Llewellyn's Complete Book of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot

by Sasha Graham

  Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Loss, theft, privation, abandonment; another reading says hope and bright prospects.

  Reversed: Arrogance, haughtiness, impotence.

  Asana

  The Star card aligns with lotus pose, or padmasana. The lotus flower’s symbolic value of a flower rising from the mud transcends culture and religion. Lotus is the ancient and traditional cross-legged meditative pose of India. Lotus pose is often performed at the beginning and end of a yoga practice, and the legs may move into lotus inside other postures. Seated in lotus pose, the yogi clears the mind, focuses in the breath, and allows the benefits and energy of the practice to move freely through the body.

  Lotus echoes the Star card in every way, especially when performed at the end of the practice, after challenges have been met and endorphins flowed. This is the moment of reaping all benefits. Energetically, the yogi becomes aligned with what is above and below, with herself as the center pillar. Just as the Star card filters the sacred waters of the universe, so does the yogi bask in the sacred nature of her being, her sweat, her effort. The essence of the Star card can feel like a peaceful silence after the storm has passed, reflecting the clarity of the soul, a clean slate, and newly born space.

  We often gaze at the night sky in amazement, but what we don’t often realize is that the night sky is gazing back. The stars want to be seen. Darkness wants to be felt. Vastness wants to enter your soul. Starlight wants to infuse your essence. Rise like a lotus flower. Invite the universe inside of you.

  The Moon

  Towers, white and tall, standing against the darkening sky. Those tall white towers that one sees afar. Topping the mountain crests like crowns of snow. Their silence hangs so heavy in the air.

  Pamela Colman Smith51

  Sacred

  Vampires linger, werewolves howl, on her broomstick a witch’s silhouette zips through the moonlight. The Moon is the card of myth and monster, of altered states and deep internal landscapes. Dreamlike visions pass through the imagination of sleepers, artists, and seekers. Dark prophesies are uttered. Spells are cast. Devils leap like flames at the crossroads. Intense psychic energy and the binding nature of intuition, placid and peaceful in the High Priestess, is now electric, undeniable, permeating the lunar landscape.

  The Moon’s body circles the earth, its cycles echoing the transitory nature of human life, menstrual cycles, and the nature of all things. Life is a constant state of flux and flow. The Moon is an eloquent reminder that no matter what we face, given time, it will change. No circumstance lasts forever. Good, bad, or indifferent, life’s nature, the psyche’s energy, ebbs and flows, hustles and grooves, like the ocean’s tides. “Yes,” the Moon says. “Things get weird, scary. The unknown is terrifying. Unimaginable things occur. But not forever. Nothing is forever.”

  Encounter the Moon’s wild creatures. Learn to speak their tongue. Boldly move between the glowing luminescent towers. In doing so, dare those hiding above and inside to peer down at you. Explore paths appearing before you. Strange turns and uncanny moonlit moments transform the familiar into the grotesque. Use weirdness and unfamiliarity as opportunities to reexamine current beliefs and understandings in a new context. Just because you don’t recognize something does not mean it is dangerous or bad. The sun will rise eventually and cast rays of new understanding. Once awake, you’ll have seen more than you ever imagined.

  Waite expresses dual meanings when he states the Moon is “increasing on the side of mercy.” The moon waxes or grows larger from the right as it grows toward its state of fullness. The card reflects the natural state of waxing lunar power. The moon’s energy becomes brighter and more luminous each night toward the right. The Moon gazes at the right pillar of the card. This is the feminine pillar of mercy on the Tree of Life, aligning with the black pillar, Boaz, on the High Priestess. The opposite pillar is masculine and the pillar of severity—Jachin on the High Priestess. The crawfish’s path between the towers is the center, the equalizing pillar of mildness integrating the forces and energies.

  Waite says of the Moon that “it has sixteen chief and sixteen secondary rays.” He points out the specific number because added together they equal thirty-two, the number of paths in the Tree of Life in Yetzirah. Yetzirah is the world of formation and imagination, thus connecting to lunar qualities. Waite explicitly states, “The card represents life of the imagination apart from life of the spirit.” Imagination plays a paramount role for occultists. Artists and writers mine the imaginative landscape for work; the mystic and occultist follows suit to explore invisible spiritual realms. Sacred imagination grounded in symbol laid the landscape for all the Golden Dawn’s work, including astral travel, tattwas, tarot, etc.

  “The path between the towers is the issue into the unknown,” says Waite. This is a symbolic journey of the unexplored path. He tells us “the dog and wolf are the fears of the natural mind in that place of exit…” The animals reflect the mental terror of movement from known into unknown. It is the threshold of madness. However, he finishes his statement saying it is a fear existing in a place “when there is only reflected light to guide it.” Reflected light is moonlight as opposed to direct sunlight.

  To exit the known in the direct light of the sun is to avoid the descent to madness. Therein lies our safety net. We stay in control of our mental faculties and avoid the raving lunacy of a mad person. Waite says, “The face of the mind”—meaning the face in the moon—“directs a calm gaze upon the unrest below; the dew of thought falls.” The dew of thought is the fifteen Yod symbols looking like yellow tears. “The message is: Peace, be still; and it may be that there shall come a calm upon the animal nature, while the abyss beneath”—the pool of water—“shall cease from giving up a form.” In other words, the direct light of the sun, as seen in the next card, will bring about the peace that will quiet the fears of the mind.

  Waite is an occultist, yet he maintains a Victorian mindset. Consider what unrest and animal nature meant to a culture who wore top hats and modest dresses and adhered to specific societal rules even as fields of psychology were being charted and explored. The Moon connects to your shadow self. It reminds us to confront secrets, shadows, and dark fantasies to heal them. Illuminate without judgment or action. The light of the sun shines upon dark qualities and such things are acknowledged powerless. Darkness and animal nature pass back through the richness of the psyche if they are examined and considered rather than feared and oppressed.

  Waite tells us “intellectual light is a reflection” and in doing so aligns our mental, decisive, and calculating thoughts as symbolized in the suit of swords with the moonlight. Beyond our intellect lies “an unknown mystery.” The mystery is beyond our powers of comprehension, i.e., the mystery of the Divine. It is impossible to intellectually understand the true nature of the Divine without losing one’s mind. Imagine the human mind equipped with the ability to look through every state of consciousness at once, from your dog’s perception to a bumblebee’s. Waite suggests this would lead to madness. He suggests we do not have the capacity to understand it. Our confusion is beheld in the reflection, which, according to Waite, “will allow us to behold our animal nature, that which comes up out of the deeps, the nameless and hideous tendency which is lower than the savage beast.” Ultimately, it “sinks back whence it came” into the depths of the water and into primordial ooze.

  Symbolic

  Esoteric Function: Sleep

  Hebrew Letter: Qoph

  Astrological Association: Pisces

  To summarize the Moon card’s rich symbolism, the path between the towers is the imagination’s journey into the unknown. The dog (left) and wolf (right) are fears present in the natural mind. The dog, wolf, and crawfish also symbolize animal nature. It is the place where the imagination takes flight. The two glowing towers are the left and right side of the Tree of Life; the path, its integrated center. The pool reflects the depths of th
e subconscious. The Sepher Yetzirah assigns the Hebrew letter Qoph to the function of sleep, invoking dreams and all lunar qualities, including the card’s esoteric function of sleep.

  The Moon and the Sun’s images are graphically combined to demonstrate the moon’s reflection of the sun. The path’s journey is guided only by the reflected light of the sun and, above all, the intuition. In this way, the Moon is the path into the unknown illuminated by the High Priestess’s lunar glow. Trust should reign in this space. Recall the High Priestess and the eternal self already know the outcome; it is the physical and temporal selves who fear the journey toward our inevitable destiny.

  Profane

  Mysterious times and personal unease. Shamanic and meditational journeys. Twilight and walking between worlds. Betwixt and between. Witchcraft and sorcery. Paying careful attention to evocative dreams in order to unravel the secrets of your subconscious. Mythical undertakings. A journey begins. Trials test you. The fluctuations of the moon and lunar cycles. Oceanic tides pull you in strange directions. Uncanny feelings and intense psychic flashes. An opportunity to examine familiar things in a new light and from a new perspective. In a yes-no question, the answer is not yet.

  Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Hidden enemies, danger, calumny, darkness, terror, deception, occult forces, error.

  Reversed: Instability, inconstancy, silence, lesser degrees of deception and error.

  Asana

  The Moon card aligns with yoga’s half moon pose, or ardha chandrasana. This pose combines the fiery essence of the sun with the cooling essence of the moon and thus echoes the sun and moon depicted inside the Moon card. The half moon speaks of a specific lunar phase. It is either the first or the last quarter, depending on whether the moon is waxing (growing larger) or waning (growing smaller). The first quarter waxing moon reflects a time of decision-making and action. The last quarter of the waning moon is a time of gratitude and sharing. No matter if you pull the Moon card or embody a moon pose in yoga, you can use it as a reminder to consider your current life cycle in the context of the lunar phase.

  Note the graphic balance of the moon’s dual towers and two beasts. Golden energy falls in perfectly aligned drops, and even the grass near the pond contains symmetry. Half moon pose offers the yogi the same balancing benefits. A yoga practice echoes the ebb and flow of lunar cycles. The yogi’s experience on the mat morphs and changes, flying effortlessly one day, feeling weighted down and heavy the next. Yoga, like the moon, reflects the nature of time, the gifts of grounding inside the present moment. Yoga and the Moon card meet us in malleable and ever-changing forms.

  The Sun

  Think good thoughts of beautiful things, colors, sounds, places, not mean thoughts.

  Pamela Colman Smith52

  Sacred

  The Sun represents fertility and pregnancy due to the child on the card. The manifest nature of sunlight brings forth all life. The card often marks literal pregnancy. Expansion in all areas is implicit; the heat of pleasure, long summer days, and wanton sunflowers. The peaceful face of the sun evokes kind advice, as if to say no matter what happens, you’ll be okay. It evokes an endless summer’s day, gentle flower-filled breezes, and the earth’s caressing nature.

  The sun is the engine making all life possible. Solar power is so bright and beguiling, daylight is thought of as the normal state of the universe while nights are slept away without a thought. Yet summer noon sky is not the normal state of the universe. The myriad of midnight stars on a crystal-clear night comes closer to the true nature of the universe. About 95 percent of the known universe is filled with darkness: dark energy and dark matter. Awareness is thought of as light, and light as awareness. Humanity’s high states of being are considered “light.” The phrase “love and light” is a commonplace expression of blessing derived from sunlight itself.

  Waite’s “The Tarot: A Wheel of Fortune” explains that the horse-bound child on the Sun card complements the horse-bound skeleton on the Death card, saying “the Sun is the symbol of light and revelation. It is the glory of all worlds. The naked child mounted on the great horse is the complement by antithesis of the thirteenth card—which is Death, also mounted.” This “complement” is a metaphor for Christ’s resurrection. It is the process of death to rebirth using the child as a Christ figure. Spiritual ascension is illustrated on the Death card via the sun between two towers in the background of the card. The sun moving up between the pillars echoes the occultist’s ascent up the Tree of Life. The occultist experiences resurrection through trials of initiation.

  Waite tells us “the sun is the consciousness of the spirit.” The human soul consciousness is the place where the soul becomes aware of itself. The soul is aware of its true nature because the ego and the shadow have been vanquished. The soul now becomes aware of itself in the integration of divine light, understanding itself as interconnected divinity.

  He compares and contrasts by saying the Sun is as bright and alive as the Moon is murky, base, and animal, “direct as the antithesis of the reflected light.” He explains, “The card signifies, therefore, the transit from the manifest light of this world, represented by the glorious sun of earth, to the light of the world to come.” The sun’s actual movement and energy empowers the occultist. The “world to come” is not a heavenly biblical afterlife. The world to come is right around the corner in the World card. It will be experienced as the supernal triad’s explosion as experienced via the World, not through physical death and resurrection, but through interior enlightenment and the intense experience of divine love on every possible level.

  Symbolic

  Esoteric Functions: Fertility and Barrenness

  Hebrew Letter: Resh

  Astrological Association: Sun

  A red feather connects the Fool, Death, and Sun child. The feather reflects a state of innocence in the Fool. It is transformed by Death. It is reborn in innocence in the child of the Sun. The child’s innocence vastly differs from the Fool’s innocence. The Sun’s child, in Waite’s own words, is only “a child in the sense of simplicity and innocence in the sense of wisdom.” The soul had to lose its innocence in order to regain it through the process of maturation. Choice and knowledge imply wisdom against the finite background of experience. This Sun child knows exactly what it is doing, where it is going, and what its intentions are. Waite explains that “he signifies the restored world.” This is the restored self.

  Waite specifically changes traditional Marseille symbols for the Sun in the RWS. Traditional Sun cards were assigned to the astrological sign of Gemini and illustrated with two children or twins. The Golden Dawn system makes the sun the astrological attribute of the Sun. They relocate Gemini to the Lovers card. A single child is placed on the RWS card, and there is no need for a second. The brick wall is a traditional symbol from older Sun cards and represents boundary lines. The Hebrew letter assigned to the Sun, Resh, means “face.” The peaceful face on the radiant yellow sun is a reference to the Hebrew letter; however, an anthropomorphic sun is a traditional symbol appearing on many versions of this card, beginning with the Visconti-Sforza. The Sun is a symbol for a Sephiroth on the Tree of Life. Sunflowers are reference to solar power, and the child’s flaming red banner reflects flickering solar flames.

  Profane

  Growth and expansion. Pregnancy, either real or metaphorical. A happy love affair. Your horizons broaden and opportunities surround you. It is safe to let your true self shine forth in vulnerability and beauty. Glowing health abounds. Magnetism and passion are exhumed through every pore. Bodily enjoyment and long summer days. Accumulation of material things, making your life pleasurable. An energetic power boost adds an extra spring to your step and the stamina you need to complete a task. In a yes-no question, the answer is an unequivocal yes.

  Waite’s Divinatory Meanings: Material happiness, fortunate marriage, contentment.

  Reversed: The same in a lesser
sense.

  Asana

  The Sun card aligns with child’s pose, or balasana. The body assumes a fetal position, thus aligning the posture with the child illustrated on the Sun card. The restorative pose is available to the yogi at any point during the practice as a resting point. It soothes the solar plexus and calms the body. Yoga can be strenuous. It is important to work hard for the things you care about. However, the counter point to effort is ease. Balance infuses every inch of the yoga practice and exists inside the tarot deck. Balance exists inside the polarities of your body and in the intricacies of your life.

  Yoga channels solar energy from the first sun salutation. How you work with the energy is entirely up to you. You might channel it inward for personal growth. You may use it to build physical strength and emotional stamina. You might use solar energy to fuel the burning at the core of your soul so you may burn with the fire of a thousand stars. Regardless of how you choose to work with the sun’s energy, it falls upon you effortlessly. It creeps into your bedroom in the morning to wake you up, it generates the food you eat, it makes all life possible. It is always there. It doesn’t have to be worked at all the time. Allow your child’s pose, like the Sun card, to become a place of absorption and effortless pleasure. Take child’s pose and feel the energy of the sun coursing through your exquisite body. Allow it to foster a sense of interconnectivity between you and all living things.

  Judgement

  For it is a land of power,

  a land of unkempt uproar—

  full of life, force, energy.

  Pamela Colman Smith53

  Sacred

  Judgement is a monumental point in life. Boundaries, walls, and encasements are destroyed. Doors open, possibility comes knocking, intuition flows freely. The tectonic plates of change move like giants beneath your feet and alter the landscape forever. Gaping holes of darkness give way as dirt, rock, and stone cave into the abyss of a yawning earth. You have reached the point of no return. There is no going back. The train leaves the station. The airplane’s aloft. Change permeates beneath the surface of everything in life.