As a figure stands beside overturned cups, the Five of Cups shows us a moment of pure sadness. What happened? It doesn’t really matter! This is a painful reminder of things that are gone and cannot be retrieved.
It is confronting, but do take the time to watch this interview with Marjorie Woodrow who was stolen from her parents when she was 2 years old. Like so many others like Marion Woodrow suffered abuse in many children’s homes. Read moreAbuse of Stolen Children – Creative Spirits
Sydney woman Valerie Linow became the first member of the stolen generations to win monetary compensation for her cruel treatment after authorities removed her from her family. When she was nine, she was taken to south-west New South Wales, to the Cootamundra domestic training home for Aboriginal girls. She left six years later and was forced to work in the town of Wombat for a former police officer, who raped her when she was 15.
The Star is a card of hope, I renewal, and quiet endurance. It appears after upheaval and reminds us that even in the shadow of great sorrow, light still exists. This card speaks of courage, faith, and the small acts of kindness that guide people through uncertain times. It asks you to trust that what is needed will arrive, and that hope itself can become a beacon for others.
Before thousands of Australian soldiers departed for the battlefields of World War I, many fixed their gaze upon a small, windswept island near Albany in Western Australia. There lived Fay-Catherine Howe, the teenage daughter of a lighthouse keeper.
Skilled in semaphore and Morse code, fifteen-year-old Fay became an unexpected lifeline between the departing troops and the families they were leaving behind. From the island she relayed messages to the soldiers using signal flags, then transmitted their replies back to Albany by telegraph and undersea cable, where they were delivered as telegrams to waiting loved ones.
Though she never truly knew the men she signalled to, Fay became a cherished symbol of home — a final human connection before the ships disappeared beyond the horizon. Her compassion and dedication left such an impression that many soldiers later sent postcards to her from the front.
“There was a nude, a nymph, a mermaid, a nurse from Britain, a nun from Italy, Queen Victoria but no Melbourne women at all,” said Coote.
Meanwhile, “dead white men abounded, worthy and unworthy, local and foreign, on and off horseback”.
Rather than wait forever for the gatekeepers of culture to acknowledge women, she just decided that dammit, she’d just write a book and acknowledge them.
You do not have to be Australian or profile an Australian woman. You are simply provided with an opportunity to redress the Matilda Effect by bringing the women’s stories out of the shadows. If you decide to engage I will link and or feature your profiles on this site.
The Matilda effect is a bias against acknowledging the achievements of women scientists whose work is attributed to their male colleagues. This phenomenon was first described by suffragist and abolitionist Matilda Joslyn Gage in her essay, “Woman as Inventor”.
The image of the Tower card is powerful, depicting a solid tower being struck by lightning, and fire crawling out from the small windows at its top.
As Death shows us, change can be hard. With the Tower, it can be brutal. Rosie Batty has written about her heartbreak.
“The Tower – whatever it represents in your reading – comes crashing to the ground. All that you held to be true is suddenly…not true. The world looks different, and it can feel like a disaster. This card’s usual image of lightening destroying a tower is incredibly scary – destruction is all that we can see. The ground is unsteady beneath our feet. We don’t know what to hold on to.”
Quite rightly Batty still wonders “How on Earth, when you become one of these tragedies — these worse-case scenario tragedies — how do you live with murder?”
“If anything comes out of this, I want it to be a lesson to everybody that family violence happens to everybody no matter how nice your house is, no matter how intelligent you are. It happens to anyone and everyone.”The Batty Effect
Many tarot readers talk about their own ‘Tower moments’, referring to those huge and very challenging moments in our lives where everything shifted. Most recall the terror at the moment of fallout but also observe that when the dust has settled things do regain some balance. There is no doubt that Batty’s work to raise awareness about family violence since Luke’s death, gave her “new distractions, new purpose”. Whether she will ever get over what happened is debatable. However, the impact of her work has been far reaching and provides some comfort for her.
By January 2016, she had spoken at approximately 250 events and addressed more than 70,000 people. She had also inspired Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews to commit to an Australian-first Royal Commission into Family Violence. She has, quite literally, changed the conversation about domestic violence in Australia.
Rebuilding
When you are ready, the Tower is also about those steps you take to rebuild.
The Hanged Man tarot card symbolizes sacrifice, surrender, and letting go. It often appears in readings to indicate a time of pause, reflection, and reevaluation of one’s beliefs and priorities.
Nancy Grace Ausgusta Wake was born on 30 August 1912 in Wellington New Zealand. She was the youngest of six children and was raised in Australia. Shortly after moving them to Australia her journalist father deserted the family leaving them to face poverty and hardship. This event is believed to have sparked her rebellious nature and fearsome temper.
At 16 Wake used a £200 inheritance from an aunt to travel to London, where she studied journalism before moving to Paris. While travelling through France writing articles to support herself, Nancy met the man whom she later married. Henri Fiocca was a wealthy French industrialist living in Marseilles where the two settled prior to the war.
As a naive, young journalist, Nancy Wake had witnessed a horrific scene of Nazi violence in a Viennese street. In 1933 on one of her first assignments Wake was to interview Adolf Hitler in Vienna. It was at this point that Nancy Wake first came face-to-face with impending rise of the Nazi regime. From this point, she was committed to bringing down Hitler and his regime and she was true to her word. Among other things she helped build a highly successful escape network for Allied soldiers, perfectly camouflaged by her high-society life with Fiocca n Marseille.
The Hanged Man card is sometimes referred to as the traitor card. As history makes blatantly clear, persons whose individual conscience is in opposition or divergent from the collective viewpoint, can appear as traitors to the Establishment. Often upside down in relation to family, friends and the government, nonconformists can be even branded as criminals.
Though she was never caught, word spread throughout the German Gestapo of a mysterious dark-haired woman operating the southern escape. She became one of the Gestapo’s most wanted and with a five million franc bounty on her head she became known as ‘The White Mouse’ for her continued ability to evade capture. Her husband was not so fortunate and was tortured and executed when he would not reveal the whereabouts of his wife.
After the war she was decorated by Britain, France and the United States. She received the George Medal, 1939-45 Star, France and Germany Star, Defence Medal, British War Medal 1939-45, French Officer of the Legion of Honour, French Croix de Guerre with Star and two Palms, US Medal for Freedom with Palm and French Medaille de la Resistance for her courageous endeavours.
Unable to adapt to life in post-war Europe, she returned to Australia in January 1949 aged 37 and, not surprisingly, given all that she had done and witnessed, never really settled.
King Solomon of Israel captured and contained 72 rebellious demons within a brass vessel. He threw that vessel into a deep Babylonian lake in order to keep others from discovering the power it held. While searching for the treasured vessel, the Babylonian’s broke it, releasing the demons.
Given the sheer evil that exits in the world any attempts to thwart the Devil would seem to have been in vain. This reviled figure has managed to have an impact no matter the gender.
The subject of a True Life Podcast, Anne Hamilton-Byrne wore pearls and Chanel perfume. She played the harp and sang soprano. She had blonde hair, styled in waves that caught the light. As leader of The Family, the Australian doomsday cult she founded in the 1960s, she claimed to be Jesus reborn as a woman.
One of the few female cult leaders in history – and apparently one of the cruellest – Hamilton-Byrne operated in almost total secrecy over two decades. Hidden away in the countryside outside Melbourne, The Family’s motto was “Unseen, unknown, unheard”. The police, acting on information from two child escapees, raided the cult in 1987. It emerged that over the years Hamilton-Byrne had collected 28 children through bogus adoptions and “gifts” from followers, dressing them in identical clothes and bleaching their hair platinum. To keep her eerie brood under her control, they say she subjected them to vicious beatings, starvation and emotional torture.
The Hand of the Devil?
Satan, or the Devil, is one of the best-known characters in the Western traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Surprisingly, this entity was a late-comer in the ancient world. Satan, as a totally evil being, is nowhere to be found in the Jewish Bible. He evolved during the height of the Persian Achaemenid Empire (beginning c. 550 BCE) and was adopted by Jews living under Persian rule at the time. His formal name, Satan, derives from the Hebrew ‘ha-Satan’. ‘Ha’ means ‘the’ and ‘Satan‘ means ‘opposer’ or ‘adversary’.
Death (XIII) is the 13th trump or Major Arcana card in most traditional Tarot decks. The Death card signals that one major phase in your life is ending, and a new one is going to start.
“For Life and Death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.” – Khalil Gibran
Helen Callanan is a death doula who established an organisation called Preparing the Way.A death doula is a companion, advocate and educator for the dying and their family through the process of death. They nurture and support the dying and their family in a practical and empathetic way with the ability to tailor their approach to each person’s needs.
Pragmatic Approaches to Death
Let’s get real! Denial does not protect any of us. No one gets off this planet alive and unless we head off first we inevitably face the deaths of those close to us. It makes complete sense to stop with the frightened stuff and be prepared. To be prepared is actually life affirming.
When my husband died in 2007, we didn’t use the traditional funeral parlour. It was news to me that you could have a funeral in the back yard or a park if you wanted to. Syd Peak and Daughter enabled us to have a ‘transformative’ funeral in the park opposite our home, of the kind that Natural Grace Funerals, Tender Funerals and Zenith Virago are now offering. Perhaps the most moving aspect of what we did at the time is that his biking community took his ashes, sewn into a toy bear, on the biking trip to Queensland that he had so wanted to do.
Making Descansos
If you don’t have a specific place to mark a death you can set up a website or pull out your art and craft supplies and create a collage.
In my experience it is the living, rather than the dead that need to find a way to RIP! After all, the dead are dead aren’t they? It is the living who have to manage to go on living!
All cultures have ways of dealing with and managing grief. I first learned about the concept of Descansos when I read Clarissa Pinkola Estes ‘Women Who Run With Wolves’. Estes describes how when you travel in Old Mexico, New Mexico, southern Colorado, Arizona, or parts of the South, you will see little white crosses by the roadside. These are descansos mark resting places and formally marking these resting places with crosses, memorabilia and flowers offers some solace to those left behind. The concept of marking resting places is not confined to the United States or Mexico. They may be found in Greece, Italy and many other countries, including Australia.
Over the years I have encouraged participants in my writing classes to address their losses by making Descansos in their journals or on a website. When I made a site after the death of my husband I was applying the concept of Descansos to mark the loss. Making Descansos is a wonderful way to honour all the big and little deaths, the endings, the transformative events that we have experienced.
Death Signalling the Need to Adapt
The Death card is the number 13 card of the Major Arcana. It’s astrologically associated with the sign of Scorpio, the sign representing “sex, death, and taxes.” Seeing the Death card in a reading is not a foreboding omen. It does not foretell the death of the person being read, or anyone else for that matter. Rather, it symbolizes the ending of a cycle and the transition into a new one.
Of course, faced with actual death we inevitably end one cycle and move into another. Unless we end one phase of our life, we cannot begin a new one. Children move out of home, we change jobs, relationships end, we move houses, states and countries.
The Northern Animal Tarot reminds us to look at nature and to learn from the cycles she goes through. Another option is to go online and learn about how different cultures deal with death and dying.
Pull out your journal and consider some of the following.
1. What things have changed in your life?
2. Faced with death, will you have any regrets about choices you have made?
3. In order to make the most out of life, is there something you feel you need to change?
4. Has something blocked you from making this change? What have you never done that you want to do before you die?
5. Is there something you need to walk away from now?
6. What are the barriers to making the changes you need in your life?
8. What makes you frightened of, or threatened by, change?
9. What will you lose if you make the changes that you want to make?
10. What support would help you to make these changes?
11. How do you see your life after making the changes that you need to make?
12. How can you help others to accept the changes that you have to make?
13. Is it time for you to put the old ways of thinking behind you; to finally free yourself from a past which no longer serves you?
The story of Margaret Clement is the stuff of fiction or a true life crime podcast. Was it an accident? Did she simply fall victim to the murky floodwaters surrounding her derelict homestead and get washed out to sea? Was she murdered? And, if she was murdered, who was the killer?
These questions still haunt the case of the missing Australian Margaret Clement, now know as “the Lady of the Swamp.”
Clement had been the belle of Melbourne society. She held some of the best society parties, travelled the world, was invited to Buckingham Palace and was stinking rich.
And then one day it was all gone.
The Wheel of Fortune is essentially the wheel of life. No matter what happens, the wheel will keep turning, keep throwing life lessons our way and constantly keep us on our toes. We can never truly know what is coming next.
Margaret Clement’s lifestyle of gleaming carriages and fancy garden parties gave way to a life of squalor.
The 17-room Gippsland mansion she shared with her sister fell into disrepair and became increasingly surrounded by swamp waters. Dressed in an old coat with a fur collar, Ms Clement was forced to wade waist-deep through the murky water to the nearest town 11km away for supplies and to send letters to her family begging for money. She finished her days living alone in a swamp in Gippsland in her decaying mansion Tullaree surrounded by waist-deep water.
Justice represents the balancing of scales. The payment of dues. The ‘right’ outcome. The serving of justice as we enjoy it in films and literature. Social change, progress. Justice is, in principle and by definition, about fairness, balance, equity.
Justice, sword aloft, scales in hand, is a powerful archetypal figure representing a social and personal ideal. Without justice, there cannot be peace. Regardless of the injustice around us, this card asks us to get clear about our own ideas of justice, and how we can embody these principles in our lives.
The Five of Coins, or the Five of Pentacles is a card when upright means to lose all faith, losing resources, losing a lover (mostly shows up when you’ve had a breakup), and losing security whether financially or emotionally (or both).
In 1889, the Illustrated Sydney News published an article about her being left at the altar, leaving her “completely prostrated.”
When Pip meets the jilted Miss Havisham in Great Expectations she is dressed in her decaying wedding attire, presenting a terrifying blend of waxwork figure and living skeleton.
Born in South Africa’s Cape of Good Hope in 1821, Eliza was the youngest child of James Donnithorne, a judge and merchant in the famous East India Company, and grew up in Calcutta. Tragedy struck in 1832, when Eliza’s mother and two teenage sisters died during the city’s cholera epidemic. At age 63, Judge Donnithorne retired to Australia, arriving in Sydney on September 10, 1838.
Donnithorne moved to Australia during the 1840s to be with her father, who had been also been an official of the East India Company. Eliza had formed an attachment to a young man of whom her father disapproved, and after resisting his attempts to split them up, the couple set a date for the wedding. Mr. Donnithorne was such an important official that a great deal of interest was held in the wedding, and crowds are said to have lined the streets to catch a glimpse of the bride. Eliza Donnithorne, dressed in her finery, waited excitedly at the altar for her lover.
He didn’t show.
In 1889, the Illustrated Sydney News published an article about her being left at the altar, leaving her “completely prostrated.”
After waiting hours, it’s said Eliza farewelled her guests and abandoned the wedding breakfast to insects and dust. She kept her bridal gown on and left the front door ajar in case Cuthbertson came at last. Some said Cuthbertson already had a wife in England and feared exposure, but he left not a word of explanation and was never heard from again.
Heartbroken but headstrong, Miss Donnithorne demanded that the banquet and the house remain ready for his arrival. The table stayed set for a party, the door remained opened, and for three decades she waited.
Eliza died in the house on 20 May 1886 and was buried in the same grave as her father at Camperdown cemetery where a headstone was later placed in his memory. Eliza’s estate, including land and houses in Sydney, Melbourne and Britain, was valued at £12,000. The chief beneficiary was her housekeeper, Sarah Ann Bailey.
The images of the Five of Pentacles often shows a person or people who are in an apparent state of crisis. Clothes in rags, out in the cold, overwhelmed or tired out, this is not a happy sight.
While the Five of Pentacles is associated with
Losing income
Falling on hard times
Struggling to make ends meet
Struggling with ill-health
Neglecting your physical needs
Being rejected
Standing alone
Being excluded
Taking an unpopular opinion
it may allude to hard times on a more spiritual and emotional level. This card can have a very real “us against the world” vibe attached to it.
The idea that those who withdraw from the world accrue great wisdom is an old and powerful one. In Hindu philosophy, all humans ideally mature into hermits. As the Indian guru Sri Ramakrishna put it: “The last part of life’s road has to be walked in single file.”
A typist who moved to a remote island alone in the Great Barrier Reef to study marine life vanished from the history books in 1966, never to be heard of, until 2020.
Having abandoned the folly of riding a 50cc motorbikes across the Nullarbor with her friend, Gillian Warry, but feeling adventurous, Terri Ridgway just got on a train and headed north. She got a job as a barmaid on Heron Island, a resort that was also home to a marine research station owned by the University of Queensland.
While there, after befriending the researchers working on the island, she became an accomplished diver and developed a fascination with marine biology. Tired of the long hours as a barmaid she moved to North West Island, which was nearby, into a beautiful little shack near the beach with her diving gear, books, paints, a 12v battery and a light. Ostensibly she came to eat she stalks wild fowls, dives for seafood and grows vegetables in the island’s rich soils.
There was a research station that shared the island and all the boys and girls over at the research station were just fabulous and I used to go out with them when they were specimen collecting and I just hung on every word and every little thing I could learn. I used to also go out with all the boys … and get fresh fish for the table for the resort and so I had every excuse to go in the water … I learned a lot from both the researchers and the divers I worked with at the resort but seeing as how I didn’t get off shift in the bar until about 2am, my friend would leave one of the windows open in the research station so I could climb in window and go into the library and I’d just sit there after my shift and just read and read and read
She could never have imagined that she would become a headline. The world was fascinated with the then 19-year-old whose story made headlines across the globe. American newspapers of the day ran headlines declaring: “Gay Nature girl gambols Down Under” describing the teenager as a “bikini-clad nature nymp and other stories described her living in a hut near the beach in her “leopard-skin mini-bikini”.
Then she disappeared and has only resurfaced in 2020 and what she did afterwards is the stuff fiction writers dream up.
If you are currently contemplating that you need to be alone do not be afraid to take the chance to reflect, as it could help you clear your mind of all the clutter that comes with everyday life.
Van Diemen’s Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration of Australia in the 19th century. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen’s Land in 1803 before it became a separate colony in 1825. Its penal colonies became notorious destinations for the transportation of convicts due to the harsh environment, isolation and reputation for being inescapable. Macquarie Harbour and Port Arthur are among the most well-known penal settlements on the island.
Between 1788 and 1868 more than 162,000 convicts were transported to Australia. Transportation as a form of criminal punishment emerged in the British legal system from the early 17th century as an alternative to execution.
Many of the crimes for which they were transported are considered minor offenses by today’s standards. The most common crime by far was stealing—food, clothing, money, household items—mostly items worth no more than £5.
One can only imagine how my great great grandmother, Mary Ann Maule, had been living prior to her sentencing after a series of petty thefts. Clearly Mary was no angel but conditions in Liverpool were particularly harsh. Houses were severely overcrowded and the impact of the Great Famine, known as the Irish Famine was profound.
Friedrich Engels was shocked when he visited Liverpool in the 1840s. “Liverpool, with all its commerce, wealth, and grandeur yet treats its workers with the same barbarity. A full fifth of the population, more than 45,000 human beings, live in narrow, dark, damp, badly ventilated cellar dwellings, of which there are 7,862 in the city.
“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.”– Arnold Schwarzenegger
“Their stories immediately captured my heart when I learned that if you were a working-class girl in London or Dublin in the 1800s you had two choices: enter prostitution, which was not a crime or steal food or clothing to be able to live another day,” Deborah says. “And so I began my six-year journey of researching and getting to know these remarkable female convicts.”
Having survived the long, perilous journey on board the convict ship, there can be no doubt that life would have been no easier when she arrived in the colony. However, the scarcity of women opened up opportunities for convict women as servants and wives. Many, including Mary Ann, successfully merged into colonial society, creating new families, and through good conduct and hard work forged new lives. Convict women, like my great great grandmother, demonstrated a diversity of character, aspirations and behaviour, which contradicted their stereotype as ‘damned whores’.
As a part of a series of past life stories an imagined version of Mary Ann appears in ‘A Letter to A Mother’.
The Strength card is a symbol of inner fortitude, which helps us prevail in the face of life’s challenges. Strength is something that needs to be reinforced every day. Just as muscles need to be continuously used to maintain their power, so too does inner-strength need to be habitually exercised.
The ‘Camel Lady’, Robyn Davidson, with her beloved dog, Diggity, and four camels, trekked 2700 kilometres across some of Australia’s most remote and inhospitable deserts, from Alice Springs to the Indian Ocean, in 1977.
Davidson wrote about her 1,700-mile journey across the deserts of Western Australia in her bestselling memoir Tracks. She painted an intimate portrait of the experience of solitude and loneliness in a context where life has lost all its previous forms, a concept more of us can relate to since the pandemic. She went weeks on end without seeing anyone, navigated miles of arid desert without water, slept under the stars and fended off poisonous snakes and aggressive bulls charging towards her.
Strength’s tarot meaning is one of my favourites because it has a very potent, supportive energy that lets you know that you can do what needs to be done. That you have the inner strength to push through whatever is holding you back or causing you pain and negativity right now.Self Care Emporium
Tarot Memoir
From the Murder of Crows Tarot
The Strength card represents strength, determination, and power – like The Chariot. However, while The Chariot signifies outer strength and will, the Strength card speaks to the inner strength and the human spirit’s ability to overcome any obstacle. Strength is about knowing you can endure life’s obstacles. You have great stamina and persistence, balanced with underlying patience and inner calm. You are committed to what you need to do, and you go about it in a way that shows your composure and maturity. Biddy Tarot
the quality or state of being physically and emotionally strong.
Write about a time when you needed to show great fortitude.
Women like my great great grandmother were sentenced for petty crimes and transported to Van Dieman’s land. They certainly needed fortitude to survive the journey and life in the early colony. Read about more of these women.
Write a portrait of a woman whose sheer strength of will and courage you admire.
The Lovers card is all about love and being in sync with someone special. It’s like when you and your partner really understand each other and everything feels just right. This card is about making good choices in your relationships. It’s like finding your perfect match, your soulmate.
Margaret Elaine Dovey met Gough Whitlam at Sydney party in the summer of 1939. World War II had just started. He was 23 and studying law, she was 20 and a social work student. “Quite the most delicious thing I’d ever seen,” she recalled for a biographer years later
Height may have helped, too: with her standing 188cm, Whitlam’s 194cm frame was just what the doctor ordered for the tall young woman who had swum for Australia in the 1938 British Empire Games.
They married in April 1942, six weeks before he was called up by the RAA.
The foundation of every good relationship (lovers, friends, and even business partners) is open and honest communication. In order to keep everything balanced and harmonious, you must be able to express yourself to the other person, be heard and understood, and then take the time to listen to the other party.
If you are travelling through Australia, pack two companions. One is a collection of poems by Kath Walker (Oodgeroo Noonuccal). The other is Loving Country, co-authored by Aboriginal Elder Bruce Pascoe and artist Vicky Shukuroglou.
At first glance, Loving Country appears to be a guide to some of Australia’s most beautiful landscapes. Spend time with it, however, and it becomes something far richer. It is a collection of honest, compelling yarns that reveal the true stories of Country as told by those who know and love her best: Aboriginal people whose ancestral connections reach back through countless generations.
Kath Walker – Aunty Oodgeroo Noonuccal (1920 – 1993) was an Aboriginal rights activist, poet, veteran, environmentalist and educator. ‘Oodgeroo’, meaning ‘paperbark tree’ (whose bark is used for drawing), referred to her role as writer and artist. ‘Noonuccal’ is the name of her people, the traditional owners of Minjerribah and adjoining land for more than 20,000 years.
The Lovers card is often reduced to romance, but it speaks of something much deeper. It is the card of relationship, certainly, but also of choice. Every day we choose what we love, what we honour, what we align ourselves with, and what we are willing to sacrifice in order to remain true to those choices.
Can you truly love yourself? Can you open your heart and be honest about who you are and what you feel? Can you look at your life, exactly as it is, with acceptance rather than judgement? Who are you in this moment? What do you believe? Where is your energy flowing? What are you choosing to serve?
These are Lovers questions.
Through her poetry, storytelling and activism, Oodgeroo Noonuccal answered them with extraordinary clarity. She expressed an unwavering love for Country and for the Aboriginal culture to which she belonged. She spoke honestly of the devastation wrought by colonialism while never relinquishing her profound love for the land itself. Love, for Oodgeroo, was never sentimental. It was courageous enough to speak the truth.
Her story makes that courage all the more remarkable. Oodgeroo’s mother, Lucy, was a member of the Stolen Generations. Removed from her family at the age of ten, she was placed in an institution in Brisbane and, at fourteen, sent into domestic service in rural Queensland without having been taught to read or write.
Oodgeroo herself grew up on North Stradbroke Island before leaving home to work as a domestic in Brisbane, receiving board and lodging but less pay than her white counterparts. Yet with her gift for language and her determination to write, she became one of Australia’s leading poets, authors, political activists, artists and educators
She often said that Aboriginal people were the inspiration for her work. She understood poetry to be both deeply personal and a natural continuation of the ancient oral traditions of storytelling and song that had carried knowledge across generations
In the end, perhaps that is the deepest invitation of the Lovers card. Love is not simply an emotion. It is a practice of relationship. It asks us to choose what we will stand beside, what we will protect, and what truths we are willing to carry with open hearts.
For her lifetime of service to Aboriginal people and her extraordinary contribution to Australian literature, Oodgeroo Noonuccal was awarded three honorary doctorates by Australian universities. Yet perhaps her greatest legacy is not the honours she received, but the enduring invitation she offers us: to enter into a more truthful, more loving relationship with Country, with one another, and with ourselves.
Existential Choices
The Lovers card may be understood alongside key ideas from the philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard (May 5, 1813–November 11, 1855). We face an existential choice between two life paths, either one willfully hedonistic or one grounded in our sense of ethical duty.
As Rachael Pollack points out, the 6th Tarot Card was once entitled Choice, suggesting that an individual may have to choose between desires. Equally the choice can refer to a person’s whole life, the decision about where to direct one’s passion.
Imagine Oodgeroo Noonuccal is still alive. You are a journalist who will be given the opportunity to interview this leading activist, poet, environmentalist and educator. You are only allowed to ask her three questions about life choices she made. What will you ask her?
Now change roles. Imagine you are Oodgeroo, and, using the knowledge about her life and personality gleaned from any research you have been inspired to do, write the answers you believe she might have give to the questions you posed.
Finding and Following Your Bliss
The hero’s journey is one of self-discovery, of finding and following your bliss. No one else knows what makes your eyes light up and your heart leap. Take control of your own life. Reach for the stars.
Joseph Campbell was one of the pioneers in the discussion of bliss, suggesting that people “find their bliss.” He said, “The way to find out what makes you the happiest is to focus on being mindful of your happiest moments—not simply excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy.”
To seek your own personal bliss, you might wish to sit quietly and meditate about a time in your life when you were the happiest. Remain with that moment, as well as the feelings stirring inside you. When you think you’ve figured out at least one thing that makes you feel blissful, then stay with it. Write about that state in your journal. Recording your feelings can help you dig deeper into self-discovery and determine the ways in which you can follow your bliss—always keeping in mind that bliss is a calling that’s calling you.
The Hierophant is the card of traditional values and institutions. The Hierophant can represent a counsellor or mentor who will provide you with wisdom and guidance or a spiritual or religious advisor such as a priest, vicar, preacher, imam, rabbi or a monk. However many decks present a very different interpretation of this card that daunts those who have issues with religious dogma and choose to present others as deserving the title.
It seems limiting to present the Hierophant as a robed religious Popish figure and to imply that such an individual is a receptacle for all wisdom and teaching.
The LeGrande Circus Tarot presents the Pope or Hierophant as the entrepreneurial owner of the outfit. Circus owners were such a varied lot that it is doubtful if this title suits them all. Some were born into circus families. Some, like Al G. Barnes, ran away with the circus as youngsters and worked their way up through the ranks of ticket takers and candy butchers. Others were entrepreneurs and businessmen. And still more saw themselves as creative artists, sometimes even serving as headline performers.
A hierophant (Ancient Greek: ἱεροφάντης, romanized: hierophantēs) is a person who brings religious congregants into the presence of that which is deemed holy. As such, a hierophant is an interpreter of sacred mysteries and arcane principles.
When I think of a Hierophant I prefer to think of a wise trail blazer, a generous mentor who nurtures, gently guides and encourages others. Read the obituaries for Carolyn Jones, the first Australian female reporter on This Day Tonight and you will be left in no doubt about her stature among female journalists, women who she championed, who acknowledge her amazing contribution to their careers.
This wonderful, gracious, fierce, trail blazing, truth telling woman has left us. She was beyond kind to me and to so many other women in my profession.
In my mind Carolyn, universally loved by all, deserves the title of Hierophant and gets to wear the robs signifying her status.
The Hierophant is often described as the guardian of tradition, institutions and established wisdom. He can represent a counsellor, mentor or teacher—someone who offers guidance shaped by experience. In many Tarot decks he appears as a richly robed religious authority, suggesting that wisdom resides within formal structures such as churches, schools or ancient traditions.
Yet that interpretation can feel limiting. Wisdom does not belong exclusively to those who wear ceremonial robes or occupy positions of authority. Some of life’s greatest teachers sit quietly among their communities, passing on knowledge through compassion, storytelling, service and example.
The Hierophant in the Tarot of the Sweet Twilight offers a refreshing alternative. Rather than an imposing religious figure, we encounter a gentle elder seated upon a rock beneath the water, while fish shoal peacefully overhead. Beside him sits a young woman and her curious cat, evoking something of the dreamlike world of Alice in Wonderland. His great beard drifts freely in the current and his clothing is simple, devoid of religious regalia or symbols of rank. He feels less like a pontiff and more like an ancient storyteller—a keeper of cultural memory and one of many guardians of human wisdom.
It is also worth asking why the Hierophant is so rarely imagined as a woman. Throughout history, countless women have quietly shaped communities through education, pastoral care and service, yet their contribution has often been overlooked. They may not have held positions of institutional power, but they have been profound teachers nevertheless.
One such woman is Saint Mary MacKillop, whose life beautifully embodies the deeper spirit of the Hierophant. Born in Melbourne in 1842 to impoverished Scottish immigrants, Mary understood hardship from an early age. Her father valued learning deeply and educated his children whenever circumstances allowed, planting in Mary a lifelong belief that education could transform lives.
As a young woman she worked to support her family before moving to Penola in South Australia, where she began teaching not only her relatives but also the poor children of the district. Encouraged by Father Julian Tenison Woods, Mary recognised that educating children who had been overlooked by society was both a practical and deeply spiritual calling.
Together they founded the Sisters of St Joseph of the Sacred Heart in 1866, Australia’s first religious order established by an Australian. Their first school operated from a converted stable, offering free education to children who would otherwise have received none. From these humble beginnings the sisters established schools, orphanages and refuges across the country, bringing learning, dignity and hope to thousands of people.
Mary’s journey was far from easy. She experienced conflict with church authorities, periods of misunderstanding and even excommunication before eventually being vindicated. Through it all she remained steadfast in her belief that faith must be expressed through compassionate action rather than status or privilege.
Canonised in 2010, Saint Mary MacKillop is remembered not because she sought authority, but because she lived her values with courage and humility. She reminds us that the Hierophant is not simply a guardian of institutions. At its best, this archetype represents the transmission of wisdom through service, education and quiet dedication to the wellbeing of others.
Perhaps that is the real lesson of the Hierophant. True teachers are recognised not by the robes they wear, but by the lives they help to shape.
Working with the Hierophant
Seek out the Hierophant in each of the decks you own and compare and contrast the messages that the artists provide in their companion texts.
Prepare some questions! Engage in active imagination and dialogue with your favourite Hierophant. Ask those hard questions!
Many communities had “memorisers” whose role was to memorise history, witness and memorise current events (including what happened, who attended, even what key figures wore), and identify and train up young people to become memoriser. In your journal carefully memorise the events of recent years making sure to include as much detail as possible.
Certain stories, such as Fairy Stories, are much more than mere entertainment – they are used as lessons and provide a moral, through the form of a traditional belief, that will help guide people through their lives. Create a story which you believe needs to be passed on.
The Emperor is often interpreted as the archetypal Father, with the Empress embodying the Mother. Freudian and Jungian psychology both explore these figures through the lens of the parent–child relationship, yet the Emperor’s domain extends far beyond fatherhood. He is the embodiment of structure itself—law, institutions, social codes, and the systems that govern our lives. He speaks of order, hierarchy, discipline, and authority. At his best, he provides stability and protection; at his worst, he becomes rigid, authoritarian, and disconnected from those he leads. The Emperor values conformity, commercial success, decisive leadership, and the maintenance of established order.
In the LeGrande Circus and Sideshow Tarot, the Ringmaster is cast as the Emperor—a fitting choice for the undisputed authority at the heart of the circus. Like the captain of a great ship, the Ringmaster commands every aspect of the performance. Every entrance, every cue, every moment of spectacle unfolds under their watchful eye. Nothing happens without the Ringmaster’s direction.
A symphony orchestra offers another compelling expression of the Emperor’s energy. Standing at the podium, baton in hand, the conductor shapes every nuance of the performance, bringing discipline, vision, and unity to hundreds of individual voices.
Few embody this role more powerfully than the Australian conductor Simone Young. After completing her musical studies in Sydney, she began her career in Germany, launching an international journey that has taken her to many of the world’s leading opera houses and symphony orchestras. Widely regarded as one of the foremost conductors of her generation, Young has broken barriers in a profession long dominated by men.
Executive produced by Academy Award-winning actress Cate Blanchett, Knowing the Score offers an intimate portrait of Simone Young, revealing the determination, authority, and artistic mastery required to lead at the highest level. It is a fascinating exploration of the Emperor’s qualities expressed through music rather than monarchy.
Feeling the Qualities of the Emperor
Whoever you are, sooner or later you will meet with the constrains of authority, discipline and power in yourself and in others. From an early age we are influenced by authority figures who have some control over our lives. The ultimate challenge is how we respond, how we balance and harness these qualities.
What is your understanding of the correct use of power, authority, control and discipline?
How do you utilise power in your life?
Consider, dispassionately and without judgement, how you are empowered or disempowered?
Be aware of what power means for you? How has controlling or being controlled impacted on your life?
“It’s a very hard thing to learn to know when to release control
Simone Young
More Emperors
This card is suggestive of stability and security in life. You are on top of things and everything in under your control. It is your hard work, discipline and self control that have bought you this far. It means that you are in charge of your life now setting up your own rules and boundaries.
The Emperor wants you to know that in order to go out into the big world you need both inner and outer authority. Inner authority allows you to make the best decisions for yourself while outer authority enables you to create your place in the world and be seen and recognized.
The Emperor represents stability, order, and dominion. In the most practical terms, the Emperor Tarot card represents the highest leadership, a head of state, or the most exemplary and powerful person in the realm.When this stern fellow shows up in your reading, issues of power and control may be at play. However the appearance of this card in a spread, given that it alludes to achievement through hard work and discipline, may also provide an opportunity to ask about the qualities which will successfully support a business venture.
Within the Tarot community the Emperor is generally believed to represent dealings with male authority figures. However there are many women who have the same qualities. So, be you male or female, when you see this card in a reading it is an opportunity to take a moment and acknowledge your potential for mastery of your personal realm. It is a time to reinforce a sense of sovereignty within yourself, despite any self-limiting beliefs, habits, or appearances to the contrary.
Elizabeth Macarthur (1766-1850), was born on 14 August 1766 in Devon, England, daughter of Richard Veale, farmer, and his wife Grace, who were apparently of some education and affluence. Elizabeth received an education which allowed her to write letters of eighteenth-century style and grace and which equipped her to manage the complicated affairs of her husband’s business in later life. She married John Macarthur in October 1788. In June 1789 he joined the New South Wales Corps and Elizabeth accompanied him when he sailed to take up his position in the colony.
By 1794, the Macarthurs had built Elizabeth Farm, a brick house at Parramatta. They had a beautiful garden and the children received an excellent education. In 1809, her husband was forced to leave the colony and return to England. Business partners administered his mercantile affairs but Elizabeth was responsible for the care of their valuable merino flocks, the Camden Park estate and their convict labourers. She did so successfully for eight years, visiting their estate regularly despite the danger of venturing into the bush.
If the Emperor appears in a Tarot spread as a woman, that means that this person is a figure of authority, control, and discipline. This is someone who exudes an air of command, evident in her carriage, her gaze, and even the space she occupies. You can sense her influence and leadership capabilities, leaving little room for doubt that she’s a person of significant power.
Michelle Scott Tucker lives on a small farm in regional Victoria with her husband and children. Her first book was Elizabeth Macarthur: A Life at the Edge of the World
Michelle Scott Tucker wrote a biography of Elizabeth Macarthur, highlighting that it was her who established the Australian wool industry (although her husband received all the credit).
In the words of historian Clare Wright, Tucker’s bio brings Elizabeth Macarthur out from the long shadow of her infamous, entrepreneurial husband.
The truth is that Elizabeth oversaw every aspect of the management of their flocks and communicated with her husband while he was in England. As a result of their joint interest they were able to sell their wool competitively in the British market and effectively established the reputation of the colony as a centre for this industry. It was Elizabeth’s critical contribution to the establishment of a local fine wool industry that helped set the course of Australian prosperity, and gave the wool trade’s its long-held significance to the national economy.
More Emperors
This card is suggestive of stability and security in life. You are on top of things and everything in under your control. It is your hard work, discipline and self control that have bought you this far. It means that you are in charge of your life now setting up your own rules and boundaries.
The Magician shows us that you are able to master any desired skill through practice, sacrifice and a determined focus on your outcome. He encourages you to invest the time to cultivate your potential abilities. Patrick Valenza – Deviant Moon Tarot.
When she was just a five year old kid, Cath Jamison got a magic kit, loved it and started putting on magic shows for her family. She used to try to make the dog disappear and she confesses that she had a crack at making a pier vanish as well. But she is not about to divulge any of her secrets. This award winning Australian entertainer has no hesitation in saying that she was a quirky kid and that she still is a quirky person.
Pulling the Magician in a reading is a reminder that you have the necessary tools to manifest your dreams. Just as the man depicted in the Magician card has learned to wield the unseen forces of the universe, so, too, can we learn to master our own skills to get the outcomes we desire.
Today Cath’s mind-blowing and frequently uproarious shows have earned her a reputation as a leader in her field and she’s known as one of Australia’s most unusual women entertainers, wielding her trademark sass and mind illusion. Jamison is an impressive entertainer who delivers a masterful blend of magic, mentalism, and enjoyable audience engagement.
Waltzing With Matilda's 