The Goddess & Tarot

The Goddess and the Tarot

The Tarot is a map of consciousness, and within its architecture runs an ancient river: the presence of the Goddess. She appears not as a single figure, but as a shifting, multifaceted intelligence. She is mother, muse, destroyer, dream-walker; the pulse between night and waking; the archetype that reveals the self through myth, intuition, and embodied knowing.

Tarot’s goddess lineage is older than the cards themselves. It echoes the great mothers of Anatolia, the weavers of Greece, the shadow queens of Mesopotamia, the Celtic dreamers, the global lineages of creators and destroyers. In the Major Arcana and the Minor, her fingerprints are everywhere.

Below is a way to understand the Goddess through the tarot’s structure.

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1. The Goddess in the Major Arcana: The Great Archetypes

The High Priestess — the Lunar Gatekeeper

The clearest embodiment: She is the veil, the subconscious, the guardian of liminality. She governs dreams, divination, intuition, the womb of the unseen. She is the threshold you cross to encounter yourself.

The Empress — the Living Body of the World

Abundance, fertility, creation, sensuality. But also the grief and cost of creation. In a spiritual sense she governs art-making, gestation, and the desire to bring something into form. You can invoke her when painting your deck.

Strength — the Tamed Lion & the Untamed Soul

A quieter goddess: the one who reminds you that power doesn’t always roar. It is sovereignty expressed through compassion, self-holding, and integrating shadow with tenderness.

Justice — the Cosmic Weaver

Not morality, but balance — the loom of cause and effect. The Goddess as the one who keeps fate from collapsing. She is Ma’at, Themis, the scales of truth.

Temperance — the Alchemist

The divine mixer. She is the goddess of transformation, integration, and the healing art of holding contradictions at once. She shows up whenever you blend realities — spiritual and daily, traumatic and transcendent.

The Star — the Goddess in Her Most Celestial Form

Pure spiritual guidance. The Star is the re-enchanter, the source of hope, the cosmic mother who whispers that the journey is not yet lost.

The Moon — the Dream Witch

The Moon is the Goddess in her nocturnal, surreal, chthonic aspect. She governs fear, intuition, psychic sensitivity, nightmares and wisdom. She’s the Phantasmagoria’s patron saint.

The World — the Return to the Cosmic Mother

The spiral completed, the dancer in the wreath. The World is the goddess of wholeness, completion, and cosmic belonging.

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2. The Goddess in the Minor Arcana: Elemental Feminine Currents

Cups — The Water Goddess

Emotions, intuition, dream logic, memory, healing.

Here she is river, rain, ocean, blood. A goddess of flowing things, including tears and art.

Pentacles — The Earth Goddess

Body, resources, work, the physical world, slow growth.

She is the granter of food, shelter, craft, discipline.

Swords — The Air Goddess

Intellect, language, boundary, clarity, conflict.

The darker goddesses often live here: the ones who cut away illusion, who sharpen us through ordeal.

Wands — The Fire Goddess

Desire, vitality, magic, passion, creativity.

She is the Muse, the spark, the witch-light flickering between worlds.

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3. The Goddess as Process: Descent, Initiation, Return

Many spiritual traditions describe a feminine descent — Inanna entering the underworld, Persephone’s abduction, the dark night of the soul. Tarot mirrors this:

The Fool → High Priestess: the call from the unknown

Hanged Man → Death → Temperance: the underworld ordeal

The Star → The World: resurrection and restoration

The Goddess is the initiator, the one who leads you into the dark so you can return with a different voice — perfect for your work with trauma, nightmares, and the threshold between sleep and waking.

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4. Ways to Work With the Goddess in Tarot

• Invoke her through ritual spreads

Ask:

“What face of the Goddess walks with me now?”

“Where am I resisting her invitation?”

“What must be surrendered to enter the next cycle?”

• Use the lunar cycle

New Moon: Priestess

Full Moon: Empress / High Priestess

Waning: Moon / Death

Waxing: Strength / Star

• Integrate her into your art practice

Let the goddess archetypes influence your palette, symbolism, or the dreamscapes in your tarot deck.

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5. For Your Phantasmagoria Deck

Given your themes — nightmares, dreams, trauma alchemy, sleep thresholds, and gothic sensibility — your Goddess archetype may appear more like:

A dream-walker

A shadow midwife

A nocturnal muse

A liminal guide

A veil-lifting psychopomp

She might move between the Moon, High Priestess, and Death archetypes — not as separate cards, but as one presence slipping between forms.

Tarotgiving

Here are several ways you can weave tarot into Thanksgiving, whether for personal reflection, group rituals, or creative writing:

🌻 1. Thanksgiving Tarot Spread (Gratitude & Reflection)

A simple 5-card spread that works well before or after the meal:

1. The Harvest – What blessings am I reaping this year?

2. The Table – Who or what nourishes me most?

3. The Offering – What can I give in return?

4. The Empty Plate – What is missing or needs healing?

5. The Seed – What intention or hope am I planting for the season ahead?

This spread blends reflection with forward vision, like the turn from autumn to winter.

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🔥 2. Family or Friends Ritual Spread

If you’re sharing tarot with others, try a “Circle of Gratitude” reading:

Everyone pulls one card about something they’re grateful for or what they bring to the table (metaphorically and literally).

Discuss how the cards interconnect — what’s the story of your shared harvest?

This can open tender or funny conversations without turning too heavy.

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🕯️ 3. Ancestral Reflection

Thanksgiving also evokes lineage and remembrance.

Use tarot to connect with ancestral wisdom:

Pull a card asking, “What wisdom from my ancestors wants to guide me now?”

Or, “What family pattern am I ready to release?”

This is especially potent if you light a candle for loved ones who’ve passed.

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🍂 4. Gratitude Journal or Tarot Art Practice

Draw one card each day of Thanksgiving week:

Write or paint about what that card represents that you’re thankful for.

For example, The Empress might represent abundance, nurturing, or creative fertility; The Six of Cups could represent cherished memories.

You could even create a small “Tarot of Gratitude” sketchbook — a personal seasonal ritual.

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🦃 5. The “Harvest Cross” Spread (for deeper reflection)

A four-directional spread:

North (Earth): What I’ve manifested or built

South (Fire): What passions have fueled me

East (Air): What ideas or lessons I’ve gained

West (Water): What emotions I’m ready to release

Center card: The Heart of Gratitude — what truly sustains me

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🌙 6. Shadow & Celebration

Because family gatherings can stir emotions, tarot can help you ground and prepare:

Pull a Shadow Card before the event: “What might trigger me today, and how can I stay centered?”

Then a Light Card: “What energy can I embody to stay open and joyful?”

The Tarot Almanac

Review of The Tarot Almanac: A Seasonal Guide to Divining with Your Cards by Bess Matassa:

In her latest work, Bess Matassa invites the reader into an immersive year-long journey with the tarot: The Tarot Almanac is less a quick reference and more a companion, a calendar-inflected guide that ties the rhythms of the year (seasons, astrological signs) to the 78 cards of the tarot. 

From the outset, this book positions itself as a “path to uncovering each card’s meaning as it relates to the astrological energies of the calendar months.” 

This book offers rich material for deep reflection as well as practical engagement. I’ll walk through how the book is structured, what it offers (and where it may leave you wanting), and how it might serve (or challenge) a reader like you.

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Structure & Content

How the book is organised:

An author’s note and introduction set the tone—light-hearted but grounded in ritual, intuition, and the idea of bonding with the deck. 

A “How to Use This Book” section explains the monthly practice: you’ll work with one (or more) Major Arcana cards, some Minor Arcana cards, and court cards, spread through the month. 

Twelve monthly chapters (January through December), each aligned with a zodiac sign, its element, keywords, and a set of cards to work with. Within each monthly section you find:

An introduction to the month and its astrological/seasonal flavour.

Work with a selected Major Arcana card; commentary, prompts, perhaps ritual ideas.

Work with Minor Arcana and court cards: reflection, prompts.

A card spread (layout) for the month.

“Taroscopes” (tarot-style horoscopes?) for the month. 

At the back: a “Card-by-Card Mini Reference” (cheat-sheet meanings), index, notes. 

What it offers:

The monthly structure gives rhythm and ritual: for a reader committed to a year’s practice, this offers a way to live with your deck, rather than simply consult it.

The blending of tarot + astrology + seasonal magic resonates with the cycles of change: from artist’s death and rebirth metaphors, this approach supports transformation and deepening.

Writing prompts, reflection questions, rituals: for someone who journals, reads, creates (like you) this can become a rich companion to your art practice and personal/spiritual development.

Encourages using your deck in a transactional way: e.g., “meet your deck” each month, work slowly. This mirrors the slow ritual of art-making, of turning the internal kaleidoscope of the self.

What it demands:

Time & commitment: To truly reap the benefits you’ll want to root yourself in a monthly practise. If you pick it up only sporadically, you’ll get some value but less of the cumulative depth.

Some prior fluency: Reviewers note that parts—especially in meditation/visualisation sections—assume you know how to do this. 

A willingness to journal and reflect: It’s not just “read and glean”; it’s “work with and live through” the book.

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My Reflections (Through Your Lens)

From your perspective—waking early, living within disciplined schedules, seeking to blend art, spirituality, ritual, and introspection—this book has particular resonance.

Morning ritual potential: Since you wake at 4:45 am, the quiet hours before dawn are a fertile space for ritual. Use the monthly spread in The Tarot Almanac as part of a pre-work quiet practice: draw a card, reflect, journal. The season-based structure supports an evolving practise rather than a static one.

Artistic and symbolic resonance: The monthly pairs of card + astrological sign + seasonal theme invite you to see your artistic self through repeating cycles of change, death, rebirth—ideal for your blog about tarot, art, and the creative struggle. For example: when the sun moves into Scorpio (let’s say late October), you might work with the card selected for that month and reflect on transformation, underworld, emergence.

Duration matches your schedule: The book’s structure supports living with the deck rather than rushing. It dovetails nicely with your non-work hours (after 5:30 PM) when you aim to make art, read, do yoga. You could designate part of that time to reflect with the book.

Balance of structure & freedom: Although the book gives monthly “chapters”, you can pick up at any month, or cycle through at whatever pace suits you. Reviewers say you don’t have to start in January. 

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Strengths & Weaknesses

Strengths

Rich, layered: Combines tarot, astrology, season-craft in a unified vision.

Reflective prompts deepen your relationship with the deck and yourself.

Good as a tool for long-term engagement rather than one-off readings.

Visually and conceptually forgiving: You can work at your own pace, revisit chapters.

Weaknesses

If you’re looking for quick reference or pure card-meanings without ritual, it may feel heavy or slower than you want.

Some instructions are light or rely on the reader’s prior experience—e.g., “meditate on this card” without step-by-step. Review-er comments suggest this. 

Because it spans 12 months in one framework, there’s less space for in-depth deep dive of every card individually; the focus is on rhythm and season, not exhaustive card-dictionary.

If you already have many tarot journals and seasonal practices, some of the prompts may feel familiar; the book’s novelty is in its structure more than radically new card-meaning interpretations.

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How to Use It (and How I Have Thus Far)

Given my life rhythms and creative focus, here are some suggestions:

Choose your starting point: If you pick this up mid-year (or at any phase), begin with the current month’s chapter (rather than waiting for January).

Morning or evening ritual: For example, draw the Major Arcana card for the month, reflect in your journal before yoga or art time.

Layer it into your writing/blog practice: Use the monthly prompts and write an article or blog post reflecting on your tarot-theme for the month. 

Art practice integration: Each month’s card and seasonal theme could become a mini-art project. E.g., create a piece of visual art, or a mixed-media piece, responding to the court cards for the month.

Yoga & ritual synergy: Use the seasonal/astrological energy as a theme for your yoga practice: e.g., when the sign is Fire, bring more dynamic flow; when Earth, grounding; tie this with the card energy.

Journal the transformation: If you’re working on improving your relationship (screen time reduction, quality time) and living a structured schedule, you can use the book’s prompts to reflect on relationship dynamics: what card is showing up when you choose connection vs screen? What seasonal motif is relevant?

Review & revisit: Every few months, flip back to previous chapters and reflect on what changed. The almanac structure supports cyclical revisiting rather than linear completion.

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Verdict

The Tarot Almanac by Bess Matassa is a beautiful, ritual-rich tool for anyone who wants to deepen their tarot practice in alignment with the seasons and astrology. For me—an artist-spirit with a schedule, journaling practice, and an interest in deeper symbolism—it offers fertile ground.

If I were to rate it in my terms: I’d give it 4 out of 5 stars. It’s engaging, thoughtfully structured, and creatively inspiring—but its value depends on your willingness to work with it rather than simply read it. Since you already live with discipline and rhythm, you’re well-placed to derive its full benefits.

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Final Thoughts:

This almanac is a companion of the hearth, urging us to sit quietly with our decks as the sun moves through the zodiac and our inner world churns like autumn leaves. Each month the cards unfold like a ritual door — we are invited not simply to read, but to become the reading: to move through sign and season, to witness our own archeology of self. In a year of steady mornings and retreating twilight, I found this book a quiet altar on which to set my scrapped canvases, my half-written poems, my longing for connection beyond the screen. It is not for the casual glance, but for the steady gaze.

Sword Suit

The Suit of Swords in the Phantasmagoria

If the Wands are the flames that summon the vision
and the Cups are the waters that reflect it,
then the Swords are the light that slices through the smoke —
the cutting awareness that reveals the structure of illusion itself.

In the original 18th–19th century phantasmagoria shows, the audience sat in darkness, surrounded by shadows and specters projected by hidden lanterns. When the operator turned up the light, the ghosts dissolved — and the crowd saw only a room of mirrors, pulleys, and glass plates.
That instant of revelation — the collapse of illusion into understanding — is the domain of the Swords.

The Swords correspond to air, the element of thought, clarity, and communication.
In your deck’s world, they are the intellect’s blade: the mind questioning what is real, cutting through fantasy, yet still ensnared in its own reflections.
They show the tension between truth and perception, knowledge and delusion, illumination and destruction.

Every Sword card becomes a moment of awakening:
a flash of painful insight, the shattering of denial, or the liberation of understanding.
Just as light exposes the dust in the air, thought reveals both the brilliance and fragility of our beliefs.

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Phantasmagoria Symbolism

• Element: Air → illumination, clarity, communication, fragility

• Theme: Thought as revelation; the pursuit of truth amid illusion

• Light Symbolism: The lantern beam that cuts through darkness, revealing the mechanism behind the ghost

• Shadow Aspect: Overthinking, harsh truth, analysis that kills wonder, intellect as isolation

• Aesthetic Motif: Glass, reflection, transparency — the fragile beauty of understanding before it breaks

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In the Phantasmagoria Tarot, the Swords might appear as instruments of revelation:
blades made of light, crystalline edges, silhouettes half-seen through smoke.
They belong to that eerie moment between knowing and unknowing —
when the ghost fades, and you must decide whether the truth you’ve uncovered is more terrifying than the illusion itself.

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Samhain

Samhain and the Tarot

Samhain (pronounced “sow-in”) marks the turning of the year’s wheel toward darkness — the final harvest and the ancient Celtic new year. Traditionally celebrated from October 31st to November 1st, it is the midpoint between autumn and winter, when the veil between the living and the dead grows thin.

It is the season of endings and renewal, when the outer world dies back so the inner world may awaken. This makes Samhain one of the most powerful times to work with the tarot, because both share the same essence — revelation through darkness, transformation through reflection.

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The Energy of Samhain in Tarot

Samhain calls forth the archetypes of Death, The Moon, and The High Priestess — cards of liminality, intuition, and change. It is a time when the subconscious stirs, inviting you to listen rather than act.

Key themes include:

• Release: Letting go of what has run its course (Ten of Swords, Death, Eight of Cups).
• Descent: Moving inward to understand shadow and hidden wisdom (The Hermit, The Moon).
• Communication with Spirit: Ancestors, intuition, and dreams (High Priestess, Judgement, Cups suit).
• Transformation: The composting of old energy into new potential (Tower, Death, Ace of Pentacles).

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How to Work with Tarot During Samhain

This is not a time for forecasting or goal-setting. It’s a time for listening — for letting the cards speak from the underworld of your own psyche.

You might:

• Perform a Shadow Spread — asking, What must I release? What seeks rebirth within me?
• Draw a Spirit Card — a message from an ancestor, guide, or unseen influence.
• Pull a Year’s End Reading — to close one creative or emotional cycle before the next begins.
• Use your deck for meditative journaling, noting recurring symbols that echo through dreams or memory.

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Samhain and The Phantasmagoria

In your deck’s world, Samhain is the Night of the Curtain — when the theatre of the Dreamer is silent, yet every shadow waits to perform. The stage is empty, but the air hums with memory. It is both funeral and genesis — a rehearsal for rebirth.

The Dreamer walks among their own creations, each spirit and illusion whispering of unfinished stories. Samhain reminds them (and you) that art, like spirit, never dies — it only changes form.

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Here’s a Samhain Tarot Spread designed specifically for The Phantasmagoria Tarot: A Painter’s Guide to Illusion and Revelation.

It’s built as both a spiritual and artistic ritual — a way to commune with your shadows, your ancestors, and the ghosts of unfinished work.

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The Samhain Spread — “The Night of the Curtain”

Theme:

When the lights dim and the curtain falls, what remains illuminated within you?

This spread invites you to enter the liminal theatre of your soul — to listen, to release, and to gather inspiration from the unseen.

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Preparation

Read or sketch by candlelight or soft silver light.

Choose a dark cloth or paint-stained paper as your reading surface.

Keep a bowl of water (reflection), a small stone (grounding), and something that belonged to an ancestor or past self (memory).

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The Spread (6 Cards)

1. The Opening Scene — What Fades from the Stage

What story or identity must I let go of?

The mask that no longer fits, the performance that has ended.

2. The Shadow Player — What Haunts Me Still

What unhealed energy or memory lingers in the wings?

The ghost that seeks acknowledgment, not banishment.

3. The Mirror Veil — What the Spirit World Reflects Back

What message do my ancestors or guides wish to share?

A symbolic image from beyond the curtain — subtle, intuitive, dreamlike.

4. The Lantern of the Hermit — My Hidden Gift

What wisdom is reborn from the ashes of what I’ve lost?

A truth, talent, or creative spark that endures through endings.

5. The Silent Audience — What I Must Listen For

What truth speaks only when I am still?

The whisper beneath noise, the breath between brushstrokes.

6. The Final Bow — What Emerges Transformed

What new form will my energy take in the coming season?

The soul’s encore — art, clarity, or quiet peace.

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Optional Artistic Ritual

After the reading, paint or draw one symbol from each card that resonated most — six fragments of transformation.

Layer them on a single page or canvas, as if building a dream collage of your own psyche.

When complete, sign it in silver or white ink — your name as a seal between this world and the next.

Wands Suit

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The Suit of Wands in the Phantasmagoria

The Wands are the spark that ignites the illusion.
They are the flickering torches carried into the dark theater of the mind —
each flame casting long, trembling shadows on the walls of imagination.

In a Phantasmagoria, the audience is both terrified and enthralled by projections of light and smoke. In the same way, the Wands show us how desire, inspiration, and willpower can create whole worlds — radiant, intoxicating, and sometimes deceptive.
They represent the creative fire that animates the phantasm itself.

Where other suits explore emotion, reason, or material reality, the Wands dwell in the visionary space between spirit and illusion. They are the artists, dreamers, and conjurers, summoning something out of nothing — the magician’s first act before the image takes form.

But this fire is unstable. Just as the old lantern slides could twist into grotesque shapes, the Wands warn of what happens when passion burns too brightly — when creation turns to obsession, or inspiration to mania.
In the Phantasmagoria deck, the Wands might shimmer with luminous energy, painted in hues of candlelight, smoke, and motion — a dance between brilliance and distortion.

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Symbolic Key for My Deck

• Element: Fire → the flame that casts the illusion

• Theme: Creation, vitality, projection, inspiration, will

• Shadow Aspect: Illusion of grandeur, burnout, self-delusion through one’s own “light show”

• Phantasmagoria Parallel: The act of summoning visions — where imagination blurs with reality

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Productivity Planning for the Minor Arcana

Got a new planner to help me with planning out on the minor arcana. Only problem is, it's only for 4 months. Can I get 56 cards sketched and painted in 4 months? They are smaller than the major canvases. These are closer to actual size.