What Tarot Card Is Spring?

Today is spring and I’ve been waiting a long time to say that. Yay!

On the Tarot Room Facebook Group there’s been a very interesting discussion about which tarot cards represent spring. There were many different interpretations – all excellent.

My vote was for the Ace of Cups. Everyone made great points and they definitely expanded my thinking on the whole topic, but I’m going to stick with my first choice.


If I were to choose a major card, I’d pick the Empress, but the Ace of Cups most fully expresses the joy I feel when spring starts.

Here’s a list of the cards everyone chose. You’ll have to go to the Tarot Room Facebook Group Discussion page to find out why …

•Ace of Cups
•Ace of Disks
•Ace of Swords
•Ace of Wands
•2 of Wands
•#0 – The Fool
•#3 - Empress
•#4 – Emperor
•#6 – The Lovers
•#14 - Temperance
•#17 – The Star
•#19 – The Sun

Happy Happy Spring Everyone! Have a beautiful new season!

Al Rush and the 10 of Vessels

It’s been just over 12 years since Al Rush died. He was the manager of the Kingsway Theatre when I worked there in my early twenties. Today when the Twitter @Weiserbooks Book Club asked us to ‘listen to the ghosts of our own past’, it was Al’s voice I heard.

“Stupid hoodlum teenage bastards.” That’s what he called all the employees, myself included. Probably not such a positive motivational technique but we loved him anyway. He wasn’t interested in being a role model and I don’t think any of us confused him for one. At least not then.

Within the context of the book club (and time), I’m thinking of him now as an ‘ancestor’ – he was here first and left before I have. He lived in all the cities I did before I even visited them, and as far as my ‘career’ goes, he ended his where I started mine.

In Kissing the Limitless (the book we’re reading for the book club), T. Thorn Coyle suggests we write a letter to our ancestors to ask for direction on our journey. I started writing a few letters but they were all too sappy. Al would have just laughed at them. So I decided to pull a card instead.

I used the Alchemical deck (Al-chemical, get it?) and pulled the 10 of Vessels. It’s a giant still, perfectly balanced with 10 vessels busy distilling the inner essences. It speaks of the unity of the one through the work and connections of the many.

I think it’s a message about love, each vessel representing a different soul bubbling and sharing with the soul around it. As everyone plays and works together without overflowing, overheating or exploding, we create a magical golden tincture – liquid love.

And it wouldn’t be so surprising for Al to send a message like this. Despite his hostile language, he was very sweet. It’s also not so strange that he'd use a still to illustrate his point. The only time we discussed anything remotely ‘occult' involved some hallucinogenic tree bark wine he used to buy at a local pagan shop.

Al was a great friend of mine long past the time we worked together. He taught me a lot, mostly about living fully and loving people as wholly as you can without judgment and with as few expectations as possible. And I think that's the message he sent with this card.

I miss him a lot but was happy tonight to think about him. Here’s a big glass of liquid love to you Al! Cheers!

If you’re on Twitter – please join us at #WB1.

Self-Possession and the Lovers

There’s a book club on Twitter right now organized by @Weiserbooks. We’re reading T. Thorn Coyle’s Kissing the Limitless. A main theme of the book is developing and sustaining ‘self-possession’. Coyle defines this as:


"… the quality of being fully in touch with all of our parts and aware of the relationship those parts have to our own divinity, known as our God Soul, or our Sacred Dove. Since the God Soul is connected to all things, establishing a constant link to it places us in concert with the All-encompassing. Self-possessed, we open fully to an awareness of ourselves as a point of matter, anchoring the endless flow of spirit and energy. In this stage we not only have knowledge of our divine nature, we have active conversation with it."


My tarot radar went off while reading this segment. Doesn’t it sound a lot like the Lover’s card? For me, one of the main messages of the Lovers and all of the sixes is a deep commitment to understanding our souls and living up to that understanding. They powerfully represent the conscious and unconscious in union, informed by the divine.

No surprise then, when three of the four tarot cards I pulled on the chapter were sixes – the Six of Swords, the Six of Disks, and the major 6 itself, the Lovers. All of these cards speak of allowing the messages of the universe to flow through us. But as Coyle describes, it’s not always easy.

To help with this process, the Six of Swords points to mental clarity and a firm direction. While the Six of Disks describes success through hard work, fairness and generosity.

I also pulled the Ace of Wands. For me, this ace represents the fire that guides all spiritual journeys. It’s the flame of the soul, the symbol of our being ‘alive’. In the context of developing one’s self-possession, it seems especially meaningful. It is the spirit that’s being ‘possessed’.

It looks like it’s going to be an interesting journey through this book.

If you’re on Twitter – join the club at #WB1.

p.s. sorry for the pink strips on the Lovers' private parts - blogspot sent me an 'obscenity' notice when I posted them bare.

The White Squirrel is Back

Today was special. Daylight Savings. International Woman's Day. A technical meltdown on this week's Tarot Talk. And most importantly, the White Squirrel was back!

All squirrels are sweet, but the White Squirrel is like the Star, the Ace of Cups and the Wheel of Fortune all rolled into one magical little rodent. I'm crazy about him!


He lives in the park across the street, so it's not that unusual to see him around. But it's been such a long, cold winter I think he went south for a while. Or maybe he was just sleeping in a tree.

Either way, he's back and looking fabulous. Spring is about to begin.