WALKING THROUGH THE 4 SUITS: ACES THROUGH TENS
The minor arcana is one half of the tarot system, and in truth, not minor at all. The four suits are a very powerful way of looking at how we think, feel, express, and present. Each of these four ways of learning about ourselves is layered from the start of what a thought, a feeling, and an action is, which then comes together in some physical response; a behavior, action or reaction. When you begin to understand that each path of experience is a series of choices that build an understanding of why you are experiencing something, you become better at discerning and trusting your intuition to guide and navigate you through your life.
Each day we deal with a multitude of choices to make. These tend to come in cycles. They could be daily, weekly, monthly and annually. Sometimes they are tied to seasons and sometimes to specific events that are specific to our families, cultures, beliefs and societal connections. When we begin to become aware of these cycles, we can better co-create and collaborate with the who, what, where, and why of our choice making.
In this post we are going to walk through why this deck was designed to both contemporize and evolve the system, and help explain the deck so you can better understand the flow of the cards for more powerful and clarity of readings. So let's get started!
In this deck the suit cards are referred to as the 10 Layers of Learning. This is to nudge your brain into seeing each suit as ten perspectives that show how you learn by adding layers of growth and experiential process. Think of learning a new skill. You did it in steps, with practice, and layers of experience until you were confident and aware of your sense of self proficiency. Some steps require repeating and some you wiz through with ease and confidence. By understanding your personal process and seeing visually through the cards how you are making choices, you gain powerful insight into where you think too much, tip into emotional tendencies, or need to manage that passionate over-drive for perfection. You will also see how you are using your strengths to balance your weaknesses, as well as what influences you have been taught that have pushed you away from your true sense of self, your sovereignty or authentic self. This is why the four suits are renamed as your physical and metaphorical senses, and connect you to the four ways of perceiving your experiences. They are:
THE SENSUAL TRINITY
The three senses (suits) of the deck are the Mind, Heart and Passion, and form your personal trinity that you use to establish how you will react or respond in any given situation. The mind-space, and not the brain, is the place we build the patterning of thoughts. Here we analyze and theorize the how, what and why of things. The heart-space is where the feelings are held and frequency of wholeness is established. When the two spaces are joined, the pattern is formed and holographically ready to be moved forward, held back, or let go of, as an actionable choice. That decision to move forward requires the energy of passion. Whether little or big, fast or slow, that is the fiery level of the passion that allows energy to have motion. This is the sensual trinity of the Self. This action now becomes a physical reality and this is why the fourth suit is called Presence. The thought was formed, activated, and is now present in your life as a choice. This now sets the stage for what you will experience as others' trinity of selves make their choices. This is why we are the creators of our destiny, the masters of our fate.
THE 10 LAYERS
The suits continue the structure of the tarot system by holding to the ten cards per suit. However, the Aces are now called Seeds. This is designed to help you see that all thoughts, feelings, and passionate expression begin with seed of initiation. The seed of what a thought is and an emotional starting point. Passion is sparked from the seed of inspiration.
As look and feel into each of the suit cards in their layered flow from Seed to the ten, you will begin to see how the cards are telling and showing you a path of experiential travel. Sometimes we realize early on that the path we are walking is not working and we scratch that flow and start another. That would be a different seed or initiation, and the card would show how you decided to try something new or revised. The following card layers of each suit are as follows:
MIND
Seeding Inspiration, 2 Balance with Intent, 3 Woe, 4 Equanimity, 5 Self Doubt, 6 Centeredness,
7 Ineffectual, 8 Disruption, 9 Inner Critic, 10 Catharsis.
The flow of these cards would be thus: Inspiration sets you off with the intention to find a mental balance on something. Often we must let go of what no longer serves or we now seek to understand a loss of perspective and this give us a grief, a woe that is deeper than a superficial thought. Finding we need solution, we discover that equal does not meet the needs, but equanimity does because the choice needs to match the need and not just any choice will do. This awareness raises some self doubt on how to proceed, but trust is needed to re-center our self and realize if we intuit through our higher or more vast sense of self, we can continue. All thought processes have the next steps. We may bypass them or get stuck in them. This when we sit and struggle which makes us ineffectual, which then disrupts other parts of our life. Here our inner critic can show up and that can be our strength to review and adjust or critique and cause anxiety. Once we see this and we choose to rise to the occasion, or we get that helping hand, that moment of awareness is discovered. This is our cathartic experience and we have not come full cycle of this lesson of layered choices, awareness and experiences.
When we do readings, the cards of each suit will appear in the various spread positions, which you will interpret accordingly. However, if you think about how the suit of ten cards is a cycle, the story of a thought process, you will see how each card is contributing to the message, what is referred to as a correspondence.
HEART
Seeding Compassion & Empathy, 2 Love Divine, 3 Self-Fulfillment, 4 Ecstatic Flow,
5 Disenchantment, 6 Delightfulness,
7 Self-Indulgence, 8 Torpid, 9 Elation, 10 Maturation.
The flow of these cards are thus: Our heart-space begins with compassion and empathy towards others, whether a crisis or condition. We sense this and associate this with how we might feel in the moment. This moves a physical love or familial love into the spiritual love, or divine love. This moves us to action or connectivity and we feel self-fulfillment when we respond with compassion and empathy. This joyous moment gives us that ecstatic flow of what it means to be open and caring. But if our choice doesn't bring the result we hoped for or we are at the receiving end of someone else's version of false compassion, we become disenchanted and ask ourselves questions. If all goes well after we rethink and choose a new perspective what we are feeling, we feel the delightfulness of our choice and sometimes we over indulge in our moment. Too much indulgence can create the opposite reaction, like if we suddenly no longer feel that joy and now we feel stuck and without energy or purpose. Sometimes the feelings of not feeling fulfilled and not delighted by our choice of what we are experiencing, we become dull in our heart-space and we shutdown and go quiet. This is a torpid moment, when what ever we are feeling makes it so we can't move forward, we feel no warmth of our inner fire and we appear sullen or in a torpor state to others. Once we find a way to find our inner sense of self, either on our own or by the kindness and compassion of others, we can feel that elation of energetic flow once again. Connected and flowing we feel our inner dance of joy again. Being able to see how we handle our emotions, and where we coddle them or ignore them or might not recognize our pattern is when we gain emotional maturity. We often say someone is mature and responsible, because they have now shown they can manage their emotions rather than be managed by them, which makes them able to respond.
Heart cards are powerful indicators of the way we sense our world, both inside and out. The statement that someone died of a broken heart, is an actual physical occurrence. The frequency with which our heart beats, creates the frequency or song of our presence. This fullness of our emoting self can be felt by others. A thought is empty as a pattern until the pattern is formed by emoting energy. Just like a bowl or cup is filled, our heart-space is where we drink from and offer others to drink from. This is the compassion and empathy that we seed an emoted choice. Look for how a heart card is co-creating with a mind or passion card to see how that feeling is perceived and expressed.
PASSION
Seed of Empowerment, 2 Self-Sovereignty, 3 Integrity, 4 Synchronicity,
5 Perseverance, 6 Achievement,
7 Courage, 8 Vitality, 9 Wholeness & Resilience, 10 Mastery
Passion! The fire in the belly, the furnace of active potency. These cards show you about how you express yourself in a variety of ways. This is where we move ourselves and Passion is how we seed our sense of self empowerment. When we feel empowered we stand tall, sovereign and authentic. We hold true to our inner truths and we honor our integrity as well as others. When we are in this powerful sense of self, we experience synchronicity with the soul, the world, and the universe. It encourages us to persevere through difficult times and find the courage to rise up the our challenges. Each step towards discovering and claiming our true self, we feel the achievement of our efforts, our labor our will to be authentic. This courage fills us with the vitality we need and this helps us to heal and over time, we begin to see our wholeness and we realize we have the resiliency to keep going. We learn to master our temperament and apply that passion into what serves us and steer from what doesn't. We no longer can be manipulated by others, and we become the warriors that defend and protect over those that claim warriorship for brutality, oppression, abuse and falsehood.
Passion cards are the cards of energy emoted. These are action cards and they describe those actions. When paired with Heart cards, then there is a melding of balance or a corrective to dampen the fiery self or dry up the extra emotional waters. When paired with Mind cards, the passion can be empowered by the patterning of powerful thoughts, or destructive when over fueled. Passion can also be that purification energy that burns the cobwebs and prepares a clean canvas to once again build upon with new patterns of self.
PRESENCE
Seeding Transcendence, 2 Limitless Change, 3 Co-Creative, 4 Stability, 5 Distraction,
6 Prosperous, 7 Disintegration & Release,
8 Attentiveness, 9 Declaring Self,
10 Summation
These cards hold ground the trinity of senses in the physical presence, the manifestation of what we experience from our mind-heart-passion triad of sensual choice making. Although most decks make this about the mundane experience of work, career, people and places, in this deck the cards mostly pertain to your intimate connection of how your choices are creating your future self. And, as general as that sounds, the world of the mundane that we deal with is not separate from the spiritual, and thus, the mundane will be a corresponding part of our inner collaboration and co-creating process.
When we initiate the seeding of transcending our base instincts, we begin to engage and realize how limitless change can be in our life. Change might be uncomfortable, but it is the evidence that we are co-creating with our own dreaming, others around us, nature and the universal sourcing presence. Once we understand how this process sets the stage, we find our stability to take on any role we choose. The challenge is to not become distracted by others' measurements and critiques of our role choices and preferences of technique on the stage of life. Once we gain control of our focus, we begin to also realize that abundance is clothed in many forms and flows. This opens our inner space to receive the prosperity of potential gain and that helps us the release what we hoarded and embrace greater possibilities. This creates a greater expansion of our sense of self, and that brings our willingness to further disintegrate and release old patterns of thoughts, behaviors and connections. This level of focus or attentiveness to the details of what it means to be authentically our self, gives voice to the wholeness of the self, the declaration of our Self. Here we finally see the cycles and paths we have traversed, the trials and tribulations experienced, and the wonder of our greater potential. The final card of this suite is Summation, and in this card you will see all of the other suits summed up and declaration of sovereignty.
Together, all forty cards are your visual Stella of your sensual experience, cyclic processes and methodology of choice making, and how you engage and communicate with yourself, others, and the organic and cosmic worlds around you. The suite of Presence is just that, the presence of you in thought, feelings, passions and actions that manifest the upcoming future of what it means to be You. Cards cannot define you, but they will definitely reflect back what you may or may not see, and thus offer clarity. In all things tarot, both the expertise and honesty, along with your continual use and study of the cards is what gives you the deepest and most clear-sighted interpretation.
UPSIDE DOWN CARDS
This deck is designed to show you what is forming your life experience based on your thoughts, feelings, actions and passions, the results of your choices. Right side up a card represents the intuitive insight you receive as well as the metaphoric symbolism you agree with and believe. When a card is upside down, then the meaning of that card should be noted as not severe or dire, but worth paying attention to as it relates to the question and the nearby cards. If the card what Limitless Change but upside down, then most likely, the change is limited by something. A card that states Distraction and is upside down, are any other cards nearby indicating a distraction, limitation, or if not, then the distraction has cleared or been dealt with and this is letting you are more focused and actively engaged.
IN CLOSING
These are the basics of the four suits of Mind, Heart, Passion and Presence, and the ten layers we experience that are the cyclic learning process for each suit. For those of you that rely on the astrological, elemental and cultural belief systems, this deck tasks you to see the cards from an intimate language of You. To do this you will need to ask your questions differently. Instead of asking should I take this job, you ask; show me what I should understand about why I feel I need to ask this question, or Why am I doubting my choice to accept this job?
Next post we will walk through the personality cards, also known as the court cards, but in this deck they are called the Four Flows of Perception. Email me with questions. I am happy to help you enjoy and learn how to use this deck to its fullest potential.