Science Friction_ Where the Known Meets the Unknown - Michael Shermer [17]
The wheel is set against a field of stars symbolizing the cosmos. Below, looking upward, is the Mother, the Earth. At the upper left is the Sky Father, Zeus. At the upper right is an androgynous child. The child, with its wizened face, represents humanity and our ancestors. Inside the Wheel, the mushrooms symbolize luck, the snake, rebirth, the eye, time, the dinosaur, all things lost in the turning of time. Divinatory meanings: Change of circumstances. Taking hold of ones life. Grabbing hold of fate. Time to take what life has given you.
For dramatic effect I added the Death card (figure 1.1) to my presentation.
The image of the boat belongs to birth as well as to death; the baby’s cradle originally symbolized a boat. The trees and grass signify plants, the bones, minerals, the birds, the animal world, and the ferryman, the human world. The peacock’s eye in the center signifies looking at the truth in regard to death. The bird also symbolizes the soul and the divine potential of a person. Divinatory meanings: The Death card rarely refers to physical death. Rather, it has to do with one’s feelings about death. Psychologically, letting go. New opportunities.
At a total of seventy-eight cards there was no way I was going to memorize all the “real” meanings and symbols, so the night before I sat down with my family and read through the instruction manual and we did a reading together, going through what each of the ten cards we used is suppose to mean. My eleven-year-old daughter, Devin, then quizzed me on them until I had them down cold. (This was, I think, done not just out of Devin’s desire to help her dad; it also had the distinct advantage of getting her out of doing her homework for the evening, plus gave me a taste of my own medicine of repetitive learning.) I used what is called the Hagall Spread (no explanation given as to who or what a Hagall is), where you initially lay out four cards in a diamond shape, then put three cards on top and three more on the bottom (figure 1.2). This is what the spread is supposed to indicate:
1. The general situation
2. Something you’ve done, or an experience you’ve had that has helped create the current situation
3. Your beliefs, impressions, and expectations, conscious or subconscious, of the situation
Figure 1.1 (left). The Death card
Figure 1.2 (right). The Hagall Spread of tarot cards
4. The likely result of the situation as things stand now
5. Spiritual history, how you’ve behaved, what you’ve learned
6. Spiritual task at this time, challenges and opportunities in the current situation
7. Metamorphosis, how the situation will change, and the spiritual tasks that will come to you as a result
8. The Helper. Visualize the actual person. This person gives you support
9. Yourself. You are expressing the qualities of the person shown on the card
10. The Teacher. This figure can indicate the demands of the situation, and also the knowledge that you can gain from the situation
By the time of the reading I forgot all of this, so I made up a story about how the center four cards represent the present, the top three cards represent the future, and the bottom three cards are the characters that are going to help you gel: to that future. It turns out that it doesn’t matter what story you make up, as long as it sounds convincing. I was glad, however, that I had memorized the meanings of the symbols and characters on the cards I used because my subject had previously done tarot