The reason the night dwelling creatures are associated with fear is because they are associated with death and what do we fear more than death? The Mesoamerican name for the realm of the dead was Xibalba which translates as the place of all fear.

We have our nightmares when we have the little death we call sleep. Even the Greeks associated sleep and death, and the nocturnally active creatures were those things that often seemed connected to our nightmares as they were the ones most likely to disturb our sleep.

If we didn’t wake up before we hit the ground in a falling dream, would we die or get injured? This has been studied, and nightmares can induce heart attack or stroke. It’s just rare that they do. So yes, the theoretical fall in your sleep could possibly kill, or in my case of dreaming of falling into cold water, make ill. Just about every biological function can be induced by suggestion, and perhaps all. So perhaps all of our health issues have a history of suggestion behind them.

That’s why sugar pills work. It’s all in the suggestion that taking a pill is doing something. They even clarified that. No actual deceit has to be practiced. They took a group of people and told them that they are not receiving any medical treatment, that they were being given placebos and the doctor was just going through routine or ritual. They experienced relief and recovery anyway, but we digress…

The night time creatures prey upon the dead and the sort of dead, so they are considered to in some way occupy the realm of the dead, or place of fear as the Mesoamerican nations called it. It’s uncommon to have a nocturnal animal as an ally or totem, but not unheard of. Do any of you?

Leopard, but he is day time too. Ah, he isn’t one of the children of the night. Diurnal creatures are still spiritual day-side creatures.

I’m not sure if I even have a totem. A totem is something you discover. Having a totem is sort of like having parent’s. You may not know them, but you have your spirit anyway.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~

So in the process of exploring all your relations with the world, you find allies. Everyone likes friends, right? And you find adversaries, those spirits that challenge you when you encounter them and seem to be in some way set against your intentions.

Adversaries seem to just sort of happen, even when one attempts to avoid it. Exactly. They are a part of the natural balance. They are an equally important part of the shamans way, if not maybe more important in some ways. There are stories of spirit journeys that were passed down by oral tradition, and in a good many of these stories, the wisdom and strength the shaman sought was not received from their ally spirits, but from adversaries, things that challenged their intentions in the spirit world. Their allies mostly just served as guides, and sometime helpers. They often didn’t give any additional power.

Long story short. Spirits that have power to give, and behave like that, have power, and how does power make us behave?

On guard with the other having power. Invincible if it’s ours. Brash, territorial, aggressive.

Does having power deprive us of choices about how to behave? It does in a way, yes. We are defined by our energy, and power is energy.

Strong, confident, and benevolent? Oh, the allies are strong, confident and benevolent, and they are also the ones who lead the shaman into conflict. Coyote doesn’t normally bite, he leads you down the trail to wolf’s den.

Then he gets the leftovers. Exactly. Nothing is ever lost, and actually neither are you, but it can look that way. One person’s ally can be another person’s adversary. Snake may be the gentle counsellor to one person, and the venomous snake in the grass for another, and exactly which role each creature takes says something about the seeker.

If spider doesn’t like you, but toad sings songs of soothing peace for you, the two relations have a broader meaning than each does individually, and the collection of adversaries you have doesn’t define your weaknesses and failings. If anything, it defines your strengths.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~

A bit of clarification, as we have had some misunderstanding here before, I don’t teach or glorify evil in any sense. I try to look at the unseen and perhaps uncomfortable side of magickal, mystical, and spiritual practice. Nature doesn’t behave in a one sided manner. It’s not all fluffy bunnies, and rainbows, and happy cows. It has those things, and it has a darker side to it.

Bunnies can be very scary. They can be really scary. They can cannibalize their own young for no discernible reason, but there are a lot of little secrets of nature like that.

So I will ask, what is your experience with animal guides or shamanism?

I don’t think I have been contacted by a guide other than my dead cat.

I’ve taken some journeys. I have met a few of my guides. Excellent.

Well, one thing you learn early in any sort of shamanic practice is this. As ultimately unique as we may be as individuals, there are only so many paths in this world, so many ways of being, going through the world, and adapting. Some humans function naturally like pack wolves, others function more like cats, social but independent, and others function differently than either of these.

In the shamanic creation stories, the process occurred in stages. This is true in every tradition, and had no single definitive creator. Sometimes there is mention of one great spirit that starts the process, but ultimately it’s collaborative.

Now I won’t be speaking to one specific shamanic tradition. The Lapps had one, the Norse tradition was one, the African tribes had them. They represent perhaps the eldest tradition of spiritual understanding on the planet, though that does not necessarily mean they have the best ultimate insight on reality or living in it. To my view, they offer good roots, and where you go from there is up to you. How do you feel about it?

Are you saying you have to consider the advice they offer with question? Offer with question yes, not without. The manifestation of spirits as trickster influences is also a long standing tradition in shamanism.

Earlier, I made mention of nature having two sides, let’s call them day and night as this will make the metaphor easier. In the day side, you have nature as it presents itself most regularly, patient, nurturing, peaceful. Not without conflict, but everything more or less easy to understand, everyone playing with their cards on the table so to speak.

Well, nature has what could be called a night side as well, and I don’t just mean that some things are nocturnal (most aren’t), but I mean that nature has a set of exceptions that complement its rules.

Normally when one discovers an animal guide, its expression is natural and straight forward. The contact is usually peaceful, but when the right currents are running through the environment, predators start hunting new prey, insects behave in unusually aggressive ways, disease spreads in ways it never has before. Plague, pestilence and famine as human history often groups them together, and in all cases animals are involved. The night side is that part of nature we don’t commonly see because it is normally at rest. If nature took on a destructive aspect as a rule, would anything survive?

In time the famine would extinguish all life, but yes, nature could find a balance point for itself that mirrors our own as long as some measure of the life affirmative pattern is preserved. We may even force it to do so, what with the short but rapacious period of contemporary history and the impact it has had, but I don’t mean to discuss ecological issues primarily. We are discussing the night guides.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~

Temperance pouring out the water? Yes. This is ultimately what we are all following. The mystery behind why we do all the things we do.

The sky takes up almost half the space.

Grace.

I wonder why the females are always bare breasts. Is that a symbol of mothering? It is, yes. It probably sold more cards too. Actually, cards were rarely sold. A lot of these decks were hand crafted, back then at least, and passed around as gifts.

Star Major Arcana

All of these seem to be in the desert. Perhaps considered more spiritual? It was. Again, biblical symbolism there.

Is that a bird in the tree? It is, but the bird represents that subtle call forward. That sound in the unseen night urging us to walk on into the mystery.

Were old women often sent to fetch water? Old women, children, young women, male apprentices to blacksmiths, but rarely “able bodied men”. There was some prejudice, but this image is originally of Greek origin, and you are looking at a goddess.

Pouring out the water is lightening your load, putting down your burden? Actually, yes, and it is also the measure of everything’s worth. There is a Taoist saying here, that relates.

The Taoist saying goes like this, or something like. I will paraphrase. Yes, I sell water by this river all day, and my efforts are entirely without merit. This make sense here? It is why she is dumping the water out. Remember I said the star is what we all seek, the ultimate reason we do anything?

No matter what we learn, or what we experience, our lives will remain ultimately a mystery, and it’s this mystery running through the body of the entire world itself, pouring down on us from the sun and moon, that gives our lives meaning. We seek what we ultimately are, and when we find it we pour the water out.

When you find this deep water, it is too heavy to carry. It flows out from you, fills your world. It’s the water they say creation started from, and it is the life blood of our soul as well. The two are the same thing.

When this card comes up in a reading, it symbolizes dealing with what many see as one of life’s most vexing things. The state of, “I do not know.”

Tarot is like a book with an endless number of pages.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~

The chariot. Consider this card. What are your impressions?

Royalty.

Taking care.

Being watchful and ready.

Sovereignty. Being captain of your own ship.

Chariot Major Arcana

The chariot looks more like a judge’s box that he sits on. Indeed, it is also that. This is why the tower is never really absolute disaster.

Everyone is looking in the same direction. They are watching the race? Yes, and moving alongside it.

They see the way forward. Yes. When humanity builds towers with the idea they are finished, they fall. When humanity puts the horses back in front of the chariot…

So this card is planning? It’s planning and progression, the recognition that events take on a life of their own. Your first action becomes a horse that carries you on to further places, further choices.

One of the horses has a human nose as well. The tarot imagery has a great deal of depth, and if you were doing a reading you would focus on what your intuition makes stand out for you, and interpret that in the context of the question you started the spread for.

Moon Major Arcana

Want to see who the king has working for him?

The moon card. This is the blue horse, and it’s also the left side of the road. This is the realm of dreams, fears, and the unseen. Those deep places that lead both to inspiration and dread, to wisdom and confusion.

It’s one side of the world, and well, the major arcana also link to astrological signs. They show those facets of the world that the sign shows up in. This one includes both Scorpio and Cancer.

Shall we see the other horse?

The sun card. Gemini and Leo. This is the red horse and the right side of the road. Our life’s road is always branching. We are always being given choices, but it’s really the same world either way.

Sun Major Arcana

The teardrops were going towards the moon, but away from the sun. Tears are the essence of the soul. Have you ever had a real cry and not have it leave you unchanged?

Now, the world card. The road runs here.

Souls radiate from a star and venture into the depths of the unknown. Exactly. The road runs through you, and through mother earth which gives life to you.

Sagittarius. Yes. Notice the connection between Sagittarius and the chariot?

And Libra? Also correct. Sagittarius is the chariot, and we are all affected by the sign of Sagittarius, just some of us more pervasively.

World Major Arcana

We have the four apostles in the corners. The four aspects of wisdom. A lot of tarot imagery was made heavily catholic. I guess to broaden its acceptability.

Is there only one set of Tarot or can there be many variations? There can be many variations. If the spirit of the symbolism is preserved, and the correspondences maintained, it’s a valid tarot deck. We all see the world with our own special color. The same can be true of tarot reading.

This is the Marseilles deck. Yes. This is an old one. Some people are comforted by that. I guess it seems safer and maybe truer to the original concepts. I myself like the old imagery, but need other themes for my own purposes. A different theme running in the symbolism, though still the same symbols.

This set was a freebie I picked up somewhere. There are old tarot images that have been preserved in museums. It’s cool they are being offered for free in Second Life. I do respect history even if I don’t dwell on it.

Ok. There are more cards in the major arcana than this, but we are about to reach the end of our journey.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~

Evening the water in the jugs. An angel pours sometimes from one jug to another. Water is the giver of life, but too much and we drown in it. Well, this card is the reason we never really drown.

Temperance is about balance? Yes, and as I said earlier, all the major arcana can alter or disrupt the progress of the minor arcana.

Temperance Major Arcana

Ever find yourself deeply in love with a person, place or idea, only to have it mellow out? Ever find yourself really invested in a learning process only to have your understanding come to a screeching halt? Temperance does this. Temperance isn’t a destroyer, but nothing unbalanced can endure.

Like entropy. Yes. It’s the wisdom of the universe asserting itself and preserving the basis by which your life even started in the first place.

Now, the tower card. What are your impressions of this picture?

Destruction. Fall. Act of god. What are the circles in the air? Rocks? Atoms. This version of the tower imagery has a more powerful elemental nature.

Tower Major Arcana

Is that fire hitting the top? It is, yes.

Ever have that feeling of dread when you begin to wonder exactly where the limits are?

Yes. Wondering when you’ll be found out because everything is going your way. When things go too well, you are waiting for something to go wrong. That is the tower. Every storm, every act of god, every event whatsoever will eventually play itself out, and this includes human effort. Does this apprehension leave anything in your life unchanged? Does the tower here leave anything in your life untouched?

The expressions here are calm. Yes. Their leap is also a leap of faith. They show recognition that the only real security is in continuing to build, continuing to live.

So the person at the bottom is already starting to rebuild? In their mind, yes.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~

Prison.

Enslavement.

The devil card does represent those things. In fact, there is a great deal of wisdom here, because who doesn’t suspect, sometimes, that the things they want also limits them? That your possessions get in your way of actually enjoying things? There is a saying, the devil is in the details, and people are forever fighting because supposedly “it’s the principle of the thing”. Do we really fight for any other reason?

Devil Major Arcana

That’s scary. It is perhaps why people see the devil as scary.

So if we had no principles, we wouldn’t fight? Well, that is the trick. It’s a question of having versus living. If you have principles, you fight. If you live principles, you just live.

Now the reason the devil is a hermaphrodite is because we blind ourselves to a basic underlying truth whenever we fight. Man vs. woman, red vs. blue, they are all parts of a greater whole. It’s not a question of if one side is lying or the other is, they are both lying. The devil is the avatar of lies. The devil is us.

The lie is that we are slaves in the first place? Exactly, that we, “Have to, we just have to!”

And yet if we don’t learn to lie, our lives will be miserable. People don’t want to hear the truth. Yes. Mine has had extra challenge because of that, some serious heartbreak for that reason.

I guess getting this card in a reading could mean we need more or that we need less? Exactly, and it depends on where the card comes up in the reading.

Sometimes I have to withhold some truth to keep the peace in situations. The truth is sometimes not appropriate. Yes. Sometimes a truth badly timed becomes a lie.

It’s why I believe that humans aren’t ready for certain things, like living on other planets. We haven’t even learned how to care for the one we have. First contract would be disastrous at this point, even if that first contact is just with what that planet has for animals.

These cards all seem to have a theme of opposites or contrasts. Indeed, they do. They are like the Chinese i-ching, yin and yang, except in pictures.

Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.

Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~