Day 2 of the challenge, and I'm coming in today juuust under the wire, but today has been exhausting. It is roasting out here in Boca Raton, and just a few hours of errands in the heat left me feeling wiped out. But I'm here in all my night owl glory now, hard at work!

The card featured here is The Fool from the Morgan-Greer deck, one of my favorite beginner-type decks. The Fool's always been about the Hero's Journey and the quest through life to me, so he seemed only appropriate to include today.

Like I said yesterday, I've been working on something really big, which is why I've gone so quiet - but I'm really excited about it, so i want to give a little preview to you all. I think I'm really creating something unique here, and if you're a course junkie like I am, you're going to feel like you've had a really awesome, transformative experience. 

It's called "Tarot Journeys".

Imagine taking a journey through the Major Arcana, card by card, working with the archetypical figures of each card as your mentors. While you explore the in-depth meanings of these cards, you'll get stories, quotes, prompts, Tarot spreads, exercises, and meditations to connect you to each card and establish their places in your life. I want to really show how Tarot can be used as a meditative tool, teaching you the lessons that will make you blossom and thrive.

In the first e-course in a series of four, Mentors and Magic Wands, I envision you:

• Climbing the Fool's cliff face and talk with him about taking the leap. 
  
• Learning the power of your personal elemental tools with the Magician.
• Developing your intuition with the High Priestess.
• Rediscovering your creativity with the Empress.
• Learning how to own your personal power with the Emperor.
• Finding rituals that support you and breaking harmful traditions with the Heirophant.

Okay, now the plug: the course isn't ready yet. This is a really big project, and my goal is to have everything developed and ready within the next two months. But, if you sign up to my list (and get my awesome free e-book, "Five Ways to Connect With Your Tarot Deck"), you'll get a first look at Tarot Journeys. News about its development through my newsletters, a first look when it premieres, a discount for early subscribers, and a look at an accompanying coaching package that'll really enhance your experience.

I am really, really excited about this, and as I'm putting the material together, I keep finding new ways to really bring home the themes of each card and put together a totally new, unique experience. It's going to be fantastic.

Let me know what you think of it in the comments! Once again, thanks so much to everyone from the Ultimate Blog Challenge for stopping by. I really loved getting to know some of you yesterday, and I hope we'll all be good friends friends by the time the month is up!

Take a look at this version of The Fool, from the Tarot of the Ages by Mario Garizio, and you'll see an Aztec-style version of the Rider-Waite Fool's symbolism.  The Fool is often looking towards the future (the brightness of the stars, in this case), but ready to step into some danger that he doesn't seem quite aware of, such as the crocodile lurking in the river.  He typically has an animal companion at his side, often a white dog (but in this case, a cheetah), and he carries two things with him: a bag on a stick, like an itinerant hobo, and either a cane or a white rose.  
That last bit is an interesting contrast, to me.  A cane or walking stick is something practical, that you take to help you on the path.  A white rose, on the other hand, seems to be the Fool's talisman of innocence and lust for life.  They're both things that aid him on the road ahead, that represent what he can bring to someone who draws his card, but they perform that task in very different ways.
Since I'm thinking a lot about the Fool this week, I decided to get practical about it: how can I best channel the energy of this card into a spread, specifically for what it represents to me: new beginnings.  The fear of the unknown.  The excited hope of a better future, and the hidden potential we all hold.  

1. Where am I going?
This is the Fool himself, the heart of the spread, the question you're asking about the new direction you're moving in.  Where are you headed?  If you have a goal in mind, this will give you expanded insight on the nature of that goal, and if you have no idea, this may give you a clue!
2. What do I carry with me?
This is the Fool's bag, which you can see as empty or full of experiences as you want.  (After all, the Fool is everywhere and nowhere!)  What do you carry with you from your past into your new future?
3. Where do I need to have more faith?
This is the Fool's white rose - or, if you like, it's the bright sun, stars, or rainbow the Fool seems to have his eye on in some cards.  What qualities can you focus on, to give you the Fool's strength to go forward?  What will bolster your spirits in the time ahead?
4. Who/what is my companion?
The Fool doesn't go it alone.  He often has a faithful friend beside him, keeping his spirits up and providing company.  Who or what is with you on your journey?  Remember that you can tell a lot about a person by the company he keeps!
5. What should I look out for?
The Fool has a lot of guts and a lot of hope, but that can sometimes get him into trouble.  We need that optimism, so we can move ahead unafraid, but it's good to be prepared for what's ahead.  What are the cliffs, crocodiles, and traps ahead of you on the road, so you can make a detour?  Maybe you'll find an even better road in the process!

Good luck to everyone on the Fool's Journey - which really, in the end, is all of us.  And happy trails!

   Welcome to the second incarnation of Lunar Looking-Glass, my spot for Tarot, spirituality, and whatever else catches my fancy.  I'm a big fan of comparing Tarot decks; I have quite a few scanned ones, and even more that I like to scout out on the web (which I will always credit properly, and remove if anyone takes issue with me showing off their work).  So be prepared for a few pretty pictures along with my musings!  Today's is from the Era of Aquarius Tarot, by Marina Bolgarchuk, a Russian deck that's apparently a bit of a tough find.

   I can't think of a better way to start things off than The Fool.  The Major Arcana are said to be the Fool's Journey, after all, a young man or woman (or neither, or both, or whatever your gender identity) setting out and encountering the different characters and ideas of the Tarot as he-or-she evolves and grows.  We're the Fool, the idea goes.  We enter our journey with the cards looking to improve ourselves, whether that's communion with God/dess or enlightenment or just becoming the best human beings we can possibly be.  
  And if you want to get into more esoteric thought (which I'm just now scratching the surface of!), the Fool is numbered '0' because s/he's everything and nothing.  S/he can be anywhere on the journey of the Major Arcana, taking in anything, becoming anything, learning any lesson.  S/he's pure, untapped potential.  S/he's the "pattern" in Richard Bach's One, a massive field of choices where you can land anywhere.

  The thing is?  It isn't until you get there that you realize how that's freaking scary.

  It's so easy to have a plan.  We're given one from the beginning, aren't we?  At least in the First World nations, you're a kid, you go to school, you grow up.  You graduate high school, quite possibly go to college, you choose "what you want to be when you grow up."  No one tells you that you'll change your major a few times, or your career at least once as you grow up.  No one tells you that your relationships will shift, your interests will get more diverse, your worldview is going to grow and change.  One of my favorite musicals is Avenue Q, a foul-mouthed adult take on Sesame Street for twenty-somethings.  And the biggest life lesson they close with, after the true nature of the Internet and how charity is a great cure for the blues, is that "everything in life is only for now."  The good, the bad, the ugly - it's all changing, forever.  No wonder the Fool's optimism and penchant for taking chances is sometimes called, well, "foolhardy."  How can anyone feel ready to face the world when it can always shift into something you never planned for?  

  Well, I was once told something during a rough patch that I think sums it up perfectly.  "You're scared right now because you're in the middle of it.  But if you imagine hovering above it for a minute, and looking ten years into the future, you'll see how this point in life led you to then.  You'll see the bigger picture of it, and it'll look so much smaller then."
  
  If the Fool is everything and nothing, that means s/he's the mastery of the Magician and the self-bondage of the Devil.  S/he's the consequences of Justice and the hope of the Star.  S/he's everything in the World, and s/he's herself right back at the beginning again.  The journey is the destination.  Every moment of our lives, we're learning more about everything, and that makes us more us.  
  And that's still freaking scary.  But it's scary awesome.