The Ultimate Tarot Guide ~
For Your Personal Tarot Journey
It’s about so much more than the cards.
(EXCERPT)
The Planets
When I first began my own tarot journey, the one thing that I was most struck by was the inter-connectedness of everything. I was amazed to discover that it all works together, all of it, and it’s all tied to the cards: the energies of the planets, of colors, and herbs, and crystals, even to the letters of the alphabet, numbers, and zodiac signs. This realization was an eye-opening “aha” moment.
Below you’ll find the basic energies and correspondences for the planets. You should know, and some of you will realize, that these correspondences not only relate to the tarot, they also relate to a variety of pagan spiritual paths and are incorporated into the practices of many of us.
I wanted this book and the information contained here to specifically focus on tarot, and I even toyed with the idea of paring these sections down and trying to keep them solely focused on the cards. I soon realized this was folly. Certain connections exist and cannot be denied without diminishing their energy and their power.
- Sun
The Sun is filled with healing and hope, warmth and the promise of growth. It’s imbued with masculine energy and is closely connected to the god.
As it pertains to tarot ~ for clients male issues often come to the forefront, their health, happiness, fulfillment, optimism for the future. But it’s energy is also all encompassing for everyone. You’ll find an abundance of strength, unwavering support, and ridiculous amounts of in-your-face positive energy. The future can only be looking up, and if healing is needed in some aspect of your life, you’ll know it’s coming up with the Sun.
Day of the Week: Sunday
Color: yellow, gold
Herbs: angelica, bay, carnation, cedar, chamomile, eyebright, frankincense, ginseng, goldenseal, juniper, marigold mistletoe, peony pineapple, rosemary, St. John’s Wort, sandalwood, sunflower, tea, witch hazel
Stones: amber, carnelian, diamond, sunstone, tiger’s-eye, topaz (yellow)
Element: Fire
Energies: magick for the god, male health issues, passion, healing, spiritual connection, transformation, relationship issues
- Moon
The Moon embodies the pagan goddess in paramount magical waves of silver energy. All three aspects of her, maiden, mother, and crone.
As it pertains to tarot ~ All feminine aspects rise to the surface. Women’s issues become relevant and the focus is on health, embracing natural gifts, healing, and expanding our energy and magick to the universe and beyond. Femininity becomes divine. But there is another side to this planet, the dark side. Deception and hidden motives will be revealed. Shadows will be illuminated, warnings given, gray areas of life highlighted. In this aspect, the Moon becomes a friendly enemy. As a look out or scout, the Moon will give a warning cry.
Day of the week: Monday
Color: silver, blue, gray
Herbs: bladderwrack, calamus, camellia, clematis, club moss, dulse, gardenia, grape, passion flower, jasmine, lily, lotus, moonflower, moonwort, myrrh, poppy, sandalwood, willow
Stones: aquamarine, chalcedony moonstone, mother-of-pearl, sapphire, quartz (clear)
Element: Water
Energies: magick for the goddess, healing, visions, dreams, intuition, divination, clairvoyance, women’s issues, motherhood, fertility
- Earth
The Earth embodies our connection to the physical plane and embraces our materialistic existence.
As it pertains to tarot ~ Sometimes this planet’s energy is a much needed anchor, grounding or re-grounding us to reality, to our bodies and the life lessons we learn from it, to the energy of other living things around us, whether plant or animal. The Earth helps us to retain a connection with our ancestors, our traditions, and our lineage with humanity.
Day of the week: all seven
Colors: green, brown
Herbs: barley, beet, corn, cotton, fern, honeysuckle, mugwort, oats, oleander, patchouli, potato, primrose, rhubarb, tulip, turnip, vervain, wheat
Stones: agate (green), agate (moss), coal, emerald, hematite, jasper (brown), jasper (green), malachite, Peridot, salt, tourmaline (black), tourmaline (green)
Element: all four
Energies: grounding, healing your inner self, connecting with ancestors, fertility, expansion, overcoming impossible odds, durability
- Mars
Mars embodies the spirit of the warrior and pushes us with a merciless shove forward to stand our ground and fight our battles.
As it pertains to tarot ~ Mars commands us to be strong, relentlessly thrusting the sword and spear in our shaky uncertain hands, forcing us to take a stand, face an enemy, make a point. It shines brilliance and shameless illumination on the-principle-of-the-thing. The energy of this planet demands that we dig deep and discover within ourselves integrity and potential.
Day of the week: Tuesday
Color: orange
Herbs: allspice, basil, blood root, cactus, chili pepper, dragon’s blood, garlic, ginger, holly, horseradish, mustard, nettle, onion, pepper, pine, radish, snapdragon, thistle, tobacco, wormwood
Stones: bloodstone, garnet, jasper (red), ruby, tourmaline (red)
Element: Fire
Energies: defensive magick, regaining lost territory, assertion, resolving disagreement, successfully handling disruption, goals
- Mercury
Mercury connects us to the magic of communication and ethereal creativity.
As it pertains to tarot ~ This planet salvages lost ideas, unspoken thoughts, and words ripped from our lips by the winds of uncertainty and hesitation. Mercury has the ability to reconnect us with loved ones, ideas, and most importantly, it reconnects us to ourselves. This planet highlights and plugs into the inter-connectedness of the human psyche.
Day of the week: Wednesday
Color: silver, yellow
Herbs: almond, bracken, caraway, clover, dill, fennel, flax, lavender, lemongrass, mandrake, marjoram, mint, papyrus, parley, pistachio, senna, slippery elm, wax plant
Stones: agate, jasper (mottled), citrine, topaz (yellow), amber
Element: Air
Energies: creativity– writing, painting, sculpting, music, etc.; creativity, mental issues, learning energy, summoning spirits
- Jupiter
Jupiter is all about expansion and growth, making more of something, or making it bigger.
As it pertains to tarot ~ Jupiter likes to speed up the process. This planet is all about developing and building on your ideas, your plan, your potential. It’s bigger-than-life energy will take us beyond our modest dreams, and ideas, and visions, elevating us and our efforts to new planes of success and growth. Things are going to happen when this planet is involved, and they usually happen in a big way.
Day of the week: Thursday
Color: purple
Herbs: anise, borage, cinquefoil, clove, dandelion, dill, fig, honeysuckle, hyssop, liverwort, maple, meadowsweet, mint, nutmeg, patchouli, sage, star anise
Stones: aventurine, amethyst, mystic topaz, jasper (brown), peridot, malachite, tourmaline (green)
Element: Earth
Energies: magick for expansion and growth, money and legal issues, employment, abundance, material opportunities
- Venus
Venus embodies love, healthy sexuality, romance, physical beauty, and the love of beautiful things in our lives, whether it be our surroundings, or the things we fill this space with.
As it pertains to tarot ~ Venus is all our fairy tales and dreams come to life, with a healthy dose of reality thrown in. Hopeless romantics will never give up on finding the perfect mate, and this planet will make sure this pursuit will have a promising, if not perfect, ending. We chase physical beauty the same way we chase love, and Venus will address this timeless pursuit as well, often redefining this attribute for us.
Day of the week: Friday
Color: pink, green
Herbs: African violet, apple, apricot, aster, barley, birch, bleeding heart, cardamom, catnip, columbine, crocus, cyclamen, foxglove, geranium, goldenrod, heather, hibiscus, hyacinth, iris, larkspur, lilac, magnolia, willow
Stones: blue lace agate, moonstone, selenite, crystal quartz, chalcedony, rose quartz
Element: Water
Energies: magick for love and romance, sex, lust, passion, fidelity, beauty, resolving relationship issues, friendship
- Saturn
Saturn is full of dark and sometimes dangerous energy, and this is the very energy we have to be brave enough to utilize if life calls us to it.
As it pertains to tarot ~ The sweet taste of revenge often cloys in our mouth when this planet appears. The very idea makes many of us uncomfortable, some of us still enveloped in archaic and conservative modes of consciousness. But from the black depths of the universe, as well as the murky corners of our minds, we realize that there is a time and a place and a reason for Saturn’s darkness. Hopefully not all of us will have need of it, but do not fear it, and do not flinch from it, should it come up in your life.
Day of the week: Saturday
Color: black
Herbs: amaranth, beet, belladonna, boneset, comfrey, fumitory, hellebore, hemlock, hemp, ivy, knot weed, mimosa, morning glory, mullein, quince, skullcap, slippery elm, tamarisk, wolf’s bane
Stones: jet, onyx, apache tear, obsidian, tourmaline (black), coal, hematite
Element: Earth, Fire
Energies: protection, hexing/cursing, retribution, dark magick, revealing truth
- Neptune
Neptune hangs on tenaciously to reality for dear life, constantly bombarded by delusions and addictions.
As it pertains to tarot ~ The dark side is dangerously close to the surface when Neptune appears. It can encompass the diffused hazy world of drug addiction and mental illness. The energy of Neptune, if broken like a wild horse, tamed, and put to good use, can be a startling illumination of incredible awe inspiring intuition and insight. There’s a very thin line between genius and insanity. Neptune takes us there.
Day of the week ~ Thursday
Colors ~ green, blue, lavender
Herbs ~ bulrush, lobelia, morning glory, night-blooming jasmine, pine, reed, reed canary grass, water lily
Stones ~ coral, aquamarine, platinum, neptunium
Element ~ Water
Energies ~ dissolving boundaries, expanding upon ideas, changing established rules, intuition, idealism, sacrifice, glamour, illusion, evolution and decay
- Uranus
Uranus digs it’s stubborn heels into the soul of the individualist, celebrating eccentricity and rebellion.
As it pertains to tarot~ This planet lets us know that we’re in up to our necks if we’re dealing with its energy. Getting anything done, like convincing the hoards that we have a good idea, or progressing at any acceptable rate with whatever we’re plunging into, is going to be a long difficult painful process. The energy of Uranus is maddening in it’s inability to compromise. It’s cursed with the ability to turn a blind eye, to avoid conflict at any cost, or to avoid assertion on every level. The lazy-ass energy of Uranus will lay, inert, at our feet.
Day of the week ~ Tuesday, Saturday
Colors ~ red
Herbs ~ hot herbs: cayenne pepper, jalapenos; blood root; hemlock; belladonna
Stones ~ red stones: jasper, garnet, ruby
Element ~ Fire
Energies ~ originality, eccentricity, sensuality, perversions, daring, idealism, conflict
- Pluto
Pluto comes streaking in with incredible force to destroy everything in its path. Everything in it’s wake seems to be touched by its terrible energy. We stand amidst ground zero, and we wail, we moan, we beat our chest, only to open our eyes and look around in profound wonder and amazement. All the crap is gone. The slate is clean. We can begin again.
As it pertains to tarot ~ This planet has much the same effect on us and our lives as the major arcana card The Tower. They share much of the same destructive and disruptive tendencies. However, Pluto is more discernible. It’s more apt to leave what we need and wipe out what was getting in our way.
Day of the week ~ Saturday
Colors ~ black
Herbs ~ angelica, black snake root, cinnamon, clove, dill, dragon’s blood, mustard, onion, shallot, thistle, peppermint, tobacco, wormwood
Stones ~ black stones: onyx, hematite, obsidian
Element ~ Fire
Energies ~ destruction, renewal, enlightenment, research, clearing, burning off, polar opposites, criminals, inspirational gurus
BOOKS BY AMYTHYST RAINE @ AMAZON
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