Connecting with Major Arcana Energy
Recently on social media, I’ve seen a handful divinatory exercises for connecting with the archetypal energies of one or more of the major arcana. Many of these exercises involve divination and journaling or reflecting, a combination that I find to be effective for almost every activity, and some of the exercises that I’ve seen are really great. However, I’ve been needing something more.
Since starting my work on Tarot Tableau, I’ve been thinking about the major arcana and how I (and others) can better connect with the energy from those archetypes. But for a few months, I really struggled to connect in any new or special way that isn’t a months-long process. (I’ve been cultivating Temperance energy for almost a year now through a 13-moons-long ritual process. It’s great, but that’s not practical for working with different energies.) Divination and reflection are the staples of my tarot practice, but they haven’t been enough to get me where I want to go with energy channeling, so instead I’ve been turning to art when I’ve felt the need for something more. It’s been hit or miss. I have tried every now and again, and I’ve gotten an interesting idea for a short story or a drawing, but then the connection has faded away, lasting only as long as the art-creation process. Those experiences have been meaningful and effective for creation, but they’ve been limited and, frankly, draining. It hasn’t translated to an experience beyond the act of creating. Then I tried an art with which I’ve always had a love–hate relationship: poetry.
Now, I think that any art can help one connect to the energies of the archetypes in the tarot in a way that’s fundamentally different from the process of divination—and by connection, I mean channeling, embodying, or being inspired by those energies. I highly recommend that you imagine the major arcanum you want to channel and create some art form with it in mind. It sounds simple and—you know what?—it generally is. That’s because the archetypes are part of a broader—perhaps universal—consciousness, just as we may be, so they’re all around us all the time. We have easy access. Conducting exercises to receive energy and then expressing that energy is a form of training yourself to be a channel for that energy. Super handy! And the more time you spend trying to receive the mindset of that major and then trying to express it, the easier it will be to actively channel it without the need of forced exercises. Think of it as training your esoteric muscles. And in that way, it’s no wonder that you get tired. But like I said, you can spend months or years working with just one energy. What if you want to go broad as well as deep with channeling work? For me, that’s what led to art with the spoken word.
As a medium, poetry seems exceptionally useful because it is both personal and traditional, even transcultural. Although I write poems in modern language, poetry can still draw on ancient structures of rhythm and meter that cross space as well as time. Yes, you could say the same thing about paint in two-dimensional art or ink in writing, but those are external elements, art needed to make art. The only thing needed for poetry is sound and time, which means that we all have what we need to create it, even if our expression is necessarily non-verbal. More importantly, poetry (or spoken words) can also be shared. I can write something, and then someone else can read it out loud for me to hear, which joins the energy of my creation and another’s expression with the archetype that we’re both connected to. Three points of contact are much more stable than just one. Three is also the number of both creativity and social connection in tarot.
So guess what I did? I wrote a poem for each of the major arcana, and I asked friends and fellow tarot enthusiasts to record themselves reading one or more of the poems aloud for me. Oh my gosh. It’s been so good! Since not everyone wants their voices shared here, I’m not going to share the recordings, but I will share the poems over time. But before I do, I want to encourage you to try it. Try to connect to the energy of the tarot major archetype and then write a poem inspired by it. Then ask someone to read it aloud for you so that you can feel the energy in a new way. I believe that it can create a more stable aid for channeling, but it has had some practical implications for me too.
For one thing, it forced me to finish the poems because I’d committed to someone else that I would be doing them, and they were waiting, ready to help me out. How can I not accept such graciously offered assistance?
For another, it made me revise the poems, at least a little and think about whether I was expressing myself in a way that others could understand. I received some useful feedback on that front, both supportive and constructive.
And as a last thought for now, it helped me hear the poetry in a new way. It has helped me to understand what it was that I was writing as seen through the lens of someone else. I read the lines in almost the same way every time. I heard multiple people read those same lines in multiple ways. What a treat!
I’ll be sharing my poems over time, but for now, get to creating. Let me know how it goes.
And if you need some guidance as to where to start, try this little screenshot game / major arcanum reading.