Tarot for Yourself - Body, Mind, Spirit Cards

sarahenglish

I am still working with the daily 3 card spread in chapter 2. I am getting a little confused about the different contexts.

For example: the 3 contexts I am most comfortable with are
Body/Mind/Spirit , Past/Present/Future, and Child/Parent/Adult

Can they always be interchanged with each other? or do you figure out which context works best for the cards you pulled?

I don't understand how you can go from Body to Subconscious.
I dont understand what these next 4 variations mean or how to use them:

Maya-Illusion / Knowledge / Magic
Thesis/Antithesis/Synthesis
Commencement/Opposition/Integration

And moving my cards to different positions sends me into a panic. Wont that change the meany totally? Especially since I went to all the trouble to divine which was for the body, and which for the spirit in the first place?

Do I need to stop obsessing on these and move on to the next excercise with the expectation that understanding will come?
 

Kaz

hiya sarah,
i remember when i did them i had the same thoughts about some of the possibilities, well, there are some you like and some you don't, doesn't really matter.
i could relate to PPF, body/mind/spirit, child/parent/adult, thesis/antithesis/synthesis, commencement/opposition/integration.
the one i still don't get is the maya/illusion thing, but it might on the cards you get and the question it answers maybe.
moving the cards was quite ok, depending in what context you use them, i remember doing it with PPF.
it's really sad the thread has gone missing, coz i didn't write my spread down (i dont keep journal, shame on me here), so i don't have the example.
i will try to find time to do this one again and post it.
don't worry too much about it, maybe try another 3 carder and see if it works with these cards.

Kaz
 

Jewel

Well I just have no clue what happened to my notes on these as well (and I have my homework journal!). I will also go through these again and post them for you SE. Maybe having 2 examples will help you, or at least help us open up the discussion on what we are confused about. Such a shame the original thread was lost :(
 

sarahenglish

Jewel,
I would love to see those notes. If you don't have a scanner, you could fax them to me and I could scan and post for you.
I have been printing out all of the posts that I participate in for my journal. It is really helpful!

sarahenglish said:


Maya-Illusion / Knowledge / Magic
Thesis/Antithesis/Synthesis
Commencement/Opposition/Integration


I think I need to start with the literal meaning of these 3 groups before I even apply them to cards.

Of course I know what the word knowledge means, but not in the context of the other 2. Perhaps I need different words.

Could you interpret the 1st group as:

That which is not/That which is/That which could be?

and could the 2nd be:

A / Opposite of A / A and it's opposite interwoven?

I am still blocked on the commencement one so far as I can tell
commencement refers to the beginning of something, opposition refers to obstacles that will present themselves/ Does integration basically mean the outcome?
 

Jewel

Okies SE, I found my notes on the Body/Mind/Spirit piece, I will have to redo the others but this will give you an idea of how we went about the entire exercise ... this is a long post (possibly 2 posts) but should help in terms of entire process as described by Mary Greer in Chpt. 2:

3 CARD SPREAD - BODY/MIND/SPIRIT
Deck Osho-Zen

Body: Receptivity (Queen of Cups); Mind: IX Aloneness (Hermit); Spirit: 0 Fool

WHAT DO YOU SEE? Receptivity: I see the silouhete of a woman with open arms. Her face is a lotus flower and it appears as if the kundalini is rising up the stem. The lotus flower is open and proejcting/attracting. The Aloneness card shows an elder man with his back to me climbing a green hill. His staff has 4 green leaves. The Fool card shows a young man dressed in colorful leotards, holding a white rose, walking off a cliff looking like he is dancing during his vertical/diagonal descent down the cliff. He is whistful. There is path below leading to snowy mountains. It is dusk, the sun is setting.

WHAT COLORS DO YOU SEE? blue, gray, black, purple, orange, yellow, green. The blues in the first 2 cards are more prominent as are the orange, yellow and green in the last card.

WHAT IS THE ENVIRONMENT IN EACH CARD?
Body - Receptivity: a sense of freedom and openess.
Mind - Aloneness: seeking
Spirit - Care-free

WHAT SYMBOLS ARE THERE?
Body - Receptivity: open arms, nudity, the lotus flower, kundalini
Mind - Aloneness: intent in the man's posture. His live staff.
Spirit - Fool: demeanor of the young man, his costume, the white rose.

DESCRIPTION OF THE CARDS:
Body - Freedom
Mind - Expectant
Spririt - Joy and illusion

INTERPRETATION:

My body (Receptivity) is telling me that I am receptive to the changes I wish to make to it, and that because I have started working on those changes it is making me more open to them. I must take care to not over-indulge in the holidays (I did this reading in December) ... I need to keep the good flow going and not get lazy. My bosy is receptive to suggestion (good or bad).

My mind (Aloneness) is telling me that I should seek time for reflection and gaining wisdom but that it is a challenge to get the time I desire. My mind wants to withdraw and be with itself to study, contemplate and grow.

My spirit (fool) tells me it feels innocent and ready to explore the world of mystery that calls to me. It would happily abandon convention to explore spirituality more deeply. This can be a warning to me as my spirit is strong and tends to be my motivating force.

My body wants me to be receptive and open to what is good for it, like my mind, it is telling me to pursue its knowledge, yet my spirit is urging me to just go forth and do "whatever the little voices tell me to."

Same cards from a time perspective:
I have been wery receptive and drawn to the mystical and spiritual side of myself because it has always felt so right. Now I seek time for deeper exploration of these aspects of myself because I see that the more I get in touch with with myself it creates a balance in me. My spirit yearns for the innocent freedom this brings to me, thus my future looks at the pursuit of this.

What happens is that you draw the interpretations for the different meanings of the spreads by the information you identify in the beginning of the exercise.
 

Kaz

yea, great example jewel, remember it :)

kaz
 

Jewel

Definition of Terms

If I recall I did not go through all of these SE, I just used the ones that were appropriate for me and that I was comfotable with. I did use the illusion one and the commencement one, but I cannot remember if I did the Thesis one. Anyway here is my attempt at helping you define the terms (and I just guessing here so I could be way off):

Maya-Illusion / Knowledge / Magic

Illusion - a misleading image presented to the vision, something you think possibly real, but maybe not. (sort of like the meaning of the Moon card)
Knowledge - What you do know.
Magic - What needs to be in play in order to make the illusion real or for it to manifest.
Thesis/Antithesis/Synthesis - I am pretty much at loss on this one.

Thesis - a position or proposition a person advances and offers to maintain by argument (like a thesis statement in a school paper).

Antithesis - I would say it would be the opposite ... something that stands int he way of you proving your thesis (i.e.: null hypothesis.)

Synthesis - blending of thesis and antithesis creating a transformation that is the result.

Commencement/Opposition/Integration

Commencement - a beginning.
Opposition - a force standing in the way of your progress on what you commenced.
Integration - the card that will help you integrate your goal and opposition to yield a result.

Hope this helps. Anybody out there that can help us out?
 

Jewel

Kaz said:
yea, great example jewel, remember it :)

kaz

You know me and my annal methods of doing exercises *ROFLMAO*
 

Kaz

you did a great explanation here, i use thesis/antithesis/synthesis, and this describes it really well.
the illusion etc sounds fair enough to me, though i don't use that one.
commencement etc, i agree, you will come across this one again when you do chap6, permutations on the CC spread.

kaz
 

sarahenglish

Wow Jewel, that really helps alot! Thank you! I am thinking that I may need to use the universal waite on these excercises because I don't think my crystal deck has enough imagery to really do the excercise justice.