MindBodySoul Archives | Sarah Taylor

A Reader’s Accounting Tarot, Psyche, & the Matter of Self-Activism Originally published in Tarosophist International Magazine, II.12 (34), with thanks. Taken on the island of Jersey, UK, at Devil’s Hole, St. Mary. In 2019, I decided to discontinue one-to-one tarot readings*. Once again I had reached the crossroads that I’d been to several times as…

A new video – the first of two parts – where I talk about my thoughts on Jungian/Analytical Psychology, and (coming up in the second video) how I bring and apply it to my work. Click the video below to view.

As with dreams, tarot prefers to communicate using symbol and metaphor. Often, it is a language that on the surface appears nonsensical, but which we find we can understand once we become willing and able translators. Elements that would make strange dance partners in our everyday life move together with harmony and fluidity; and we take it all in. There is a part of us that is adept at moving in the same rhythm, and it is this part that takes over when we work with tarot.

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” ~ Joseph Campbell. The entrance to the Hell Fire Caves in West Wycombe, Bucks. Consider this a quasi-Part-II to the “No Guru, No Method, No Teacher” post I did earlier this month about forging one’s own path. Up until a year ago, I…

For a very long time, I considered myself a bit of a charlatan.
I’ve been a jack of all trades; and a master of none. I have talked about, and worked with, tarot, but I have never managed to fully tread the path of the adept in anything tarot-related.

One of the greatest gifts that a Jungian approach to tarot – and to my own life – has given me has been indescribably precious: The understanding that the crisis and breakdown that I was plunged into aged 34 was not only normal, but a rite of passage.

This week, I came face-to-face with another learning lesson, in a very personal way. And this time it wasn’t a lesson in doubt and awe, but a lesson in humility.

I believe that when we look at a reading, we are looking at an aspect of the unconscious. And when we become aware of the unconscious, the unconscious becomes aware that we are aware of it.

I can remember a moment when my style of tarot reading changed significantly. Actually, it was more than that: it was the moment when I started to relate differently to what I once thought was separate from me.