karma
The Soul Wisdom Of The Major Arcana
If you’ve ever felt a magnetic pull toward the Tarot, you’re not alone. For centuries, these cards have been used to unlock the mysteries of our life journey and soul path. Among the 78 cards in a traditional Tarot deck, there are 22 that stand out in their spiritual depth and archetypal wisdom: the Major Arcana.
The word “arcana” comes from the Latin arcanum, meaning “secret” or “mystery.” These 22 cards, beginning with The Fool and culminating with The World, chart a symbolic journey of spiritual awakening and self-discovery.
In readings, Major Arcana cards often speak to life-changing lessons and soul-level growth. These archetypal cards form the backbone of the Tarot, guiding seekers on their journey of self-realization and spiritual refinement, known as The Fool’s Journey.
When several Major Arcana cards appear in a spread, I often sense that the querent (person receiving the reading) is going through a spiritually significant phase. These cards highlight soul contracts, karmic patterns, and transformative life events. They encourage us to pause, reflect, and connect with our higher self.
In contrast, the remaining 56 cards — known as the Minor Arcana — deal more with the day-to-day. They are divided into four suits representing the elements (Cups, Pentacles, Swords, and Wands) and include numbered cards and Court Cards, often called the “people cards.” When many Minor Arcana cards show up, the reading tends to focus on practical matters, offering insight and advice for navigating everyday challenges and choices.
Reincarnation And The Karmic Journey Of The Soul
Reincarnation — the belief that the soul experiences multiple lifetimes through a continuous cycle of birth, death, and rebirth — is embraced by many spiritual and religious traditions worldwide. Wisdom traditions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and various indigenous belief systems integrate reincarnation deeply into their teachings.
For those who embrace the concept, reincarnation offers a transformative perspective on life and mortality. When we believe that our soul consciousness continues beyond this life, death is no longer something to be feared. Instead, it becomes a transition — a doorway to new opportunities for growth and evolution. Reincarnation provides a rich and expansive framework for understanding the soul’s journey.
Whether you fully embrace the concept or explore it with curiosity, reflecting on the interplay of karma and rebirth can inspire greater mindfulness, compassion, and purpose. In this view, death is not an end, but a passage — a gateway to continued exploration and spiritual progress.
Belief in some form of continued existence beyond this life is widespread. A 2011 Ipsos Global Advisor survey of more than 18,000 people in 23 countries found that 51% of respondents believe in an afterlife that includes beliefs in heaven, hell, and reincarnation. Specifically, 7% of respondents said they believed in reincarnation.
In the United States, a 2021 Pew Research Center survey found that approximately 33% of adults believe in reincarnation. This belief is more prevalent among younger adults under 50 (38%) compared to those aged 50 and older (27%).
Did Your Soul Choose Your Life Challenges?
“Oh, why do I have such terrible karma?” or “Why does the universe keep throwing me curveballs?” or “Is God punishing me?” These are questions that clients often ask me when they face struggles in life.
Spirit has repeatedly shown me in many readings over the years that we all have a kind of “architect’s plan” that we design before we incarnate into this life. This soul plan for our life journey lays out the lessons we’re going to learn and the experiences we’re going to have.
This spiritual principle is known by various names (depending on the context or belief system), including our spiritual blueprint, life design, divine plan, life script, soul contract, predestined path, and so on.
I prefer “architect’s plan” because it reminds me of the careful, meticulous planning an architect does when designing a new structure, long before the practical, hands-on construction takes place on site.
Like architects, we calmly and clearly create a plan for our life journey before we incarnate. It is only when we are here in the physical world to embody our plan that we fully experience the intensity and the many dangers and pitfalls that are part of our chosen journey, including all the fear, love, pain, hardship, joy, suffering, and everything in between.
Yes, it is hard to believe that we actually choose to face challenges and difficulties in our lives. But various spiritual traditions and esoteric philosophies tell us that our soul’s path is predestined or planned before we’re born, or at least that we have certain free will choices and options along the way.
Forgiving Yourself Is A Spiritual Necessity
Self-forgiveness is more than just a mental health recommendation – it is a spiritual necessity. It is vital for the spiritually aware person to release guilt, self-blame, and self-criticism, because forgiving oneself is crucial to both personal well-being and spiritual progress. It allows for healing, growth, and the ability to live a more fulfilling and harmonious life.
Failure to forgive ourselves can have profound personal and spiritual side effects. Carrying guilt and self-blame leads to chronic emotional distress and contributes to anxiety, depression, and low self-esteem. Over time, this can manifest itself in physical symptoms such as headaches, fatigue, or even chronic illness.
A lack of self-forgiveness undermines self-worth and hinders personal growth and development. Difficulty forgiving yourself also strains your relationships with others, as it can lead to withdrawal, defensiveness, or projecting negativity onto those around you. Without forgiveness, our negative feelings toward ourselves can fester and damage even our most cherished relationships with our loved ones and friends.
Holding onto guilt and self-blame blocks the flow of positive energy through the chakras and hinders spiritual well-being. For example, guilt often stagnates in the solar plexus chakra, affecting one’s sense of personal power. Self-forgiveness is essential for clearing such blockages in the energy field.
Forgiveness is also essential to achieving inner peace and harmony. Without it, one can experience constant inner turmoil and restlessness. When we hold onto guilt, shame, or self-blame, parts of our spiritual essence or inner divinity are suppressed or disconnected. It causes separation from one’s spiritual path or a sense of disconnection from spirit and the divine.
How To Deal With Negativity And Toxic Drama
Many people today feel overwhelmed, angry, frustrated, fearful. This is especially evident online in the social media landscape. Unfortunately, too often this leads to attacks on others, including innocent people and companies.
It can be challenging to know how best to deal with all this toxic negativity. I believe it’s best to approach this issue spiritually, from a metaphysical or energetic standpoint.
Energy, whether positive or negative, grows when we feed it. Consider a plant: in order to thrive, it needs water, sunlight, and nutrients from the earth. If neglected, it will wither. The same principle applies to our interactions with the world around us: by paying attention to something, we feed it with our energy.
This is crucial to remember when dealing with any kind of negativity, both online and in person. To thrive energetically, we must be selective about who and what we pay attention to.
Huna, an ancient Hawaiian spiritual tradition, teaches that energy flows where attention goes. Every time we choose where to direct our energy, we’re making an active choice about what we want to grow in our lives. When we respond to negativity – whether with anger, defensiveness, or frustration – we end up reinforcing the very things we want to avoid. To maintain peace and harmony, huna advises focusing on positive intentions and constructive energy.
By giving toxic energy thieves our attention, we allow their negaivity to take root in our hearts and minds. Feeding negativity or drama only strengthens it, which ultimately affects our own well-being. When we consciously choose to withdraw our energy from negative influences and redirect it to uplifting and positive areas, we create an environment where peace and growth can flourish.
Your Guardian Angel Is Always By Your Side
From the moment we take our first breath to the last, we are never alone. We are never lost or forgotten, even in our darkest hours.
Throughout our life’s journey, we have a guardian angel walking beside us, protecting and supporting us in ways we mostly do not notice and rarely truly understand.
Although many of us are unaware of their presence, our guardian angels are always by our side, offering protection in subtle ways.
Have you ever narrowly avoided an accident or felt an inexplicable calm in a moment of crisis? These are just a few of the ways your guardian angel intervenes to keep you safe.
Our celestial “bodyguards” are not strangers to us, but have been with us through many lifetimes and have full knowledge of our past experiences, current challenges, and future possibilities.
They know the full spectrum of our soul’s journey, from the lessons we’ve learned in previous incarnations, to the opportunities and growth in our current lifetime, to the potential that awaits us in future lives.
They understand the intricacies of our karma, the unfinished lessons we carry, and the gifts and wisdom we’ve cultivated over many lifetimes.
They communicate with us through intuition, inspiration, dreams, signs, and synchronicities, gently nudging us toward the right choices and experiences that will help us evolve spiritually. Sometimes they intervene more deeply and directly in times of intense crisis or extreme danger.
The Role Of Free Will In Psychic Readings
Free will is a common theme in psychic readings. People often wonder how much of their life is predetermined and how much they control their own future, destiny and happiness.
The truth is that our free will not only shapes our daily lives – it’s also at the core of who we are as spiritual beings on a human journey. Free will is inescapable in our lives. This is why it is a central theme in almost every spiritual, religious, and wisdom tradition.
Whether it’s the concept of karma in Hinduism and Buddhism, the moral responsibility to follow divine guidance in Christianity and Judaism, or the pursuit of virtue and inner peace in Stoicism and Taoism, the concept of free will has shaped our understanding of personal fulfillment, spirituality, and destiny since the dawn of humanity.
While interpretations of free will may vary, its presence in our lives is undeniable and determines how we experience life – unless, of course, one subscribes to an atheistic worldview that denies any higher power or spiritual framework for our existence. But even atheists must admit that their lives are also very much determined by their own choices and decisions.
We all have the inner power to shape our lives through our thoughts, beliefs, choices and actions. But with this freedom comes a great responsibility: karma. The ability to create our reality and shape our future has ripple effects that affect not only our own lives, but everything and everyone in the universe.
One of the great questions surrounding free will is the relationship between fate and personal freedom. Many spiritual beliefs hold that our lives unfold according to a divine plan or cosmic blueprint. But if everything is predestined, ordained by a higher power, and happens by divine design, why do we have the ability to make our own life choices at all? Why do we have free will if our lives are already set in stone?