Tarot Readings 21

Shelly’s guides suggested that she meditate with this card and journal on any feelings that came up about expressing Emperor qualities. She was skeptical but tried it anyway. We met again in a few weeks, and she reported that, while meditating with the card, she discovered she was resisting being powerful.

Jou aling and further meditation revealed she really rejected the authoritarian role her father had played in her life. Because she associated him with anything masculine, she rejected these qualities in herself. Eventually, Shelly could see that, by cultivating the types of father energies she wished she had received from her dad, she could repair and release her inner masculine. The result was effective leadership and a successful project at work—with bonuses for the whole team.

Thyra was the cook at a Catholic summer camp for teenage girls. She called because she was struggling with how the girls all seemed to look to her for spiritual guidance.

“I don’t know why,” she said. “I’m just an ordinary person. I’ve seen my share of life—good and bad. I don’t want to be some kind of teacher to these girls. I mean, what do I know about their lives? It feels like too much responsibility. And I’m not even Catholic!”

Thyra naturally radiated the wisdom life had brought her. She was a philosopher and a seeker, although she didn’t subscribe to a specific religion or path. In fact, she found gurus and spiritual teachers highly suspect, which explained why she didn’t want to play that role for the girls. A Tarot reading similar to Shelly’s showed that one of the archetypes Thyra needed to work with was that of the Hierophant.

The Hierophant is about structure, teaching, and passing on wisdom. It can be associated with the Divine Masculine archetype of the Sage or Priest. While it is true that some gurus or teachers are less than integrous, many are absolutely committed to helping others. I asked Thyra to try meditating with this card and jou aling, like Shelly did with the Emperor.

At first, she was able to focus only on shadow qualities of the card: dogmatic teaching, rules, rigidity. But as she deepened into her daily work with the Hierophant, she recognized the power of having a good role model. She was able to accept that these girls could sense her integrity and inner light and needed someone to open up the world for them a little. By the end of the summer, she had built profound relationships with the girls—not as a guru but as a caring adult who was willing to guide them.

It’s important to realize that we each have inner masculine and feminine qualities. Often, we take on the archetypes related to our physical gender while neglecting its opposite. By learning our resistance to those roles that seem “other” to us, we can break down limiting beliefs and barriers to having both our animus and anima—or masculine and feminine.

The Tarot, with its powerful archetypes, can be a great tool, as Shelly and Thyra found. If you are finding it challenging to embody a typically masculine (or feminine) trait, I encourage you to explore this through the Tarot. A psychic advisor can help you dig into resistance or blocks to being your fullest self.