Rich Hall
October 5, 2010

A little over a year ago, I signed up for a Tarot class at AMC with Geraldine Amaral - my interest in the topic peaked by articles she had written for Pathways Magazine where I first learned that “Tarot cards operate through symbolic, non-rational, and subconscious aspects of awareness”.  As I recall, Geraldine’s two session introductory class was quite intensive. With 78 cards (major and minor arcana, court cards, and pips) framed against a Jungian, numerological, and metaphysical backdrop, the learning curve seemed quite steep. After completing the class, I was still integrating all I had learned many months later but I had immediately begun incorporating three to five card spreads into my daily meditations. These spreads took the form of two or more cards from the major arcana and and usually an ace, from one of the four suits (wands, cups, swords, or pentacles). The major arcana cards were to explore the archetypical energies while the ace brought in the energy of the suit it represented. 

Just as Geraldine had assured us, diligently pursued, working with the Tarot not only results in a deeper understanding of the archetypical images, but toward greater awareness and evolving spiritual unfoldment as well.  Fast forward a year and I found myself doing different spreads, and occasionally the more familiar Celtic Cross. The interpretive narratives suggested by the various spreads had also come become easier to integrate into threaded, meaningful wholes.  What a difference a year makes when something is intently pursued. Not only had I become intimately familiar and at home with the iconography of major arcana, I was becoming more familiar with the nuanced imagery and meanings of the minor arcana as well.  I had also begun reading other authors take on the topic -- Rachel Pollock being the first and began collecting different card variants - the Tarot of the New Vision (TNV) and the Illuminated Rider-Waite being two favorites.

Geraldine periodically sends out emails notifying those on her subscriber list about upcoming Tarot classes and workshops. The one I signed up for recently was “Divine Blueprint of the Soul”.  Divine Blueprint is a class that can be attended by anyone but having a year of dedicated study and practice behind me made things infinitely easier. While I had learned something about the significance of my birth card (or Life Path number) in the introductory workshop I had taken with Geraldine a year earlier, the current class (Divine Blueprint) gave additional insight into the implications and meanings of our birth cards as well as the interrelationships between the destiny, soul, personality, and maturity numbers -- each of which we were taught to calculate.

 Of note, the calculations are not taught in a vacuum. Geraldine goes to considerable length to make sure that there is a collective class understanding of the theory and principals within which these calculations are situated.  The Divine Blueprint class begins with and centers around the Fool’s journey and elaborates, through our various card drawings and personal calculations, how this universal archetype personifies, represents, and is the central organizing principle around which our life, purpose, and mission here on the earth can potentially unfold within the context of our other cards/gifts - the essence of which is depicted by the bag carried by the Fool as he descends into the world of experience.

In addition to being a natural teacher, I really appreciate Geraldine’s enthusiastic willingness to explain and elaborate upon any question asked be it in class or elsewhere.  One nuance she explained about numerology and the Tarot helped considerably - especially her explanation about the practices of purist numerologists who reduce numbers to single digits (between one and nine) as contrasted with many in the Tarot school of thought who reduce numbers to between one and twenty two (corresponding to the number of cards in the major arcana). She also explained that when a two card configuration occurs with one of our life path numbers, say when an 18 (Moon) reduces to a 9 (Hermit), the higher numbered card might represent the surface, external energy while the reduced number could be representative of the potential internal energy, and how meditation or other some other contemplative practice could help move us beyond the mind chatter into the clarity of inner truth, light, wisdom, and peace.

 During the class, I drew a minor arcana card for which I have a particular loathing. Geraldine recommended meditating on this card - exactly the right advice. If we push something away that is vying for our attention and resolution, it will keep returning in various forms and guises until we do. I could go on and on about Geraldine’s classes, the tarot, and how these can lead to transformative experiences and spiritual growth, but it would be to belabor the point - a clearer understanding of the significance of the Fool’s journey, your journey, and ultimately the journey we are all taking together is what emerges out of Geraldine’s classes, and I doubt that anyone who takes one of her classes will leave disappointed. Thank you Geraldine!