Deck Interview: Light Seer's Tarot
There’s something about Chris-Anne’s decks that makes me want to instantly get to know them on a gut level.
I think that they call to my Anima, which in recent explorations I learned to tie to none other than the Divine Feminine herself, the High Priestess (via Purefield Healing’s Tarot Archetypes Instagram Challenge). And in some other explorations through some Inner Guide meditations (I have lots of thoughts on those, only some of which I’ll share in an upcoming blog post), I finally forced myself to look up aspects of my chart that I’d been too lazy to examine: final dispositors, mutual receptivity, and parallels of declination. This is a tangent, but Venus has special prominence—not surprising given that Libra is my busiest sign, and Taurus has some soul-level action too—and my Moon and Sun are parallel to within a few minutes. My point is that, despite the dominance of masculine energy in astrology and the busiest signs being fire and air, there’s a lot of feminine energy. And as Christina of Moon and Cactus pointed out in my natal chart breakdown, I actually have the most balance in water signs, the only element where I have something significant in all three signs (Venus in Pisces, Jupiter in Scorpio, and North Node and Descendant in Cancer).
Okay, you probably don’t care about all that, which is why I indented it, and just want to jump to the deck interview, but it does inform how I read some of the cards in this spread and how I expect to read this deck. I was only able to get the mass-market version of the Light Seer’s Tarot, but even it feels special to me. The Wheel crowns it as the point of divine connection, and even though Jupiter (the planet tied to the Wheel) is masculine, the lady atop it (Fortuna, perhaps? Or Lady Luck? The Fates in one?) is feminine. I haven’t done a breakdown of the cards, but when I used the deck to create a mandala for myself after this interview, the ones I chose to represent my desires were almost all women, and I’m okay with that development.
So without further ado, let’s see what the deck has in store for me. I use my own spread for this reading, a new standard I’m enjoying. You can read about it over in the blog post dedicated to that deck interview spread. Maybe you’ll find it useful for your own deck interviews.
INTERVIEWING THE LIGHT SEER’S TAROT
{Jumper: The Fool}
What major lesson are you here to help me learn? The Magician
Through which divine energy can we best communicate? The Wheel
In what area can you aid me to help others? The Lovers
In what area could your guidance be easily misunderstood? 9 of Swords (reversed)
What can I do to keep our communication clear? Queen of Cups
How can I use your guidance for the highest good? The Hierophant
How will I know when we’re ready for a new lesson? 6 of Cups (reversed)
The playful freedom of this deck, something I explored in a mandala after the interview, literally leapt out of the deck as I shuffled. And who better to leap out than the airborne Fool? This spirit of openness and freedom flows through this deck. There are lots of open postures and spiritual energy flowing out of chests in this deck, and I am here for it. It’s definitely going to rise quickly among my decks for most frequently used.
The major lesson from this deck, at least right now, is manifestation and channeling those intuitive energies into something active rather than receptive. (That’s certainly in line with other messages I’ve been receiving, so the deck’s appearance in my hands is well-timed. And, yes, of course I’m projecting similar messages onto many of my readings. I understand how projection works. But that doesn’t make it less of a lesson.) Although this deck has a beautiful feminine energy, the Magician is a masculine power actively channeling his intentions into mystic power. Contrasted to the High Priestess, his frequent counterpart, the Magician is the active force (the Wand) while she is the passive retainer (the Cup). I see all of that here, and with the mirrored pool of insight in both this card and the Queen of Cups, I see his activity all the more clearly. He is infusing that mystic pool with his own magical intentions. But activity doesn’t have to be masculine, and as Lady Luck atop the Wheel shows, I’ll be best served by connecting with the feminine divinities that often inspire me to grow and create rather than just consume. (There’s that Venus/Empress energy from my digression!)
One of the most surprising aspects to this reading—and how I knew that I was tapping into a different energy than normal—was that I actually intuited a message about romance from the Lovers when asking about the area where this deck can aid me in helping others. I pretty much never do that. For one, I think it’s an overused simplification of the archetype. But for another, it ignores the history of the card and the symbolism of its association to Gemini, the Twins (not the Lovers except perhaps in some fetish fantasies). Nevertheless, I didn’t get any naturally intuited sense of “decision-making” as I often do with this card. It was just straight-up love relationships. It could be a result of some counseling nonfiction I’ve been reading by Esther Perel where she explains that the “shadow of the third” creates a bond between the two (Perel quotes Adam Phillips: “When we are two, we are together. In order to form a couple, we need to be three.”). Subconsciously, it might have merged with the history of the three-person Lovers card (either showing the mother or other woman, depending on the deck) to shift the meaning of the card from decision-making to real desire. The point of all this is that if someone wants a reading about love, this might be my new go-to deck.
That card and interpretation stands in contrast to the reversed 9 of Swords, which shows areas for potential misunderstanding. If you know my interests, then you know I love shadow work, a card well-represented by many a card in the suit of Swords. (Although this is called the Light Seer’s Tarot, there are still shadow work exercises included in the thick guide book accompanying the deck.) The message here is not that the deck would be bad for shadow work or true internal reflection, a critical component of almost every reading I do, however subtly influenced; instead, I read this as reminding me (and potential clients) that there will still need to be that mental investigation, that willingness to see what is dark and what is light. There is one ethereal white bird among the black, and it offers hope that some of the nightmares are unnecessary worries. But the black birds are still there and real; they don’t go away just because the card is reversed, and they can’t be ignored even in a love-filled reading. The card is encouraging me and potential clients that they will still need to be willing to face those dark birds if they want to see the full potential of that light. Otherwise, love can never grow or help change us for the better.
The last two cards for my current lesson are both highly spiritual, and I think that they encourage my feeling that there is an instinctual and intuitively powerful connection between this deck and me. Believing in that power and using it to lift others up, as the stairs in the Hierophant help guide, will be of great service to my work with other people and for own reflections. It reminds me of the stairs in the Fountain Tarot’s 10 of Cups (and its inverse in the Devil), a pathway to one’s highest emotional and spiritual potentials. While requests for romance readings can sometimes seem superficial or desperately hopeful without much reflection or analysis, that doesn’t make them less valid or less of an opportunity for spiritual and personal growth. There’s an intense emotional exchange when someone asks for a reading about romance, and that can be used as a powerful connection for spiritual practice. If there’s positive news about the relationship there, then that’s wonderful. And if there’s not, then I can still help the person in other ways. But the work should always be for the highest good of the client.
As for when I’ll be ready for that next lesson, I’m not going to rush that. I need to think more on what it could mean, but I’m fine with luxuriating in this current lesson and learning the most out of it that I can.
The cards pictured here are from the Light Seer’s Tarot, created by Chris-Anne © 2019. Published by Hay House.