Tarot Counseling with Ruth and Charque

The myth of Phaeton driving his father, the Sun God Helios’s chariot across the sky is very telling, both as Tarot imagery and as a premonition of things to come. Phaeton is described as a callow, immature youth who nagged Dad to drive his chariot until Dad gave in. But Phaeton was not up to the job and lost control of the horses, so that they came careening down to Earth, threatening to set Earth on fire. The Tarot Chariot says manage your horses so that they do not run away with you. The Sun card says watch out for the energy of the Sun so that it does not backfire, burn up or burn out. The Sun card also says don’t get so exuberant that you gloss things over and fail to see what is going in the shadows, or behind the wall on the Sun card. The same can be said for “the dark horse” on the Chariot card. You are advised to manage BOTH steeds, the conscious and shadow, or the outer and the inner, in your forward momentum. Both the Sun and the Chariot are high energy, power cards which we have to work with both personally and collectively before we burn up the Earth and make it uninhabitable for us and Nature.

The Tarot Hanged Man is about perspective, vision, seeing life from a higher perspective. We have always referred to the Hanged Man as "the Ultimate Buddhist" card, where you learn to become "the watcher and the watched" of your own life in particular, and of life in general. It is THE card of initiation which is why I liked the following (exerpts) from "Serpent in the Sky" by John |Anthony West (he is not writing about the Tarot Hanged Man but about Initiation): "The aim of all initiatic religions is the same the world over and always has been: to guide man from his Natural state of consciousness (which is called "illusion" or "sleep") to a Higher state (called "illumination" or "the Kingdom".) This Higher state is,
within the context of the Natural world, "Unnatural".
And further: "It is impossible to PROVE to the sceptic that this has any bearing upon himself or his life" (i.e. that the physical world is not the sum total of our existence, both cause and effect). We wish everyone well with this card. If you are reading this posting, you have surely begun the process of "initiation", or as West describes it "at least put one foot down upon the long road. And the further along the road, the greater and deeper the understanding."
We have been humorously calling it, i.e "the process of initiation", "getting woke!"