Tarot is Process

When people ask me about Tarot, they usually expect fortune-telling or mystical predictions. I get it—who doesn’t want a sneak peek into the future? But here’s the thing: I’ve found something much more interesting in these cards. Think of Tarot as the world’s oldest self-help book, except way more fun and with better artwork.

I like to play with this ancient wisdom. And “play” is the key word. When life gets too puzzling (which, let’s be honest, is most of the time), I lean into the mystery—I make it even more puzzling on purpose. Something magical happens when I shuffle the cards: my adult self, with all its serious plans and important thoughts, takes a backseat, and my inner child comes out to explore. It’s like switching from reading a dense philosophy book to wandering through a mysterious garden.

For those who love questioning what we really know about history, here’s an interesting debate: Some say Tarot was humanity’s first deck, brought to us by Hermes himself. Historians, trace it back to the Middle Ages—after all, they can only work with surviving evidence. But I find myself drawn to the older story. Maybe because it speaks to something deeper than historical facts—something timeless. The human quest for meaning leaves few material traces, yet it shapes our understanding just as powerfully. I respect the historical evidence we have, but I also know that the absence of proof isn’t proof of absence. Some mysteries exist beyond what can be proven, inviting us to look deeper.

The way I see it, Tarot works on three levels, aligned with the trinity found in many traditions¹:

• Spirit (Major Arcana): The essence of life itself.
• Soul (Aces): The quality that translates spirit into matter—and vice versa.
• Body (Minor Arcana): The realm of appearances and tangible experience.

I have good evidence that, in the never-ending cycle of the Hero’s Journey, I’m currently at Card XIV: Temperance—and my lesson is all about rhythm. Think about glass-making: sand must endure extreme heat to transform into something new. Shattering, melting, reforming—it’s all part of the process. That’s exactly where I found myself after a powerful encounter with Death (XIII) in a reading. When I asked whether or not to go to a Krishnamurti retreat in Ojai, I pulled:

Queen of Swords → Queen of Cups → XIII (Death).

Instead of resisting Death, I decided to lean in. Afterwall, it is part of the process and there was a part of me that really wants to let go. I went to the retreat and faced it head-on. It was as if my rational mind (Queen of Swords) and my intuitive wisdom (Queen of Cups) finally started having a real conversation. In that surrender, I discovered something unexpected—not an ending, but a process of continuous transformation.

When we let our old identifications die, we go back to being raw clay, so that life itself can lean in sculpting. Temperance reminds us that breaking and reforming isn’t something to fear—it’s how we refine ourselves.

A Change in Plans

(Or, How I Stopped Pushing Water Uphill)

Recently, I gave up on my plan to become a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. What seemed like giving up was actually opening up to a different kind of process—one that aligned better with my authentic path. Maybe the process will lead me back there, but, in Tarot terms, I stopped trying to force water uphill—a very Temperance image. Some say that in Temperance, the water actually does flow upward, a symbol of spiritual elevation. But the force that moves it isn’t the individual struggling alone—it’s life itself. And I had been trying to do it all on my own.

My idea was to work as a therapist from Brazil, making good money in a low-cost place, contributing to others, and securing my future. It sounded perfect. But looking deeper, I realized I was chasing freedom by building another cage. How’s that for irony?

Now, I’m flowing with my passions, but here’s the plot twist: with great passion comes great responsibility (and some interesting shadows to deal with). Enter The Devil (XV)—not the guy with the pitchfork, but those sneaky attachments and fears that make us think we’re separate from life itself. The little voices that whisper, I deserve this and not that. I am special. I am in control. So, naturally, when I asked the Tarot about this post, I pulled:

XIV (Temperance) → XX (Judgment) → XV (The Devil).

This journey has taught me that true transformation doesn’t happen in isolation. It unfolds in conversation, in the stories we tell and retell, in the mirrors and spaces we hold up for each other. That’s the kind of space I want to build—a community where we honor the cycles of becoming, where we lean into process instead of chasing outcomes. A place where we can shed old identities, rewrite our personal mythologies, and embrace change as the only constant. What if we explored this together?

Fair warning: we might end up at The Tower (XVI), where everything we think we know about ourselves gets a major reality check. If Death is about our personal identities dying, The Tower is about the world dying to us. I can’t promise it’ll be comfortable. But I can promise it’ll be interesting. Because when we find a stable point of awareness, suddenly everything becomes interesting, as we loose focus in ourselves. When we stop seeing the world through our preconceptions, we step into The Star (XVII). And unlike Temperance, where water still flows within a container, in The Star, life flows freely—abundant and unconditional. And so, the journey continues…

After all, isn’t that what makes a good story? Not knowing exactly where it’s going, but trusting that the process is the point. Like any true art, we’re all just channeling something bigger than ourselves—whether we’re reading cards, writing stories, or just trying to figure out what to have for dinner in a loving and connected way.

Want to Give Tarot a Try?

If you’re curious, here’s where I’d start:

• Get this book: The Handbook of Tarot by Hajo Banzhaf. It’s user-friendly and process-oriented, offering spreads that actually connect everything—past, present, and future; spirit, soul, and body. It also provides an interpretation of each card in every possible position it falls into, making Tarot reading almost plug-and-play.

• As for decks, I’m not a huge fan of the classic Rider-Waite. Right now, I’m exploring The Tarot of Wirth—from which the pictures on this post came from. What I like about this deck is how it carries symbols from the Major Arcana into the Minor Arcana, creating a deeper structural unity. All the Nines relate to The Hermit (IX), all the Tens to The Wheel of Fortune (X), and so on.

This approach leaves more room for individual interpretation, which I appreciate. One of my biggest frustrations with the most famous deck, the Rider-Waite cards, is how it casts Swords—the suit of the mind—in such a negative light. Why is the mind framed as a problem, when it’s one of our greatest tools? Maybe it’s because we need to master the mind, rather than let it master us. Either way, I prefer a Tarot deck that allows for more openness in meaning, because in the end, maybe all of this needs to be re-signified in a personal mythology.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about this in the context of Jung’s Individuation—the process of becoming whole by integrating the unconscious. In a way, individuation is the creation of a personal mythology, where the symbols that shape us are no longer inherited passively but actively reinterpreted, woven into a narrative that makes sense of our unique path. And what better tool for that than Tarot—a system of symbols that invites us to engage with the unconscious, not as something to be analyzed from a distance, but as something to be lived? Perhaps my next step is to reimagine Tarot through that lens.

When you start reading Tarot, maybe you might encounter a moment just like I did when a Major Arcana speaks directly to you—resonating so deeply that you decide to follow its path. By fully living the process of that card, you may come to see where you are in The Hero’s Journey. Or perhaps you’ll realize that there is no fixed place—only a path. A path that leads not forward or backward, but into the present—the space from where we can look at the world (XXI) and ourselves (0) as a unified whole.

Want to Explore Together?

This is the space I’m creating: a gathering of fellow travelers who see life not as a series of destinations, but as a living, breathing process. If this resonates with you, let’s explore together.

Have you ever had a moment when life handed you a Tarot card—whether literal or symbolic—that changed your course? Care to discuss it with me?

References for future study:

1. Esoteric Psychology, Volume I (A Treatise on the Seven Rays Book 1), by Alice Bailey.
2. The Tarot Handbook, by Hanjo Banzhaf.
3. Symbolic Tarot of Wirth