TAROT SPIRIT

Shaman Tarot
@Lo Scarabeo

Some tarot decks are accompaniments to our spiritual practice. The Tarot is just a tool in the toolbox as we journey towards our own personal growth.
We may add Tarot to our ritual layouts, placing a card to hold each of the four directions.
We may use the Tarot as a way of reflecting what our issues are on any particular day.
We can ask the Tarot what is our issue?
We can use the Tarot to show us our steps on the path. You see I don't believe in set outcomes.

I believe life is a constant process or journey. 

We do have situations and issues which climax and need our decision making but I don't believe it stops once one decision is made. Nor do I believe there is a set outcome and that's what will happen.
For example: let's take a relationship issue. There are three paths with this issue.
Path A is leave.
Path B is work through the issue .
Path C could be there is a need for more time before the decision is clear.
Now the Tarot can help in all of these circumstances.
To me the tarot highlights our thinking towards our decision making. If we give our power away to it we believe that the magic of Tarot is a higher knowledge than our own but it isn't. It is our connection and communication with the inner spirit aspects of ourselves.  It is one of the communication lines we have to our own wisdom which sits in a quieter aspect of us where the truth of our wisdom resides. This is the space of the High Priestess and the end result of the search of the Hermit.
Often decks that suit this type of work have a spirit focus.
In this piece I want to work with two decks: one that is extremely feminine and one that is bluntly masculine to illustrate how both the decks are great for spiritual practice.
My exercise is to meditate into the High Priestess. I will spend time in the card then write what knowledge has come to  me from speaking with the High Priestess.

 HIGH PRIESTESS

Shaman Tarot
@Lo Scarabeo

Tarot of Sacred Feminine
@Lo Scarabeo

 Lets speak to the High Priestess.
The priestess from the Shaman Deck has an authoritative and wise presence. I feel if I approached this lady, she is clearly present, she knows her stuff and I would feel confident in her guidance. I feel she would guide me well.

The Priestess of the Sacred Feminine is further away. I have to approach from a distance, she is revered and the doorway to her throne is through the angelic realms. Is that me looking in the wrong direction at the front of the card? I would ask myself to turn around and wonder if I can hear her message.

THE MAGICIANS.

Shaman Tarot
@Lo Scarabeo

Tarot of the Sacred Feminine
@Lo Scarabeo

 We again would have a very differing approach to our two magicians. The Shaman magician is very male and fit and primal. He would be hard to approach because he is entranced in his own power. His tools lie in front of him and I would feel like a delay before I could speak to him. I could join his trance and set my altar and empower my tools. I feel from working with him I would hear prayers or power chants.

Working with the magician of the Sacred Feminine I feel the stillness. I would need to be still to let this snake energy flow throughout me. She is easy to approach but I feel directed and poised seeking an inner balance so I can harness my snake energy. This is the Goddess Eurinome dancing with her serpent.

Both cards harness power but in two very different ways of practice.  One evokes a Shaman of great power which we aspire to become and the other evokes a Goddess that has the power to create the world. Both involve the ritual of moving the elements and using the elements, both ask us to speak to two powerful beings.

Tarot of Sacred Feminine
@Lo Scarabeo

Shaman Tarot
@Lo Scarabeo

 THE HERMITS 

Again these two wonderful decks offer us two very different approaches to seeking solace and understanding inside ourselves. In the Sacred Feminine we have Demeter seeking in vain in a wonderful misty type representation of a forest journey. We feel the isolation and we feel we could be awhile. The hermit time in our own journey is often long journey before we find the destiny of the Wheel of Fortune.

In the Shaman tarot we look in an entirely different place in our solace. We seek the wisdom of the ancestors. Be they the inheritance of our own ancestry or the ancestry of the tribe we belong too or the tribe of the land we inhabit. In any one of these circumstances it can take time to learn the wisdom held in this card.
Neither figure is a youthful one. Demeter is a mother searching for her youthful child, the seeker in the Shaman is not a young man. These figures illustrate the growing of wisdom held within the Major Arcana. Of course directions change and deepen in the Wheel of Fortune.
In this post I have focussed on the spirit found within the tarot journey which walks beside the spiritual path of ourselves. These decks can be read for others but they are probably unlikely to be used by a general reader. They are companion decks, ones we treasure and have in our spirit swags.

OF INTEREST.

Both of these beautiful and deeply spiritual decks are created by Lo Scarabeo of Torino in Italy. Lo Scarabeo has produced decks since 1987 and would have to be the leading Tarot publishers in the world. They have many tarot illustrators and have created gutsy decks for us to read for a very long time. They do know Tarot and will attempt many conventional and non conventional concepts using Tarot. I love and honour their work.

Tarot of the Sacred Feminine is based on women's myth and women's history from all over the globe. Its created by Floreanna Nativo and  the Artwork is by Franco Rivollo.
Floreanna Nativo has worked on other decks: Fire Tarot and Tarot of the Princesses.
Franco Rivolli is an illustrator and has collaborated on both of Floreanna's tarots.

Shaman Tarot is created by Massimiliano Fildaro who is synonymous with many of Lo Scarabeo decks and the artwork is by  Sabrina Ariganello, who also worked on the Book of Shadow Tarot 2 with Barbara Moore and Alessia Pastorello.