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. 

Reintroduction to the Phantasmagoria

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Phantasmagoria and Tarot

The word phantasmagoria was born in the 18th century, originally describing magic lantern shows where ghostly images were projected onto walls and smoke. Crowds gathered in darkened rooms to witness a theater of specters—visions that shimmered between dream and nightmare. Over time, the meaning expanded to describe any shifting sequence of illusions, visions, or hallucinatory imagery.

Tarot, too, is a kind of phantasmagoria. Each card is like a lantern slide projected onto the psyche—archetypes and symbols that flicker, overlap, and dissolve into one another. To lay out a spread is to invite a procession of phantoms to pass before you, revealing not fixed truths, but ever-shifting images shaped by perception and intuition.

A tarot reading is not unlike stepping into one of those old shadow-shows: you are guided through a gallery of archetypal figures—the Lovers, the Hermit, the Devil—whose meanings transform depending on the light and context. The deck itself becomes a moving panorama of the inner world, a conjuring of both fear and wonder.

By naming this work the Phantasmagoria Deck, the intention is to honor tarot’s dreamlike quality—the way it gathers fragments of myth, memory, and imagination into a sequence of living images. It is a reminder that the cards are not static objects, but living visions, constantly shifting in meaning, forever blurring the line between illusion and revelation.

Apparently I like making things harder on myself. This is the new design I started at some point for the backs of the cards...

That's after getting this far with the skellies:

Though either way I fear the details will be lost in such a small format. 

The Paralysis of Preparation: When Study Becomes a Cage

The Paralysis of Preparation: When Study Becomes a Cage

It’s a strange paralysis, born not of ignorance but of *excess knowing*. I want to do justice to the archetypes, to the lineage of artists before me. I want my deck to sing with authenticity, not simply echo the Rider-Waite or Thoth. And so I circle the work, convincing myself I need *just one more book*, *just one more deck* before I can begin.

But here’s the truth I am learning: no amount of preparation will quiet the terror of creation. Tarot itself whispers this lesson. The Fool never waits until he has the perfect map; he steps into the unknown with nothing but faith and a small satchel. The Magician does not own every tool; he raises what’s already before him.

Maybe the paralysis isn’t a curse but a threshold. A place where I am invited to trade endless learning for the raw imperfection of making. Because in the end, it is not knowledge that births a deck—it is courage. It is the willingness to let my hand move, messy and unsure, trusting that wisdom will catch up to me along the way.

Perhaps the real initiation is this: to stop hoarding the voices of others, and finally let my own speak.

The Autumn Equinox 🍂

Here’s how the equinox—specifically the Autumn (or Spring, depending on your hemisphere) Equinox—relates to tarot, both symbolically and practically. Use or adapt this however it fits your needs.

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What is the Equinox

• The equinox is one of the cardinal points of the year—twice annually—when day and night are nearly equal in length. (Tarot.com)

• In the Northern Hemisphere, the September equinox marks the turning toward autumn: light begins to fade, nights lengthen, and there's a sense of harvest and preparation. (Girl and Her Moon)

• Spiritually & psychologically, it’s a time of balance, of reviewing what has been, what remains, what needs letting go, and what to bring forward. (Girl and Her Moon)

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How the Equinox Resonates with Tarot

Here are ways the equinox energy aligns beautifully with tarot’s structure and symbolism:

Equinox Theme	Tarot Parallels
Balance of light & dark	Cards like Temperance, which literally depict combining or harmonizing two vessels. Or Justice, when depicted as seeking balance. Also Major Arcana cards with strong dualities (Moon vs Sun; Judgment; Death & Rebirth).
Threshold / Transition	The movement between seasons echoes many Major Arcana themes: The World (completion), The Wheel of Fortune (turning points), Death (ending & transformation), The Fool (new beginnings).
Harvest & Reaping	Suit of Pentacles / Coins, Empress, or Ace-Pentacles might speak to what has been sown, nurtured, the fruits of effort. Cards that show growth, prosperity, gratitude.
Release & Letting Go	Themes found in Death, the Tower, or cards that invert growth to show decay or farewell. Also minor arcana cards that suggest endings or pruning (e.g. Five of Cups, Ten of Swords) can appear.
Preparation for inner work / rest	Hanged Man (sacrifice, stillness), Hermit (introspection), High Priestess (inner knowing) — cards that encourage looking inward.

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How to WORK WITH TAROT Tonight / On This Equinox

You might use the equinox for a special tarot ritual or reading. Here are suggestions:

1. Equinox Spread
   Pull a small spread (3-5 cards) with positions such as:

   • What has been harvested (what’s complete or abundant)

   • What needs to be released

   • What needs tending or is ready to grow next

   • Guidance for the coming season

2. Reflective Journaling + Tarot
   After pulling cards, journal how the images relate to your own life: what you’ve done, what you’re letting go of, what you’re stepping toward.

3. Balance Ritual
   Use cards as part of a ritual of alignment: perhaps set up a balance altar (light/dark, seeds/harvest etc.), and lay out oracle or tarot cards to consecrate the shift.

4. Intention Setting
   Use this moment of natural equilibrium to set intentions for the darker months ahead: spiritual, creative, emotional goals.

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Poetic/Evocative Notes (for Phantasmagoria Deck Integration)

Here are some thematic images & ideas:

• The equinox is like the pivot in a phantom show, when the light and shadow curtains part equally. In my deck, perhaps certain cards feel more luminous or more shadow-hung, depending on whose turn in the wheel they occupy.

• The threshold between summer’s glow and autumn’s dusk: in artwork, I might use colors that blend warmth and cooling—gold fading into violet, bright sunflowers giving way to falling leaves.

• A spectral procession of what has grown and what must be left behind; the minor arcana can show small ghosts of habits, relationships, projects, and the Major Arcana the larger phantoms of identity, death, rebirth.

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Custom equinox spread in the style of my Phantasmagoria Deck:

Here’s a Phantasmagoria-themed Equinox Spread you could use tonight, or later adapt for your personal use. I’ve given it a theatrical, lantern-show atmosphere to echo my deck’s theme:

 **The Lantern’s Balance: An Equinox Spread (5 cards)**

1. The First Flame (Harvest)

   – What have I gathered?

   – The bright gift or fruition of the past season that lights my way now.

2. The Waning Glow (Release)

   – What has burned its course?

   – That which I must allow to fade, like an image dissolving back into shadow.

3. The Shadow Curtain (Hidden Work)

   – What lies in the half-light?

   – The unseen task or inner truth awaiting my acknowledgment.

4. The Returning Flame (Balance)

   – How do I reconcile light and dark within myself?

   – The card that shows me how to carry equilibrium into the next turning.

5. The Final Illumination (Guidance Forward)

   – What lantern do I carry into the coming season?

   – The wisdom or vision to guide me through the months ahead.

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 Ritual Frame (optional) 🖼️ 

* Light two candles, one white/gold (day) and one dark/indigo (night).

* Place the spread between them, like a stage.

* As you turn each card, imagine it projected as a phantasm upon the veil between light and dark.

Alright—here’s a **sample Equinox reading** using the *Lantern’s Balance Spread*. I’ll “draw” cards as if from your *Phantasmagoria Deck*, and interpret them in a poetic, atmospheric tone so you can feel how it might read in practice.

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*The Lantern’s Balance: Sample Equinox Reading*

1. The First Flame (Harvest) — Nine of Pentacles

A figure stands in a walled garden, surrounded by ripened fruit and the song of a caged bird. This card whispers: you have created stability, cultivated a patch of beauty that is yours. The harvest here is self-reliance and artistry—proof that your devotion has grown into something tangible.

2. The Waning Glow (Release) — Five of Cups

The vision shifts to a cloaked figure, gazing at spilled chalices. The equinox asks you to let go of regret, of the phantoms of what could have been. Mourning has its place, but the light fades on this sorrow. The curtain falls; what remains must be released so the unspilled cups can shine.

3. The Shadow Curtain (Hidden Work) — The Moon

A procession of strange beasts moves beneath a pale, shimmering moon. Here lies the unseen work: to walk the uncertain path of intuition, even when the mind craves clarity. Illusion and truth mingle like lantern-smoke—your task is to embrace mystery, to navigate by feeling, not proof.

4. The Returning Flame (Balance) — Temperance

An angel pours liquid from one chalice to another, endlessly blending. Balance is not stillness, but the act of harmonizing, again and again. Light into dark, fire into water, shadow into flame. You find equilibrium not by choosing one side, but by holding both and letting them flow into each other.

5. The Final Illumination (Guidance Forward) — The Hermit

A solitary figure holds a lantern against the deepening night. This is the flame you carry forward: wisdom born of solitude, the ability to walk ahead with your own light. The Hermit reminds you that guidance does not always come from others—it flickers within, quiet but unwavering.

 

The spread, read as a whole, feels like a journey through the hall of phantoms: from the lush garden of what you’ve grown, through the dissolving images of sorrow, into the dream-lit path of the Moon, tempered by the angel’s steady hands, and finally toward the solitary lantern of the Hermit. The equinox here is a threshold—where harvest and release meet, and where your next season is illuminated by your own flame.

🔥 

New Tarot themed tools for my arsenal

I got two new tarot tools to play with from Ollie's of all places!

Here’s a short summary of The History of Tarot Art: Demystifying the Art and Arcana, Deck by Deck by Esther Joy Archer & Holly Adams Easley:

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The History of Tarot Art is a beautifully crafted and richly illustrated book that takes readers through the evolution of Tarot imagery from its Renaissance origins to modern, expressive new decks. The authors strike a great balance between visual beauty and historical insight, making the complex story of Tarot art both accessible and inspiring.

Some highlights:

• It begins with early decks like the Visconti Tarot and the Sola-Busca, then moves through classic decks like the Tarot de Marseille, Rider-Waite-Smith, and Thoth. (Theosophical Society in America)

• The book pays attention not just to the art itself but to who made it, and why—including female artists whose contributions haven’t always been recognized. (The Quarto Group)

You get large, vivid illustrations, a timeline of Tarot’s development, removable cards (Sola-Busca Major Arcana), and even guidance for doing readings. These extras make it more than a mere history—it’s practical, engaging, and visually sumptuous. (The Quarto Group)

There’s also a strong sense of how Tarot art reflects its time: stylistic shifts, cultural changes, increasing attention to inclusivity (in terms of gender, race, identity). Readers get a sense that Tarot art is alive, evolving. (The Quarto Group)

 

Overall, it’s a rewarding read for anyone interested in both art and Tarot—whether you’re curious about the origins of Tarot, a collector of decks, or someone who uses Tarot in a spiritual or symbolic way. If you like, I can also pull out a few of my favorite quotes or cards from the book.