One really interesting way to understand tarot card meanings is to investigate their relative positions on the tree of life. I’ll give you an example. Check out the three horizontal paths on the tree:

From the topmost (highest/purest energy) horizontal path, you have the Empress/Daleth. The middle path, just below the abyss, is Lust/Teth. Then the lowest path is The Tower/Pe. Given that the Empress is attributed to Venus and love, and an alternate name for The Tower is “War,” then you can see the way the purity of the concept degrades as you go down the tree:

Another example: The 2 and 3 of Cups are above the tree’s abyss, and Crowley calls them “Love” and “Abundance.” The 4 of Cups is the highest energy water card below the abyss, and it is called “Luxury.” Think about the statement being made, about the relative purity of love and abundance, versus luxury. Kinda neat. There are a lot of interesting relationships like that, encoded on the tree of life.

It seems to me that one of the most important tarot-reading skills is the ability to map the cards to the domain of the question. After all, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the 5 of Wands show up and told the querent “you will fight with sticks.”

Anyway…. Today I was thinking specifically about the role of the Major arcana in my readings. Kind of a back-to-basics thing. And, I was trying to find worthwhile exercises besides simply doing as many readings as possible. So, I thought it would be fun to map the standard “Fool’s Journey” to various domains. In the course of a real reading, this needs to be done on the fly, but I’m betting offline practice may be useful.

Tonight I’m pretty tired, so I’ll take a shot at “The Career Journey.” It’s kind-of a subset of the overall Fool’s Journey, which made the mapping pretty easy. Mostly, anyway. I am least happy with the ideas I had for empress/emperor… I think pointing at the parents is a bit of a cop-out. But oh well!

The Career Journey

• Fool: A person ventures out into the working world. Since I love women, and I’d like to pick a pronoun to use, let’s say she’s a woman.
• Magician: She has certain talents and abilities that are marketable.
• High Priestess: She has underlying motivations and needs driving her to seek work
• Empress: I’ll say this represents the various ways her mother prepared her for a career. Ideas and expectations her mother put in her head about career.
• Emperor: Ideas and expectations about her career that she absorbed from her father. Again, I’m wondering if there’s not a better mapping for this one.
• Hierophant: Teachers/Friends/Society advise her about what kinds of jobs would be appropriate.
• Lovers: She finds jobs and companies that look like a good fit to her, based on her pre-conceived notions about her ideal career.
• Chariot: She makes sure that she fits the mold (looks right, acts right, has the right items on resume, etc.) necessary to get her intended job.

Great! Now she’s got a job. Now what?

• Strength: She masters the job she gets, and does good work. She’s putting her talents into action and making a name for herself. Her magician’s potential is actualized.
• Hermit: Mentors she meets broaden her horizons. Also, as she gains experience she can teach others what she knows.
• Wheel of Fortune: Through experience, and through Hermits she runs across, she gains a deeper understanding of how her area of the business world works (the causes and effects… like how to get promoted, who to watch out for, procedures, etc.).
• Justice: She gets a promotion/signs NDAs/makes business agreements/etc.
• Hanged Man: Over time, she gets into a rut (dead-end position, or just not fun anymore, or working for an abusive boss, etc.). But, she doesn’t seem to be able to do anything about it. She’s comfortable where she is. Inertia sets in.
• Death: She finally changes jobs/requests a transfer/re-defines her role. She starts something new. She takes herself out of her comfort zone for her own good, and gets out of her rut.
• Temperance: Her experiences and challenges help her to better understand herself. What does she really want out of her job, and where do her true talents lie?

Well, that doesn’t sound too bad! Of course anyone familiar with the tarot knows that there’s trouble ahead… fasten your seatbelts…

• The Devil: The experience of Death and Temperance has changed her. Her current position and responsibilities no longer seem to fit. Her desired career may not be in line at all with what she originally wanted, or what her parents or culture expect of her. She feels constrained. She’s out of phase with her own life.
• The Tower: Eventually the tension and dissatisfaction with her job may reach life-altering proportions. Even if outwardly successful, she becomes depressed. She doesn’t know who she is anymore. Everything she thought she knew in the Chariot era was wrong. Her dissatisfaction may distract her and cause her work to suffer, and in the worst case she’ll even be fired.
• The Star: Once the mental scaffolding around her intended career has come down, and she’s accepted that she’s made some wrong turns, then she is finally free to clear her head and start planning again. It feels good to have a clean slate.
• The Moon: But it’s also confusing. She reflects on what she’s learned, and feels around for the next step.
• The Sun: Inspiration strikes, and a new career path becomes clear to her.
• Judgment: She is able to act swiftly and forcefully to re-organize her life around her new path. The changes are potentially disruptive and surprising to others, but are made with clear intent. Maybe she suddenly resigns, or requests a sabbatical to write a novel. Things like that.
• World: Having found her new path, and made the necessary adjustments, her career journey is complete. Or to be more precise… her career journey starts again.