By Sarah Taylor

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” ~ Joseph Campbell

As with last week, this week we have another reading with two Major Arcana cards — this time, accompanied by a Court Card, which seats it very practically: there is something you can do, or rather something you can be or at least be aware of while the big changes that the cards suggest take place around and through you.

Princess of Cups, The Magician, The Tower from the Haindl Tarot deck, created by Hermann Haindl. Click on the image for a larger version.

And there are big changes, no two ways about it. What’s interesting to me, though, is that, once again, there will be times where things will simply seem to happen to you — that’s The Tower. But there will be ways that you can exercise agency in those events. You do not simply need to react to them. You have the ability to respond, too.

Remember that: the difference between reacting and responding.

That difference may seem subtle, but there is a chasm of difference between the two states. You are holding the potential to cross that chasm from one of being spectator to one of being a conscious participant.

The key to this lies especially in the relationship between the central card, The Magician, and the card to its left, The Princess (Page in the Rider-Waite Smith tarot deck) of Cups. More on that a little later.

First, the two Major Arcana cards. If you read this column regularly, you’ll know that I refer to Major Arcana cards as Soul-based archetypes. Together, the Majors comprise what Joseph Campbell described as The Hero’s Journey: the call to a personal mythical adventure that we choose to undertake consciously. Each experience we face, whether perilous or joyous, is a step towards becoming a whole person, and a unique one. We learn who we are, and where we have strayed from the path by trying to be someone we are not.

Archetypes are invisible and impossible to know or experience fully. We reach them through personal mythical tools, whether dreams, creative acts or, in this instance, tarot. They move through us, and we can sense them and their presence even if we can’t fully understand or pin them down.

Two Majors, as with last week, means that something significant is afoot. Pay attention to your dreams, to synchronicities, to recurring themes that seem to pop up asking for attention in your life — sometimes wrapped up in the least likely, most low-key exteriors. (Be prepared to share this with someone you trust. I tend to recommend a therapist who is well-versed in dream-interpretation because they will not only be prepared to take that journey with you, but they will also be a grounding element to your experiences. They will help you parse out the gold from the bullshit of illusion and wishful thinking.)

The Magician is the first port of call, because he is central to the reading and the first card I drew. He is the anchor. He is currently, or will soon be, active in your psyche. He is the manifestor, the darer, the creator. He takes the four elements, or suits, that make up the Minor Arcana as your day-to-day experiences, and shapes his environment from them.

The Magician also corresponds with Mercury in astrology, so pay attention to what unfolds in your experiences during the upcoming Mercury retrograde period of Jan. 5 to 24.

You are in the act of creating something. But what are you creating? And where is that creation coming from? What are your motives? How is your integrity to the call of your own Hero’s Journey?

Look at The Magician carefully. There are two faces in the card. The first one, bathed in light, faces towards the card on the left, the Princess of Cups. The second, bathed in shadow, faces towards the card on the right, The Tower.

The Tower is a particularly physical card, in that it is more often than not an outwardly experienced event based on an inner shift. The Death card is inner transformation. The Tower, on the other hand, is what happens a little further on down the road from that inner transformation — the ripple effect. Once you have shed a skin (which was indicated by Death, card XIII, in the near past position in last week’s reading), and you have readjusted your course (Temperance, card XIV), what is then able to emerge is what was rendered to the darkness in the first place (The Devil, card XV).

You, Hero of your own Journey, have created the space to let in enough light to see what you hadn’t known about yourself before this. And from this encounter comes another shift: The Tower, which is the falling away of something that will simply not stand in integrity anymore.

The Tower is ruled by Mars, so this falling away can be sudden and powerful. It may take you unawares, but it will not be entirely unexpected when you’ve had some time to survey the rubble. It will only be because you were trying to convince yourself you could keep on keeping on. That you had this. That you could control uncontrollable circumstances that were trapping you and keeping you from your real purpose.

The Tower can also be a blessed, expansive relief and release of something holding you down and back. One way or the other, The Tower meets denial with reality.

The funny thing is that when I see this particular version of The Tower today, I see ribbons dancing around a soulless monolith. Maybe there is more cause to celebrate than you first think? The clue for this lies in the card towards which the light face in The Magician is looking: the Princess of Cups.

In the little white book that accompanies the Haindl Tarot, which is based on the longer books by Rachel Pollack, the description for the reversed meaning of the Princess of Cups is, “Importance of personal history ignored.”

Here is the key to the agency that I wrote is available to you in this reading — the one that works with the energy of The Tower, rather than in denial of it.

Look at your personal history and the role that it plays in how you choose to operate and shape your current experience. Are you doing something because it is an expression of the truth of who you are? Are you following a personal calling?

Are you walking a path simply because it is the path that you are expected to walk?

Or are you doing it as a denial of who you don’t want to be?

That last one is important, because frequently it is your heartfelt determination not to be like someone, or not to do what you are supposed to do, that drives you: it drives you back towards the very thing you are expending so much energy running from.

The only way out, this time, is through. You cannot circumvent history. You can only change it by, finally, feeling it. We are in the realm of Cups here. By entering the cave of your ancestors, you are giving yourself the time and space to heal your heart. There is an element of surrender to this. You cannot force yourself to feel, but you can stop holding onto what isn’t working any more. You don’t have to be shaken off. You can simply let go. And by “letting go” I don’t mean giving up or giving in, or rescinding responsibility. It is the most responsible act you can do: responding rather than reacting.

Be aware that it’s hard to see and look for our blind spots. They are, by design, hidden from direct view. Again, it is better to call in assistance. Find someone who will listen and hold you if need be. Find a quiet place where you can feel that you are a product of where you came from, but not a victim of it. Or find both. I am a huge proponent of personal therapy if it is within your means. If not, then a confidante is an excellent idea.

This is great work here — the Great Work. But you have both the archetype of The Magician and the soulful connection to your beautiful heart. And you have the chance to build on firmer foundations: the ones that connect you to your integrity, your Soul. The Tower is not compulsory; neither is it the monster that so many people build it up to be. The pain is optional and it comes in the holding on. The letting go allows the new into the picture. The energy starts moving. There is room to breathe, and to live.

Astrology/Elemental correspondences: Princess of Cups (the earthy aspect of water), The Magician (Mercury), The Tower (Mars)

If you want to experiment with tarot cards and don’t have any, we provide a free tarot spread generator using the Celtic Wings spread, which is based on the traditional Celtic Cross spread. This article explains how to use the spread.

Vision Quest, Planet Waves’ 2016 annual edition, is fast approaching publication. Pre-order all 12 signs at a great value or choose your individual signs.

By Judith Gayle | Political Waves

The new year is here and I’m jazzed about it. I can’t shake the feeling that this is the year that things will start to come together. There are signs. The public is aware of the influences attempting to sway it as it hasn’t been in decades, the young folks are engaged because there are growing movements they can relate to, and disclosure continues to inform us even as those desperate to keep secrets work to cover them over.

Even more than these growing signs of progress, we’ve largely given up trying to make sense of the system and begun to think outside of the box. I’ve seen shifts in people’s behavior, their approach to their lives, and their livelihoods. I’ve witnessed attempts to change patterns, remediate attitudes, and moderate habits. I’ve watched as light bulbs went on over heads — and rejoiced. Perhaps we’ve finally accepted that we can’t solve our problems using the same mindset that made them. That’s a learning curve, of course, but it will change everything.

I don’t expect any of this to come effortlessly, of course, but I do expect more creative solutions and collaborative activism, more sociopolitical investment from the average Joe and Jill. At least from those who have broken out of their slumber to discover that their societal norms can’t be shoved back into outdated molds, and who can’t help but notice that a good many of the corporate entities they didn’t think too hard about — media, for instance — are showing their true colors. Like the Washington Post.

Despite its fame in green-lighting a young team of reporters to investigate the Watergate break-in and then backing them to go up against “All The President’s Men,” the Post has lost any remaining credibility with those looking for an untainted spectrum of information. It dutifully reports establishment politics now, moderately conservative and watchful for those who shake the tree too hard. I seldom read WaPo, although I miss regularly visiting Ann Telnaes and Tom Toles’ ‘toons (available elsewhere by scouting around.)

Back in 2005, for instance, WaPo writer and outspoken critic of the status quo, Dan Froomkin, began to take heat from those he’d offended and was eventually bounced off the payroll. Now the Post has axed revered lefty and #2 most famous Democratic Socialist, Harold Meyerson, due to ‘disinterest’ among the readership. According to Wiki, he was named one of “the most influential commentators in the nation” by  Atlantic Monthly in 2009.

Digby announced ​his dismissal with this lede: “The Washington Post just dissed the single largest faction in the Democratic Party.” Bernie Sanders didn’t think there was disinterest in the things Meyerson writes, now exclusively as editor-at-large of The American Prospect. Bernie tweeted his dismay: “There are few progressive voices in corporate media. @HaroldMeyerson is one of the best. His insights will be sorely missed by Post readers.”

You get the sense that Fred Hiat, the Post editorial editor who puts popularity before duty to inform the public, would be thrilled to have Trump weigh in as a weekly contributor, bumping the readership and selling more papers, even if it means encouraging NeoNazism, xenophobia and hate speech. Hiat is, judging by standards set by his betters, no journalist. As Digby comments:

So, here we are in a primary campaign just a month ahead of the first votes. Polls show that AT LEAST 30% of the Democratic Party are receptive to Bernie Sanders’ democratic socialist message. Progressives are the single largest faction of the Democratic Party, roughly mirroring the Republican party’s evangelical support. And yet, the Washington Post is firing the one columnist on their staff who writes about the issues that are energizing these millions of mainstream Americans.

The progressive movement is under attack. The blackout on Sanders is a worrisome thing, considering how much populist support he’s getting from the average discouraged liberal. The kids love him, as do elders on the left. If he could get a foothold with the minorities, if his agenda got decent news coverage across media, he’d be a real contender. As yet, that remains to be seen — but ​never fear. This year, thinking outside of the box, I expect to see surprises.

This coming year will be one in which ​No Drama Obama acts independently as often as possible, while keeping his head below the flack shooting back and forth between candidates in the right-wing reality show. Cruz is breathing down Donald’s neck at the moment, and that should prove most interesting. If Hillary’s money and establishment connections give her the lead and it turns out she is up against Cruz, that will be two of the most despised candidates of all time running against one another.

If you read right-wing blog responses on the Clintons, the level of hatred will take your breath away (not to mention that they feel the same way about me, and maybe you) but they love Cruz and his family values. Meanwhile, establishment politicians and progressives and even many within his own Bagger schism consider him an ass. With eleven months of this nonsense to go, it would be easy enough to allow it to become background noise, but let’s try not to. This is for the presidency, and while Obama has shown us its limits, there’s no denying the ​power of the pulpit and the impact on direction this leg of democracy wields.

For those of you who like year-end lists, here are a few: this is some of what the Supreme Court accomplished in 2015, and what they’re thinking about. SCOTUS, by the way, is THE big deal for 2016 because the new president will have as many as THREE nominees to deal with.

As for unfinished business — and there’s always plenty — here are the most under reported stories in both the U.S. according to Bill Moyers, and in the Middle East according to Juan Cole, both opinions as trust worthy as it gets.

2015 was a difficult, bloody and daunting year, but it is behind us, and 2016 asks us to commit to using our imagination, our common values of decency, self-respect and belief in democratic principles to make this new one a game-changer for us all.

Yes, we’re going somewhere this year, my dears. I can feel it ​vibrating, shimmering just out of sight, even if we’re tasked with digging through the craziness to get to it. I’m encouraged to refine my vision for what I want the year to bring us all, to share that whenever possible, to keep my patience and my balance.

The Pope made a few comments at his final prayer service of the year, mentioning how it was impossible to forget “so many days marked by violence, by death, by the unspeakable suffering of so many innocents.” Still, he pointed to the “great gestures of goodness, love and solidarity” that don’t make headlines as “… signs of love [that] can’t and mustn’t be obscured by the tyranny of evil.” He added that good always triumphs.

Gandhi would approve. He told us, “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won.”

That’s the vision for 2016. Stay in your heart, step beyond your fears, and let’s see what we can make of a year of truth and love!

The civil calendar used by most of you is based on the amount of time it takes for our Earth to orbit the Sun. Even so, the beginning of the civil new year every Jan. 1 does not consistently correspond with any especially meaningful point in the relationship between the Earth and Sun.

Similarly, the calendar subdivision called a month is named after the Moon. The months, however, do not follow the schedule of lunar cycles (from one New Moon to the next) with any sort of meaningful precision.

Nevertheless, there is an undeniable (albeit residual) connection between how you customarily mark the passage of months and years with rhythms of the sky. For that reason alone, it is worth noting what is new up above as we observe the beginning of a civil new year here below.

Interestingly, the new year 2016 is being ushered in with, marked by and immediately followed up by three instances of one of he most meaningful types of events for astrologers: planets moving from one sign to another.

It is fair to compare a planet changing signs to an actor changing costume. It is no small thing. With movement from one field of expression to another comes an implicit change of character. Furthermore, the nature of the planet in question can, in combination with its new background, usually be observed to correspond to at least some of what you observe in your life. When several planets move from one sign to another in a short period of time, there are indications of several factors combining to indicate the quality of the time.

If there is anything to such indications, 2016 will be a year when you will be able to make a difference more than in most years that have come before. It all started with Venus changing signs yesterday. As noted in this space on Tuesday, to have Venus leave Scorpio behind to express itself through the raiment of Sagittarius includes a corresponding implication: that prioritizing the expression of your conscience would be an appropriate way for you to participate in kind.

Tomorrow, shortly before 9:20 pm EST (02:19:41 UTC Jan. 2), Mercury marks the first day of 2016 by entering Aquarius. Then, just after 9:32 am EST (14:32:20 UTC) Sunday, Mars will depart Libra to ingress Scorpio. It is not often that three sign-ruling planets move from one signature to another in a handful of days. It is even more seldom that such a nearly concurrent shift takes place as one calendar year is transitioning to the next.

You know from your own experience that initial conditions are a big factor in how nearly anything eventually turns out. One example is how the nature of your morning effects the rest of your day. So, to get a hint of how 2016 might well turn out, it would probably be a good idea to consider what Mercury, Venus and Mars have in common.

That would be the label “personal planet.” In other words, because their orbits around the Sun (and through the 12 zodiac signs) repeat many times in a typical human lifetime, Mercury, Venus and Mars are thought to correspond with recurring cycles in your life more than is the case with objects that move more slowly.

That’s how the quality of 2016 might be anticipated to emphasize that the conduct of your personal life will be no small factor in the world. Such will especially be the case if you can bring yourself to initiate some changes of your own. Significantly, the first day of January is often taken as an occasion to make resolutions for the new year.

To be in step with the astrology, then, you might want to resolve to make some conscientious resolutions as regards to your own character and modalities of expression — at least to begin with.

Stage One of Vision Quest — the written readings for all 12 signs — have just been published! Order all 12 signs here, or get individual signs here.

After all, neither Mercury nor Mars will proceed to plunge ahead in the same way Venus will. Mercury’s first ingress to Aquarius will be quickly followed by the beginning of its first retrograde of the year beginning on Jan. 5. That retrograde will return Mercury to Capricorn on Jan. 8.

Hence, if some of your resolutions require you to review, recalculate or simply re-live a bit of what you have been through in order to move on, have faith that some of the more promising initial conditions of 2016 can be revisited once you go through whatever process of closure will be necessary for you move on.

Things will be only slightly different for Mars, which rules Scorpio in addition to Aries. While the red planet will indeed complete a full-length tour of its Scorpio domain, a retrograde beginning in Sagittarius on April 17 will compel Mars to make a slight return to Scorpio — as if to tie up a few loose ends before it consolidates its gains later this year.

Therefore, don’t be discouraged by any apparent setbacks when making or working towards your personal resolutions for 2016. So long as you are doing the right thing (Venus), being mindful (Mercury) of completing necessary processes, and applying your energies (Mars) with consistency and patience, indications are that you will not be alone in enjoying the benefits of making meaningful changes in your character and means of expression in the year to come..

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