The Circle of Life -- The Zodiac Signs and the New Moon's Journey
By
Rebecca Brents

Interpreting Tarot -- Reading the Book of Life
By
Rebecca Brents

Astrology is for Believers.

With Real Astrology as your compass, you can recognize what's right for you, work with your natural gifts and rhythms, understand the dynamics of your relationships, and take your place more easily in Life's natural flow.

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their lives seriously.

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A Woman's Best Medicine: Health, Happiness, and Long Life Through Maharishi Ayur-Veda
By
Nancy Lonsdorf, M.D.

Cut through the confusion.

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Discover why the Tarot has intrigued, informed, and interested spiritual seekers for centuries.

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	Roads Taken ... and Not Taken Along the Mystic's Path ... and the Tarot Trail by Ruby Tuesday
Astrology, Tarot, and Self Improvement for the New Age.

Roads Taken ... and Not Taken
Along the Mystic's Path ... and the Tarot Trail
by Ruby Tuesday

Everything that is part of your life inevitably shapes your life. Tonight I find that an interesting statement. On the one hand, it sounds odd to admit -- or proclaim -- that even small, careless decisions can have surprising, far-reaching consequences. And yet, on the other hand, it's so obvious. Wonderful stories and great dramas have been composed around the amazing -- and sometimes tragic -- results that ripple out from a simple gesture ... or a careless moment.

The road taken creates experience and history. The road not taken seals itself shut behind you -- and yet its possibilities can shimmer for a lifetime in your dreams, your fantasies, the movies of your imagination ... its secrets as intriguing as unopened gifts and letters.

One of the articles on this site warns that following the path of the mystic will inevitably change you. Obviously, it has to ... change you, that is. Without the ensuing knowledge in your mind and the experiences that have come to inhabit your heart, you would not have become who you are -- whatever that might be and wherever you are on your path. You would have become ... someone else.

But in the same way you can't unring a bell, there is no going back. Once upon a time you made your choice, and for better or worse, you'll live with it. From now on. If that sounds a little sinister, I'm not surprised, though it's not meant to be. It's simply true. It's simply life.

I didn't know this thing about life-changing moments when I took up the Tarot ... more than thirty years ago. Or if I did, I didn't think about it ... much. Although it captured my imagination from an early age, it took me a while to get into the studies with a passion that really caught fire and turned into something permanent.

I fiddled around with books I could find ... terrible texts most of them. As for how they got published in the first place, all I can say is editors for decades must not have known any more on the subject than the writers who were putting out this tripe -- for reasons known only to themselves and maybe God. It's what happens, I guess when people pool their ignorance and manage to print it up with paper and ink.

I wish I could be kinder about it, but I can't find much charity in my response to what I found and the time I wasted trying to decipher it. I won't mention the money spent. I still have my first deck of Tarot cards: The Aquarian Tarot. Interesting art. Suitably peculiar pictures. Long out of print now. Lord, that deck must be nearly 40 years old.

I monkeyed with it through the years, especially when boredom, curiosity and desperation would collide and start me wondering about -- or worrying about -- the future and the terrors and treasures it might hold. Everything then seemed to center around that god-awful Celtic Cross layout ... and the "answers" that came in bits and pieces so scattered they were virtually incoherent often brought as much frustration and despair as comfort.

Still, I'd eventually drag them out and try again ... those baffling, beautiful cards. And all the while I'd marvel that somewhere -- so rumor had it -- were people to whom this picture language made sense ... and who could use it to forecast the future. I longed to be one of them ... for my own peace of mind, for some solid ability to forecast what tomorrow might bring.

They say be careful what you wish for. That private prayer just might come true. And so it has for me, and I have to admit, it's a mixed blessing. Sometimes I've been shielded from catastrophe's approach right up til the moment life exploded all around me ... like a bomb, leveling everything in sight, leaving my familiar world in ruins. Sometimes I've watched it for years, approaching like a train-wreck in slow-motion, unable to do anything but stand in its path and wait for the inevitable collision.

There's a lot to be said for ignorance. So much, I might actually recommend it. I might actually prefer it. On at least two occasions, I was able to enjoy the familiarity and comfort of what I'd built, brick by brick through many years of labor ... right up to the moment it ceased to exist, blown to smithereens by someone else's choice.

Other times ... times beyond counting ... I saw the unfolding future laid out in the storyline of cards on the table in front of me. Usually the news was not happy ... or good. People don't usually pick up the Tarot when "happily ever after" is pretty much guaranteed. It's a simple fact of human nature ... and I am, after all, simply human.

I called the Tarot's gifts and impact on my life a mixed blessing earlier. I'm still willing to go with that. There have been a few good moments interlaced with the other kind. But "the other kind" are damned memorable, I promise you.

Tonight, I sit here and ask myself ... "If I knew then what I know now, would I still make the choice to pick up those cards ... and draw them into my life?" My most sincere answer is ... "Probably." It's hard to separate out images of what my life would be like if I could unthread the fibers the Tarot has woven there. Harder than to play with those enticing dreams of other moments that awaited and were foreclosed forever along the road not taken.

Probably, yes, I would still make that choice ... pick up those cards and those books ... and travel on my way with them. But it's not something I can say for sure. Nor can I say for sure what would have changed. Would things have been better? Maybe. Might things have been worse? Maybe. And maybe things are what they are because that's how they were always meant to be. Sometimes, part of me thinks that, too.

It's part of the mystery. Not even the venerable Tarot always tells the whole story. But perhaps I will, in fits and starts, as the memories arise -- on night's made for musing and reverie. There are worse ways to use the hours of darkness. You can follow me though the gloom ... or not. I honestly don't care. Up to you.

See also
The Path of the Mystic

Go to: Tarot, Beginning Tarot Class, Tarot Articles, Tarot Lectures, Free Tarot Ebook, The Tarot Blog, New Age Blogs, Ruby Tuesday's Tarot Blog, Reading Tarot Cards, Ruminations and Reflections on Tarot, Being a Tarot Reader, Daily Tarot Readings, Daily Tarot Ezine, Weekly Tarot Readings, Weekly Tarot Ezine, Free Tarot Readings, Tarot Books, EBooks and Classes, Learn the Tarot, Miscellaneous Tarot Topics

Ruby Tuesday is a staff writer for Enchanted Spirit.
Her specialty is discovering and teaching creative uses of Tarot.

A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can't think of anything else to do.
~ W. H. Auden ~
Born February 21, 1907

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Enchanted Spirit is a non-denominational spiritual center of healing, support, self-improvement, personal guidance, education and writing. We publish multi-media works of New Age thought and information to encourage serenity and growth in individual life choices, advance the universal search for life's meaning, and promote tolerance for positive ideas from all philosophies and religious traditions, believing as we do that truth is where you find it.

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Last updated February 3rd, 2010

How to Read Your Natal Chart
By
Rebecca Brents

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Buddha Is as Buddha Does: The Ten Original Practices for Enlightened Living
By
Lama Surya Das