Most creation or origin stories, have a moral or a point to them, and in essence Tarot is not really any different. Each deck that you come into contact with lets you know very quickly if they want to work with you. 

Typically its an overall image from the deck or an individual card from the Major or Minor Arcana that gives the answer.

That's the Rosetta Stone, your key to the language of that deck and also the Tarot itself, I often ponder on whether if the deck creates itself or if its the author/designer that creates it, perhaps its a bit of both.

As readers/collectors, we are drawn into that world, and that language. One image may open a door, but its the deck that invites us in, and invites our clients in as well. 

Which does beg another question of the moment, who does the reading, the cards or the person reading them? Think about it, sometimes words just flow out of the mouth and they astound the sitter, because there is no way we could have known, yet we do...

Could this be yet another part of the Sacred Knowledge, that the cards and the reader form a symbiotic relationship, that reveals the sitters inner most moments to us?

It's worthy of note that this time of year has connections to at least two of the cards, and if you look through the cards used so far, you may notice that I have that theme running through the post.

Reincarnation, much like the cycles of life are perhaps one of the more indepth and hidden aspects of sacred knowledge that appear within the Tarot, no matter the deck. 

That said, I wonder then, have humans always carried the knowledge of the life/death cycle within them all this time, after all our cells do this all the time.

The Shaman's, Wise Women, Wise Men, Druids, Celts, Picts, Myans and Astecs, were sacred knowledge keepers. 

The Mystics, Oracles, and yes even Witches of old knew the old ways, and the sacred ways long before society sprouted up along the groves and leys...

Thing is as much as society, science, social media and politics try to divide us, Tarot brings us closer together (and yes I do realise how trite that sounds). 

Look at its rich history and culture, there are cards and decks written in Arabic, Albanian, Afrikaans, Basque, Cantonese, Catalan as well as English, French and German.

Each translation gives the reader, a glimpse into the sacred knowledge, not only of their own society but also the world's and the collective's as well. 

There is a power and indeed richness in understanding the vastness of just how extensive and Universal the reach of theTarot's Language is.

It's funny, as I am putting this together, (kind of at the last minute if I am honest) a memory tickled my consciousness, back from a semi-dark period in this incarnation of the life/death cycle...

God's, even pondering on that era for a moment, I was a cocky little sh... Well you get the picture, I thought I had the world and its people sussed out, and could make something of myself over on the East Coast...

Ha! Could I buggery, anyway that's not the point of this passage, its the memory I spoke about in the paragraph above, that I wanted to tell you about. 

There is a point to this, outside the vanity of self reflective naval gazing, I promise...

Picture it, the year is 1997; a scrawny bleach blonde 22 year old, has moved away from home, trying to prove himself...

T'was a night like this... 

Samhain, and the wheel was in the midst of turning. There was a party happening that I had been invited to attend, just a few wiccan, pagan, heathan, LGBT XYZ'ers doing what they do best, trying to hook up with the hottest person there, drinking till the fae appeared, that sort of thing...

Our scrawny bleach blonde haired queerant, arrived at the party and there was a definate King of Wands, with a mighty fine staff in attendance, and our queerant in question, was feeling a turning of some kind going on, enter the Heirophant...

Now our scrawny queerant and the Heirophant both had eyes for the King, well more than eyes, more like loins but you get the idea... Now enter the Tarot, the means of communicating that the Heirophant and Queerant intended to use to ward each other off the King, well that was the idea anyway...

Think of this like a Duel, but in place of guns, its Tarot Cards. Yes, thats right the Heirophant and Queerant, the unlikeliest of friends, going to battle over a man-boy King, using Tarot...

The cards were flying, Major Arcana wards, battling Minor Arcana inferred references; the Queerant and Heirophant each trying to ward the other off the man-boy King. 

When I think about it now, its laughable but a brilliant example of how the Language of Tarot, or 'The Great Tarot Battle' history never knew took place, resulted in neither the Heirophant or the Queerant getting the Man-Boy King.

You see, his highness, had designs of his own... He ended up playing bouncy, bouncy, with some Knight of Cups...

Like with many of my Hop posts, I don't always know where I am heading until I get there, and if I am honest I guess until recently it was the same in life as well...

These days, I have a few more wisdom lines, and a bit more knowledge around the waist. 

Yet, when I look back, however briefly, I recognise that if I had properly paid attention to the cards that night, they were warning me not only of the disaster that befell that evening, but also of the impending disasters waiting the rest of my time on the East Coast.

The Language of the Tarot, is multifaceted; from being used as a coded battle of words, then into a Duel, to now being an endless source of imagination, imagery, and answers to questions, that I don't even know I had.

As I said during the start of this hop post, there is a theme that runs through my posts. If you have noticed, the Wheel of Fortune and Death have both been the images of choice.

The reason for The High Priestess is because this is the eighth card. Normally, like The Magician, she keeps her knowledge a closely guarded secret.

In this case, the Sacred Knowledge surrounds what Samian represents, the turning of the wheel, the release of all that no longer services us from this cycle, and taking with us only the knowledge that services us as, we move forward in progression to the next cycle.

So I wonder, what knowledge, what Sacred purpose will you take with you from this cycle into the next one?

To leave me a comment visit Jay Cassels Page on Facebook and look for the pinned post.

Thanks for Hopping By, and see you for the Next Cycle.