More navel-gazing today. Taking time away from the music, and the new track now intended to end the first Describing An Arc album, to re-assess where I am, where I’ve been, where I hope to be headed, and where I’m probably headed if I merely ride the tides. It’s a fit day for it, being the Equinox and all, a sign of new beginnings.

I find myself at a stage right now where I don’t resemble what my natal chart tells me I should be. Over the years I’ve allowed the Cancerian part of me to overwhelm the Aries: Cancer was rising when I was born, and my Moon conjuncts it in the 12th house, and both Moon and Ascendant form a rather hard square to my Sun. It’s only recently that I’ve determined that certain of my Cancerian Moon traits haven’t been necessarily serving me well in my quest for internal peace and happiness, and may indeed be holding me back from the abundance that Spirit tells me I deserve.

So, in addition to inspecting the natal chart again, and learning about harmonic, persona, and return charts in the quest for some semblance of new insight, I’ve also started learning about and throwing the Tarot in the last few weeks. The deck that chose me at my local New Age shop was Arnell Ando’s Transformation Tarot—imagery herein is only tangentially related to the more traditional Rider-Waite deck, and loaded with Renaissance and aboriginal shamanistic symbolism; Ando is also an established art therapist. I understand it’s not usually a good choice for someone’s first deck, but strictly speaking it’s not my first deck: this was (and I had bought the Rider-Waite deck previously, but that was a stocking stuffer for my ex-wife, who presumably still has it).

Never one for half-measures, the Vernal Equinox seemed a good day to throw Rahdue’s Wheel: a massive spread using all 78 cards, as outlined by tarot educator Eileen Connolly in her book Tarot: The Handbook for the Journeyman. If we can accept that the Tarot contains most, if not all, the various aspects of life in its 78 pictorial images, I imagined that throwing all 78 might show me in the most detail where I was headed in the right direction and where I have been deficient. And as I only found minimal information on the spread elsewhere on the Interwebs, I’m reproducing it here for further advancement (yours and mine).

I have no idea how this is going to translate to your browser, but the full spread sequence looks somewhat like this:

 

 38
 
68
 
 69
 
 37
 
 25
 
 27
 
 59
 
 58
 
67
 
 36
 
 24
 
 12
 
 14
 
 28
 
 57
 
66
 
 23
 
 11
 
 1
 
 15
 
 56
 
65
 
 10
 
 13
 
  2
 
 55
 
64
 
 35
 
 22
 
 9
 
 26
 
 39
 
 3
 
 16
 
 29
 
 54
 
63
 
  8
 
  4
 
 53
 
62
 
 21
 
 7
 
 5
 
 17
 
 52
 
61
 
 34
 
 20
 
 6
 
 18
 
 30
 
 51
 
60
 
 33
 
 19
 
 31
 
 50
 
 32
 
 49
 
 48
 
 47
 
 46
 
 45
 
 44
 
 43
 
 42
 
 41
 
 40
 
 78
 
 77
 
 76
 
 75
 
 74
 
 73
 
 72
 
 71
 
 70

 

One of two pages I’ve found on the web that had any kind of guide for interpretation at all is here. Both of those pages say more or less the same thing, but this one goes into a bit more detail as regards Connolly’s own thoughts on the spread. And even then it’s not all of Connolly’s thoughts: for that, I guess you buy the book.

The first part of the spread deals with the wheel of the present life, dealt out in a clockwise pattern to represent the hours of the day (and, probably not coincidentally, the houses of the zodiac), along with a 13th card in the center which acts as a summing up of, or solidifier for, the previous 12. Next is the wheel of future potentialities, twelve more cards dealt outside the original clock positions of the present-life wheel, with a 13th card placed below and to the left of the first solidifier card (the 13th). A third wheel follows to indicate past life activity, twelve cards around the clock and a 13th placed to the right of the 26th card. That accounts for half the deck right there.

Then, ten cards are dealt from right to left to shed some light on the immediate past life of the querent (in this case, me) as it pertains to a situation in the present. Connolly states: “The information we derive from these nine cards only presents the patterns of similarity between one life experience and another—the karmic pattern.” They get read as a unit, with the 49th card acting as a solidifier and “key to the present life”, and I figured that I could borrow a technique from British Tarot educator Paul Hughes-Barlow and use his card-counting technique (along with his theory of Elemental Dignities) to glean a deeper understanding. One would think that having lived through the immediate past I would be well aware of what had happened, but I was looking for a fresh angle and maybe an undercurrent of which I had not been aware.

Ten more cards comprise a second block to be interpreted as a unit, this one in light of past life relationships, from bottom to top and to the right of the three clock faces. The 59th card becomes the solidifier for that pillar, set to the left of the 58th card, and represents the “key to knowledge” according to Connolly: “…The solidifier confirms, consolidates and refers only to past life relationships that are relevant to the present.”

Ten further cards are dealt in order to bring light to past life experiences, again from bottom to top and with the 69th card laid to the right of the 68th. Card 69 acts as a solidifier, the “key to open”: it “holds the lesson of the pillar”.

Having dispensed with 69 cards, the final nine are to be used for specific questions posed by the querent, and are to be laid face down. The querent may ask up to nine questions, with a card turned over in answer to each.

That’s Rahdue’s Wheel, and that’s the spread I threw earlier today after I came up with nine questions for the last nine cards. Now to get down to the mammoth task of actually interpreting it…

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