21 Ways To Read A Tarot Card -- Step THREE

dadsnook2000

With the weekend approaching, now is a great time to move on to step three. I would suggest that those who have yet to acquire this book, that now is the time as this step seems to be more involved -- there are actually three parts to this step along with more extensive descriptive and preparation information. I will, as always, restate the exercise in simple terms but it is not my intention to parallel the book's writings.

EMOTIONS are the theme for this step. What emotions are evoked with this card that we have each chosen? First, describe the emotions and feelings on the card for the character(s) involved and the environment they are within. Second, repeat this step but put your description in the "first person." Third, relate a personal and real-life situation which involved similar feelings and qualities which you have just described.

Don't panic if your card at first doesn't seem to have high emotional content. It's there. You may have to be quiet and take the time to envision yourself within the card, to find a place in your real life that has qualities of that card and meld reality with the card as a means of finding the cards emotional content for you. Have fun. Dave
 

dadsnook2000

Fey Tarot -- The WORLD -- emotions

Three aspects of this card contribute to its emotional content:
A) The size of the red dragon perched on top of the castle tower
B) The small Fey flying, plunging downward or hovering above the dragon
C) The deserted nature of this small walled world as everyone seems to be hiding in the various buildings.

The emotion(s) raised: Unease over why the dragon is present, a sense of being intruded upon.

Step 3-1) The Fey flying above the dragon may be either curious or trying to drive it away. What ever the Fey is attempting, there is a degree of futility relative to the size difference and the intrusive presence of the dragon. (Note that I am making a difference in the meaning of the card wherein the WORLD signifies an all inclusiveness of many comfortable and uncomfortable things, and the feelings that I see in the card as a picture or scene) A heightened sense of bravery and exhilaration exists for the Fey. A feeling of fear and withdrawal exists for the other Fey of this small world who are absent form this picture, hiding within their houses. FUTILITY, EXHILARATION, FEAR.

Step 3-2) I am just above this intruding dragon, all my nerves are tingling as I keep just out of range, plunging and testing its responses. The questions of HOW it got here, WHY it's here, WILL it leave add anxiety to my efforts. Should I try harder to bother it or will it go away if I back off. I'm afraid to challenge it fully, making it mad and destructive. Will I and the village just have to put up with its overpowering presence? Isn't enough to know that our very existence depends upon this snail carrying across the starry sky to who-knows-what? Are we being tested just as I am testing this beast? Am I playing a role that I don't understand? Why is this happening?

Step 3-3) When I was about 20 years old I was in the U.S. Navy. The time I remember that reminds me of this card is when I had applied for, and been granted, a transfer from my ship -- a Destroyer of some 320 feet in length with 280 crew members -- to a large Missile Cruiser of some 700 feet in length with a crew of 1500. As I was taken from the ship across the harbor to the pier, I looked back thru the rain at the ship knowing that things had totally changed for me. I felt alone, knowing that I wouldn't again see the many friends I had made. I felt alone, also, because I was starting a new journey to a new adventure. I was my own dragon and my own challenger, moving in a small world (a motorized whale boat) from on place to another, unknown place. I thought about how unprepared I might be for this new challenge, and then I realized that everything I needed was within myself. In that 20 minute trip across the rain-filled harbor I experienced loss, regret, uncertainty, exhilaration, hope, the realization or re-gained confidence. My world was going to be different and I was going to help shape it.

Dave
 

coyoteblack

how long before step 4? I think I will need a day or 2 to get this done correct
 

dadsnook2000

For coyoteblack

No hurry, a week or so is my general intent. If there are a lot of early replies and then nothing for three days, I'll move on to step four. So, 5 days or so at the minimum, 7 days maximum. Dave

PS we are having a few new participants joining us. All are welcome. Just give yourself the benefit of going thru each step.
 

coyoteblack

thankyou dadnook2000
BTW I was in the marines I really get your last part when we go from land to a LST it is so a new world for me
 

Azarial

STEP 3, The Gilded Tarot, Six of Swords

Step 3-1) The woman in her boat looks like she is curious to see what is waiting on shore for her. She also looks relieved to be almost to shore. The frog sitting in the grass seems to be just as curious about her, wondering where she has been, and why she has come here. She seems to be at peace for making it this far, and she has the endurance to forge onward to see what is in store next. So the keywords I would use to describe this card is ENDURANCE, TRANQUILITY, PEACE, and STRENGTH.

Step 3-2) I am almost to shore. I feel so relieved that I have made it out of the storm that I had found myself in. Knowing that I was able to survive the storm, and make it through no matter how tough it was makes me feel so much stronger. I am curious to see what is awaiting me on the shore. It looks like a calm place where I may be able to rest up emotionally after such a tramatic turn of events.

Step 3-3) When I was 22 years old, I found out that my father had Pancreatic cancer. The doctors only gave him 6 months to live. I moved back home to help take care of my father until he died. During the time he was sick, I didn't know how I would endure something that was so traumatic to me. It was hard to see my father slowly fade away from the person that I had knew to this frail, weak person who couldn't take care of himself. When he died, which was only 3 months after he had been diagnosed, I thought the storm was over but it raged on. I suffered very much emotionally for years after his death. I didn't know how I was ever going to make it. But I did make it through, and even though it was such a traumatic event, it made me realize just how strong I was, and things that I never would have thought I would be able to handle I was able to.
 

dadsnook2000

For Azarial -- and for those following our progress

Welcome to our study group -- I see that you have caught up with us in a rush.

Everyone following our study group's progress should consider joining us as Azarial has before we get too much further into the 21 steps. Following the 21 steps at the Apprentice level we will probably re-do the steps at the Adept level so as to extract as much benefit from this book as possible. The pace is likely to stay pretty much the same -- a next step taken every 5 to 7 days depending upon how fast the responses are made and having a short delay after the last response to make sure everyone has participated before moving on.

We all seem to be getting into the spirit of the book with some nicely thought out sharing and observations. Dave
 

Horace

Step 3- Justice- DruidCraft

Step 3-1 RESPONSIBILITY COMPASSION NEUTRALITY

I don't know if these are emotions, but this is what I feel as I look at Justice. I see her sitting there on the bench, eyes and arms held steady. Everything about her is listening intently to what is being spoken...searching for the truth. The owl is listening with what feels like doubt, like scepticism. But on the right, the spider listens with compassion, showing with her web how all affects and belongs together

Step3-2

Over and over again these same people come to me with the same trials and tribulations. They want me to say their way is the only right way..or at least that it's the guy's fault. Sometimes it makes me very sad..
And I want soo bad for them to understand that they are here in front of me because of their OWN actions. That it is their previous actions that have shaped their condition, not the other guys'.
I want them to use my sword to cut away the stuff that makes them keep having to come back!
I listen very intently, and often call on my counterpart, The High Priestess, to help with my decisions. It's such a responsibility. I don't want to cut too deep..or to create chaos. Being Justice is like being the fulcrum on the scales. I must be totally neutral, leaning neither one way or the other. I want them to use the blue sky above me to see what it will be like to be honest with themselves.

Step 3-3

I've stood before Justice's bench many times before. It seems like we LIVE with Justice once our children are grown! :)
I watched a loved one die of lung cancer..from smoking for over 20 years. Same as me. Everyday day I watched this funny man who loved to dance wither away as his body consumed itself. Ironically..I did this in between cigarette breaks.
I did finally quit, but not for more than a year later. That was more than 10 yrs ago, but the want sometimes flashes. However Justice prevails.. Hh
 

Patrick Williams

Step 3, Le Tarot Grand Belline, L'esclave du Sceptre

It's difficult using this deck as there's an interpretation written (albeit in French, which I don't read or speak) at the bottom. I'm avoiding the interpretations and just focusing on the pictures. But I've wanted to have a closer connection to these cards since I got the deck in the late 80's. By the way, some more research reveals that the 'z' and the '7' written at the top of this card indicate that it is associated with the Hebrew letter zayin and that it's numerical value is 7.

3-1) Looking at the card from the outside. This young man seems apprehensive, yet determined. He doesn't seem to be moving forward quickly, but he is also obviously not standing still. He doesn't like what he's doing, but he's going to do it, even though it takes him into a very foreign environment.

3-2) Looking at the world from inside the esclave. "I must accomplish my mission. I know my destination, although the path takes me through a strange and unchartered lands. I know what I must do, even if I do not know the nature of the message I carry or whether the recipient will 'shoot the messenger'. Failure is not an option, success is not a guarantee."

3-3) Real life episode. In the period beginning the day before Thanksgiving 1997 until the early fall of 2004 I lost 18 members of my family and friends to death, all individually (and including my wife of 12 years and both of her parents). In almost every one of those cases, I took on the responsibility of being 'the strong one', the messenger who contacted everyone, the one who showed up at all the funerals and wakes and facilitated everyone else's grief. Of course, that also meant that I could not process my own grief and after having lost so many of my family (blood and extended) I felt abandoned, alone in a strange land, dreading the ring of the telephone, the next message to deliver.
 

Patrick Williams

Okay, this was a little difficult to reveal - I'm still processing. But I decided that I would look up the translation of the interp written in French on this card: "Action, work, efforts for which you will never reap the fruit. Subjugation to the selfish interests and passions of others." Well ... isn't that just ... apropos?