Salon: “a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine the taste and increase the knowledge of the participants through conversation.” (Wikipedia)
Tarot Salon takes its name inspiration from the intellectual and literary salons of 17th and 18th century Europe, but it’s really its own magical beast. If you haven’t been to one yet, here’s what you need to know:
- We gather under the roof of HausWitch, our “inspiring host”, every last Tuesday of the month. The next one is February 19th from 7-9pm.
- We believe in the power of collective magical learning, which means everyone has something to offer and we’re all teachers, we’re all magic, no matter the skill level. Notes and guidebooks are always allowed. And there’s no judgment.
- Some of us are regulars who have been coming since the beginning (April 2016), and some of us are brand new, both to the Salon and Tarot itself.
- Our two facilitators: myself (Melissa Nierman) and Zhana Levitsky come up with the curriculum each month, keeping time, inventing and borrowing new spreads to try out.
- Every Salon includes a meditation, tarot talk, and hands-on rotating partner readings, as well as my personal fave: the community reading, where the whole group reads for one person at a time. Pure collective magic!
Since not everyone is able to attend (come to Salem!), we’ll be sharing one of our Tarot spreads from the most recent Tarot Salon each month, as we move through the Major Arcana…
The Emperor
This past Tuesday, we explored the energy of The Emperor. The Emperor represents the divine masculine, which at a time when the destructive realities of a patriarchal system are coming to a head, rethinking divine masculine energy seems more relevant than ever.
Let’s be clear: no energy is inherently “bad.” Every energy exists in a state between two extremes—meaning it’s how we use the energy that matters. And it’s our job to find the balance. In its extreme form, the divine masculine can be focused too much on controlling others, on over-expansion (think colonialism), of taking up space where it’s not deserved, of creating structures without respect to the well-being of others. But to reclaim the divine masculine (for all!), we can find that it teaches us how to own our destinies without apology and to wield our raw powers to transform the world responsibly. It tells us to be decisive in our actions and clear in our minds, to create boundaries that protect our energy, and stable foundations to act in alignment.
The three-card spread below is from our community reading. It challenges us to consciously think about how we stand up for ourselves and our beliefs in the world, how we “fight,” and what’s worth “fighting” for:
