Winter & the Shaman Archetype: Through a Tarot Card Lens

Through modern shamanism, there is a resurgence and remembering of ancient wisdom in the spaces where religious dogma has failed us. My path calls me towards using my voice to blend tarot and modern shamanism to help fill in the gaps of those spaces. Please take what resonates for you and leave the rest!

A Shaman is: “Someone who sees in the dark with his or her heart”– Jan Engels-Smith, Sh.D., Through the Rabbit Hole

As I write this, we are in the midst of winter and on the brink of New Years. The significance of this season is what inspired me to write about the universal shaman archetype that exists within all of us. Winter represents the cold, dark night of the soul, where nature pushes us to retreat into quiet, introspection- for survival and also to gather strength in preparation for the renewal of spring. *New Years exists within this season of death and provides light in the darkness through rebirth of hope of new outcomes and possibilities.

In our modern world, we are programmed that death is the enemy, with the expectation that it’s preferable to be in a constant state of youth, action, and accumulation. This is the dominance of left brain thinking that pervades our collective consciousness. Some people have made a lot of money convincing us we need to be younger, richer, idolized. and thinner in order to outrun and trick the aging process. But no amount of collagen, money, social media followers, or pills will protect you from mortality. In America, the aging population is often under-valued, ignored, and dismissed, because they remind us of our own mortality.  

*ICHI SACHI: Sanskrit term expressing the wish or desire for something more to existence; relating to a benevolent nature

The Call to Come Home

Shamanism brings us back to a right-brained way of thinking that connects the head to the heart. It reminds us that wisdom comes with age and experience. To apply shamanic principles to your daily life is to honor the role that everyone and everything plays in the web of life. Everything in the natural world has a spirit. We are no different from the lonely man with no family in the nursing home, the clouds in the sky, or waves crashing on the beach. Reclaiming unity and community from this false concept of separation is part of the shamanic journey.

Like all archetypes, shamanism has always existed. It never went away, but rather, there is a movement in our collective consciousness of remembering our true nature:

We are souls having a human experience

When we remember that we are spirits first, before we chose our human skin suits, then we can loosen the grip that fear has over how we interact with other souls in skin suits. We remember that all souls came here as creators of life. How you choose to respond to fear deepens your power to create a reality of your choosing. In shamanism, the universe will attempt to help you remember your personal power when you’ve become a victim of fear, powerlessness, or forgetting your soul’s calling in the web of life.

THIS IS WHERE THE TOWER CARD COMES IN…

We awaken to the truth that empowerment is intrinsic, when we previously may have been looking externally for satisfaction or validation. Our trials of physical and mental health, or spiritual crisis, are the keys that awaken our ability to shift our perspective of our situation and the world at large.

Towers can be huge initiations, such as getting struck by lightning, a near death experience, or a health emergency. But Tower moments can also stem from changing careers, conversations, or kindness from a stranger. We often feel forced into Tower moments, but in retrospect there is a quality of seeing ourselves in a new light.

*Soul Vision: the ability to rise above the limited view of immediate circumstance to gain a broader, more inclusive perspective. – Jan Engels-Smith, Sh.D., Through the Rabbit Hole

Tower in action:

When we surrender fully to the power of the Tower to transform us through death and rebirth, I believe we can experience its medicine in any given moment.  However, some awakenings are unforgettable, and sweep through our life like a tsunami or a giant earthquake. One such event for me came from a dream (“nightmare”) that woke me up in a cold sweat. (If you’ve read my bio, it was during the same time period when a voice spoke to me while running that said, “We’ll take care of the hands. You do the rest.” At the time, I’d never heard of reiki or tarot, and that simple message catapulted me to where I am today.)

In this dream, I was being followed by a very ominous, cloaked presence. It moved slowly, but no matter how fast I ran it was always right behind me. He chased me up a staircase, where I had no other choice but to jump. Before I did, a deep and frankly terrifying voice commanded me to “wake up!” as I fell off the roof of my house. The voice was so clear that I thought someone was in the room next to my bed.

Sometimes when we ignore the Universe’s attempts to get our attention, our guides will resort to any method to get us to pull our head out of our ass! However, during this time period I also had dreams that awakened me in less “nightmarish” ways…lucid dreams of flying, learning a song from one of my “brothers” who often appear as animals while camping on Skokomish land near Lake Cushman, and being swallowed and spit out by a large white pelican (FYI- Having a dream of being eaten, spit out, or dismembered and put back together is a common initiation of awakening in the shamanic world. It signifies a rebirth through death- death being the dismantling of ego, facades, and stories that we are ready to shed in order to get closer to our true nature.)

When we begin to “wake up” to messages sent via the dream world, we open to symbols, metaphors, and animal medicine, which offer deeper understanding of the parts of us we’ve forgotten, as well as answers to our questions.

18. The Moon

We can lose pieces of ourselves from trauma, illness, and even past lives. Trauma is subjective, and can be a simple comment from a teacher or friend that results in us hiding a piece of ourselves away because we felt shame. And sometimes, a part of us can be taken or given to another. For example, one may never be able to open to trust and intimacy if they were cheated on. Instead, they become insecure and jealous in a subconscious attempt to fill the void left by the loss of trust and intimacy.

The title of Shaman is one that a shaman would never refer to themselves as. Rather, it is a term of honor and respect given by the community for their healing abilities and connection to the natural world, as well as other worlds. And while shamans certainly perform soul retrievals, it is my own direct experience that we have the power to retrieve parts of our souls on our own. Pulling the Moon card can connect us to this power.

The Moon controls the ebb and flow of the tides, revealing what lies beneath the surface and illuminating it on the beach. Our secrets, pain, shame, grief, regret, etc. can control our behavior and self-esteem. When we choose to examine what washes up on the beach in practices like dream and breath work, meditation, journaling, journeying, dance, etc. then we retrieve the lessons by becoming conscious of them.

When we bring the darker pieces of ourselves into the light, they are most often not as scary as we thought. In fact, this shadow work can help us retrieve lost gifts and talents!

The Moon in action:

It’s no secret that I struggled with attachments to food in my youth. Over time, I didn’t know who I was and felt a void of numbness that could only be partially eased through playing music or making art. In my journey, I’ve had to go back and find that adolescent girl and re-parent her where she’s been hiding in my solar plexus.

Adolescence can be a traumatizing time- trying to figure out who you are while the world gives constant unsolicited advice of “*shoulds” and “*should nots.” It’s especially confusing for girls, when you’re shown images of what it means to be attractive, but if you actually express that sexuality, you’re deemed a slut. “Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?” was a popular comment when discussing boys in my house. My sense of self was gradually molded into what I believed would receive the least amount of judgment from others.

I had to retrieve the WILD in me that was hiding because she didn’t fit the mold of “good girl.” The uninhibited parts of me that were sexual, loud, and carefree decided they weren’t safe. But like all shadows that we attempt to keep hidden, she made herself known, and it wasn’t pretty…

When the Moon shows up, we are called to our watery nature of letting the ebbs and flows take us where we need to go…and it’s most often NOT where we want to go. The Moon connects us to ancestors who looked at the same moon as us. She asks, are you holding what’s yours to hold? Remember that archetypes are engrained within us, but we can choose how much authority they have over our lives, which brings us to…

5. The Hierophant

 While shamanism has been around for thousands of years, there is a push to take it and make it our own in this modern world. We can’t all drum for hours on end, partake in an ayahuasca trip, or take several days to sweat and talk to plants in the forest. However, we can journey with drum music through earphones, attend a sound bath, or garden to commune with plant spirits. 

When the Hierophant comes up, we are called to be our own teacher. The Universe speaks to us, and we’re being called to listen. In my experience, the Hierophant calls us to deeper ritual. We all might not “see in the dark” with the same levels of clairvoyance as some shamans, but the Hierophant reminds us that Spirit communicates through the body- our sense of smell, touch, hearing, taste, etc. When you ask the Universe and open to the possibility of something different, ritual cultivates deeper listening so you can interpret answers from the Universe.

The Hierophant in action:

Several summers ago, after I received my first reiki attunement, I pulled the Hierophant every day, for the whole summer. It became comical, and honestly a little frustrating. “OK I get it!…But actually, what am I not getting? For real, what am I missing?!”

Here’s some direct revelation for you…

MY TAROT PRACTICE STARTED OUT A LITTLE SOMETHING LIKE THIS: I would close my bathroom door to my 2 toddlers chattering at breakfast, my Saint Bernard, and my husband getting ready for work, and say, “Mommy’s busy for 10 minutes.” It was all the time I had to myself at that stage of my life. My ritual developed as:

• An invocation
• Inhaling Kate’s Magick “Sacred Power” oil (shameless plug- I sell her fantastic products in my store😊 ) 3 times on my wrists
• Each time I would exhale- “I am calm. I am strong. I am protected.”
• I began to notice the presence of my guides within my protected, safe space, and because I was in the bathroom, I developed some clairvoyance in seeing a shift of energetic auras!
• Sometimes I would receive uninterrupted time to eye gaze in the mirror if I was lucky enough for an enthralling Sesame Street episode to capture the attention of my little monkeys. (Btw, eyes truly are a “window to the soul.”)
• Then I would ask my question of the cards, record my answers, and free-write more information about how it related to my life at that moment.

Through direct revelation and encouragement from The Hierophant, I opened my own channel to universal wisdom and directed my own way back onto the map my soul had written for me before I lost my way in this skin suit.

Page of Cups

The Page of Cups shows up when we’re being called to tap into our *inner child. You’re telling me I can fly back to 1850 and observe my ancestors from above as a bird in the sky? Yep. And I can shapeshift into a lion to embody the power I’ve been seeking? Absolutely.

It is a universal shamanic belief that we are creators of our own reality. Page of Cups helps you tap into your dreams and bring them to fruition. Fear is often the lynchpin that prohibits us from building the life we want. Page of Cups helps us tap into creating our desires without fear of consequences. If the imagination can create fear, it can also create dreams.