Choosing to Work with Other Archetypes
A core aspect of Tarot for Troubled Times is knowing you can grow your light. Seeing every experience as an opportunity to ask questions that expand your awareness is fundamental. Growth and personal evolution are the key to your overall well-being, so adopt the mantra: I am curious. With each archetype, ask questions that take you deeper, stretch you wider, and inspire you to action. Remember this not only with these exercises, but also in life as a whole.
As you become acquainted with your Birth Card, possibilities will show up for you.
You’ll have a clearer understanding of yourself and the energies guiding your life. This can be a power step forward into living purposefully and thriving in your life.
You might find your Birth Card deeply resonates with you. You already connect with the profound energetic platform it provides, and you want to grow deeper into that expression. On the other hand, your Birth Card might challenge you with creative prompts for growing your light and cultivating more conscious actions in your life you’ve never dreamed about.
Both can hold true depending on your present perspective and the situation you find yourself in. Life isn’t a vacuum, and different circumstances evoke different expressions of your unique qualities and capabilities.
However, there is another path to empowerment—and the building blocks of true magic in your life. You always have a choice because no one thing can completely define you. Your Birth Card is a mirror for you to explore the reflection of your infinite self. But what if another card calls to you?
As you read through the qualities for each card, another constellation might speak to you. If that happens, choose to go deeper into that experience and find the wisdom it holds. Trust your intuition when something grabs your attention. Choosing to explore deeper possibilities lets you become a big player in your own life!
Different Ways to Reveal the Potential of the Archetypes for You
As you explore the Major Arcana archetypes, notice which cards beyond your Birth Card attract or repel you. There is power in both experiences. When something attracts you, it wants to become part of the web of your experience. When something repels you, it serves to teach you where you can pivot, open, and change.
With an intention in mind, look for cards that embody what you’d like to heal, change, create, or integrate into your life. Intention is the power piece for all change in life. As you become clear about your intention, you see avenues toward actualizing it manifesting. Intention must be met with action to create change. What is your intention? What card displays qualities and actions that help you get there? How can you embody those qualities?
When you find a card that embodies the qualities that feel appropriate and aligned with your intention, pull it from your deck and keep it on your mirror, altar, or nightstand as a reminder that you are capable of doing the same. See this card as yourself and meditate on or visualize yourself as the archetype doing exactly what you intend to do. This is a great way to use your affirmations!
Pinpoint where you need healing. Healing on all levels begins by making a commitment to shift your experience and take steps toward mending wounds and releasing traumas. Wounds can be physical challenges, emotional baggage, past traumas, or resistant beliefs. Notice which card embodies or holds facets of wounds you would like to mend. Example: When challenged by male authority, see what qualities of the Emperor you can learn from, make peace with, or incorporate into your life. Often, the antidote to pain is making peace with the poison.
If you find a particular card that depicts an aspect of your trauma, use the other cards in the deck to visually express the story around that wound. From there, you can change the story by adding new cards that resonate with how you’d like the story to be told. This will edit the energetic web around that trauma and allow you to heal and integrate the shadow and the light.
The archetypes are messengers and teachers. If you desire to learn more about how to be, feel, act, or display a new quality within yourself, find an archetype to teach you. You might see Strength as a teacher of overcoming adversity. How does she do that? What can she show you? Or you might seek the High Priestess’s wise counsel to develop your psychic gifts. Pay attention to how they embody those skills and what they do to use them. Make a list of actions you can take as instructed by this teacher.
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Adapted, and reprinted with permission from Weiser Books, an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser, Tarot for Troubled Times by Shaheen Miro and Theresa Reed is available wherever books and ebooks are sold or directly from the publisher or by calling 800-423-7087.
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