Ellen Lorenzi-Prince led a Portland Tarot Study Group session on the Major Arcana of Tarot of the Crone. Click on the image to the left for a larger view of the Major Arcana.

The Major Arcana of the Tarot of the Crone represent times when the Crone is speaking directly to your soul. Rather than addressing an aspect of everyday life as in the Minor Arcana cards, the Majors require you to look at the deeper forces working within and upon you. They are challenging and powerful opportunities when they appear in a reading.

• Tarot of the Crone
• Tarot of the Crone Companion Book
• Tarot of the Crone Companion Book (Deluxe Color)
• Crone Ways Website

Ellen Lorenzi-Prince has been a reader and teacher of Tarot for over 15 years. She is the artist and designer of the Tarot of the Crone. She writes tarot-related articles, poetry, short stories and meditations for herself and for several online study groups, as well as for printed newsletters. Her latest tarot is Pandora's Tarot, which can also be seen on her site.

Music Credits

• Opening Music: The Oracle Speaks by William Wilde Zeitler from Elegy for Atlantis
• Closing Music: Labyrinth Floor by Ichiro NAKAGAWA from (Podsafe Music Network)

What makes a good spread?

• Appropriate Number of Cards
• Spread positions should follow a logical or easy to follow order.
• Symmetry
• Interesting relationships between cards that are next to each other

Spreads

1 Card

What do I most need to know about right now.

2 Card Focus by Gail Fairfield from Choice Centered Tarot

1. Major - The What of the Situation
2. Minor - The How of the Situation

The Pro & Con Layout

1. Pro-Whats the best thing about this. What are the benefits.
2. Con - Whats the worst thing about this. What are the costs.

3 Card: by Zoe Matoff

2 - 1 - 3

1. Whats the basic issue here
2. Don't do this
3. Do this

Deeper Learning Layout by James Wells

1. Larger Deeper Learning for me in this situation.
2. What's appropriate to release, exit, or leave behind?
3. What's appropriate to embrace, enter or move towards?

Reality Check Spread by James Wells

1. What am I imagining on the bad side?
2. What am I imagining on the good side?
3. What's the reality of the situation itself?

4 Card Psychological Spread from Tarot for Dummies

1. Your subconscious or child self (reactive)
2. Your conscious or adult self (intentional)
3. you superconscious or wise self
4. Overall comment

The Spread of Changes by James Rioux

The first card can be drawn at random or intentionally selected based on something you want to focus on and consciously pick a card to represent it. You can pick any of the position's intentionally.

1-2-3-4-5

1. The past or root cause
2. Your state or attitude or how you thought about yourself before the change
3. The change itself
4. The after change attitude
5. The result of the change or desired outcome

Elenore Greenburg from 2007 Tarot Reader

1. What the client needs to learn about the current situation
2. What he or she needs to learn about how it plays out in their life in general or the bigger picture or pattern revealed by the situation
3. How learning the situation can further their spiritual growth
4. What's appropriate to leave behind
5. What's appropriate to move toward

Arthur Rosengarten from Tarot and Psychology

1. Whats' working for you
2. What's working against you
3. What you know
4. What you don't know
5. What's needed

The Leap Across the Abyss by Rachel Pollack from the Shining Tribe Tarot

1. Where do I start?
2. What is hidden?
3. Who helps me?
4. What do I fear?
5. What must I give up?
6. What must I take with me?
7. What will I experience?
8. What will I find?

Clarifying Options by Gail Fairfield from Everyday Tarot

Layout 9 cards for each option including an option you having though of. The third card will help identify the new option. Please refer to the book Everyday Tarot for the shape of the spread

1. your reason for considering this option
2. what this option represents for you
3. the true nature of this option
4. the resources that support this option
5. the obstacles that block this option
6. the advantages of pursuing this option
7. the disadvantages of pursing this option
8. what will probably happen if you choose this option
9. the Key Factor with regard to this option.

James' 10 Card Layout

1. The External Experience of the Situation.
2. The Internal Experience of the Situation.
3. My contribution to it.
4. Other's contribution to it.
5. What challenges blocks or problems are connected with it
6. What blessings, gifts or resources are connected with it.
7. What does soul have to say about the situation? (Soul: Personal Sacred or Sacred Self)
8. What does spirit have to say about the situation? (Spirit: Transpersonal Sacred or Sacred Other)
9. What's the wisdom emerge from me from the situation? What can I learn?
10. (Optional) Based on the above information, what is the most likely way this will unfold in the

Freestyle Q&A

Initial question. Pull a card. Dialog. This generates another question. Pull a Card. Continue until it feels complete or resolved.

Custom Design Layouts

• Step 1: Pick a Topic (Subject)
• Step 2: Brainstorm Questions (Quantity)
• Step 3: Refine the Questions & Wording (Quality)
• Step 4: Put the Questions in an order that makes sense and number the Questions (Order)
• Step 5: Draw a Diagram (Shape)

Draw and Layout the Cards. Interpret. Finish with a summary card.

Your first step to a helpful insightful Tarot Session is ask empowering open ended questions such as:

• How?
• What?
• Where in my life?
• In what ways?
• What do I most need to learn about?
• What do I most need to know about at this time?
• What is a more evolved perspective on … ?

Avoid:

• Yes/No Questions
• Negatively worded questions
• Questions about other people's lives

James Wells

James Wells is a Toronto-based consultant, teacher, and facilitator devoted to merging soul and strategy. Through tools and processes such as Tarot, Reiki, Council Circle, and Journal Writing, he and his clients and students are inspired to become more of who they really are.

Tarot has been a part of James' life since 1979. His insightful, down-to-earth, proactive style makes him a popular practitioner and workshop presenter at home and abroad. James is a contributor to most of Llewellyn's Tarot Reader almanacs. In his "me time", he enjoys writing, reading, music, walking, and good food.

jameswells.wordpress.com

To book private consultations and to set up a workshop in your area, feel free to contact James at (416) 966 - 2685 or at evolutionary_tarot@yahoo.ca

JAMES WELLS — Merging soul and strategy through tarot, Reiki, journal writing, council circle, workshops, & classes.

Music Credits

• Opening Music: The Oracle Speaks by William Wilde Zeitler from Elegy for Atlantis
• Closing Music: The Way by Ishwish from Remember (Magnatune)

Born out of the mystical vision of artist Robert M. Place, The Alchemical Tarot: Renewed demonstrates the close link between alchemical symbolism and traditional Tarot imagery and illustrates that the Tarot, like the alchemical quest, is designed to lead one to the gold of inner wisdom. One of the most beautiful and sought after modern Tarot decks, the out of print first edition Alchemical Tarot has sold at auction for over $2,000. Now it is back in print at an affordable price.

The Alchemical Tarot: Renewed is a digitally redesigned version of the original with improvements in the drawings, more vibrant colors, and reproportioned so that the art is more prominent. The cards are 4.75 x 2.75 and come in a tuck box. It is printed on standard card stock, like a poker deck, with the same durable finish and die-cut edges. The deck includes the original Lovers card that was censored in the first publication as well as the Lovers that was published in that edition and a little-white-book that lists the meaning of each card. Each card in The Alchemical Tarot: Renewed is beautifully drawn and captures the enigmatic symbols of alchemy that are natural vehicles for communication with the unconscious mind. It can be used my Tarot readers at any level.

The Alchemical Tarot: Renewed is now available at shop.tarotconnection.net.

Other Alchemical Tarot Materials

• 
• Alchemical Tarot Website (with 3 & 9 Card Readings)
• Alchemical Tarot Notebook (Binder)
• Alchemical Tarot Notebook (Spiral)
• Alchemical Tarot Prayer Candles
• Alchemical Tarot Votives
• Classes with Robert Place
• Art Prints (from the Alchemical Egg)
  

Robert M. Place

Robert M. Place is an internationally known visionary artist and illustrator, whose award winning works, in painting, sculpture, and jewelry, have been displayed in galleries and museums in America, Europe, and Japan and graced the covers and pages of numerous books and publications. He is the designer, illustrator, and co-author, with Rosemary Ellen Guiley, of: "The Alchemical Tarot" and "The Angels Tarot", which are both published by HarperCollins and have received international acclaim particularly for their skillful and illuminating graphics. He is the designer, illustrator, and author of "The Tarot of the Saints" and "The Buddha Tarot". And, he is the author of "The Tarot: History, Symbolism, and Divination", which Booklist has said, "may be the best book ever written on that deck of cards decorated with mysterious images called the tarot." He is currently working on the "Vampire Tarot", which will be published by St. Martins Press in 2008.

Robert is recognized as an expert on Western Mysticism, the history of the Tarot, and as a gifted teacher of divination. He has taught and lectured at the New York Open Center, Omega Institute, The New York Tarot School, and the World Tarot Congress. He and his work have appeared on Discovery, The Learning Channel, and A&E. He has been a guest on numerous radio shows including The Woodstock Roundtable on WDST-FM, People are Talking on WKZE-FM , and Mystic Musings on KKUP FM.

Together with his wife Rose Ann, he has been creating hand crafted jewelry for over twenty-five years. Their work has been exhibited in the White House, in the American Craft Museum, The New York State Museum, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The Delaware Art Museum, The Montclair Art Museum, The Irish American Heritage Museum, the International Wilhelm Muller Competition, (which toured Museums in Germany), Birmingham Institute of Art & Design, England, and in numerous galleries in the United States, Ireland, Britain, and Japan.

• Visit the Alchemical Egg
• Schedule a Reading
• See the Tarot of the 7 fold Mystery

To receive The Restored Temple of Hermes, the free newsletter of the Alchemical Egg, with articles, a question and answer section, and news about up-coming lectures and workshops, e-mailed every other month, send an e-mail to Robert with The Restored Temple of Hermes in the subject line. Also, please let include know what state or country you live in.

Music Credits

• Opening Music: The Oracle Speaks by William Wilde Zeitler from Elegy for Atlantis
• Closing Music: Fantasia terza by Paul Beier from Simone Molinaro
• Closing Music: Fantasia decima quarta by Paul Beier from Simone Molinaro

Pluto in astrology represents transformation, death, and rebirth. Dena DeCastro & I talk about Pluto and Pluto Transits and do a reading based on these themes.

Transiting Pluto By Dena DeCastro

The force of transiting Pluto brings transformative, life-changing external events OR internal realization (reference the January Podcast on Pluto into Capricorn). Pluto brings the opportunity for us to reconnect with our passions by clearing away things that are blocking us in the unconscious. Pluto offers us the lesson that we are not ultimately in control of everything in or lives, and often we find that there is very little we do control. The issue of power and its locus is up for consideration here, and we must look at our relationship to power – both our own power and how others use power towards us. Pluto often pushes us to face our fears – not to punish us, but so that we may come more fully into our own power and feel a passionate connection to our lives.

Dena's Reading

3 Card Change Reading

1. Resistance (Saturn-Devil)
2. Struggle (Mars-Tower)
3. Transformation (Fire-Pluto-Judgement)

Dena DeCastro

A professional astrologer in the Portland area for several years, Dena has appeared on local radio shows, taught workshops, and given lectures on topics in Evolutionary Astrology. The evolutionary perspective is that our souls progress from lifetime to lifetime. The focus of Dena's readings is upon your chart as the dynamic representation of your highest potential, and the guide toward achieving it. Dena hosts the podcast Evolutions of Astrology featuring interviews with astrologers and other readers, as well as discussing various topics of astrology and chart interpretation.

To subscribe to "Evolutions of Astrology" via iTunes, click here.

Music Credits

• Opening Music: The Oracle Speaks by William Wilde Zeitler from Elegy for Atlantis
• Closing Music: I'm Your Moon by Jonathan Coulton

Transformation, Regeneration, Rebirth
Destruction
Death
Obsession
Dictatorship
Terrorism, rebellion, anarchy
Secret, Undercover, Hidden
Revitalization

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Tarot of the Masters

The Tarot of the Masters is from Tarot author James Ricklef, and is inspired by classical paintings from the old masters such as Rembrandt, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bouguereau, Rubens, and Hieronymus Bosch.

In preparation for creating this deck, James perused hundreds of paintings (and quite a few statues as well) in order to find ones that would suit the 78 cards of the Tarot. The classic works of art found in this process have inspired his own illustrations for the cards. (In a few cases two different paintings were combined.

This deck was drawn in pen and ink and colored on the computer. Each card is color coded by suit and the Majors show astrological attributions. It's been self-published in a first edition run of 55 decks. The first run deck costs $50 + tax (where applicable — California) and shipping. The deck comes in a satin bag. Companion material will be available for download on the website.

• Tarot of the Masters Intro - with links to the images
• Yahoo Group for Tarot of the Masters
• Contact James

A Few Closeups

James Ricklef

James Ricklef is a Certified Tarot Master — a Tarot reader, lecturer, and writer. He has been a frequent workshop presenter at the annual Los Angeles Tarot Symposium, and he has been a guest presenter at the New York Tarot Reader's Studio, and the annual San Francisco Bay Area Tarot Symposium. He is also the author of the award-winning book Tarot Tells the Tale as well as Tarot — Get the Whole Story, and his new deck, Tarot of the Masters, is now available. For more information about his books or deck, visit his website:

• Visit James' Website
• Read his Haiku Poetry
• Cafe Press, Zazzle products and Books (including a poster with the Lovers and the rest of the Major Arcana)
• Tarot Affirmations Booklet
• Author Bio at Llewellyn
• Ways to Practice Reading Tarot Cards by James Ricklef
• Tarot & Your Spiritual Path:The Wheel of Fortune Written by James Ricklef

The Nines by Ginny Hunt

In number symbolism, nine, not ten, means completion. This can be rather confusing in tarot when the suits have a sequence of ten cards. But there are reasons for this and once understood it makes things a little easier. In a base 10 system, where all numbers are represented by ten distinct forms (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9), nine is the final number. It then represents a limit, the end, or an ultimate goal. The last among the seven Pythagorean numbers (three through nine), nine is the limit to which the generative principles of number reach. The ancient mathematical philosophers called nine the "finishing post" and "that which brings completion."

The Greeks called nine "the horizon," beyond which the Ennead, or "the nothing" or void lay. We colloquially express this by saying things like "the nth degree" or that a cat has nine lives and "the whole nine yards" to mean the very limit of something. Also we say someone is "on cloud nine" or "dressed to the nines" when they are achieving something high. There are nine magnitudes on the Richter earthquake scale, though one has not yet been recorded to go that high and so is only theoretically possible at this time. As such, nine is the completion of a cycle, symbolic of change and reform. In tarot it represents the end prior to a new beginning. So what's the ten there for? I'll get to that in the next post in this series.

Nine is composed of three trinities (3 times 3 equals 9) and represents the principles of the sacred Triad taken to their utmost expression. In fact, the Chaldeans believed nine to be so sacred they kept it apart in their numerology from the other numbers. This practice relates back to the Major Arcana IX, The Hermit, who separates himself from others in the spiritual search of the sacred. The Norse God Odin, ruler of the nine Norse worlds, hung nine days on the world axis or Yggdrasil tree to win the secrets of wisdom for mankind and after the seige of Troy, which lasted for nine years, Odysseus wandered for nine years in trying to return home. The Hermit is often pictured standing on a mountaintop, a pinnacle of sorts, the limit of height. (read the full post)

Music Credits

• Opening Music: The Oracle Speaks by William Wilde Zeitler from Elegy for Atlantis
• 78 Notes Music: Steamy River by Rhonda Lorence from Winter Moon (Magnatune)
• Closing Music: Three Airs from the Dancing Master by Da Camera from A Celtic Celebration (Magnatune)