The Super Bowl Halftime Game
Stacking the Deck for Shadow Integration
Today is February 8th. Imbolc just passed us by, making this the rough midpoint, or “Halftime,” between Winter and Spring. Brighid, goddess of the forge, of poetry, and of healing, among other things, is worshiped in some lands around this time. This makes it an auspicious moment to begin a working of this kind. The day of the week is Wednesday, making it a great day to launch a new “class” that I hope can help at least one other person on their path. Let’s get going.
My second post on this substack laid out a few of the spiritual themes that made themselves apparent in my early childhood, leading eventually to a lifetime of sincere esoteric study, practice, and investigation that looks nothing like what many of the books recommend. The culmination point is the introduction of a concept for exploring the cards of the Tarot. In this third post, I will pivot from reminiscence and nostalgia to one of my first substantive gifts to the world that comes through this vehicle. First, we must cover a brief bit of Tarot history; I won’t overdo it, because there are a million and one standard Tarot websites. There is only one site quite like this one. As such, it would appear that the very best thing I can bring to the table here is myself—all of myself.
A Brief History of Tarot
Actually, if you want a brief history of Tarot, all you need to do is read this article, fittingly entitled A Brief History of Tarot. There, we learn of the relationship (obvious once you think about it) between the Tarot and a standard deck of playing cards. The Tarot began as a parlor game. As I mentioned in the first post on this substack, Flying Blind, my mother used to read her fortunes with playing cards every morning before transitioning to engaging Tarot practice later, after I had adopted it myself, starting with the Rider-Waite deck she used to let me play with as a rugrat. Over time, it is said, the divinatory meanings connected with the cards accrued around the cards all on their own; they naturally crystallized alongside traditions for laying the cards out in arrangements we now like to call “spreads.”
The conventional wisdom says that then, as a later innovation or modification, the Tarot as we know it today was professed by French Freemason Antoine Court de Gebelin, where it was thought to have first been synthesized with the Kabbalah and other related spiritual Mystery traditions.
So dense is this repository with occult symbolism that, so it’s been said, a prisoner locked in a cell and armed with nothing but the Tarot could basically discover an “Amazingly Accurate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.” 42! Given my own experiences, I would have to concur. However, the purpose of the upcoming paid free series into which this post will serve as a segue is meant to test this theory a bit more substantively.
Birth, School, Work, Death
The other day, I was showing a tarot card reading to a friend of mine when he passed on a bit of received wisdom. The card I’d been sharing was a reversed card (“Works,” or the Three of Disks in the Thoth Tarot) and I’d been sharing it with a group. My friend kindly suggested that his friend’s practice led him to the conclusion that reversed cards tend to reflect one’s inner state, whereas the upright cards tend to reflect one’s outer state, thoughts, emotions, etc.
After I mulled over it for a bit, a flash of inspiration struck like a bolt from the blue. I’ve blogged for years, and have often teased the prospect of writing a complete series of my own tarot interpretations; but as I said, there are too many of those out there already. I needed to sort of shake things up a bit here.
And I had it; that is, I knew it: The method would be simple, but profound in its significance. The overall operation would be called, “Turning Things Around: The Inner Tarot Revolution.” It would be split into two main sections. In each section, I will outline the basic instructions and then walk you through my own performance of the same. They do say that the best way to learn something is to teach it, and I will also be considering this Working to be a Self-Initiatory ceremony, as it will be for anyone else who wishes to follow along or to perform it for themselves. Finally, each person’s specific journey will be different.
The Weighing of The Heart
Note: I want to emphasize up front that the reading photographed in the following post is genuine and not staged. I can’t necessarily prove it, but do keep that in mind. The whole thing is legit, which is pretty spooky.
In ancient Egypt, it was said that upon death, a person found themselves in the Hall of Judgement, where Osiris sits in waiting. According to this article by Ancient Egypt Online, the heart of the recently-deceased is weighed by Anubis on a set of scales against Ma’at’s ostrich feather of truth; if the heart was found to be any heavier than the feather, the person was fed to Ammut, the Devourer of Souls. If they passed this test, they were free to enter the afterlife.
Other versions of an afterlife “test” tell of the recitation, in truth, of the so-called 42 Negative Confessions.
The first step: A tradition I myself inherited and described in the previous post, United We Stand: Check that bottom card, the card that appears at the bottom of the stack. This is a “Shadow card,” but in this particular case (the case of “bottom cards”), the “Shadow” we are referring to is the part of ourselves that we cast off as “not-I.”
When I opened the ritual this morning, that card was Atu 0: The Fool. Fancy that.
In this practice, this ceremony is symbolized by taking any Tarot deck that speaks to your heart, and making sure all the cards are upright. Then, cut the deck roughly in half so that you have two stacks of cards. Then, rotate one stack so that it is reversed.
Check your bottom cards. In my case, my Left-Bottom card (The Sun Stack) remained The Fool, and my Right-Bottom card (this stack is the “reversed” or Shadow Stack) was Atu XIX: The Sun. I will point out that this is a synchronistic “hit” with the appearance of the number 19 in the previous post (my Sun at 19° of Aries).
Next, shuffle the two together, making sure no individual card gets flipped back around again. Check those bottom and top cards (I forgot to do that in the step above, nor to mention it. Sorry.) In my case, the Main Shadow card was 9 of Wands: Strength in Reverse.
Next, sort through the deck and separate the piles into two stacks: The Sun Stack (pictured left) and The Shadow Stack (pictured right). Check those bottom cards again! In my case, my Sun Bottom was the Princess of Wands and my Shadow Bottom was Success: Six of Disks reversed. Question: If this is the “Shadow card of the Shadow Stack,” does that flip it back?
Lastly, check those top cards one last time. In my case, my Sun Top was The Sun (nice), and my Shadow Top was once more Strength: Nine of Wands.
Lastly, count each stack. Which stack is heavier, or has more cards? If it’s the Sun Stack, you’re all good. If it’s the Shadow Stack, this indicates you have some work to do to ensure your soul survival. I am not speaking in jest. The hope is that by working with both sets, but especially the Shadow Stack, you will even things out in your favor.
As it happened, both of my stacks were exactly 39 cards tall; perfect balance. I am also 39 years old, just about to turn 40. Huzzah!
Journal about your results and thoughts about the road ahead.
Going Through the Motions
Next, you will spend time with each of these cards, reflecting on their meaning and symbolism, journaling your thoughts, and noting any significant synchronicities that might find themselves reflected in things seen or perceived in the world external to the Self.
There’s not necessarily a set time for each card, though my friends tell me that setting goals is a good way to move ahead in life. As such, I will set a goal for the duration of Turning Things Around that I will work with one card from each stack each week.
Subscribe to the substack today to follow along on my journey and see what syncs up in the world as I work through it. Should be exciting…no?