In the cards this week: Sunshine!

After a week of dreary clouds and rain, I woke up to sunshine this morning, along with some sunshine-y Minoan Tarot cards!

This is two weeks in a row that I’ve drawn a pair of Major Arcana cards (here’s last week’s draw in case you missed it). This suggests that Big Stuff is going on, both in our individual lives and in the greater world.

Hopefully it’s good stuff, since the Big World is definitely not serving up sweetness-and-light very often these days.

Last week I shared a little about the Minoan art that inspired the week’s cards. I got a lot of positive response to that, so I’ll share again this week. I didn’t just pull these images from thin air. Every single Major Arcana card is based on a Minoan work of art, as are the face cards in the Minor Arcana. Even the number cards in the Minors have art inspiration; none of them are “just pips” - each one illustrates the meaning of the card in some way.

So let’s look at today’s cards and the art that inspired them. The image on The Sun might feel familiar to you. That’s because it’s based on this beautiful gold pendant from a grave in a Minoan cemetery near Malia.

I’ve loved this pendant since the first time I saw a photo of it, so I just had to include it in the deck. The Sun card felt like the right way to display the cheerful golden-ness of it.

As for The Emperor card, there are several Minoan stone seals that include images of a male figure with a lion. The one that I like the best is this gorgeous lapis lazuli seal from the South House at Knossos:

The artwork on the stone seals is just amazing, since they were all carved with tiny hand drills, and the largest of them is no bigger than your thumb.

In Ariadne’s Tribe, we have specific deity associations with bees and lions. But I’ve left those details out of the card descriptions in this deck, since people from a wide variety of backgrounds and traditions use the cards. The card meanings remain the same regardless of any deity connections.

I hope your week turns out as sunny and personally powerful as the cards suggest it might!

The Sun: Enlightenment! You may not magically understand the secrets of the universe, but things are definitely becoming clearer. You can now find the sense within the chaos. You know who you are and where you're going. It's time to let your inner light expand and shine outwardly. Allow this newfound sense of understanding to expand until the sheer joy of it lights up your whole world.

The Emperor: You have found yourself, as the mystical saying goes. You have a handle on who you are and what you want, and you have the skills to go out and get those things. It's time to put those skills into action, with self-discipline and determination. Lead yourself to where you want to go in life.

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About Laura Perry

I'm an author, artist, and creator who works magic with words, paint, ink, music, textiles, and herbs. I'm the founder and Temple Mom of Ariadne's Tribe, an inclusive Minoan spiritual tradition. My spiritual practice also includes spirit work and herbalism through the lens of lifelong animism. I write Pagan / polytheist non-fiction and fiction across several different subjects and genres. I'm currently working on an illustrated book of modern Minoan myths. I’m also an avid gardener and living history demonstrator.

You can find my books and Tarot deck on my website, where you can also find my social media links.