The Fool’s travels maneuver him/her on the pathways between all experiences. The Fool is free of fear and is naturally spontaneous and enthusiastic. The Fool is assigned the number 22 and 0 (Zero).

The letter is Aleph, which means Ox .
The Intelligence given the Fool is Fiery Intelligence.
The Fool’s color is yellow
Musical note is E Natural.
Uranus ruled, providing an Aquarian aura to the persona.
Referencing the Tree of Life, the path of the Fool is the 11th Path, between Kether (Crown) and Chokmah (Wisdom of the Father).
Those with the essence of the Fool will surprise you. Just when you think have figured this person out as a “jokester”, words of wisdom will spring from the depth of his soul.

The Fool tends to ignore “rules” and take it for granted that the rules are there to be tested. This doesn’t mean “laws” but rules, about people, life, and spirituality. The Fool will display insights, which can be viewed as revolutionary, and anti-establishment.

Those with the essence of The Fool will, to some degree or another, experience every experience of human existence.

One of The Fool’s follies is that they see the reflection of their own Divinity in all beings. This is admirable, except for the fact that The Fool rarely realizes danger to life and limb until they are under attack.

Another of The Fool’s follies is not living in their own personal truth in a desire to “fit” the mold of those he/she wishes to please. To find true fulfillment The Fool must seek people and experiences, which compliment his/her highest potential. The Fool may stop and dally for a while, but stand in the way of The Fool’s Divine calling, and you will be standing in front of the wind.

The Magician is the path between the Source and Organizer of Form ( Kether and Binah).
The Magicina directs channeled energy. He has all magickal tools at his disposal. The talents of the Magician are skill, wisdom, and adaptability. The Magician learns the power of his words, and thoughts. The Magician sees the manifestation of his prayers. If you have this as an esscence, attend to your prayers as you will get what you ask for. Weight your words carefully.

The Magician’s color is yellow
the note is E natural
the planet is Mercury
the Hebrew letter is Beth , meaning "house."
It is the 12th path, between Kether and Binah .
Its Qabalistic Intelligence is Transparent Intelligence.

The High Priestess embodies the Feminine Mystery of “The Goddess.” The High Priestess is the Virgin who gives birth. She manifests the Divine through Immaculate Conception. Her inspirations are not clouded by the stage drama we call Earthly life.

The planetary ruler is the Moon.
The color is blue
The musical note is G sharp
The Hebrew letter is Gimel , meaning "camel."
The Qabalistic Intelligence of the High Priestess is Uniting Intelligence. Her esoteric title is "The Princess of the Silver Star."
The High Priestess is the thirteenth path on the Tree of Life, connecting Kether and Tiphareth.

The High Priestess has the longest journey of all, from God the Crown to God the Son (The Source of All to Slain and Resurrected One.) Only a camel is able to make the long trek across the desert in the heat of the beating Sun.

The High Priestess learns resourcefulness to navigate the ups and downs on the long journey. The High Priestess is the Water carrier, Water equating to Spirit, and Spiritual Food, the Manna for food in the desert.

The High Priestess is the Virgin, and Prostitute, the World Mother, Maiden, and the Crone. She has a vast storehouse of wisdom, and yet can seem innocent and unknowing.

The High Priestess can readily withdraw from the emotional involvement of the community. A few traumas in The High Priestess’s experience may make her wary of close involvements. This withdrawal isn’t a reflection of frigidity, or a lack of emotions, but an avoidance of stirring deeply and diverse emotions, which can adversely affect her.

The High Priestess guards her secret of Universal Creativity. She may guard the secret from herself. She knows that she is an innovator, and is inspired to manifest “other-worldly” creations, but may not fully realize from where this brilliance springs.

The High Priestess sometimes refers to the Maiden aspect of the triune goddess--Mother, Maiden, Crone. The High Priestess is the Grandmother who finally feels confident, or aged enough, to share her psychic dreams, or flashes of intuition.

The Empress is the mediator between Father and Mother ( Chokmah and Binah). This path represents the union of force and form, a path of Unity.The Empress is all fertile, all light, and all loving. The Empress is a nurturer. Those under the influence of the Empress have strong creative abilities to share with the world.

The planet associated with the Empress is Venus.
The color is green
the note is F sharp
the Hebrew letter is Daleth , meaning "door."
The Qabalistic Intelligence is Luminous Intelligence.
The Path is between Binah and Chokmah .

The Empress and The High Priestess are the two key Tarot cards, or Tree of Life positions, relating specifically to the demonstration of feminine energy.

The Empress is a feminine symbol of beauty, grave, and creativity. The Empress is conscious of herself and her feminine role.. She sensitive as well as sensual. She is enthusiastic about sharing her gifts with the world. The Empress is intuitively aware of the cycles of the seasons, and applies this wisdom to crops, as well as human life.

The Emperor is the 15th path on the Tree of Life.

The path of the Emperor goes between the Son and the Father (Tiphareth and Chokmah). The Emperor is a male Aries energy. This card represents great creativity and rulership. This represents the balance of Male and Female energies filtering through the Empress into the Emperor. The creativity may manifest in a vast array of potentials.The Emperor’s energy focuses on vision and ability as it can be applied to organization. The Emperor’s energy is masculine.

The Emperor is Aries, which is a sign of the leader, but can also be very self-serving. It is interesting to me because his energy is “Earthy.” Perhaps The Emperor could be related to the Earth in the fiery manner of Pluto, and that planet’s association with volcanoes. Volcanoes erupt in fire and flame, throwing debris across the country. The ultimate result of this destruction is the emergence of the beauty of the Earth on a totally altered terrain.

He is the builder of home and business. The hunter and gatherer to the Empress who is at “his” home tending to children, planting the garden, and making the home beautiful. He is the Male Archetype Sexual figure in the Tarot, on the Tree of Life.

The Emperor essence is a calling to be decisive, and step into authority.

The folly of The Emperor is that he can be harsh, demanding, ruling, and war-like. He can be oppressive, and demanding to a fault. He can loose control of his emotions, and his temper. Those with an essence of the Emperor demonstrate the various aspects of the unapproachable “Stern” Father figure, to the “Father Knows Best” persona of a kind and approachable “Dad.” One of the great challenges to those with the Emperor essence is to learn to blend these dualities, and become the “Father” of their imagination.

The Emperor does possess an inapproachable wall that can be thrown into place just when those around him need his compassionate side the most. It is the Emperor’s challenge to not allow the Mars energy of attack, or retreat, to kick into gear at the times his life lesson would be better served by open nurturing arms.
Ruled by the sign of Aries, which is ruled by Mars.
Aries is a cardinal sign, and the first sign of the zodiac. This is a sign of aggression, boldness, and confidence.
The color for the Emperor is red.
The note is C Natural
The Hebrew letter is Heh , meaning "window."
Qabalistic Intelligence is Constituting Intelligence.
The sense of sight is strongly connected to the Emperor, and many decks show him in profile, emphasizing his view of his domain.
His path is the 15th path, between Chokmah and Tiphareth .

The Heirophant is the 16th path on the Tree of Life. The Heirophant is the Teacher. The teacher that combines wisdom, knowledge, and experience into a solid teaching format. The Heirophant speaks as on that does not simply believe, but KNOWS the truth.

The Hierophant is a position with masculine energy. The Hierophant energy represents the spiritual father of the deck. The Hierophant has accumulated knowledge, education, and experience. The Hierophant is a natural leader, manager, and teacher. His energy represents tradition, and traditional values.
The Hierophant has accumulated knowledge on the game of life, and how to play it successfully. The higher energies of The Hierophant will play the game ethically, if not selfishly and insensitively.

The Hierophant is the one to make the best of his resources of other authorities and alliances.

The Hierophant is a strong valuation for creed, ritual, ceremony, form, social approval and conformity. The Hierophant represents traditional religious practices. One under the influence of the Hierophant’s energy practicing occult philosophies would interject traditional Orthodox ceremonies into their spiritual demonstration.

The Hierophant is an organizer, and he sees ahead of himself, makes plans, and lives according to these plans. He tends to perpetrate his overall view of how to run one’s life upon others. He has deep moral convictions, and a tendency to judgment. He considers himself infallible, as those that break moral responsibility revolt him.

For those with the essence of the Hierophant, one of the follies of the Hierophant is that he can be trapped in circumstances, which draw him into breaking his own moral and/or ethical laws. The end result of this experience is to learn compassion for those who don’t possess the same strong moral fiber.

Another folly of the Hierophant is that they possess an inner knowing that they have “been there and done that.” The Hierophant comes in with a great deal o f inaccessible knowledge accumulated from many lifetimes. The problem with this “inner knowing” is that the Hierophant may represent himself as an authority before actually accumulating the education and experience necessary in the current lifetime. This can lead to a wounded Hierophant due to his misrepresenting credentials, providing inaccurate information, or out-in-out distorting the truth. The Hierophant may also grasp to hold power over others by withholding facts that would set others free.
The darker side of The Hierophant is the energy behind crippling the position of women in society. The Hierophant represents religious organizations, which deny full gospels to their congregation, or dictate what books to read, clothes to wear, or movies to watch – etcetera.

The astrological sign for the Hierophant is Taurus. (What do you Value?)

The color for the Hierophant is red-orange; the note is C sharp; the Hebrew letter is Vau , meaning "nail" or "hook."
The Qabalistic Intelligence is Triumphant and Eternal Intelligence.
The Hierophant is on the 16th Path of the Tree of Life, connecting Chokmah and Chesed on the masculine pillar or Pillar of Mercy.
The esoteric title is the Magus of the Eternal.

The Lovers is the 17th Path on the Tree of Life. If one of the Essences is the Lovers, one will be guided to challenges which seem difficult, but are choices of letting go and letting God. There are many choices in the Lovers path, life can be confusing.

The Lovers essence represents the energies of live deliver challenges to make choices, decisions based upon the need to balance male and female energies. The ultimate mission of The Lovers is to recognize the Divinity within. The Lovers challenge is to strive for balance. To position oneself from the point of loving oneself from a Divine aspect, to embrace oneself like a beloved child. The ability to unconditionally love and honor oneself opens up the opportunity to truly love others.

In that the challenge is balance this suggests that the individual with The Lovers essence will likely go through times in their life when they are struggling with self-doubts, perhaps self-defeating decisions, and issues with being out of balance. The Lovers essence will throw many temptations in the individual’s path testing the choices The Lovers’ essence will make.

The Lovers essence seeks inner harmony, as well as creating harmony in their surroundings on all levels, including that inner spiritual harmony of grace, peace, unconditional love, and compassion. The 91^st Psalm is a calling to the Divine to illuminate the Divine’s covenant with mankind. Though all can benefit from reciting the 91^st Psalm daily, I feel that those with essence of The Lovers would greatly benefit from this practice. This Psalm assists the reader to keep focused on making decisions and choices, which spring from the Heart of Heart’s.

The astrological sign for The Lovers is Gemini.
The color for the Lovers is orange
The musical note is D natural
The Hebrew word is Zain , meaning "sword."
The Qabalistic intelligence is Disposing Intelligence.
The Path of the Lovers is the 17th path, between Binah and Tiphareth .
The sense attributed to the Lovers is smell.

The Chariot as an essense is a challenge of courage. The Chariot called upon all four elements, Fire, Earth, Air, and Water. The black and white Sphinxes represent the union of positive and negative - neutrality. The reason the Charitoeer does not hold the rein, is because he listens to the inner truth. The duality of positive and negative no longer plagues him. He has resolved duality, and has become whole. This description represents fulfilling the highest potential of the lesson of The Chariot.

The Chariot, essence is the goal of attaining of self-mastery, direction, and creating boundaries. If The Charioteer follows his/her “bliss” then life unfolds like a lovely maturing rose. It the Charioteer is living his/her personal truth, then they are courageous and magnetic leaders.

The Chariot corresponds to the astrological sign Cancer
The color orange-yellow, the note D sharp
The Hebrew letter Cheth , meaning "fence."
The physical function for the Chariot is speech.
The esoteric title is The Child of the Powers of the Waters, the Lord of the Triumph of Light.
The Intelligence is the Intelligence of the House of Influence.
The Path is number 18, between Geburah and Binah , on the female Pillar of Severity of the Qabalistic Tree of Life.

Usually following one’s “bliss” this is not the choice of the Charioteer. The Charioteer considers all of the players in their lives before making a decision. In that the Moon rules The Chariot essence, emotions play a huge part in the path life choices.

The Charioteer has the skills of the great orators of this planet. One with the essence of The Chariot either is an acclaimed authority on one or more topics, or has difficulty speaking up for his/herself.

The astrological sign is Cancer, which is the Mother, caregiver, nurturer. The Charioteer will most likely choose to nurture all in participating in their life drama, before finally realizing that it is them that needs to be fulfilled in order to free all around them for their own ultimate fulfillment. The Charioteer is not an aggressive, but a peace-maintaining Warrior. For the sake of peace the Charioteer may sacrifice way too much.

The road of the Charioteer can manifest as a Divinely directed in a smooth path woven through many experiences, which challenge the Charioteer’s boundaries. The Charioteer essence is one in which its subject is learning his/her boundaries in life. The Charioteer is often more concerned with everyone’s well being, putting their needs last. Because of this the path of the Charioteer can resemble that of a drunken driver. One can witness the Charioteer weaving back and forth on the path of life, when they get to the edge, they correct or over-correct their rudder.

Those with The Chariot as an essence possess an inner knowing of their strengths, and at times will take on much more than humanly possible. Also the Charioteer’s boundaries are challenged on a regular basis in every aspect of life.

The opposite sides to The Charioteer’s “coin” are fear versus courage. The Charioteer deeply desires to fulfill their mission and may decide not to make any decision due to the fear of making a wrong decision. In that The Chariot also carries the lesson of creating sensible boundaries, The Charioteer can be taken advantage of. Other seeing the strength of The Chariot essence will gladly load the Charioteer down with multiple responsibilities to the breaking point.

You may be aware that Justice was once assigned to the number 8, and Strength to the number 11. The Rider-Waite deck was published with these positions switched. I haven’t done enough research on this particular change, other than agree with Tarot Scholars that this switch does make sense. All in all my personal “jury is still out” on this topic. The switch seems to be a logical conclusion. On the other hand I don’t like altering ancient wisdom, so I still am open to a final decision on this topic.

The Strength essence is destined to use its talents to help others. Strength is commanded to be strong, yet gentle. It is strong, and gentle.

Strength depicts one who has tamed the inner lion, has created boundaries, and has a deeper comprehension of the value of the wild side of the human experience. Strength’s lesson is to learn to utilize that “wild side.”

The Hebrew letter that corresponds to Strength is Teth , meaning "serpent."
The musical note is E natural.
The color is yellow.
The Qabalistic Intelligence is Intelligence of the Secret of All Spiritual Activities. The functions or attributes are suggestion, digestion, and taste.
The Esoteric title is The Daughter of the Flaming Sword.
Strength corresponds to the 19th Path on the Tree of Life, connecting Geburah (Mars) and Chesed (Jupiter).
It therefore connects the Pillar of Severity to the Pillar of Mercy by crossing over the central pillar of the Tree of Life, the Pillar of Mildness, which seems amazingly appropriate.

A movie I recently watched called, “Anger Management” has a message which encompasses much of Strength’s message. The message is not to suppress one’s instincts to be true to oneself, but to master and utilize these strengths for the benefit of all. In this movie the main character was forced to face his horror of being or doing what he inwardly desired. Once he was true to himself, without harming others, he was a much happier and fulfilled person. Likewise those around him found fulfillment as well.

This essence is also described as conquering one’s ego. Most often the “ego” is associated with one that is “full of them self.” The ego plays many parts in our deeds, actions and words. More often than not the ego invalidates our self-worth, and our inner truths. This essence is to provide discernment to know the difference between the inner truth, and the lie the ego throws into our consciousness in order to control situations or us.

Strength is associated with the astrological sign Leo, and is ruled by the Sun. In the future I will enter more information about this association. Reading about the Sun Sign Leo will provide further insights into this life essence.

Another strong aspect of the essence is sexuality. It is the suppression or the expression of sexuality. This can be one in and “order” which denies or condemns sexuality. This essence can be exhibited as a healthy sexuality or one that has been used and abused. The ultimate fulfillment of the sexual aspect of Strength is to experience spiritually based sexuality.

The Hermit can best be described at the old black man who dispenses words of wisdom to the main characters in the movie “Oh Brother Where Art Thou?” His advice was all but ignored, but by the end of the movie one realizes that this old man was a prophet of sorts. The Tarot Hermit resembles the archetype of the wise Aunt or Uncle who provides counseling, which eventually unfolds as the Gospel truth.

The Hermit corresponds to the astrological sign Virgo.
The associated color is yellow-green.
The musical note of F natural.
The Hebrew word Yod , meaning "open hand." The hand being open is very important, for it is the hand providing healing that the Hermit offers. In the some decks the Hermit's hand is emphasized, in other decks the hands are oversized for his body. I think this is a key to The Hermit. The Hermit has large hands because he has a lot of work to accomplish.
The Qabalistic Intelligence of the Hermit is Intelligence of Will. Other attributes are response, union of opposites, and touch.
On the Tree of Life, the Hermit is the 20th path between Tiphareth and Chesed .

The Hermit is lead into being a “way shower” for many, an example, or teacher. The Hermit defines his/her self through the people that touch his/her life. It is not until the Hermit realizes the long-range affect they have had on others, when the Hermit truly comprehends the magnitude of his/her influence.

This makes me think of Princess Diana. Princess Di could be viewed as innocent, unaware of the world until she ventured out and discovered the suffering of humanity.

I don’t think she really valued herself until she was able to see herself through the eyes of those she sought to assist in improving others lives. Of course those such as Mohandras Gandhi certainly can be described as a manifestation of the Hermit. To me Princess Di revealed all aspects of this archetype in their vulnerability, loneliness, wandering the Earth in search of herself, and her true good intentions to help humanity. She never seemed as if she felt that she “fit” into her surroundings. I think too that she was most happy at her home, where she now lays in rest on an island in the middle of a lake.

The Hermit is a mystic who withdraws to study and then who rejoins the world to help/teach/lead/minister. The Hermit card is also considered the healer in Tarot, particularly the healer of inner ills. Jesus of Nazareth is perhaps the perfect example of a Tarot Hermit. He balanced serving others with periods of retreat and contemplation.

I see the “shadow side” of The Hermit as one who does not hesitate to help others. The Hermit is surprised when others do not respond accordingly. The Hermit often does not realize his own mystic power to create his universe exactly how he wants. He has all the talent and tools. Yet he still journeys over life’s various paths, searching for himself. If he could only look into a mirror, which isn’t dimmed by harsh self-judgment, he would see the glorious being he reflects.

In a reading, The Hermit can indicate a journey, either an external one or an internal one. Sometimes this card can indicate a search for a teacher or mentor.

A friend of mine is a student. She lives in a very remote area of the U.S. She is on an educational journey. The odd thing is that she is one of the most intelligent, insightful, and artistic people I know. Though she is in her 60’s she is still pursuing an education to validate her knowledge. She shares so much, and fails to truly value the “manna” she dispenses because it comes to natural to her. She has taught many. She has been the way-shower for multitudes that have sought her help. She is still on a journey to find herself. She uses “perfection” as a stop gate to her taking her next step.

This reminds me of the McFly’s Father in Back to the Future. He wrote a wonderful book, yet no one had seen it because he didn’t think it was “perfect.”