A significator is a card that is used in a tarot spread to represent the querent (the person asking the question).  Not all readers use significators. Some don’t use them at all. Some use them only with certain spreads. Some use them in every reading. I suggest trying various methods to see what, if any, work for you. Also, try new methods (or revisit previously discarded methods) every year or so. You never know when something that didn’t work in the past will work in the present. This is one way I keep my reading practice fresh.

How do you select a Significator?

There are so many ways! Here are a few traditional methods. Next time, I’ll share a few modern methods, as well as ways to use significators in your readings.

1. Major Arcana Significator

This one is simple: use the Magician for a male querent and the High Priestess for a female querent.

The downside of this method is that it takes the card selected out of play. A solution? Use a Magician or High Priestess from another deck.

2. Physical Realm Significators

These methods rely on a querent’s physical appearance or birthdate to determine a significator. These are traditional methods and not ones that I favor for various reasons.

To use age as a method, use the list below to select the appropriate card court rank, then select that rank from the suit that most matches the querent’s personality:

• A Page for a child or young woman
• A Knight for a young man
• A Queen for a woman
• A King for a mature man

Physical appearance:

• Wands–fair skin with blond hair and blue eyes
• Cups–light to medium skin wiht light brown hair and blue or hazel eyes
• Swords–olive skin with dark hair and light eyes
• Pentacles–dark skin with dark hair and dark eyes

Astrological sign:

• Wands–Aries, Leo, Sagittarius
• Cups–Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces
• Swords–Gemini, Libra, Aquarius
• Pentacles–Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn

Personality:

• Wands–fiery, passionate, energetic person
• Cups–emotional, creative, sensitive person
• Swords–intellectual, logical person
• Pentacles–down-to-earth, practical person

Next week:

Modern methods of selecting significators and effectively incorporating significators into your readings. What are some of your favorite techniques?

She is often an enigmatic card, sometimes frustrating, because we often say of her that she “knows but doesn’t tell.” She keeps silent. She represents that answer that you already know deep within your heart, whether you are ready to acknowledge it or not. This is why it can be so frustrating when it comes up in a reading. A person comes to the card for answers and the answer given by the High Priestess is “you already know.”

Historically, this card was called The Papess and generally not an admired character, as she represented either an abomination or a falsehood. That is, she either was something that shouldn’t be (women could not serve as a priest, let alone a pope) or a lie, a woman pretending to be a man.

The image is from Ciro Marchetti’s Legacy of the Divine Tarot

Now here is the thing about Readers Studio and why it is more than just an educational opportunity and why it is an experience that cannot be replaced by a book or even on online class. Almost everything that is taught is then practiced and experienced by everyone there. You perform the technique and you are on the receiving end of the technique. In addition to honing your skills as a reader, you receive intensely powerful readings that can change your life.

There is something about being physically present with someone that adds to or affects the energy present in your experience. And, as we discovered by sitting in a tight circle with our knees touching, there is something about physical connection that intensifies that affect.

What happened to me? I was sitting in a circle touching knees with Rachel Pollack, Joanna Powell Colbert, Beth Owl’s Daughter, and Judy Nathan. Add to that mix Mary Greer, who was leading the workshop, and you’ve got an awful lot of powerful tarot energy in a very small space. These are women I’ve admired and respected for years and I was honored, humbled, and a little nervous to be sitting with them.

After we arrange ourselves, Mary tells us that each group has to pick a leader, someone to keep things moving and keep an eye on the time. Almost in unison and before I can react, my groups decides that I am to be the leader. Right. If Rachel is in the middle of giving an answer, do you think I’m going to interrupt her, telling her that her time is up? But what can I do?

We begin. We move quickly around our circle, asking and answering questions at lightning speed and with a brilliance that dazzles my mind. When it comes time to silently ask a question, I think “Give me a message that will rock my world.” The answer came from The Gaian Tarot and was the High Priestess. If you’ve read this blog for any length of time, you know that the High Priestess and I have issues. The answer I was given (and I honestly don’t remember who…either Rachel or Joanna) was this: People believe in you and see the wisdom you don’t see in yourself.

Later, I asked another question: “what was that High Priestess message about?” The answer (and I do not remember the card, a court card of some sort) was: You are afraid to wear the crown.

In the court cards, the kings and queens, we say that the crowns represent not just authority but responsibility.

I’m still not sure what it all means yet, but it is still working its magic in my soul and it was an experience that I’ll never forget. It was, I feel, a turning point in my struggles with the High Priestess, one that will force me to face issues of both confidence and of responsibility.

Care to share one of your profound tarot experiences?

I included this deck just to try and make your brains explode. This is another compelling deck designed by my friend Riccardo Minetti. In this deck he plays with the idea of gender and how it influences our understanding of the cards.

In the Manga Tarot, all the cards that are traditionally male are depicted as female and vice versa. Arcana V becomes The Priestess, and looks very much like a traditional High Priestess card. Arcana II becomes The Priest. For ease of discussion, I’ve pictured them together here.

Many of us blend associations of the card’s number in with the name, image, symbolism, and other associations together to create a card’s meaning.

When a deck renames or renumbers cars, do you incorporate the alterations into your interpretations or stick with what you usually use?

How does renumbering The Hierophant from V to II affect its meaning? With traditional decks we speak of I, The Magician as being the active masculine principal or the anima and II, The High Priestess as the receptive feminine principal or the anima. Can Arcana II be portrayed by a male figure? Conversely, can tradition or teaching (Arcana V) ever be receptive and passive?

The older I get, it seems, the more willing I am to believe in a beneficent and wondrous world filled beauty, kindness, and happy surprises. I was, in my youth, “affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age.” I clung to the certainty and security that various forms of fundamentalism gave me.

But now I realize, along with Mr. Church, that there is far more to this life than what we can see or what my “little mind” can comprehend. Mr. Church says “In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.”

He continues:

The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world. You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

Don’t his words remind you very much of magic? The veil he speaks of reminds me of the veil in the High Priestess card, separating the world of our physical senses from the unseen and mysterious world of our souls. Those of us who journey the path of tarot know this veil very well. Sometimes it is thick and heavy and we cannot lift it. Those are sad times, indeed, and we feel cut off from our spirit. But at the best of times, the veil is merely a thin gauze, just tangible enough to remind us that we are moving between worlds, and to appreciate that experience as the wonder it is.

The image of Santa he creates here, as a metaphor of “love and generosity and devotion,” is the power, the magic that helps us lift that veil and connect to the magical world beyond the physical.

At times when your veil is heavy and your faith is thin, try to reverse the situation by dwelling on the happy words of the very perceptive Mr. Church, “Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies!”

To read both letters in their entirety, click here.

What do you think?

Recently Melanie Marquis, author and assistant editor of the American Tarot Association’s Quarterly Journal, interviewed me for their fine publication. She asked me which cards in the tarot I thought were the darkest. I responded:

“For me personally, I’ll risk committing tarot sacrilege and say that I have issues with the High Priestess and The Moon. The way the High Priestess sits there with that “I know but I’m not telling” attitude and the whole “oh you know what you need to know” thing. Makes me want to scream! If I knew, I wouldn’t be doing a reading now, would I? Yep, I clearly have issues. The Moon drives me nuts, too. All that shadowy concealing/revealing/distorting light. And don’t forget the deepest, darkest fears rising from the waters. They should stay down there where I’ve repressed, er, stored them. Because they raise these intense, uncomfortable emotional reactions in me, I think that qualifies them as dark.”

In my readings for NaNoWriMo, my protagonist’s foil character card is the High Priestess. One of my reasons for participating in NaNoWriMo is to explore the cards on a different level, and it looks like my beloved Priestess is one of those cards. Part of my task this month is to imagine how this silent, calm woman speaks and acts. So, today I want to share three different images of the High Priestess and ask you what your thoughts are on them. Next week, we’ll further the discussion.

Here are the High Priestess cards from the Lo Scarabeo Tarot, the Tarot of the Elves, and the Tarot of the New Vision:

Scrying Debacle

As you may know, I’m not very adept at scrying with other media besides tarot and have been thinking of trying again. Funny how the universe works, because no sooner do I say that than an opportunity presents itself. I complained to my partner that the plot for my NaNoWriMo wasn’t clear. She suggested that I should scry for the plot, that the plot was bigger, broader, that it required something different.

I got it in my head that nothing but a black mirror or scrying mirror would do. I googled directions to make one, and started applying some black acrylic paint that I had on hand to a piece of glass from an unused picture frame. Yes, you read that correctly. Acrylic paint. After applying five coats, letting them dry carefully between each, I finally was ready to reassemble and scry. It was Sunday, a clear night with a huge, bright, beautiful full moon in Taurus. I was ready to receive divine inspiration. I picked up my mirror and noticed a kind of bubble in the paint and touched it gently. The paint kind of stuck to my finger and when I lifted it, the paint came off the mirror in one solid sheet.

Last night I used spray enamel to coat the glass and perhaps tonight I can give it another go. As you know, you’ll be able to read the results of my efforts here.

A Daring Approach to the Court Cards

The talented tarotist Catherine Chapman of Tarot Elements invited me to be a guest on her blog. I was honored and delighted, of course, as I’ve been a fan of her work for a while now. Do check it out; I particularly like her work with Elemental Dignities and her Signature Spread. Tomorrow, Friday, November 6, she’ll be running my post. I spent a lot of time this summer working on a new edition of Tarot for Beginners. Part of that work included figuring out the best way to teach court cards to absolute beginners. I share my conclusions with Catherine, and I’d love to know what you think. My approach may not be all that daring, but it does make for an intriguing headline, don’t you think?