The Tarot Prayer Mandala
By Geraldine Amaral
If the only prayer you
ever utter is “thank you,” that will be enough. (Meister Eckhart)
Whatever
you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
(Mark 11:24)
How do you pray? What
is the purpose of prayer? Why is
prayer especially important in our over-the-top busy lives?
There are entire books written in answer to questions like
these. You may be wondering how our
prayer life could possibly relate to the 78 card Tarot pack.
Read on for a unique and powerful approach to communicating with the
spiritual realms using the mystical Tarot code.
Of all the many ways to use Tarot, this is my personal favorite
-- using the images for spiritual healing and spirit communication.
I hope you will be able to use
this novel and creative way of using the Tarot in your own prayers and
communications with Spirit (however you conceive of the Devine).
Tarot, A Map of the Psyche
The Tarot is a visual
map of consciousness and a symbolic
system that offers insight into every
aspect of our lives – career choices, personal motives and spiritual
development. As a map of the psyche,
it also shows the spiritual growth and evolution of our own personal path to
God. So it serves a dual role:
it shows us how to evolve spiritually, but still keep our feet on the
ground. This is what I love most
about Tarot – it is both spiritual and practical, all at the same time.
Tarot is a
way of exploring energies and vibrations.
In particular, the Tarot helps to reveal the unconscious with its immense
storehouse of knowledge and shed light on the complex processes of the human
psyche. Looking
at a card allows you to enter a different state of consciousness in which your
unconscious mind becomes more available and in which you are contacting your
spiritual center. It can help us
speak to our conscious and unconscious mind in the most potent way possible –
that is, in images and pictures. The
Tarot is a way to access the information that is locked up inside us.
That’s because the images on the cards are a portrayal of Carl Jung's
archetypes, also found in the unconscious and the cards enable us to examine our
inner terrain from the view of the archetypal energies that are working
themselves out in our lives.
BORROWNING
THE EYES OF SPIRIT:
In other words, the Tarot symbols and allegories can help us
to go beyond our limited, human, rational, linear way of thinking, guiding us to
a symbolic and supernatural perception of life.
I like to think of it as borrowing the mind of Spirit, or borrowing the
eyes of Spirit. The place
where these symbols reside within us is the same
state from which dreams communicate to us. It
is also the place where communication with
the Divine, including prayer, originates.
The Tarot acts as our own personal telephone to those higher spiritual
realms. It is our own personal
spirit guide. It aids us in our
communications with Spirit by circumventing the limitations of words.
Jung believed that the deeper we go within ourselves, the
closer we come to God or Spirit. Similarly,
Jesus said, “The
Structure of the Tarot Deck
The deck is divided in to 3 different “sub” decks:
The 22 Major Arcana show us
various life principles, universal laws, or collective experiences that all
humankind share. These 22 “keys”
portray a symbolic behavior or vision. They
show us the spiritual aspects of our earthly journey.
There are 56 Minor Arcana
cards, 40 of which show us the day-to-day living of our lives and the various
experiences we have on earth, with physical bodies.
The remaining 16 cards of the Minor Arcana are the Court
Cards and they comprise the third section of the deck.
The Court Cards show us the people in our lives as well as developmental
aspect of ourselves. Any
of these 78 cards can be used in the construction of your Tarot Prayer
Mandala.
Creative
Visualization and the Tarot
Creative visualization is the foundation for the
construction of your Tarot Prayer Mandala. Creative
visualization simply means placing a mental image of something you seek in your
mind’s eye or your third eye, as if you had already achieved it.
Perhaps you’ve heard stories of successful creative visualization
practices – basketball players who visualize the ball falling into the hoop,
or runners who envision themselves crossing the finish line, or baseball players
“seeing” the ball going over the fence.
One of my favorite examples is a story from Norman Vincent Peale.
He described a couple he was counseling who were trying to sell their
house, but having no luck. Peale
advised them to imagine a “sold” sign plunked on their front lawn each day
for 10 minutes. Shortly thereafter,
the house was sold.
The Tarot works especially well for creative visualization
since the cards capture all of our
life experiences. Each and every
card offers a way to use the power of the mind to invoke the assistance of
supernatural or spiritual forces. You
can use any of these 78 Tarot cards as
a doorway to speaking with God, a doorway that opens through this process of
image-making.
Prayer
Each person probably has his own definition and method of
prayer. Generally speaking, we can
say that prayer is a way of creating an inner silence in which you open your
heart in order to communicate directly with some force greater than yourself.
Some people might call it simply “talking to God,” or “praising the
Lord,” or “communing with a Higher Power,” or “contacting Spirit,” or
“tapping into the Universal mind.” These
are all different ways of expressing it, but the object is the same:
to open yourself up to a power or an energy or a presence that can
comfort, guide and help you to raise your own vibration.
Further, like Meister Eckhart, many believe that every prayer should
consist of an expression of gratitude.
We know that the cards you choose for a Tarot reading
represent some morsel of knowledge that has been released from your own
unconscious. The reading is a way
that Spirit is offering you insight, light, and wisdom.
But it can also be a way that you let Spirit know your heart’s desires.
As you construct your Tarot Prayer Mandala, which is described in the
next section, you will be using that same wisdom to metaphorically “pray.”
In selecting the cards for your Prayer Mandala, keep in mind that there
are no right answers; let the image speak to you as they connect with the spirit
that resides within you. Don’t
worry about what the card means. Just
look at the picture and let the symbol or metaphor on the card communicate to
you and to your higher self.
What is a Mandala
The word
“Mandala” is a Sanskrit word that loosely means “sacred circle” and it
is a symbolic circular design that is meant to capture the ideal or archetypal
model of the cosmos. In this
paradigm of the cosmos, the source of cosmic power is located at the
very center of the circle, and other energies representing lesser powers radiate
outward toward the outer part of the circle.
In some meditation practices, Mandalas are often employed as powerful
visual support for the focus of the meditation. The
simplest Mandalas are constructed as a series of concentric circles, often
within a square. Each successive
concentric circle that is closer to the center of this figure represents a
deeper layer of the psyche; the central figure is the center of integration.
We think of it as a magical or pictorial diagram of the world.
It
is often thought of as a symbolic representation of wholeness, reminding us of our connection to the infinite, the world
that is within us as well as without.
Representing the universe itself, a Mandala is both
the microcosm and the macrocosm, and we are all part of its intricate design. It
reminds us of our connection to the larger world community.
Constructing Your Prayer
Mandala[1]
Creative visualization is the
heart and foundation of your Tarot Prayer Mandala.
The goal is to choose images that capture in your mind’s eye your
desires and needs. So begin
constructing your Mandala by taking your entire deck and slowly begin flipping
through the cards until you find a card that captures some goal that you have,
or shows you some supernatural guidance or intervention that you seek.
Choose cards that speak to you in some spiritual way, or that capture
your earthly desires.
Once you have selected six cards, you can begin laying them
out in a circular configuration, similar to this:
]
]
]
] (HERMIT Card)
]
]
] (BIRTH Card)
Even though any Tarot card can be used for creative
visualization, my personal favorite is the Hermit card.
The light-filled lantern that he holds represents the light of God, the
light of Spirit, the light from those etheric realms.
Therefore, you may want to begin with the Hermit card since that
sets the stage for calling up your highest spiritual ideal.
Next you may want to place a symbolic representation of yourself in the
Prayer Mandala. To do this, you can
calculate what is known as your soul card or birth card.
To
calculate this card, add the month, day and year of your birth in
a column. So, if your birthday
is March 3, 1955, you would add:
3
12
1955
1970
Then add the integers across, like this:
1 + 9 + 7 + 0 = 17. In this
case the birth number is 17 and therefore, the birth card is the Star Card.
This birth
card is considered to be one of the major archetypes operating in your life.
Archetypes are templates of human experience and human behavior.
They are energetic imprints that exist in all our psyches. These
archetypal forces reside within us and help us to understand who we are and why
we behave the way that we do. Your
birth card encapsulates your soul energy and helps you to understand your
mission or destiny in this life. It
shows you the path to the greatest
growth in your life.
Placing this card in your
Prayer Mandala helps to ground the energies of the mandala.
It gives a concrete form to the abstraction of the prayer. Once
you have selected the cards, lay them out in a circle, similar to a mandala,
with the Hermit card in the center. You
are now going to write your prayer – a prayer that corresponds to the cards
you selected.
Release Process
The first step in writing your
prayer is to do a release process. Take
a blank sheet of paper and scribble all over it.
This is a symbolic way to release any blocks that you might have.
You can even write the word “release” or “I release,” whatever
feels right. Close your eyes and
think about that which you don’t need and release it through your pen and
hand. Trust that it really is taken
from you.
Writing the Prayer
Now
begin to imagine that you are meeting with your Higher Power or the Divine
Presence that resides within you. Look
at the cards in your mandala and allow the images to speak to you and guide you
as to what to say. If you want to
make this process even more powerful, and you are able to do so, write out your
prayer messages with your non-dominant hand.
Just gently begin to let your Higher Power or Divine Presence guide you
in the writing of your prayer. Keep
breathing; let Spirit enter through your breath. Don’t analyze what you are
writing. Just let the images on the
cards tell you what to say. Try not
to censor; just listen to the messages of the images.
Listening to God
I’ve heard it said that
meditation is listening to God and prayer is talking to God.
As you write your prayer from the images, invoke God’s light and
inspiration to help you write and create. Quiet
your mind; listen to the voice of God. Allow
the unconditional love of God to flow through you.
Now you have your personal prayer symbol and hopefully the
prayer it has spawned for you. You
can leave the cards out on your table or altar.
Let it work on your unconscious. It
can serve to remind you that this is the spiritual path we are all on.
It can remind you to accept and acknowledge that we ourselves are spirits
and that we have the power and ability to commune with Spirit through the power
of our minds and hearts. The Tarot
is simply one powerful vessel that enables that communication process with
Spirit. May your prayer life be as
rich and nurturing as the images now before you in your Tarot Prayer Mandala.
The Tarot image pictured in this article is from the Art
Nouveau Tarot by Matt Myers, published by US Games, Inc.