Lesson 03
The planets, one by one
Observe first. Interpret second. Research third.
Ten planets as living qualities. Not a chart. Not a costume. Work them one by one until you can say each one in ordinary English, then let them meet a card.
Planets-and-signs gave you the overview. These seats are the individual study. Do them slowly. The ones that irritate you are often the ones you need.
How to use these planet lessons
Open a planet. Read the quality in plain English. Light and shadow. How to recognise it in a life and in a picture. Then sit with the example card. Then do the exercise with an actual image, not with a list in your head.
You will not recite ten speeches in a reading. You will recognise a kind of action, then let the card be specific. If the planet does not add a sentence the image had not already offered, leave it. That is the work.
Write the quality in your own words. If your words disagree with mine, keep yours if they came from life or from the picture. Do not keep them because they came from a poster.
Light and shadow, not a moral
Shadow here is imbalance, avoidance, overexpression. It is not bad. The Sun's glare is still the Sun. Mars swallowed is still Mars. You are learning volume and direction, not a naughty list.
A planet can deepen a card when the quality is already in the room. It cannot rescue a reading you have not looked at. The picture wins. The question wins. The planet is a flavour.
The slower ones, still a quality
Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto get seats because readers use them. They are not required for a tarot reading in this school. Learn the flavour so you can recognise a jolt, a dissolve, a compost. Speak the name only when it is living in you and sitting in the image.
A common teaching map pairs them with certain Majors. I will name those maps as common maps, not as my invention, and not as the only true sky. When two maps argue, stay with the picture.
Activity
The planet you fake
Name the planet you reach for without being able to say it in English. Write the quality, light and shadow, without the planet's name. Then pull a card. Does the quality add a sentence, or were you showing off?
Related in the school
Reflection
Which planet do you treat as a sticker, and which one have you been avoiding because it would ask you to grow up, wake up, or feel?
Related in the school
In this lesson
- 01The SunIdentity, vitality, what is lit. The centre of a life.
- 02The MoonFeeling, reflection, cycles, the hidden. Inner weather.
- 03MercuryMind, speech, hands, messages. The movement of information.
- 04VenusValue, relating, beauty. What you draw toward and call worthy.
- 05MarsDrive, heat, conflict. The will to act.
- 06JupiterExpansion, meaning, faith, more. A bigger view.
- 07SaturnLimit, time, structure, consequence. The grown-up.
- 08UranusDisruption, awakening, the sudden. The jolt that will not stay in the old shape.
- 09NeptuneDissolve, dream, ideal, fog. Mercy, and the blur.
- 10PlutoDeep change, power, what must transform. Compost. The underworld of a life.