Here in the Northern Hemisphere, the weather is cooling and the days are getting shorter. If we were to follow nature's rhythms, this would be the time to start slowing down. But humans are a contrary bunch so we've created for ourselves a time of frantic activity. For some, the holiday season is one of the most stressful times of the year.

Tarot can help!

During the course of creating one of our classes on The Hanged Man card, we wrote a simple meditation that can be very useful when experiencing anxiety -- at any time of year.

It's called The Hanged Man's Mantra: 
Relax. Let go! Be still.

Here's what to do...

Take a nice, comfortable position. 
Close your eyes and breathe and relax...

As you breathe, inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth.

For several breaths, pay attention to your in-breath. 
Just the in-breath. Feel the sensation of the air as you inhale.

Next, pay careful attention to your out-breath. Just that.

Focus on the regular alternation of in and out breathing. Become aware of how this alternation sustains your life.

Now relax your concentration and just continue to breathe comfortably. At this point, you will be in a meditative state.

For the next few breaths, mentally repeat the word "Relax," saying RE on the in-breath and LAX on the out-breath.

Between each repetition, draw one breath without saying anything. Relax on one breath. Silence on the next breath.

And as you do this, relax your body, beginning with your face and working downward. Do this three times. RE-LAX..

Let your breathing return to normal while your body stays quite relaxed.

Now for the next few breaths, mentally repeat the words, "Let Go." LET on the in-breath and GO on the out-breath, with a silent breath between each repetition.

As you do this, let go of worry, anxiety, or distraction. Float freely like a leaf letting go of its branch and drifting on the wind. Or a raindrop merging into a pond. Do this three times. LET GO.

Once again, let your breathing return to normal while you continue to float freely.

For the next few breaths, mentally repeat the words, "Be Still". BE on the in-breath and STILL on the out-breath, with the silent breath between each repetition as you do this.

Remain completely relaxed, floating freely, and become internally still and silent. Repeat this three times. BE STILL.

You are now in a deep meditative state, approaching a state of non-being. Float silently and comfortably until you feel ready to resume your day. Then, take two deep breaths and with your eyes still closed, become completely aware of your surroundings. When you are ready, open your eyes.

You may also find The Hanged Man's Mantra a wonderful way to prepare for sleep.

As we head into the holiday season, take some time to breathe, relax and let go... Be kind to yourself and the people in your world.

Wondering what to get the tarot lovers in your life for the upcoming holidays? A Tarot School Gift Certificate is the answer! No need to worry about out of stock items or shipping delays. Letting them choose what they like from our store, ensures your gift will be a perfect fit!

Tarot School gift certificates are available in any amount you desire or for something specific. You may purchase gift certificates for classes, audio courses, study guides, private lessons or readings, the Tarot School Correspondence Course or Tarot School Birth Card Course. Or simply designate an amount and let the recipient choose!

Ordering is easy —

Just Email Us to discuss the details. We’ll email the certificate for you to print out and hand-deliver or forward to the recipient anywhere in the world.

Let someone know you care about them with a personalized gift certificate from The Tarot School!

QUESTION:

I have a question that recently came to mind regarding our course material. We learned that each Major Arcana card corresponds to a specific function, but I was wondering about the origins of these correspondences—specifically, which materials or sources they are derived from. It seems that this information isn’t explicitly mentioned in Book T, and I also noticed that the correspondences in the Sefer Yetzirah differ from what we’ve studied.

I would greatly appreciate it if you could shed some light on this. Thank you so much for your time and guidance!

Best regards,

Cloris

ANSWER:

Thank you for your question, Cloris.

The functions you’re asking about (Life & Death, Peace & War, Sight, Hearing, etc.) don’t come from Book T itself. Their source is the Sefer Yetzirah.

In the Sefer Yetzirah, the Seven Double Letters are linked with paired opposites (Life/Death, Peace/War, Wisdom/Folly, Riches/Poverty, Grace/Indignation, Fertility/Barrenness, Power/Servitude).

The Twelve Simple Letters are associated with human faculties and activities (Sight, Hearing, Smell, Speech, Taste, Sexuality, Work, Movement, Anger, Laughter, Imagination, Sleep).

The Three Mother Letters (Aleph, Mem, Shin) are elemental (Air, Water, Fire), which is why those cards appear as “no function” in our list.

The Golden Dawn later mapped the 22 Hebrew letters onto the 22 Major Arcana. That overlay is what produces the list of “functions” associated with each trump in our course material. The functions themselves are from the Sefer Yetzirah; the application to Tarot is Golden Dawn.

Different translations of the Sefer Yetzirah use slightly different wording (for example “Laughter” vs. “Mirth,” or “Sexuality” vs. “Coition”), but the underlying scheme is consistent. In our course we also add “Touch” alongside “Sexuality” for the Hermit, as a teaching refinement.

I hope this helps clarify where those correspondences come from!

_______________

For those of you unfamiliar with the Esoteric Functions of the Major Arcana, here's the list:

The Fool: AIR  (No function)                 

The Magician: Life & Death                 

The High Priestess: Peace & War                 

The Empress: Wisdom & Folly                 

The Emperor: Sight                      

The Hierophant: Hearing                 

The Lovers: Smell                 

The Chariot: Speech                 

Strength: Taste                 

The Hermit: Sexuality / Touch                         

Wheel of Fortune: Riches & Poverty                 

Justice: Work                 

The Hanged Man: WATER  (No function)                 

Death: Movement                     

Temperance: Anger                 

The Devil: Laughter                 

The Tower: Indignation & Grace                 

The Star: Imagination                         

The Moon: Sleep                 

The Sun: Fertility & Barrenness                 

Judgement: FIRE (No function)                 

The World: Power & Servitude

(We plan to teach a Tarot Salon on the Esoteric Functions in the future, so keep an eye on the class schedule for the date.)

To submit a question to be answered in a future issue of Tarot Tips, send us an email at tarot@tarotschool.com

Wald's Words of Wisdom

We often think of divination as something we do—a spread we lay out, a pendulum we hold steady, a pattern we interpret. But sometimes, meaning arrives on its own. The ancients called this cledonomancy, the art of receiving prophecy through random words or sounds that seem to carry a message.

Every once in a while, the world speaks first. You might be walking down the street, lost in thought, when a passerby’s remark seems to answer the very question you’ve been asking yourself. Or perhaps a snippet from the radio, a child’s exclamation, or a line overheard in a café lands with an uncanny sense of rightness. If you’ve ever caught one of those moments—a phrase that feels meant for you—you’ve already experienced cledonomancy.

The word comes from the Greek klēdōn, meaning “omen” or “prophetic word.” In ancient times, seekers would stand at crossroads or in busy marketplaces, silently holding a question in mind and listening for the next words they heard. The first phrase that reached their ears was taken as a message from the gods. It wasn’t about who said it—it was about what was said and the charged coincidence of its arrival.

Cledonomancy reminds us that divination doesn’t always require cards, runes, or ritual tools. Sometimes, it’s about tuning the ear of the soul to a world that is constantly whispering. The practice hinges on receptivity rather than control. Like a radio picking up a signal, you prepare yourself through intent and attention, then allow the message to come through ordinary channels of life.

You can experiment with this form of divination in simple ways:

👂  Hold a clear question in mind as you begin a walk, turn on the TV, or scroll through music titles.

👂  The first words, lyrics, or sounds that catch your attention become the oracle.

👂  Reflect on their tone, language, or emotional resonance. What part of your question do they illuminate?

Cledonomancy works best when you release any effort to make meaning happen. Its insights appear through synchronicity—a reminder that conversation with the unseen doesn’t always start with you speaking first.

In tarot reading, this same principle applies. Sometimes a single word from the querent, or a passing phrase you almost overlook, can open a deeper truth than the cards themselves reveal. Cledonomancy trains the intuitive ear to recognize when the universe—or the client—is already speaking.

We’d love your suggestion or submissions for this column! If you have an idea or would like to contribute, please contact us at
tarot@tarotschool.com.

TAROT AND PAST LIVES

Esoteric Insights

THE ARRIVAL OF PENTACLES
 

By Wald Amberstone

When you look in the mirror, you're seeing your own face and form, and that face and form conceals, hides within it, everything that it took to make you who you are today.

From the moment of your birth to now, all the events, all the things that you have ever done, or seen, or felt, or believed is all contained and wrapped up in your body as it appears now. And as you go forward, you will continuously add to the totality of things hidden inside of you.

Think of everything you could have said 10 years ago. And 10 years before that, and 10 years before that. And it builds and builds and builds until you become this giant factory of impulses and skills and desires and fears. All these things are hidden inside of a body.

Look around at the different things in your immediate environment. You see books and things like that. All of those things also came to pass, one step at a time from the beginning to now. And they exist as they are now, as a composite of everything that went into making them what they are.

Every book, every cup and saucer, every glass, every mirror, every single thing in your physical world is a combination of everything that went before it, hidden in one physical form.

So the final manifestation, the final arrival of Pentacles, after all those other energies, hides and conceals the entire creative process that makes you who you are. And if you live another 40 or 50 years, it will continue to do that. 

Mind Your Own Business
SETTING YOUR RATES

By Patti Woods

If there’s one area of spiritual business that people cringe at, it’s pricing. There’s all sorts of emotional and sociological baggage that comes with money, but let’s just talk about the basics when it comes to setting your rates. 
 

First, some questions:  

  •  Do you feel guilty for charging for your gifts? 

  •  Are you unhappy with your current fee structure? 

  •  Do you get angry or jealous when you see what others are charging for their services? 

  •  Do you tend to over-deliver to your client? 

  •  Do you flounder when people ask what your rates are? 

 

If you answered yes to any (or all) of these, you’re not alone. I’ve experienced all of these feelings, so here’s a chance to learn from my experience. 
 

I remember my first paid reading for a stranger. A colleague asked me if I’d do a reading for her friend who was going through a divorce. I said I would and she said, “Great. I told her your fee is $25.” 
 

Twenty five dollars! My head was spinning. I couldn’t imagine charging that much money for a reading. It was the early ‘90s and that felt like an outrageous sum of money. I hemmed and hawed but my friend gave me a pep talk. “You deserve to be paid. You’ve helped me so much and I know you’ll do the same for her.” I met the woman at the local library and sat with her for well over an hour. Later that night I typed up some key points to her reading and emailed them to her. It was a classic case of over-delivering, but it was what I felt was needed at the time.
 

When I decided to start regularly offering readings, I set my prices in increments of $20 so I wouldn’t have to make change. (This was before we paid for everything with a credit card). A 15-minute reading was $20, a half-hour was $40. I made these prices up out of the blue, not knowing that there would soon be all sorts of factors to take into consideration. Fast-forward many years later, and now I have a much different perspective on how to set rates. 

Here are some things to think about:

Your training and experience. How much time and money have you devoted to your practice? The readings I did in the ‘90s were much different than the readings I do now, largely because, even 30 years later, I continue to study and take classes. Those initial 15-minute $20 readings were appropriately priced for my level of skill at the time. Despite what TikTok readers may say, there’s no shame in charging a moderate fee if you’re just starting out. 

Your expenses. When I first began reading, my “overhead” costs were simple: I had one deck of cards, a tablecloth and gas money for going to and from readings. Today, my expenses include a website, Zoom hosting and storage, Canva for graphics, computer equipment, networking memberships, occasional virtual assistant help, taxes and those damn credit card fees. I don’t have a brick-and-mortar space, but if I did, that would naturally add even more expenses. 

Your time. This is perhaps the area most people struggle with. How much is your time worth? One method to determine this is to work backwards. Look at your monthly expenses– your rent, your groceries, your transportation, all the things. Figure out what that number is. For example, let’s say your expenses are $10,000 a month. Now do the math. If you charged $100 per reading, you’d need to do 100 readings a month (or 25 per week) in order to meet your goals. Is that feasible? Do you have enough clients to fill those spots? Do you have enough energy to do that amount of readings? If the answer is no, then you’d need to raise your prices or lower your expenses. 

Lastly, consider your own feelings about pricing. What does your body have to say? When someone books with you, do you feel resentful or exhausted before you even do the reading? Do you get a stomachache thinking about the time you’ll be dedicating to your session? If so, you may need to either raise your prices or change something about what it is that you offer. 

Conversely, are you maybe charging too much? Do you feel like you owe your client more than you have time or energy for, simply because your rates are at a premium? If so, maybe consider lowering your prices and taking some of the pressure off. For me, there was a point in time when I started feeling really bitter about the proliferation of “Will my ex come back to me?” kinds of readings. I didn’t enjoy doing these, so I decided to change two things. First, I raised my rates and second, I stopped doing relationship readings for a time. It made a world of difference.
 

It took me many years of trial and error to find a fee structure that felt right. A huge part of what got me there was a deeply heartfelt conversation I had with a dear friend, a brilliant woodworker who had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was nearing the end of his days.  “If I had to change one thing,” he said, “I would’ve charged more for my work.” His final words to me were, “Know your value.” I think of this often, and every year on his birthday I reevaluate my prices. I call it the “Neil Audit.”  It helps me stay on track with my expenses and my integrity. 
 

The last thing I’ll say about pricing is that people want structure and transparency. They’re more likely to book with you if they know your prices up front. When people ask you how much you charge, be ready with the answer. If you find yourself hesitating, it’s a good opportunity to take a deeper look at what you do, why you do it and to remember your value. 

About Patti:

Patti Woods is a writer and tarot reader with over 20 years of experience in the publishing industry. Having served as an editor for both newspapers and magazines, she transitioned into freelance writing, contributing hundreds of articles to major publications such as The Boston Globe, Business Insider, Wine Spectator, Parade Magazine, The Week, Christian Science Monitor, Vegetarian Times, and Health, among many others.

In addition to her writing career, Patti is the founder of Mind, Body & Tarot, a business featured in Business Insider, Reader's Digest, Good Housekeeping, Fodor's Travel, and more.

She is also the author of Lost Restaurants of Fairfield, published by Arcadia/The History Press, and has contributed to several anthologies, including Chicken Soup for the Soul.

Learn more about her services and offerings at www.pattiwoods.com.

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Upcoming Events: 



Tarot Salon on Zoom!
7:00 – 9:00 pm EDT

Our popular Monday night classes are now online so you can attend no matter where you live.

Classes are recorded and all levels of experience are welcome!

NOVEMBER 2025:   

  3 - Symbols of the 7 of Cups

10 - Symbols of the 8 of Cups
17 - Tarot by Numbers: 7 & 8

24 - The Tarot Horses
 

Get on the notification list to see what we'll be teaching each week. 

Readings with Ruth Ann

Running The Tarot School with Wald keeps me pretty busy, but I still love giving readings! My specialty is using your Birth Cards and Elemental Array (techniques Wald and I have developed) in conjunction with random draws to give you an extremely personalized and powerful reading. 

If you are familiar with the Tree of Life, you may request a Birth Cards Synastry Reading. I will compare your Birth Cards with those of one or two others to give you a deeper understanding of your relationship with them.

I excel at giving Readings for Readers so if you're always giving readings to others, let me help you with some self-care for a change!