Major Arcana Tier II

X. Wheel of Fortune

Questions:

  1. [Archetype] In what aspects of your life is your fortune rising? Where are your fortunes falling? What identity do you form around the rising and falling of your life? (examples: I’m doing a good job, I’m successful, I’m the one who figures things out… or I’m doing a bad job, I’m not worthy, I’m the one who screws things up…) Without the good/bad judgements and without the subsequent beliefs and identification, who are you?
  2. [Esoteric I] Kaph is the hand that grasps it, just as Kabbalah means to receive. Take a few breaths to come out of your head and into your heart. Find your center and the place of knowing within you. What do you know to be true about life?
  3. [Elements] We are moving from stability and steady growth in the 4’s to transmutation and the irreversible state change in the 7’s. Reflect on a time in your life when you transitioned from stability to transformation and back to stability. What is the wisdom of this type of process? What does it enable? And how can you more consciously work together with this 4-7 vortex today?
  4. [Initiation] I am attached to the rim of the wheel.
    I want the drama, I want the rollercoaster.
    I am committed to my picture for how my life will turn out.
    I refuse to release my habit of controlling my life.
    I am choosing my own realm of suffering.

    ===

    I am choosing the sensations of my breath
    I am choosing mindful awareness
    I am choosing not to know – choosing my experience, not knowing what it is
    I am allowing my experience
    I am allowing me here

    ===

    I am feeling in my heart
    My heart is holding me, feeling
    Welcoming my feeling heart

    ===

    Quoth the Sphinx, “Human, know thyself”
    I know who I am in truth
    I know what I am in truth
    I know how I serve in truth
    I am knowing the truth that I am

    ===

    I am being human, staying in my experience
    I am human being, welcoming my experience

     

XI. Karma

Questions:

  1. [Archetype]Karma has two meanings: Situation and Action. Take stock of your situation in life. What hand have you been dealt: birth, family, body, temperament, education, nationality, etc… Based on your situation, what action have you taken in your life to change, grow and learn? How have your actions changed your karma?
  2. [Esoteric] Lamed is the ox goad. How do the ox (aleph) and the ox goad (lamed) interact in our evolving universe? Connect these concepts with the Fool and Karma. Remember: I am the Fool! Optional: how do lamed and aleph describe the workings of the demiurge, and where does love fit in?
  3. [Elements] Fire: All that occurs creates potential for service. How can I put my spiritual will into service?
    Water: I AM the cause of light, love and healing. What hardship, pain, or adverse-circumstances do I refuse to accept?
    Wind: Experience is my teacher. What are you learning about yourself right now?
    Earth: Out of extant conditions and creative imagination, I activate a life of reflective causality. What is a new choice you can make today?
  4. [Initiation] Practice the tonglen giving and receiving meditation. Breathe in suffering. Breathe out peace. Journal about what you discover.

XII. The Hanged Man

Questions:

  1. [Archetype]The Hanged Man calls us to suspend action and submerge into our depths. In what ways do you choose distraction? Where are you ready to lay down your sword?
  2. [Esoteric] Mem is primal water and represents a baptism in “the primal fluid that contains and gives rise to life”. What does it mean to you to undergo a baptism?
  3. [Elements] Fire: Consider struggle, surrender, and sudden illumination as a metaphor for the awakening process. How can you relate to these three from your experience?
    Water: We gestate in the womb. Water is the medium of emotion and love. What does “water is life” mean for you?
    Wind: How do you overcome fear?
    Earth: The dark pyramid of the past undergoes a metamorphosis into the mountain. What is your experience of integrating your “dark past”?
  4. [Initiation] Practice stillness, whether through meditation, savasana(corpse pose), or yoga nidra. Journal about what you find. You are welcome to follow along with either of these guided meditations below.

XIII. Death

Questions:

  1. [Archetype] Physical death is guaranteed and can come at any time. What is your relationship with death? What do you need to do before you die?
  2. [Esoteric] Nun, the fish, is symbolic of movement and regeneration. What is a small death that you have experienced recently? (ie: location, relationship, identity, etc…) How has this experience created movement and regeneration for you?
  3. [Elements] Consider the transitions from the sevens (intuitive personality) to the sixes (enlightened consciousness). Moving from Courage to Glory; Insight to Faith; Many Tongues to Clarity; and the Garden to Beauty. Choose one or more of these transitions that feels relevant in your recent experience: what is it like to make this transition and how does Death fit into it?
  4. [Initiation] Write your own obituary.

BONUS: practice the Soul Nidra below!

XIV. Temperance

Questions:

  1. [Archetype] Where do you encounter temptation? Can you identify the two parts of you at play during temptation (ie: your shoulder angels)? What does the middle path through temptation mean?
  2. [Esoteric] Temperance is The Path of the Arrow, opening us to our higher selves, Christ consciousness, and/or the divine light. How do you experience your “higher self”?
  3. [Elements] In the process of tempering, we purify and strip away that which no longer serves. We boil down to the essence, to the mettle, to our core, until only that which is true remains.
    Fire: Tapas in sanskrit means “heat” or “ardour”. It is the spiritual fire which burns us. What spiritual practice generates tapas for you?
    Water: The intensity of emotions can bring us into the immediacy of life; yet, we can also drown ourselves through clinging to emotion or over-identifying with them. What does the middle path through emotion look like for you?
    Wind: My thoughts create my feelings and my feelings create my thoughts. My thoughts create my words, my actions, and my identity. Notice the stories you are telling yourself. Where can you bring in more purity of mind?
    Earth: I am what I eat. I am what I ingest. I am not separate from my environment and living situation. Take this opportunity to clean up your physical space.
  4. [Initiation] Ignite the fire of compassion in your heart. What do you care about? What keeps you up late, what wakes you up early? What motivates you to break free of comfort and routine in order to make a difference? Practice this fire of compassion meditation with me.

XV. The Devil

Questions:

  1. [Archetype] The Devil represents that which we blame, condemn, or damn – both externally and internally. And what we damn, damns us back. Make a list of what you blame: every event, every person, every part of yourself. What grievances on your list are you ready to forgive? How has your list kept you chained?
  2. [Initiation] Conscious bondage is the first phase of spiritual unfoldment, also known as samaya. This process begins with the Devil and carries through to the Sun. Conscious bondage represents our commitment to be human, to participate in life, and to welcome all aspects of our experience as sacred. It is committing to live by the view that everything is an expression of the divine/buddha-mind. Therefore everything is love, and nothing can be excluded from our love. What is your commitment to life? Please make a statement of your dedication to conscious bondage.

XVI. The Tower

Questions:

  1. [Archetype] The Tower is the experience of sudden destruction. Where do you find yourself clinging to what is familiar? Where have your structures (internal and external) isolated you like an ivory tower? Where in your life is the tower crumbling: external routines and internal identities? And what lies beneath, ie: what remains when the Tower crumbles?
  2. [Esoteric] The Lightning Flash is sudden insight, shaktipat, satori, awakening. It is the vital life-force of the universe in action. Recall an experience you’ve had of the lightning flash in your life. How did this experience change you? How did it shape your understanding of reality?
  3. [Elements] Chogyam Trungpa identified three Lords of Materialism that you can read a summary of here and in more detail here. In general materialism is our tendency to hold onto duality and separation, which is precisely what the Tower is destroying.
    Fire: Spiritual Materialism is any spiritual practice or belief that the ego coopts for its own ends. Where are you using spirituality for social clout, for self-perfection, or to solidify your personal identity?
    Water: Raw feeling is our uncontrollable response to life. Emotional fabrication, on the other hand, is stirring up an experience based on our history or stories. Where are you fabricating emotion or what emotional drama are you attached to? These could be either “positive” or “negative” emotions, ex: I always put on a happy face.
    Wind: Psychological Materialism is the use of facts and opinions (knowing things) in order to solidify our identity and sense of self. Where do you use expertise and cultural/political opinions to hold onto something solid?
    Earth: Physical Materialism is the use of physical objects to make ourselves happy. These include food, clothing, furniture, gadgets, etc… Where are you using objects to try to escape or numb out, or in the false view that they will create lasting happiness for you?
  4. [Initiation] The second stage of spiritual unfoldment is, choosing not to know. Write your commitment to be in relationship with the unknown. This could be in terms of where your path is heading in career, relationship, or spirituality. This could be in terms of your meditation or spiritual practice. Or it could be in your moment-to-moment experience of life. Where are you ready to let go more fully into the unknown?

XVII. The Star

Questions:

  1. [Archetype] The Star is the light emerging from the blanket of night. What is emerging in you? Feel into the process of conceiving, emerging, or becoming. How do you experience this mystical process? What exactly is happening?
  2. [Esoteric] Tzaddi is the fishhook. What are you seeking on the spiritual path? Why are you investing your time and energy into spirituality? What fish are you hoping to catch?
  3. [Powers] With the exception of hydrogen, every atom in our bodies was created – transmuted – in the belly of a star. Someday, every atom in our bodies will return – be absorbed – by our sun. I am conscious stardust. My life contributes to the life of our star. What meaning does your human life have from the perspective of the stars?
  4. [Initiation] As Above, So Below. Meditate with this adage. Go beyond the intellectual. Experience it. Explore through it. What layers of reality are you “above”? What realms of consciousness are you “below”? As above, so below… Journal about what you find.
    (If this is too abstract, revisit the Holarchy Octave Meditations in The Ecology of Consciousness by Ralph Metzner)

XVIII. The Moon

Questions:

  1. [Archetype] The Moon represents the darkest darkness, where we encounter inner and outer monsters. Choose one of the following and write about your relationship with it: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, or sloth. How do you encounter it in yourself, how do you react to it in society?
  2. [Esoteric I] The crustacean emerges from the primordial waters and traverses a long path where it evolves through animal, human, and celestial realms. Tell the story of your spiritual awakening (ie: birth) and subsequent evolution.
  3. [Esoteric II] In one interpretation, the two wolves represent our wild and domestic aspects. In what ways are you wild? In what ways are you domestic? Where do you suppress your wildness and your domestication? Imagine you are able to transcend and include both aspects – who do you get to be?
  4. [Initiation] What is memory? How does memory interrelate with our beliefs? our identities? our bodies? the subconscious? suffering? Contemplate what Pamela writes, “You let go of your memory, but, for the first time, you truly REMEMBER. You arrive at a new consciousness of Memory.” What does this mean to you?