What Story Do YOUR Major Arcana Cards Tell?

From Coco Tafoya via Unsplash

A big breakthrough for most tarot learners is realizing that the Major Arcana, the first 22 Cards in the Tarot Deck labeled from 0-21 tell the story of The Fool’s Journey. The first card, labeled 0 is The Fool, and is a card said to be entering into new adventures and journeys (however naively and childlike that entrance may be). The World, by steep contrast, is about ENDINGS to journeys, internalizing the lessons from our journeys and often, settling in to get ready for the next cycle. With that framing it’s easy to see how the other cards can tell the story of what happens next, who The Fool meets and even what traits and personalities The Fool inhibits on their way. Factor in the work Joseph Cambell did on mapping out what a Hero’s Journey looks like & Carl Jung did naming and describing archetypes and now these first 22 cards take on a world of their own. 

One thing that we really overlook when learning tarot though is how important personal connection to the cards should be. A lot has been said, positive and negative about Unverified Personal Gnosis, but when it comes to divination it doesn’t make any sense not to develop that. While we can get substantial wisdom out of the cards by simply knowing the traditional meanings, stories & theory behind them for many people the cards won’t click until it matches up really beautifully with their own story. For EVERYONE, this deck of 78 Cards can hold any message we would ever need - but it probably won’t until we look at our story & the individual short stories within it and figure out which cards connect to what. 

Image my own, with the Smith-Waite Tarot Deck: Centennial Edition.

Personalizing the tarot based on your own stories and ideals is unspeakably important to me. A huge step towards developing Queering the Tarot was realizing how different my journey was from a standard Fool’s Journey, then quickly realizing my journey still WAS in the cards. I just had to approach them a little bit differently. If you are marginalized within the society you live in, have had very weird things happen to you, or tend to not fit in in standard discussions about the tarot then that is a huge sign that it’s time for you to map out your own story and see what the cards have to say about it. 

So how do we do that? To be good at something, you sometimes have to be bad at it first. So don’t worry if storytelling is not a personal strength of yours. Simply grab your recording, typing, or hand-writing tools after you’ve done some thinking about a personal story you want to learn or connect to the Major Arcana through. Tell your story, and then lay out your cards (in order at first). 

Some very important notes about stories & this activity to remember:

• You’ll probably want to do this several times using different stories.

• Stories have a beginning, middle and end.

• Stories do NOT have to be linear. There can be dream sequences, sidequests, long-forgotten memories popping up, etc etc.

• Stories can and often do have subplots!

• Stories have a purpose/theme/mood and lessons learned. Often, this is the part that comes from the tarot but there are exceptions to this. 

As you’re mapping out your story, figure out which card from the Major Arcana goes where. Once you’ve taken note of these associations, get used to reading with them in mind. Obviously if you pull The Magician you’re not going to tell all about the Fool and how they ended up at The Magician. You want to be able to pull up what you personally learned about The Magician quickly. It takes time. It takes practice. It takes trust in yourself and the tarot cards. When you can synthesize what you learned from a book & what you learned from your own experiences though, your readings will be pure magic. 

Here are some story prompts and/or next lines in case you get stuck:

• The Fool: I am journeying towards…..

• The Magician: I got good at….by/because...

• The High Priestess: Deep down I know this is true…

One thing you’ll likely notice is that your story might not make sense at first. That’s okay. It’s YOUR story about things YOU’VE been through and learned, so let it take whatever shape it needs to. Just check in with your cards along the way and remember to trust yourself. 

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If you liked these story starter prompts, notes on what to remember re: your story or just the overall theme & activity outlined, I strongly suggest signing up for my Alternative Approaches to Tarot which asks you to bring yourself, your identities and your wealth of intuitive, creative & practical knowledge to the cards instead of trying to memorize a bunch of guidebooks. We learn so many ways to flex our fun & creative sides to still get a deep, nuanced understanding of the cards that honors their traditional roots while forging a new path all our own. It’s a 3-session class for $100 through Eye of Horus Minneapolis and it starts Monday, April 5th at 6 PM. Click here to learn more or sign up! If you catch this blog after tomorrow, don’t worry! I run this class fairly often so you’ll have time to catch it again.

Blessed Be Y’all!
Cassandra Snow

I'm BAAAAAAACK!

Photo by Janet Nguyen

Hello beautiful blog readers,

Many of you know and are following me from way back when I was a regular blogger both here and at Little Red Tarot. I absolutely love sharing information on tarot, witchcraft, creativity and whatever else I think people will want to read from me. I also absolutely love the personal storytelling aspects of any of the writing I do (and most of the writing I love the most). Nonetheless, after my steady arts writing gig and Little Red archived in the same month, I shuddered my blog around the same time. I moved free CoNtEnT to Instagram & Twitter. I moved longer form tarot & witchy writing to Patreon. I stopped telling my own stories outside of my books. As I'm reviving this blog I want to address the reasons I stopped blogging in the first place, namely personal burnout and imposter syndrome linked to my Generalized Anxiety Disorder & Avoidant Personality Disorder. 

Burnout is a huge thing for solopreneurs in all fields. Even with the communities and support I have, losing two writing gigs I loved so much was really hard no matter how deeply I understood the reasons for it. Those projects ended for reasons that came down to burnout for so many other people and as I was listening to those people tell their stories and list their reasons I realized I was burning out too. Fast. At the same time, I was in talks for one of the best opportunities of my life: my book deal with Weiser which turned into one and then two books! I was running my theatre company, reading roughly 20 hours a week for clients and dealing with the loss and grief of these writing and blogging opportunities that I loved so much. This is on top of being chronically ill and having a full life outside of work. A bunch of other things happened too. My TBI. Vaginismus treatment (which I'm only not in because of the pandemic but will be picking up again soon). A complete shift and heartbreak in my personal life that still devastates me to bring up or remember.  It was honestly so much. Some things had to go, and unfortunately blogging was one of them. 

This is in large part because of the biggest reason I put the blog on hold: I legitimately didn't think anyone cared about it or about what I had to say. I felt like if it wasn't fresh, original, groundbreaking tarot writing like my work on Queering the Tarot that no one would like it. I felt like I was too stupid or would come across like I was stupid if I were to dive deeper into Tarot theory or the cross-sections of activism, creative work, my actual life and this work on tarot & witchcraft. No one did anything specific that made me feel this way, not even indirectly. So many of my friends read my blog, then reached out and that’s how we became friends. My book deal came from my blogging. Other bloggers liked me. I really have no explanation for the way my imposter syndrome flared up and became so overwhelming that I just...quit except for the obvious: my mental health needed me to take a break. Badly. 

I have written ad nauseum and been very upfront about the fact that I have C-PTSD, PTSD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Persistent Depressive Disorder & Avoidant Personality Disorder. I am an open book about it until I'm not. When something is really bugging me or bringing me down, I clam up. I don't tell anyone. I'm working on that fear of showing vulnerability, and I mean really working on it. To digress a bit though, when I was blogging so much before and not taking stock of my mental and emotional health these feelings of inadequacy flared up over and over until they just overwhelmed and consumed me. I wish they hadn't. I think if I'd talked to some blogger friends, they wouldn't have. Instead, I pulled a Cassandra and just unplugged my entire blog and told no one the real reason. There are some financial aspects I plan on getting into in a later blog, but at the end of the day even those financial aspects came down to me not checking in with myself about my mental health. This is the truth: I quit blogging because I didn't think my words deserved to be read. I quit blogging because I was scared to ask for feedback or support. I quit blogging because of fear and insecurity. Plain and simple, and I have my bevy of mental illnesses to thank.

A picture of my cat to break up all this text. Enjoy!

So why am I back, knowing how blogging made me feel before? For starters I've been doing A LOT of work in therapy & in my spirituality. I feel confident about the things I want to write for you in this space now, and I know how to use my tools or rely on friends in the field with me should that stop being true. My physical health has also improved which I never expected! It turns out that "mystery stomach plague" was a combination of diverticulitis & a GIANT gallstone (seriously, 8 CM) and it's amazing how much more capacity you have when you can eat food normally and aren't walking around feeling like a medical oddity. The gallstone is gone. The diverticulitis is at bay until I screw up and eat some nuts or seeds. I am disabled and chronically ill so I still have to be careful with my energy and how I spend it but I am a lot better in some ways. I am certainly well enough to get back to blogging as a function of my business that I loved so deeply.

Because I do love blogging. I really missed it. I love blogs. I love blog community. I love sharing information. I love writing. I’m happy to revive this blog. This blog isn’t monetized, and if you want to support the writing or information I’ll be sharing Patreon is the way to go. Patrons from Patreon also get Patreon only writings, tip sheets and exclusive offers (like snail mail readings) as well as first dibs when I open up readings, classes, etc. Otherwise reading & sharing this blog is totally rad, and I’m excited to share my little corner of the internet with you yet again. 

Notably, and on the subject of money, Patreon is a big reason I am back. The way my Patrons respond to my writing there has helped bestow me with new confidence, and of course now I feel like I’m being paid to blog as well as contribute to that Patreon. I also am VERY reliable on Patreon though with clearly outlined exceptions, and I promised at the $500 mark I’d start a podcast or something like that. That is still my plan, but I’m still learning and studying the ins and outs of it so it’s good. In the meantime, I’m happy to share info & write here on the blog as well as on my Instagram and Twitter.

Until next time, Blessed Be Y’all! XOXO,

Cassandra Snow