This podcast episode explores the philosophical underpinnings of Tarot, focusing on the concept of balance through the lens of gender in the Major Arcana and elemental energies in the Minor Arcana, offering practical guidance for understanding card meanings.
Mind Map
Click to expand
Click to explore the full interactive mind map • Zoom, pan, and navigate
you're listening to root lock radio [Music]
hello and welcome to rootlock radio a
podcast for uncloaking
learning and exploring the tarot cards
my name's weston i live in new york city
and i'm your host
in each episode we do a little bit of
philosophical exploration of the tarot
cards and we also provide
step-by-step practical instructions for
people who are just learning about the tarot
tarot
that said if you're new to tarot you'll
probably want to start it episode 1.
even if you're not new you might want to
start there too i probably won't teach
you how to read the tarot cards but
maybe you'll get some insights from my approach
approach
in this episode we're going to talk a
little bit about the philosophical
background of the tarot
particularly the concept of balance
we're going to look at how
balance of gender plays out in the major
arcana cards
we're also going to look at the
elemental energies of the minor arcana
cards and how balance plays into those two
two
my hope for this is to provide some
philosophical background and building
blocks for you to understand the
meanings of the cards
which we'll get into in more detail in
episode 3.
that said you're probably getting
anxious to learn the cards so i'll also
tell you about an exercise that you can use
use
to get started on that thanks again for
listening and i hope you enjoy the
second episode
of rootlock radio [Music]
as i mentioned last time the 22 major
arcana cards
are often conceptualized as a journey
through the human experience and human life
life
some people call this the fool's journey
because the
first card in the deck is the fool so
you can kind of imagine
the figure depicted on the first card
as the person who ends up going through
the journey
on the next 21 cards now i'm not going
to quite get
into the whole thing about the fool's journey
journey
today we will cover that to some extent
in future episodes
but today i'm going to kind of give you
an idea of
how gender plays into the philosophy outlined
outlined
by the fool's journey now i have to tell
you that i'm borrowing this exercise from
from
one of my very favorite tarot books it's called
called
78 degrees of wisdom and it's written by rachel
rachel
pollock if you want to know more about
the fool's journey i definitely
recommend you pick up this book
and generally i just recommend it as a
tarot resource
it has some of the best explanations of
the individual cards so
if you want to have a book on your shelf
where you can
access explanations of each of the cards
i recommend this one
i think it's the best so if you have
your deck with you i recommend pulling
out four cards the fool the magician the
high priestess and the world
so these cards are 0 1
2 and 21 in the major arcana
the major arcana begins with the card
the fool
the fool often denotes a completely
clean slate
someone who doesn't know anything is
starting brand new
and beginning their journey in some way
in the context of the major arcana you
can think of the fool
as being a newborn baby or as
a spirit that hasn't been conceived as a
baby yet or
someone that's got complete amnesia and
is sort of starting their life new
um if you look at the card the figure
definitely looks like an adult
so perhaps that's an easier way for you
to conceive of it
the narrative the major arcana begins
with the fool and ends with the world
the two cards following the fool are
number one the magician and number two
the high priestess and this is where
we get introduced to the gender tropes
in the tarot the masculine side is
represented by the magician and
masculine is associated with
action the feminine side is represented
by the high priestess and the feminine
is associated with meditation so if you
think about these two things
they sort of are in balance with one
another so if you look at the card
the magician you see a male figure
standing upright
holding a wand towards the sky and
pointing his finger towards the ground
you can kind of think of him as some
sort of conduit
of energy he's not really thinking about
anything he is
channeling energy through his body the
high priestess on the other hand
representing the feminine
is sitting contemplatively between two columns
columns
and if you look carefully she has sort
of a
vaginal appearance to her she's sitting
between two columns
her robe has sort of a labial look to it
her hat has a round object on it
and the overall look of the card is a
bit vaginal
the magician on the other hand being erect
erect
and upright and if you look at the wand
that he is holding
it is phallic so what we're being
introduced to
here is the idea that masculine energy
is action-oriented and feminine energy
is meditation oriented now if you look
at the world
card what you see is a figure floating
and this figure which appears to be
female because she has breasts
is holding two wands in previous
versions of the tarot
this figure has actually been depicted
as having a penis
which means that the figure is
intersexed quite literally combining
male and female traits into a single
human body
and this is important to realize in the
history of this particular image because
basically what is saying is that when
you reach
the final stage of the major arcana when
you get to the end of that journey
the feminine and the masculine are
blended together
and you can see that clearly in the
imagery in this card
the idea that she's holding two of these
phallic looking wands that we see in the
magician card and how
that mirrors the high priestess
in that she's between these two columns
and we still have the roundness of the
high priestess and sort of a
vaginal appearance in this card and also
the erectness
of the magician and that the figure is
standing very upright
so it's a blending of the imagery of the
two so considering this
i would like to assert what i think is
one of the most
interesting and most important
philosophical aspects of the tarot
and that is that to live a fulfilled
life and that's what the world card
represents is that sort of enlightenment
or fulfillment at the end of a journey
in order to live this fulfilled life we
need to blend
the masculine qualities of action with
the feminine qualities of meditation
and this makes a lot of sense when you
really think about it we've all been in
experiences where we
act without thinking and we usually
regret it we've also been an experience
where we think
without acting and that sort of stewing
isn't any fun either
so the tarot's sort of asserting that in
order to
get the most out of life we have to blend
blend
action with meditation we have to think
things through
carefully and really get in touch with
the deeper
more subconscious aspects of decision making
making
but we also can't be afraid of making
moves and doing things
this will play out a lot throughout the
tarot but i'd like you to
keep this in mind as you learn more
about the cards and as you pull cards
for yourself
in future exercises and tarot readings
this should always sort of be the
overarching narrative of guidance that
the tarot
offers and that is that we need to
meditate before acting we need to act
on our meditations and we need to
meditate on our actions
we need to blend thinking things through
and taking decisive
action in order to live the most
to further understand the way that this
balance plays out in the tarot we can
also look to the
minor arcana cards now as i've said
before the minor arcana cards come in four
four
suits sort of like the four suits in a
deck of playing cards
you have the wands the cups the swords
and the pentacles so to continue this
exercise i recommend
pulling out the four ace cards and
taking a look at them
so when you have the four cards pulled
out i want you to put them into a
diamond shape with the swords at the top
the pentacles at the bottom
the wands to the left and the cups to
the right
now keeping in mind the magician high priestess
priestess
action meditation balance that we saw
in the major arcana take a look at the wands
wands
and cups cards and you'll see sort of a
similar energy in those two cards so
what we're dealing with here is the
elemental energies the wands are
associated with the element of fire
but you can also think of them as being
similar to the action
oriented energy of the masculine
magician card
and when you look at the wand card the
ace of wands you can see
some similar imagery the wand reminds us
of the wand that the magician is holding
the wand is very upright and erect and a
little bit
phallic there's a certain confidence and certainty
certainty
in the way that the hand from the clouds
is holding the wand
and the fire energy is usually
associated with things that you can
think of
as sort of a conduit between the inner
and outer world now that's a little bit
hard to wrap your head around and a lot of
of
times the wands are one of the more
difficult suits for people to
really understand but they tend to rule
things like
sexuality spirituality creativity
and things like that and you may ask
well what do those things have in common
why are they all ruled by the same fire energy
energy
and to me the main connection between
those things the spirituality the
sexuality and the creativity
is that it's sort of a meeting of your
inner world
and the outer world so when you think of
spirituality it's a way that we
connect our sense of self with the
greater universe and come to understand
the meaning of our place in the world or
in the universe
when you think about sexuality it's a
blending of of your soul
with somebody else's soul so it's some
way of connecting what's
internal with something that's external
and when you think of creativity
the arts are always a form of expression
of expressing
some impression that you have about the
world or some feeling that you have
about life and so there's there's again
that sort of conduit
of energy you're channeling something internal
internal
into the external world and so those are
the things that the wand
energy the fire energy tends to rule
now looking at the ace of cups
this is where we have our association
with the minor arcana with the high priestess
priestess
card and her feminine more meditative
energy and if you look back at the high
priestess card
you see that there's a lot of water
imagery on that card as well
her dress looks like a waterfall
and behind the curtain that she's
sitting in front of
there is a body of water the element of water
water
is usually associated with emotions
and the subconscious and these two
things are
are closely connected right a lot of
times when we feel something very strongly
strongly
we can't quite rationalize it it's
coming from somewhere
deeper within us something that we can't
quite understand
and only through careful consideration
and meditation
do we really begin to get where our
emotions are coming from and
of course there's a lot in the practice
of psychology
around the subconscious and emotions right
right
the ways that we attach to our parents
our early life experiences
are often things that determine the type
of emotional life that we have as adults
so there is this strong link between the subconscious
subconscious
and emotions and those are the things
that the suit of cups
rule so again between the wands and the
cups we have
that balance that we saw between the
magician and the high priestess the fiery
fiery
more energy conduit active energy and the
the
the watery more receptive quiet
meditative emotional side of things
so again we're looking for balance
between these things
but then of course there are two other suits
suits
in the minor arcana of the tarot so you
may ask what do these two suits
rule and the reason i ask you to put the
swords at the top
of the diamond is because that's sort of
the higher
energy and the pentacles at the bottom
are the lower
energy so the swords are ruling more of
the detached
airy energy they're associated with the
element of
air whereas the pentacles are more the grounded
grounded
earthy energy so thinking about this
let's look at the ace of swords and
think about the element
of air and when you look at the
landscape on the ace of swords
it looks very arid it's high in the
mountains there's no plant life so it's very
very
devoid of the things that you see in the
more earthy energy
of the pentacles card which is a garden
we're at a much lower elevation
plant life is thriving so these two
energies are in opposition to each other
as well now the air energy of the swords
is associated with things like philosophy
philosophy
and wisdom and words and the pentacles
the earth energy of the pentacles
is associated with our physical
lives so our bodies our work our money
our homes and the things that really
bring us comfort
so when you think of something like
philosophy it's very detached
from the actual grounded day-to-day
life of human experience right when we
start talking
philosophically about the human
experience it becomes
sort of detached from our actual lives
it's a way of kind of going up into the air
air
and looking down on our lives in a detached
detached
way it's hard to be philosophical
about something that's happening to you
at that exact moment
it's more something you do when some
time has passed or
you've gotten some distance from the thing
thing
so that's the detachedness of the air energy
energy
and that's why the things that the air
energy rules
the philosophy the wisdom the words have an
an
attachedness to them on the other hand
the pentacles
have a groundedness so when you think about
about
your body in your work life
in your home if you have a garden right
these are all things that make you feel
very grounded
and very attached so the pentacles the
earth energy
is a much more attached energy now again
we're looking
for balance in all of these things so if
we kind of go through
these we can understand how imbalance
could happen
so if you're all ones if you're all the
fire energy
you might be a little bit too wild
right you might be one of those sort of
fiery unstable creative types
that is sort of flying off the handle
all the time something like that
if you're too much cups energy you're
overly emotional
right you you wallow in your emotions
you tend to be sort of depressed
so whereas the wands energy is more
manic the cups energy is more depressed
if you're all swords energy you have
this detachedness
driven by being overly intellectual or
overly philosophical right you're off
kind of on your own
and you're not connected to the world
around you
or to your environment or to other
people and if you're too much of the
pentacles energy of that earth energy
then you're a little too comfortable and too
too
grounded you don't really think about
the bigger picture
you don't put yourself in situations
that you're not comfortable with you
don't challenge yourself
you're sort of just stuck in your
comfort zone
in your environment so again there's a
sense of balance coming across
you want to be creative and sexual and
spiritual but you also want to be
contemplative and emotional and you want
to be
able to philosophize and understand
the world in a more intellectual way
but you also want to be grounded and
enjoy your
physical life and your physical being
and as we go
back next time to the beginning cards
of the major arcana we'll see how these
four elements
are actually also playing out in early
cards there
so the the cards that follow the
magician and the high priestess
also play on the earth and air energy
so as you experiment with pulling tarot cards
cards
and using them to help you address questions
questions
and dilemmas and situations that you're
facing keep in mind
that ultimately the tarot is trying to
push you
towards a more balanced existence
so as you interpret the cards and
consider the wisdom that they're
offering you
in each of the scenarios that you pull
the cards for
keep in mind that you should be working towards
towards
a better balance and you should be
trying to identify
the aspects of your life that are out of balance
balance
particularly in the ways that the tarot
advocates for
so that blending of the masculine
action-oriented fire energy
and the feminine meditation-oriented
water energy as well as the intellectual
and the groundedness
try to understand how you can push yourself
yourself
closer to achieving a more balanced [Music]
existence [Music]
[Music]
thank you
so one more thing for today i imagine
you're getting pretty
anxious to begin to memorize the cards
um and this is quite a task to take on
and we'll definitely start to get into
individual card meanings in the next episode
episode
the reason i've saved that for this far
into the podcast is because i wanted to
give you some of the philosophical
building blocks as i mentioned last time
it's important for you to be able to
have an intuitive reading of the tarot cards
cards
and also to be able to draw on the philosophy
philosophy
behind the tarot to understand what
you're seeing
in individual cards that said it doesn't
hurt to
look at each card and try to understand
classic meanings of those cards based on
what other people have written
so a great way to do this is to do a
card of the day so what you're gonna do
is you're gonna shuffle your deck each
day or at least each day that you're
able to do this
and you're going to pull out one card
so for instance today i've pulled out
the four
of pentacles so the first thing i'm
going to do is i'm going to think what
do i know about
the suit well pentacles are the earth
suit they have to do
with our bodies our money our home
our work and then i'm going to do sort
of what we did last time when we did the past
past
present future reading i'm going to just
look at the imagery of the card and see
what i can understand about it so
i see that the card has a gray background
background
so it's not a particularly warm
or sunny feeling card and then on the
card there's a figure it looks like a man
man
um he's got a crown on his head he's
sitting down
and he's got four pentacles two of them are
are
underneath his feet one of them is
floating on his head
and the fourth one he is clutching in
his arms
so you get a sense of sort of security or
or
clinging to security in this particular card
card
behind the man is a city there's
buildings back there
so maybe it has something to do with civilization
civilization
or other people there's no other people
besides him in the card so there might
be a slight detachedness
of the fact that he's here not out in
the city with all the other people
so my initial interpretation is that
this card is maybe something about
detaching yourself in order to cling to
your work or money or home-based security
security
so maybe it could have something to do
with the time where you are
focusing on those things and you're
having to detach yourself
there does seem to be maybe a little bit
of insecurity
driving this because of particularly the
way that he's clutching
and holding on to that pentacle it seems
like he's afraid to let it go
so after reading the card in that way
what i recommend doing
is just going and doing a basic internet
search google
four of pentacles and you'll see there
there are lots of websites that will
give you
interpretations of the card meanings i
also mentioned
earlier in this podcast the book 78
degrees of wisdom by rachel
if i were to recommend one tarot
book for
a reference guide it would be that one
so you can also buy that book or another
book if you want
and read what that person has to say
about the particular card
so again you're going to want to do a
card of the day
where you pull a card try to interpret it
it
on your own using the imagery the colors
what you know about the energies of the
suits and then going
and looking up other people's meanings
and then what i like to do
is is just keep this card in mind as i
go through my day
and see if there's any way that i can
attach its meaning to things that i do
or see or things that happen to me
throughout that day
i just kind of try to keep an eye out
for the energy of the card
so i don't necessarily interpret the
card as my
fate or my destiny of that particular day
day
but more just being aware of the
particular card's energy
and seeing if i can pin it onto the
real world [Applause]
[Applause] [Music]
[Music] [Applause]
[Applause] [Music]
[Music] [Applause]
[Applause] [Music]
[Music] [Applause]
root lock radio is written and produced
by me westin
intro music is provided by shenandoah
davis the music you're hearing now is
provided by jirei
you can find both of their information
in the show notes if you have any
questions or ideas for future episodes
of root lock radio
or if you'd like to have me do a tarot
reading or teach you tara one on one
feel free to contact me my email is
rootlocktaro gmail.com
thanks again for listening and i hope
you'll join me next time
Click on any text or timestamp to jump to that moment in the video
Share:
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
One-Click Copy125+ LanguagesSearch ContentJump to Timestamps
Paste YouTube URL
Enter any YouTube video link to get the full transcript
Transcript Extraction Form
Most transcripts ready in under 5 seconds
Get Our Chrome Extension
Get transcripts instantly without leaving YouTube. Install our Chrome extension for one-click access to any video's transcript directly on the watch page.
