part of an older entity, that is here to care for this particular solar system. Of course, our solar system, in particular, is special, because complex life can live here. But life itself is older, must be older than our particular solar system.

I think this elder spirit is more comfortable being on a broader scale of being, and getting all the way into the noisy, wet, bright center of our dense little solar system, is not comfortable for Her. We’re kind gross and squishy, you know. But extremely interesting nonetheless. Interesting, and very precious as well. So the fates sit on the edge of things, looking in, and looking out as well.

The action of Pluto is like the action of a harsh medicine, like the kind that makes all the worms come out of you. Her dose brings the poisons to the surface. In practical terms, during a Pluto transit, you might find some of your worst behavior magnified. Pluto creates obsession and repetition. Basically, She just makes problems so bad, and ridiculous, that you have to stop everything else you are doing, and deal with it, like having a giant boil come out on your skin.

It is harsh, but it important to periodically remove the dead wood so life can flow. In our being, we acquire emotional shortcuts and defenses that prevent our further development as individuals. These must be removed for soul growth to continue.

Every pantheon has goddess who carry this witchy, wily, dangerously charged energy. From folk witches like Baba Yaga, to foundational goddesses like the Greek Ananke, who they called Necessity. She was the mother of the Moirai, Lachesis, Clotho and Atropos.

The cards I associate with Pluto transits are fate cards. The High Priestess is primary. Also the Three of Cups, Justice and Judgement cards can have to do with Pluto transits or Pluto issues. And, if you aren’t taking your Pluto transit particularly well, these are times when you might get the Moon or the Tower.

As Pluto has recently entered Aquarius, people with Aquarius strong in their charts will be suffering Pluto conjunction over the next 15 years. Fixed fire sign Leo is in line to get the almost as devastating oppositions, and Taurus and Scorpio planets will be receiving squares. Due to eccentricities in its orbit, Pluto will be spending a long time in Aquarius, not leaving the sign until 2043. That means it has plenty of time to grind back and forth carefully over every degree of Aquarius.

Note that Pluto transits can also effect whole nations. For example, America received its first Pluto return in the years 2020-2022. People don’t live long enough to have Pluto returns, but empires do.

The last time Pluto was in Aquarius, a series of revolutionary wars around the world changed the way many humans arrange themselves in societies, with democracies blossoming around the globe. Because the action of the Fates, and Pluto, is to remove blocks to the free flow of the life force, in this era, the concern will be with how ideas about equality and fraternity are involved with blocking the free flow of the life force which is now wanting to more into these areas.

This is in sharp contrast to the previous era, when Pluto was in Capricorn from 2008 to 2024, where the life force was wanting to flow into the elites and the large structures and organizations that order society. This contrast between an emphasis on important people and institutions and the traditional Aquarian ideals of liberty and equality make for intensely charged political times, as they did in the past.

Anything that seeks to block the flow of life force will be swept away under great pressure.

The gods say they don’t exactly have all the time in the world to work with us. I don’t think our souls are quite as immortal as we would like to think.

As far as I can tell, there’s two bad things that can happen, eventually, to a soul that refuses to learn.

One of the things that’s important to learn, is to integrate the different parts of ourselves, into one unified whole. One of the things we really struggle with is the ego, you have to get the ego in the right relation to the other parts of the psyche, and that’s hard to do initially.

The thing about a properly organized psyche, is that it is a strong structure. A psyche that is properly organized, is very resilient, and has strength. There comes a time in each soul’s life, where it will have to make a leap. Like a fish trying to get back upstream, these challenges are a natural part of our evolution. A strong, unified psyche allows the soul to successfully and safely make a forward leap. A lopsided, chaotic psyche slides back down the slope and is trapped in the pool. Eventual this sad soul will dissolve back into the sea foam from which is first emerged.

The other danger is inherit in our world for those who refuse to learn to be part of the system, and cooperate with life. Every system has predators. Our consciousness is a rare and precious thing, and like more rare and precious things, it is delicious. If we get too crazy and egotistical, and far out, we leave the nest of protection where dwells the human race. We are protected in the human spirit. Outside the nest, there is a predator. There is the waiting Nothing, that sucks away at the wayward soul until it is nothing as well.

The gods I go with emphasis learning. Obedience is not a real thing for them. Obedience pleases the human ego, and they don’t have those. It’s pretty pointless as far as your soul is concerned. All your soul needs is growth. They tell me obedience is actually bad, distinct from self-discipline, which is fantastic. Obedience shuts down the human mind, which should be open to be fully operational.

Telling a child that they must be obedient, and that everything was created by the authority that they must be obedience too, shuts down this child’s mind so that it will not be able to function properly. Children should be taught the universe is full of interesting mystery, so that they are curious and ask questions and learn. Shutting down minds is a crime against the human spirit. But, that’s just something else that some of us have to learn. Read fairy tales to kids. They’re good for them.

Consciousness is so precious. It’s absolute uniqueness is it’s most important property. And it is difficult to handle, we need a lot of practice. After reading the cards for all these years, I feel sure that the project of nurturing and developing consciousness is why the whole universe exists. It’s a lot. And it’s important. So much energy and effort has gone into creating this platform, and we are the ones who get to enjoy the benefits of all this planning and work.

The process of learning is deep and involves our souls. That’s who’s really doing the learning. Souls learn slowly, and we often must go through experiences many time before we really understand, truly completely, some life concept. We don’t understand what it happening, and we squeak and cry, but the gods go about their implacable work of educating us. The great gifts of the human spirit are advancing and cooperating. We should each learn to attend to our unique mission of being ourselves, and give neighbors peace along the way. Really learn to appreciate the good things we have, the life and the people we’ve been given, and the blazing wonder that is Life itself.

When I run into a person who talks about always learning, about how we never stop learning, our whole lives… I feel like I’m looking at someone who knows what the fuck is going on.

Books!

The Interpretation of Fairytales. Marie-Louise Von Franz

The Uses of Enchantment Bruno Bettleheim

Jung and The Tarot Sallie Nichols

The Astrolog of Fate Liz Greene

Aspects in Astrology Sue Tompkins

Dream and the Underworld James Hillman

Cosmos and Psyche Richard Tarnas