Table Of ContentTAROT LIFE
MONTH 6
CONNECT TO SERVICE
Marcus Katz & Tali Goodwin
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Authors Note: This is Month 6 of our 12-booklet Tarot Life
series; you will require the previous Months 1-5 booklets to
follow the sequence over the year. Most of the exercises in each
booklet may be carried out as stand-alone pieces of self-
discovery or re-purposed for use in daily, personal or client
readings.
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INDEX
Introduction 4
Connecting to Service 5
A Simple Method for Beginners 7
Lighting Your Hermitage 10
The Service Cards 13
Conclusion 44
Bibliography 48
Websites & Resources 49
TAROT LIFE: 12 STEPS TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE
A linked series of Gated Spreads to be carried out over a full year.
Introduction
In this series of Kickstart books of Tarosophy teaching, we take a
break from the reference work of Tarot Flip, the seventy-eight
innovative Tarot methods in Tarot Twist, and the spiritual
considerations of Tarot Inspire to offer a unique practice of our work.
You are about to change your life with Tarot, and whether you are a
newcomer to tarot or experienced reader, you are about to do
something totally new. In using what we call a Gated Spread – a
linked sequence of tarot readings whose questions are determined
by the results of real-world activities – you are going to
fundamentally alter the way you experience your life.
We have combined here the wisdom of the Tarot with years of
practical testing and the latest research in psychology and the
biology of willpower, belief, habit and other aspects of our being.
This series is designed to be experienced a month at a time, and in
the sequence given. You can start at any time, although New Year,
your Birthday, or the Spring Equinox are all powerful starting times.
This series is accompanied by a private Facebook group for
discussion and questions about your experiences as you make this
journey. We look forwards to your engagement of tarot with your life
– it is about to become a truly Tarot Life.
Marcus Katz, The Tarosophist &
Tali Goodwin, TaliTarot
Connecting to Service
In this sixth month of Tarot Life we encounter the Hermit,
corresponding to Virgo. It is at this point in our zodiacal journey that
we create an uplift of our work, for the Hermit represents a higher
service. He stands aloft and distant – he is “in the world, but not of
it”. In this way a ‘hermit’ can be in the midst of activity, of population,
of business, yet remain their own self; the Hermit in a reading can
stand for self-sufficiency, inclusion, and solitude.
So when we consider the Hermit in the stages of the Work – the
Tarot Life – we seek what he seeks; an enlightened perspective of
the World. The Hermit is neither the Fool, leaping of the cliff, nor the
Magician, performing for the crowd. He is one and alone; yet utterly
content – in fact, so much so that his light, his example, serves as an
example to others.
This idea of becoming the way so that we may serve it through our
own example is the core concept of this month’s Tarot Life. We build
upon our “secret mission” of the last gate and now take it a step
further. We take three aspects of the Hermit:
The Path: How do we make our way in the world?
The Light: Where do we place our awareness to see the Path?
The Quest(ion): What enquiry leads us to the Light?
You can see that these three faces of the Hermit are one and the
same; the questions we ask open our awareness, which leads us to
asking better questions. In this sense the Hermit is philosophy; our
guiding principle of life.
So what do you serve in life? The word service comes from the Latin
for slave – yet the Hermit seems free and far more so than the
figures on the Devil card, or the dilemma in the Lovers card. How do
we achieve freedom in service?
We serve many masters in our daily life – the necessities of social
life, our inner drives and impulses (often unconscious in their source,
history and ambition), our family, beliefs, culture and employment.
They all present us opportunities to serve – to work for others - as
well as serving ourselves.
Yet there is a difference between “serve” and “service”; the latter is
often used in a sense of maintenance and repair; to service a
vehicle, or a washing machine for example. This regular servicing of
our self can lead to better service to others.
So this month’s stand-alone practice is based on a simple idea of
serve and service. Then the main Tarot Life exercise is an extension
of last month’s secret missions, to take our life deeper towards our
ultimate goal in living a Tarot Life.
A Simple Method for Beginners
The Hermit is one who has walked the path of life. He may have
withdrawn from its activities and attachments, but he is still able to
shine a light upon life.
There are many situations in life that appear to be without reason.
We can take these as part of our life, and learn from them. The
following spread allows us to begin to utilize past or existing
situations for our self-development.
Whilst this is not a “predictive” spread or method, it can be used to
assist friends, relatives or clients into gaining insight.
Serve And Service
Consider a situation in your past or present which appears to be out-
of-the-blue, or without reason.
Shuffle the entire deck.
Turn the deck face up and carefully locate the Hermit.
Locate the two closest MAJOR cards above and below the Hermit. If
there are none above/below (depending on his position in the deck)
then select the two closest above/below.
Take out these two cards and place them above/below each other,
leaving a single card-space in the middle.
Consider these two cards as the above and below of your “serving”.
The above card is what you serve, and the below card is what
serves you, in that particular situation.
Shuffle the rest of the deck again (without those two Major cards),
still with the Hermit inside, and again, search for the Hermit.
Take the two closest MINOR cards above, and the two closest
MINOR cards below, the Hermit. Lay these out in a row between the
two above/below MAJOR cards.
These Minor cards show you how the present/past situation
provides/provided a “servicing” to your soul. They explain the
mechanism by which you were taught something, between the
higher principle of service (the Major above) and the resources that
served you at the time (the Minor below).
As an example, considering a present situation.
The Serve Cards
Major Above: DEATH (XIII)
Major Below: THE BLASTED TOWER (XVI)
As the actual situation is very dramatic and life-changing, it is no real
surprise these two cards were the closest majors to the Hermit. The
Death card shows that I am serving “transformation”, that is to say, I
have to follow a path of change and renewal - initiation, even. The
Blasted Tower tells me I can use an ability to “restart” everything; this
is a resource that serves me. The constant destruction and re-
building of the Tower is what serves Death. I actually get from this
the statement, “Change serves Initiation”.
The Servicing Cards
The four Minors I find (two each above and below the Hermit after a
reshuffle) are:
9 of Wands + 8 of Cups + 5 of Pentacles + 4 of Cups
These, briefly, signify that the servicing I am receiving is being
carried out by testing what I can remove myself from, and what I can
go without. Furthermore, the 4 of Cups shows that the situation is
constantly turning my attention away from what I think I possess and
towards a higher principle or quest.
Having presented this method, we now move on to the core work of
this month’s gated spread, in which you will practice a daily journal
exercise based on two cards chosen at the start and end of each
day.
We introduce this month an exercise where we are pairing cards for
contrast, rather than previous months where we have usually
focused on the meaning and message of one card. As we move on,
we are now at the stage where it is the meaning that arises by
comparing and contrasting cards that we will experience and learn.
Lighting Your Hermitage
In the Tarot Life practice of this month, you are going to turn the
whole world into your personal hermitage, and walk through it every
day with a card drawn at sunrise and a card drawn at sunset. As
such, you will keep a journal (ideally) of your hermitage, although
you can share it with other hermits on the Tarot Life Facebook group.
General Practice
Whilst it is ideal also to draw the cards at the dawn and dusk of the
day, you can do this on awakening and before retiring, or whenever
is most convenient to you.
Note: You will be pulling two cards, and following the path on the
first, and observing the “light shines” prompt on the second at the
end of the day. These will be different cards, creating a contrast.
The prompt for “the light of the Lantern …” belonging to the first card
can be ignored – it is the second card to which you should refer.
Similarly, the “path” text for the second card is to be ignored – the
second card at the end of the day gives the “Lantern” prompt and the
“Card asks” prompt.
Each of the 78 Tarot cards can show us how we can connect to
service. We have here presented each card in this context, also
providing an attention point and journal prompt. We have given the
cards as usual for Tarot Life in the order of their progression up the
Tree of Life. The reason and importance of this will be seen in the
following books in this series.
In connecting to service we are building a sanctuary of activity. In
journaling, we invite the cards into the seed of our own
contemplation.
In the morning the card will give you a path to walk, and in the
evening another card will give you a light in which to see that activity;
