New Deck Interview- The Sirian Starseed Tarot

I am going to be honest with you all, because there is no point in not being honest.  Most of you are psychic.  I am intimidated by this deck.  I have seen it on lots of blogs and have opened it, touched it, looked at its' beautiful cards, but it has a New Age vibe that I have never been totally comfortable with, which actually makes me feel it is something I need to do.  Give me a Four of Wands depicting a bunch of friends passing a pipe around and I am totally comfortable.  A Devil with a scantily clad woman fondling her own nipples?  I'm down.  One of my friends used to have a beau who called what I do "dirty tarot" and I did not take that as the insult he meant it to be.  I do down to earth tarot, I do tarot applicable to all aspects of life.  I do tarot helpful in the here and now, not just the lofty "someday".

Once we had a speaker at Denver Tarot Meetup ask me how I would read a set of cards.  I saw, and said, something along the lines of, "Girlfriend needs to dump the cheating bastard and stand on her own two feet.  She needs her own money so she can feel good about herself and stop thinking she needs a man to be complete."

"That's great," the lady said.  "But that's just the surface of tarot.  I like to go deeper, where its' true potential is."

While I believe tarot is a deeply spiritual tool, I also think it can and should address ALL of our issues, and if you know anything about psychology or Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs you will know that we have to take care of "surface" problems before we can really help ourselves, or our clients, with spiritual or deeper psychological issues.  I actually think not all tarot readers should be offer counseling, especially if they are not trained in it, and I believe that we need to give our sitters what they need, which sometimes is a deep, spiritual reading, and sometimes helping them figure out how they are gonna pay the rent this month.  Both are valid concerns, and both need to be addressed, and I believe tarot is not too good for any question.  It can handle the big, the small, the mundane, and the transformational.  Tarot can do it all!

But stepping off my high horse, I want to ask The Sirian Starseed Tarot a few questions.

The Sirian Starseed Tarot- Hanging Man, Master of Flame (King of Wands), Nine of Chalices

What do I need to know about you as a deck?  The Hanging Man- Immediately, the imagery of the pendulum speaks to me, as I remember another time I was skeptical about a modality.  Erina Cowan of Blue Sun Energetics came to Denver Tarot Meetup to teach us about Pendulum Dowsing (you can see her class Meetup page here).  It was a dark and stormy evening.  No really, it was, that's not just the start of my next novel.  I had never worked with a pendulum before, and had no idea how it really might work, but I left that session a believer.  I needed a pendulum so badly I immediately bought one from Erina, which I gifted last Samhain to a forum friend, whom I believe it suited perfectly, but I used it for a good while very happily.  Now I use a different pendulum, pretty much on the daily.

But before any of that had happened, Erina told me that she could feel some resistance from me, and asked if I minded if she used the pendulum to find out some more about it.  I was still doubtful, but intrigued, so I said yes.  With her method of pendulum dowsing, she discovered that I, in a past life, had experienced persecution for my abilities, perhaps even being called a witch, and she told he group it was totally possible to return to that time and change the energy.  She asked my permission to do so, and even though I was still skeptical, I agreed.  I mean, she wasn't even touching me or anything, so no possible harm could be done.  Using her pendulum to release energy, we all went back to that time and place together, and rewrote the history of what happened to me before.  I don't even know if I believe in past lives, but I will tell you this- I felt a release, and I began to cry great big gushing tears, of relief, from a tension I did not even consciously realize I was carrying.  Ever since then, I have not had any feelings of shame, though inadequacy does still plague me (that was not mentioned in her ritual, though) or reticence in talking about what I do, how I do it, or owning my talents, which continue to grow.  You should get the handouts from that night here if you like tarot or pendulums, because Joy Vernon is a rock star when it comes to creating spreads, teaching different modalities, and generally being Completely Joyous, and you should visit her site.  Clearly, I am also highly impressed with Erina's sweet yet strong spirit and highly recommend her as a teacher and healer as well.

So, right away, the imagery of this card, The Hanging Man, took me back to a time and place where I was not too sure I wanted to test the waters, but I benefited deeply from doing so.  My life was literally changed that night.  Just like I am skeptical of using a deck with a theme I am this unfamiliar with, that I am not even sure fits in my personal belief system yet, but the deck is assuring me it is okay to try new things, or using traditional Hanged Man meanings, looking at things from a new perspective.  It is both comforting me and telling me that it has a different perspective than I usually might take, which I already knew, but sometimes cards give us answers we already had, especially in the beginning, to establish trust.

The accompanying book says this of The Hanging Man- "Like a preborn infant in the womb, reversing itself to prepare for passage out of the state of suspended animation of one world and into the next, Hanging Man is observing reality from an inverted perspective.  He is the stilled pendulum, at rest: a potential energy disengaged, floating, meditating, surrendering."

The deck is letting me know it will be my choice how deeply we engage, on what level, and if any changes occur within me as I use this deck.  There are only potentials between us; nothing is written in stone.

What obstacle might I encounter while working with you?  Master of Flames, who would be the King of Wands in a traditionally named deck- From the imagery, I see something that often puts me off "New Age" spirituality, which is a white man dressed in what he imagines is Native garb.  I don't know how many times I have seen people equate Native spirituality with being somehow more "evolved" or better than we  are as modern people, and I say this as someone with Mohican blood running through my veins.  I absolutely despise the Denver March PowWow that happens every year here, which is basically a giant place to sell over priced things and watered down Native-ism.  People, America has always been the size it is now, regardless of what it was called, and there is no one Native America Indian culture.  There were hundreds of them, complete with languages, customs, and religious beliefs that are almost completely lost to time.  These cultures have been utterly destroyed, and their treasures are irretrievable.  So when I see neon green feathers on dancers and white people telling other white people, as well as Natives, that they are doing traditional dances, I get kinda pissed off.  There were no neon feathers.  There was no common language.  Each tribe had its' own dances, rituals, and myths, most of which are lost forever.  Some of this anger may be racial scarring, or memory, but I am just irked by people putting a dream catcher up and calling themselves followers of Native American Spirituality.  Even I, the great niece of the last person to speak the Iroquois language, don't know exactly what that entails, because the culture has been completely eradicated, right down to its' very words. 

In the video posted in my first go round with this deck, I did read that many Sirians lived as Native Americans, so that is potentially why this outfit was chosen.  So far, I have the obstacle of sometimes being annoyed with "New Age"-isms and my own prejudice, and I have the obstacle of potential racial memory causing my ire to rise, without really realizing why.

This is the Master of Flames, and I don't really like to do things I am not good at.  I am not good at suspending my disbelief, and I am not good at reading this deck, at least not yet, but I have volunteered to put my not goodness on display for an entire week, and to people who might be more spiritual than me, who might belong to a special club, the Sirian Starseeds, that I don't, who might be more psychic or judge me for my ignorance.  Silly thoughts, all of them, but I have them.  I would like to appear as the Master of Flames, totally in my element and rocking the party, but I am not able to.  Yet.

Masters are also responsible for their people, and that scares me.  Once I know something, when I have new knowledge, I also have new responsibilities.  Maya Angelou said, “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better, I do better.” As I said earlier, I struggle with inadequacy at times, the very anathema to this card, and I don't know if I am ready to know better so I can do better.
 
How can I get over that obstacle? Nine of Chalices- Even though I may have exposed some of my weaknesses as I write today, I feel pretty damn good about being me.  By and large, I have my life pretty much figured out, and it is a good one.  I'm a tarot reader, and my clients tell me I am a pretty good one.  I am a writer, and I may not be a great one, but I am an excellent rewriter and editor, and I can churn out some pretty good ideas and whip them into some interesting reading.  I am a good mother to outstanding children who are articulate, outgoing, pleasant, mostly well mannered, well read, leaders, charming, interesting, fine students, talented, and while they mostly own that for themselves, I had a little hand in it.  I am a damn good wife to a very fine man, and this family is the center of my world.  I love my home.  I choose my friends wisely, so I am not often hurt.  The Nine of Cups is often referred to as the "wish card" and I have pretty much everything I have ever wished for.  So I can tell my insecurities to back the eff off, because no one and nothing can take these things from me.  I am solid in who I am, and if this deck challenges me, that is okay.  Every challenge I meet makes me stronger, and I am grateful for them.

Sirian Starseed Tarot- Ten of Flames

 
What will our week together be like? Ten of Flames, equivalent to the Ten of Wands- The imagery of this card shows me climbing a staircase.  One torch is lit, but I am carrying more.  I have to work for it, but I am getting ever closer to The Sun, where everything will be clear to me and I will bask in its' glory and every delight.  I have all the provisions I need to see me through my journey.  The staircase is a spiral, often a metaphor for spiritual journeys, and I will be taking one this week with this deck.  I may need to pause from time to time, to catch my breath, relating back to The Hanging Man, who is also paused for the moment, so I know that is okay.  That is the nature of my relationship with this deck, that sometimes I may need time to digest, and sometimes i may just need to rest.

Thank you for hanging out with me through this very long post which  turned out to be chattier than I thought it would be.  I hope, as I said this morning, I can do the deck justice, and I am looking forward to our time spent together!

These cards are from The Sirian Starseed Tarot by Patricia Cori and Alysa Bartha, published by North  Atlantic Books.