by Marcus Katz
TAROT LIFE
MONTH 2
REMOVE THE BLOCKS
Marcus Katz & Tali Goodwin
Authors Note: This is Month 2 of our 12-booklet Tarot Life series; you will require the previous Month 1 booklet “Discover Your Destiny” to follow the sequence over the year. Some of the exercises in each booklet may be carried out as stand-alone pieces of self-discovery or re-purposed for use in daily, personal or client readings.
Published by Forge Press (February, 2013)
1 Wood Cottage, Old Windebrowe, Keswick,
Cumbria CA12 4NT
Cover: ‘Magician’, Tyldwick Tarot © by Neil Lovell
http://www.malpertuis.co.uk/tyldwick/
Tarot Life © Marcus Katz & Tali Goodwin, 2013. All rights reserved. No part of this book shall be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise – without written permission from the publisher.
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INDEX
Introduction 4
Removing the Blocks 5
A Simple Method for Beginners 6
The Cards as Blocks 10
The Active Divination Method 37
Conclusion 40
Bibliography 44
Websites & Resources 45
TAROT LIFE: 12 STEPS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE
A linked series of Gated Spreads to be carried out over a full year.
Introduction
In this series of Kickstart books of Tarosophy teaching, we take a break from the reference work of Tarot Flip, the seventy-eight innovative Tarot methods in Tarot Twist, and the spiritual considerations of Tarot Inspire to offer a unique practice of our work.
You are about to change your life with Tarot, and whether you are a newcomer to tarot or experienced reader, you are about to do something totally new. In using what we call a Gated Spread – a linked sequence of tarot readings whose questions are determined by the results of real-world activities – you are going to fundamentally alter the way you experience your life.
We have combined here the wisdom of the Tarot with years of practical testing and the latest research in psychology and the biology of willpower, belief, habit and other aspects of our being.
This series is designed to be experienced a month at a time, and in the sequence given. You can start at any time, although New Year, your Birthday, or the Spring Equinox are all powerful starting times.
This series is accompanied by a closed Facebook group for discussion and questions about your experiences as you make this journey. We look forwards to your engagement of tarot with your life – it is about to become a truly Tarot Life.
Marcus Katz, The Tarosophist &
Tali Goodwin, TaliTarot
Removing the Blocks
“The first injunction inscribed on the walls of the Institute is ‘believe nothing, not even yourself’”.
G. I. Gurdjieff, Views from the Real World (1984) p. 200-201.
Whilst we began to examine the nature of Will in the first booklet, corresponding to the first sign of the zodiac, Aries, and the corresponding tarot card, the Emperor, we turn now to the nature of belief. This corresponds to Taurus, the next sign of the zodiac, and the card of the Hierophant.
When we begin to change, we challenge our own beliefs. It was therefore important to spend a month trying to steer ourselves to our destiny, even somewhat blindly, so we could experience the challenges of our environment and beliefs. Too many people start by planning, resolving to do better, having ambitions, and so forth, without ever doing – like the Crayfish on the Moon card – whereas we know that from doing comes everything.
So we have spent a month trying to do things that accord with our Will, and now we likely consider ourselves somewhat lacking or perhaps actually content with our progress. Or maybe a mixture.
Now we can divine, we can discover more, and begin to set the foundations (Taurus) for a stable growth (Earth) ahead.
The secrets of successful action and creation are not only hidden in the cards, but their patterns and sequences, and their correspondences to other systems – including life itself. This is what we mean by Tarot Life. Every day is a “reading”, every event is an “image”. Every decision and thought is an “interpretation”. We are already divining our life – now, with the Hierophant, we will learn what we call “active divination”.
Firstly we will present a simple spread/method based on blocks.
A Simple Method for Beginners
In our first book of this series, we gave a simple method for reading which could be used for general purposes. In this book, we offer another method for beginner use, based on blocks. It is a useful six-card reading we have found for people in stuck situations (you can also consider the “Next Step” method in Tarosophy).
Ask the Querent, Client or Yourself to consider the situation in which you are blocked. Shuffle your deck.
Lay the deck face-down.
Take the TOP CARD and turn it face-up. This card is your DISTRACTION card. It tells you how you can overcome the block by distracting yourself in another manner. In distracting yourself away from the current situation, whilst at the same time working cleverly to overcome the block, you avoid self-sabotage.
We will see how this works in a real situation shortly.
Then take the BOTTOM card and turn it face up, putting it next to the top card (it does not matter how you arrange these two cards). This second card is your UTILIZATION card. It shows you how you can utilize the current block into a powerful spur or starting block for further progress. We do not “remove” the blocks in our life – we have them for a reason – we observe, recognize, incorporate and utilize them!
Next take the solid block of remaining 76 cards and consider that these represent the whole block on this situation or aspect of your life. Really get a sense of the block itself, stuck as a solid set of 76 cards stuck together, unmoving and non-resolvable.
Take a deep breath (because the cards are still moving in an infinite number of patterns until you take the moment to lay them out) and split the deck as equally as you can into two piles, lifting the top-half of the deck up and placing it to the left, about two card-widths away.
Consider this is showing you that you can indeed do something – you can split your block into two equal piles. Nothing has changed, other than the way you see it. It is now two smaller blocks.
Next take another deep breath and – because if you can do it once, you can likely do it again – split the two decks into half again, laying the resulting top halves to the left of the original two piles. You should now have four roughly equal piles of the deck.
Turn all four piles face-up to view what is the bottom card of the upturned piles.
These four cards represent:
1. H
ow to Partition the Block
2. How to Progress through the Block
3. How to Begin to Change the Block
4. How to Orientate to the Simplest Solution of the Block
This spread is very suitable for the keywords we gave in Tarot Life Book 1 and for general readings. I find it useful if I use the Tarot of the New Vision, which has an interesting perspective on the usual tarot images, by drawing the standard Waite-Smith design as if you were viewing the card from behind the subject. This deck is useful for giving new perspectives to even the most jaundiced reader or pessimistic client.
Here is a real reading using this spread.
How do I work with the block I have about Project X?
Distraction: 9 of Cups
Utilization: 5 of Pentacles
In these first two cards, there is already a surprise and new information for the querent. The 9 of Cups in the Tarot of the New Vision shows what is going on behind the drapes shown on the usual Waite-Smith card. Three children are seen playing and eating a snack. They are totally lost in the playful moment, secure in the knowledge that everyone has forgotten about them, yet they are safe. This shows the Querent that their distraction is to find the playfulness and enjoyment for its own sake in their work. Rather than face their block as a challenge or obstacle, just ignore it and start playing. You might as well watch the stars when a hole in your roof has just fallen through.
This is combined powerfully and elegantly with the 5 of Pentacles, which shows how the Querent can utilize the block. In this deck, the card shows inside the building depicted from the outside on the usual Waite-Smith deck. We see an impoverished figure – perhaps one of those outside in the regular image – caring for a child. His crutch is leaning on the wall. It tells the client that they can utilize their block by demonstrating compassion. If they can hold “grace under fire”, they may earn respect and recognition in some future role or situation. It is a test of their character and their ability to think of others, even whilst their own situation is blocked and they feel “impoverished”.
These two cards already start to form an action plan for the Querent, as they formulate a response. In a sense, these cards provide a dynamic pair, leading to empowerment, much like the pairs of cards we saw last month in our Destiny Path method.
We now look at the other four positions when we turn the four split piles face-up:
Partition: The Empress (III)
Progress: 3 of Pentacles
Change: Temperance (XIV)
Orientation: 2 of Wands
The partition card shows (again) children playing behind the Empress. As we are viewing the card from inside out, we look beyond the Empress to see that she is looking out to an open garden gate and a path leading gently up a hill. It tells our querent that he should “put his house in order” first, as a first step.
He should find time to make a partition – a gate as we see in the image – to allow time to play (as we saw in the distraction card). There is a sense that he must cordon off time and gain security in doing so. Perhaps he should tell his employer that he is not working late all the time.
The Progress card picks up the theme of work/play, here with the 3 of Disks showing clearly that the Querent must make progress by recognizing what he is learning, the skills and experience he is acquiring. A wagon seen in the distance in this deck shows that his skills may not be used now, but there is another journey to come.
In the Temperance card next in the position of Change, we see a symbol of alchemy, the nature of which is also depicted on the Thoth Tarot by Aleister Crowley and Frieda Harris – who renamed the card to “Art”. The suggestion of change is that “what does not kill me makes me stronger”, or that the person’s block is actually preparing them for change. This confirms the other cards, and that the block is actually a limited belief that the present situation is an end to itself, not part of a larger situation.
To orientate to this new information, the Querent has received the 2 of Wands. This shows the simple task of planning ahead, of utilizing one’s experience to look at the big picture – the figure in the card on many decks holds a globe. The block then, is not thinking big enough or beyond the present situation. When one orientates to this truth, the block simply vanishes.
The Cards as Blocks in Tarot Life
“When we split off parts of ourselves, active mechanisms keep them in places. Gurdjieff called these mechanisms buffers”.
Charles Tart, Waking Up (1988) p. 131.
To practice active divination this month we are going to use the cards as representations of positive and negative qualities which we block, to our gain or detriment in our daily life.
In Around the Tarot in 78 Days, we presented a small section on each card entitled “How You Block This Card”. Whilst only a comparatively small section in that book, it is extremely important in our wider work with Tarot and you’re about to learn why we hid it there.
All the “full deck of possibilities” is presented to us every day, however for our sanity we have to block/filter out much of it, both consciously and unconsciously. You may notice your dreams intensifying during this month’s practice, by the way.
Some of this “blocking” results in habitual states of thought that limit us, constrain us and cause confusion or conflict. We begin to break up into “different selves” to hold each of these different states. When someone loses their temper and afterwards says “that just wasn’t like me” we are seeing this in action.
The “buffers” that hold these blocks and filters in place actually function through well-recognised psychological mechanisms. These are such things as simple lying, denial (“I wasn’t myself when I did it”), suppression, repression, projection (“It’s just authority that annoys me”), and so on.
In our active divination we are going to let the cards teach us how we block certain qualities and energies for both good and bad. We are also going to select which mechanisms are particular to ourselves in keeping these blocks in place.
We will then use this information which will be gathered at the end of this month of your Tarot Life, later in the year as part of the whole “gated spread” presented by Tarot Life.
Firstly we will provide a version of the blocks appropriate for every card in the deck, which may also be found as part of Around the Tarot in 78 Days. You may also wish to add your own findings over the month to this list as it can never be comprehensive. It will also add depth to your readings for yourself and others as you experience how the cards can indicate blocks.
The cards are given in kabbalistic order, i.e. from Tens to Aces, in Suits, with the Majors and Court Cards in appropriate places for their position on the Tree of Life.
Page of Pentacles
You are blocking this card today by:
1. Not paying your bills.
2. Not making fixed appointments
3. Not planning the week ahead
4. Not being fully prepared for an activity
Page of Swords
You are blocking this card today by:
1. not watching what you say
2. protesting
3. being irrational over decisions and making snap judgments
4. being foolish in distinguished company
Page of Cups
You are blocking this card today by:
1. being crude and boorish in polite company
2. behaving insensitively to those closest to you
3. withdrawing your care and attention from those you love
4. being very extrovert during a social gathering
Page of Wands
You are blocking this card today by:
1. Non-reaction when roused to anger
2. hiding your brilliance
3. not owning your own ambition
4. being cowardly and not taking action when wronged
10 of Pentacles
You are blocking this card today by:
1. being miserly and not treating yourself t
o the finer things in life
2. not working and cancelling important meetings
3. not visiting close family and friends
4. not dressing to impress
10 of Swords
You are blocking this card today by:
1. looking on the bright side of life
2. achieving aiming to succeed in everything I do
3. treating myself to a healing remedial massage
4. recognizing the joy of being a sentient being
10 of Cups
You are blocking this card today by:
1. being miserable about everything and everyone, being a commitment phobic
2. wallowing in the state of discontent
3. creating ill-feeling and finding fault with your home life
4. falling out with those close to you
10 of Wands
You are blocking this card today by:
1. Being Lazy
2. Avoiding responsibilities
3. Saying no to projects and workload
4. Dropping tasks you do not like
WORLD XXI
You are blocking this card today by:
1. being narrow minded and judgmental of people