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This Podcast Episode has been archived.

It is available for purchase at shop.tarotconnection.net in the Year One Archive mp3 DVD.

My guest is Mary Carter who’s latest book Accidentally Engaged protagonist Clare Ivers is a psychic tarot reader. Clare ignores her intuition which is telling her to decline reading for a woman who is getting cold feet about her upcoming wedding. Clare is asked to give a phony reading in favor of the wedding (by the sister-in-law) and to break the engagement (by the future bride). Clare obliges her customer and comes into possession of a 3 carat wedding ring that needs returning.

Accidentally Engaged

By Mary Carter
PROLOGUE

It all started that fateful evening when I allowed myself to turn over the first card. It was from the Major Arcana, Trumps Zero, The Fool.

He’s the grinning idiot, the class clown, the one who eats oysters despite the Red Tide warning, the guy who lowers his car for increased speed and agility, despite the fact that it’s a Saturn.

Most Tarot card decks show The Fool standing at the edge of a cliff, not watching what he’s doing. He’s daydreaming, he’s staring off into the sky, he’s mentally composing his grocery list. In other words, he’s terminally out of milk.

He’s also one step away from plunging thousands of feet to his death.

And it’s not like anyone didn’t warn him. (Hence, his name.)

If a non-foolish man were carefully and strategically walking down a path and suddenly plunged to his death due to large foliage, overgrown trees, or poor city planning, we’d all feel sorry for the guy, maybe even drop a bundle of flowers or light an outdoor-only non flammable candle at the accident site. Maybe even shed a few tears. We’re reasonable people. And even if we didn’t go that far, we certainly wouldn’t blame the guy for dying.

But if there were clues pointing to the impending disaster scattered along the way, such as small forest animals running at top speed in the opposite direction, a strange, stale feeling of doom hovering about the suddenly stilled air, or a large, neon sign blinking Danger! This path ends in a perilous cliff!, we probably wouldn’t be so sympathetic when The Fool blindly forged ahead and plummeted off the face of the earth. Most likely we’d say, I told you so.

In my defense (because a fool always has one), at the time I thought I was doing the reading for someone else. It’s only now as I stand at the edge of the cliff, one step away from taking the fatal plunge myself, that I can see everything so clearly.

Mary Carter

Mary Carter is a freelance writer and certified sign language interpreter. She’s a graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts (NYC) and Rochester Institute of Technology/NTID. Her first novel, SHE’LL TAKE IT, will be re-published by Headline Books/Little Black Dress in the UK in November 2006. Her second novel, ACCIDENTALLY ENGAGED, a comedy about a tarot card reader who messes up the engagement of a very prominent bachelor, will be released in March of 2007 by both Kensington Books and Little Black Dress. Mary currently lives in Manhattan where she is busy writing her third novel.

• Mary Carter Books (Visit Mary’s Website)

Hermit’s Journey with Bonnie Cehovet – Ritual and the Aces

Welcome to the Hermit’s Journey. This is Bonnie Cehovet, and today we will be talking about ritual and the Aces. Webster defines ritual as something done in accordance with religious law, social custom, or normal protocol. That is a pretty wide range of thought! I personally see ritual as something that can be either formal or informal something that marks the passage of time, and the important events in our lives. Ritual is a marker that we use to make sense of life.

For me, an important, if informal, ritual is my morning coffee. When the weather is nice, I sit on my porch and gaze into the back yard, which is filled with all kinds of plant and animal life. In bad weather, the ritual takes place indoors, but the result is the same … I have connected with my soul, and with the life that surrounds me.

The Aces represent a world of opportunity. They are unexplored elemental energy waiting to be manifested, waiting to be put into use. What do you wish to manifest in your life? Which Ace, or combination of Aces, will assist you on your path?

Caution: do not listen to this episode in situations requiring alertness such as driving a car or operating machinery. Journey work is designed to put you in to a state of relaxation and an altered state of consciousness.

Tarot by the Numbers: The Twos by Ginny Hunt

I have a very conflicted relationship with numbers. I’m hopeless with math but I can do symbolism. That may seem a contradictory statement, for what are numbers but abstract symbols themselves? I can grasp the conceptual meaning of the symbols easily, but for some reason I will add 2 + 2 and come up with 5. Hey, that’s just me thinking outside the box, ok? Numbers and their symbolism inform a great deal about the meaning of tarot, and there is very little, if any, mathematical skill necessary to understand them. While the suits each have their attributes, so do each number.

There’s a whole field of spiritual and divinatory study called Numerology that goes well beyond the realm of tarot. However, tarot numerology differs in some ways from what has been developed in Numerology numerology. In Tarot, we primarily keep the symbolic meanings of the numbers in mind as a reference to sorting out the meaning of the cards. Understanding these symbolic numerical associations becomes more critical when working with non-scenic pip decks, such as the Marseilles-based decks, where pictured on the card may simply be 4 cups or 7 swords and not much else to go on.

The Major Arcana is numbered 0-21 and the Minor Arcana is numbered 1 (or Ace)-10 in each of the four suits. Each of the Minor numbers are associated with a Major. For example, as we take a look at the Two’s in Tarot, they all connect in some way to the Major Arcana II — The High Priestess. Each number also has a planetary association, so there’s some crossover with Astrology here as well.

The number two first and foremost represents dualism which is the existence of two fundamental principles, concepts, things or energies, that are in opposition to each other. It is where thought begins to actually take form. Human minds are geared towards seeing the relationships between two things, usually opposite things. We often express ourselves in this way, using opposing concepts to get at what we mean. We say something is good/bad, light/dark, male/female, sweet/sour. It is said we could not know happiness if not for having experienced its opposite, sadness. So, in that way two’s represent that dichotomy of thought that allows coherent expression of the initial idea begun in the Aces. (read the full post)

Music Credits

Opening Music: time release by the Droney Tones.

Hermits Journey Music: Dark Moon by Suzanne Teng from Enchanted Wind (Magnatune)

78 Notes Music: Steamy River by Rhonda Lorence from Winter Moon (Magnatune)

Closing Music: Happy Accident from Mystery Repeats Itself by Michael Masley