2009 adds up to 11 which then adds up to 2. So, the Cards for the Year are the tarot “archetypes” that correspond with these numbers.

As the reflective and balanced number 2, PRIESTESS, she represents within us the “truth seeker.” This coming year is the time for honesty with yourself and others, in contrast with such deception found throughout society in this past 2008 Year of the skilled Magician, a “trickster” who can be notable for lies and deceit.

Ask yourself, as a Priestess, who you are, really and truly. Pick a card for your authenticity and a card for your own self-delusion. Pick cards for the truth of any situation or person.

By the way, the latest study on telling lies is that the average person fibs twice a day. And over a hundred studies have confirmed that we can tell when another is deceiving us only half of the time. Be the intuitive Priestess and hone your lie detector. Bare the truth and look to find balance in your life, your relationships and financial accounts. For those of you in the money markets, it’s time to “Bear it.” Go in, go deep, tap inner resources, be patient, sustain.

The Priestess number two is derived from eleven, which in Voyager and some other tarot decks is the STRENGTH card. This instinctual, creature-like, “lower chakra” archetype is about expression. As Leo the Lion in this card, roar and strut and show your feelings, your joys and angers, your lusts and sorrows. Be your emotions in motion.

And have the courage, the heart of the lion, to see the truth, tell the truth, and be the truth. No time to monkey around. We are each being called out, are you bluffing, are you real? This time of testing brings opportunity and growth. Build your inner muscles to realize the openings that will come another day.

Pick a card for your strength, a card for your expression, and a card for how to be the Priestess. Read your cards honestly and look at both sides, the light and the shadow ­- that which you would deny, disguise, distract and debunk. As the writer, Gloria Steinem once said, “The truth shall set you free, but first it will piss you off.”

Go to www.voyagertarot.com to pick your cards if you don’t have them in hand.

Marie Ragland, 84 years-young, is an avid Voyager Tarot enthusiast that I met giving a workshop in Santa Monica in 2001. So passionate about the cards, she has taken and finished my long and comprehensive correspondence course called StarTree. Marie is, of course, a Certified Reader.

As a career teacher of all ages, she has applied her teaching skills to sponsoring a Voyager Tarot Study Circle that meets twice a month in Thousand Oaks, CA. Marie is one of the most persistent and dedicated students I have ever seen, proving to me once again that life fulfillment comes through commitment and sustainability.

Marie is pictured here in the middle surrounded by Voyagers at Akashic Bookshop in Thousand Oaks, California. She holds the Star, which is her Life Card and symbol of her service and clarity.

CRYSTAL CLARITY

Stellar clear cosmic view

Telepathic reflecting mirror

Insightful intuitive visionary

Of pure light love and peace

The eternal infinite truth

Pre-encoded in all creation

Harmonic molecular vibration

Energized by elemental forces

Sacred mystic temple body

Soulful free brave heart being

Present in the right place now

Synchronistic psychic voyager

On trust frequency gift in service

Children of the streaming light

Inner wisdom keeper’s shine-om

Light the path you travel home

Every breath heartbeat footprint

Gently upon this precious earth

© 2008 hintonharrison.com

September 11, 2001: a shaking of the foundations, an epochal day of cataclysmic transition, heralding an abrupt switch to a surveillance state and a radical questioning of or most cherished beliefs about freedom, democracy and peaceful, cooperative coexistence. As millions watched what seemed like a bizarrely surreal Schwarzenegger movie on TV, the collapse of the Twin Towers was an uncanny literal manifestation of the Tower card in the Tarot. The Tower jumped out of its cardboard card frame, so to speak, and became flesh on that day.

Amidst the nightmare of death and destruction, there were many ordinary men & women who responded beautifully, heroically, to the moral challenge of the Tower and became the heroes of the hour, as they purified themselves of their own fears and gave unconditionally to others, like the brave Inca warrior in the Voyager Tower.

Since the Tower card (16: 1+6=7) is numerologically linked to the # 7 Major Arcana card, namely the Chariot, an appropriate state response to the atrocities of the day would have been to move ahead with decisiveness, detachment and compassion for ourselves and others, to retaliate against forces clearly linked to the attack, i.e. the Al-Qaida in Afghanistan and elsewhere. Indeed, there was great world sympathy and endorsement of that game plan at the time.

However, the Bush administration and the ‘neocons’ pulling the strings, did not rise to the ethical challenge of the Tower in a positive, purificatory manner. Instead, they played out the shadow side of the Emperor card as we witnessed the nightmare birth of the surveillance state, the suspension of key civil rights at home and a bullying pre-emptive unilateralism toward the rest of the world. As James Wanless points out in his comment on the shadow side of the Tower, ‘You may project your own anger and frustration onto others and disrupt their lives’. (Voyager Tarot Guidebook for the Journey, p. 34.)

The Tower archetype could have given rise to a positive, cooperative world community with some ‘weeds’ of terror pulled out. Instead, what happened was action born out of that projected anger and fears of sequel attacks. The Bush administration skillfully manipulated the energies of Negativity (the 5 of Crystals), Anger (4 of Cups), Fear (7 of Cups), to the point of radical mistrust and Narrowness (9 of Crystals), wherein the Other, specially the Muslim Other, was always suspect, because any minute now the Golden Gate Bridge could be bombed, and we could lose our lives, property etc.

2008: seven years after 9/11 (there’s that magical ‘7′ again), the Chariot moves again and the Tower rumbles once more. In 2008, moving into the next potentially exciting chapter, we have the forceful re-emergence of the Tower archetype, with the world economy in shambles and our international reputation in tatters. But, 2008 also saw the positive, radical cleansing effect of the second Tower. For the first time in our history, we were faced with the very real prospect of electing a Black leader of great vision and moral vitality. However, we were put to the test-were we willing to finally bury our racial prejudices and elect a non-White President? We responded magnificently to this preliminary challenge of Tower 2 by electing Barack Obama as our next President.

The next profoundly intense challenge of Tower 2 after the inauguration of the new President of the United States: can we allow Obama to do his job and give him breathing space and time to do it? With all his vision and vitality, can we allow him to be human at times and not expect rabbits out of the Presidential hat? The challenges facing the new administration are monumental: the economy, Iraq, the regrouping of terrorists in the Indian subcontinent and elsewhere and so much more. So many messes to resolve, including the gradual repair of the civil rights taken away or abridged by the Bush administration.

I see that we need to avoid an obstinate defeatist cynicism that says ‘Oh well, Obama can’t do anything much. The rot has sunk in too deep’, versus the opposite extreme of expecting too much too soon. In that delicate balance lies our best response to the great potential of the second Tower.

Sponsored by The Oracle Bookstore In the beautiful ski resort called Whistler (the host for the 2010 winter Olympic Games), I conducted a workshop in the evening called The Ring of Magic.

I do this process often with a group because this five-card Reading is the most basic and fundamental way of doing the cards. It includes a card from each of the four Suits and the Major Arcana. The intention of this evening’s layout of the cards was to give insight into how to tap the Magician archetype within yourself mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically and archetypally.

Only five cards were selected and applied to everyone in the workshop. We call this a “group reading.”

At the end of every Reading, it’s always a good idea to see if you can discern any patterns indicated by all the cards as a whole. This particular set of cards included the archetypal Moon, Fulfillment 9 of Cups, Compassion 3 of Wands, Setback 5 of Worlds, and Synthesis 8 of Crystals. What generalization would you say about these cards?

Our group determined that it was not an active, assertive way for living their magic. Rather, it indicated to be more of a moon magnet, sitting back, having compassion and acceptance for whatever outcome, and letting the heart cup be fulfilled by the process – a feminine, yin Moon way of magic and the power of attraction. This is interesting in light of the fact that the Magician archetype is usually seen as active, dynamic and projective. (The vast majority of participants this evening were women. So?)

At the close of the session, all of a sudden a young man appeared at the large windows of the Blenz Cafe where we were meeting, and guess what? He mooned us!!!!! Wow. That was the ending of all endings in my 30 years of doing workshops. How fitting for our Moon card group. Synchronicity rules! Life does imitate art. Know that the cards you choose will manifest, though not always in the way you might expect. Have compassion. Smile. – Captain Pick A Card

It all started when my intuition said, “Leave your work.”

My ego-self responded, “Go where? I’m successful as a political science professor. Why leave?”

“Just go,” said the inner voice, again.

Intuition will often tell you what before why, and being free and trusting, I quit and left – for something spiritual, for new inspiration, for meditation – to India. It felt right. This was 1974.

In a circuitous route involving years of seeking, I found the tarot, which for the past 25 years has been my “right livelihood” of path/profession/passion/play/profits.

In this quantum world, physicists have described the underlying nature of reality as a wave of interconnected oneness. The lesson is that “everything is everything.” Our work is not just work, but inclusive of everything else. Quantum life is a hyphenated – slash n’dash, as above/so below way of being.

The secret of living in accordance with this mind-boggling, revolution in consciousness is intuition – that strange, ambiguous yet decisive feeling where “you know for sure, but not for certain.” Intuition is how we pick tarot cards, define and apply them – indeed, a powerful practice for quantum living.

With our changing times, we want to change, and need to change and grow. Yet, in this 21st century world of ours, we have few evolutionary roadmaps of life. The map that our parents followed is outdated. Television as a script that tells us how to live? Most fall into a state of “collective hypnosis,” living out a subconscious story of life that is an amalgam of herd consciousness.

Take the tarot’s intuitive roadmap of life and you will encounter your quantum self (selves, actually) and see your way to the evolved life of wholeness, diversity, and authenticity.

Consider the tarot as a mentor. Its universal counsel tells you to live quantum, which is to consciously live out all of its 78 cards and all of its symbols within them – to express all the emotions we feel, to use all the physical and mental qualities composing natural genius, to seek wholeness (happy, healthy, holy and wealthy), and to fulfill the primordial human archetypes within.

Like many, I was raised in a family with a restrictive repertoire of emotional honesty and self-expression. What a limited life. Tarot taught me to free up all my/our multiple dimensions. Wow! Here was permission to be a radiant Magician, yes I can and yes I am! To show Fear… oh, to be vulnerable, exposed; and to express Anger, (I am so disgusted and revolted with our Iraq “policy”!!); to cultivate the yin aspects of the Empress, as I decorate the new house and water the begonias with lots of TLC.

This roadmap to personal diversity is the way to authentic being. For the first time in in human history, we have the opportunity to be our true self(s) – this is particularly true for baby-boomers with a new “second life” beckoning. It’s time to boom! Not the golden years, but the go-go years.

To me, authenticity IS the spiritual path, and this means liberation! – to get free of social conditioning and the myth of how we are supposed to live. Real freedom means living in harmony with our “essence self,” our quantum quality of synchronous multiplicity and undeniable wholeness/oneness.

Life is, indeed, a hero’s journey to the essential self of quantum being. The cards, (through their inherent archetypal truth, along with the impact of picture symbols, and their meaningful synchronistic appearance), give us insight and inspiration – fuel for the road!

“But how can picking facedown cards be correct? How silly, how stupid.” Physicists agree, however, that a so called “random” selection of cards is not just random chance. Something pulls us towards choosing the appropriate card. This synchrony, called “entanglement” in quantum theory, is far too mysterious and magical for physicists to fully understand.

Tarot is an intentional way for valuing the mystery and diving into the unknown as the ultimate creative source and resource. The simple act of picking cards facedown is a spiritual, evolutionary practice.

On the subatomic level, we are nothing but space (and, paradoxically, because we are in physical form, we are “more of nothing”). According to quantum physics, there is, in fact, nobody home to pick the cards. What a great way to transcend the fiction of ego. I suppose this gives “spaced out” new meaning.

The elegance of the tarot map is that it constantly changes. When we pick cards for who we are and where we are going, they are often different from the cards chosen before or after. And our way of interpreting a card differs from time to time. Finally, we have a life map that is dynamic and quantum – change-able; reflective of our own changes from moment to moment; and creative, transformative, change-making, itself.

In our quantum reality, there are no objective truths. Everything we observe and define is dependent on how we see – an inextricable creative relationship exists between viewer and subject. In fact, we make up what we see. And we are it! When I see the golden hand of the Buddha in the Compassion card, I am compassionate. Seeing the crystallization of light in the Creativity card, I feel inventive, I think anew, I am novel! Aren’t we all?

Because of tarot as my quantum path, I am not the same balding, uptight guy I was 30 years ago … I am a “sacred actor,” the Voyager Man of Wands… a simulcast expression of both particle and wave, Hermit and Lover, of “both/and” thinking. “I am free to be All of me now, including past-future, here-there, this-that” (my quantum mantra).

It is so freeing not to be the same person playing the same old role, but to have permission to be a living both/and contradictory, yet “complete” person. In the quantum tarot world, the worst condition is to be bored and boring – which means you are out of synch, delusional, and rapidly becoming obsolete in this multiworld.

It takes a spiritual warrior to discover all of the real you(s). In this revolution of consciousness, we need allies. Tarot helps you battle against the demons of mediocrity, safety, and conformity. Have you noticed how the tarot is heroic? Look at the Archetypes… it’s not that you are just intuitive but the Priestess, not that you are traveler, but a Charioteer.

Why don’t therapists and more of us use this empowering process of tarot? Probably because tarot has become labeled an entertaining, hocus pocus “fortune telling” game. Should I still be awaiting my “crippling disease,” as one tarot reader once told me? I don’t think so.
The power of suggestion can be crippling or empowering,

and since we have choice, I call my use of tarot, “fortune creation.” It’s my spiritual yoga, to pick a card a day, and become it! Since we dwell in a material environment of physical behavior, it makes quantum “parallel universe” sense to not only to live the mental insight from the cards, but to actually embody and enact them.

If generic tarot is so effective, I am often asked, “Why create a new tarot deck? Why Voyager?” Because old roadmaps aren’t so useful. Voyager Tarot was conceived as a quantum tarot, and titled synchronistically with the Voyager spacecraft exploring the mysteries of our solar system. As we abide in a quantum inclusive world (well beyond the medieval symbols of classic tarot), everything but the proverbial kitchen sink is collaged in the Voyager cards. (I never did like to do the dishes).

But so what? (my favorite question). The fullness of Voyager is to reveal a symbolic pathway for fulfilling the universe within yourself. Quantum physics shows that life is indeed a hologram replete with fractals. We are a universe within a universe within a universe. We are stars and snails. Check out the backside of the Voyager cards and you will see a magnificent star, actually our DNA; and to the human eye, this genetic mandala is exactly the same as a snail’s.

To my perplexity, I have been told by metaphysical bookstore owners, “Wow, all this Voyager stuff is over my head. How can anyone read these cards? This is for the advanced.” I reply, “It’s for the advancing…the journey is the destination.”

Curiosity rules and process is everything… we are verbing and reverbing, not a static noun of a fixed identity and type. Quantum teaches that we are both particle and wave simultaneously. Voyager takes you on the quantum magic bus, moving your eye from one point (picture) to another, not to just a simple, set image of particle existence, but as a process of continuous wave – moving, feeling, and knowing by a kinesthetic inner movie of cognition.

Unlike the old paradigm of hierarchy and authority, in the 21st century quantum world of relativity, there is no one way of anything. Voyager is full of possibilities and options; not for memorizing guidebooks written by others as projections of their particular/particle truth.

I have always been very good in life at memorizing facts, steeped in the left brain, knowing the “right” answer and the right way. In our continuous evolving quantum world, that way is dysfunctional. Amazing!

We must heal ourselves of left brain domination which has led to “either/or” thinking – the source of all imbalance and all conflict. The solution? Let’s start over again. Make chaos, reshuffle, play a different game… quantum logic. Out of chaos is born new life, say “quantumists” and ancient greek sages. So, voyage into chaos… scramble the cards, pick a card, and go boom, break through the belief barrier and tyranny of logic. Such a simple, fun, do-it-yourself way for evolving. Trust the speed of wonder!