The Ace of Swords is such a powerful card. Those who love Arthurian legend enjoy the fact that the Ace of Swords is archetypally Excalibur.

I call the Ace of Swords the “Anti-Bullsh*t Device.”

When things aren't going your way you can use tarot magick in meditation to help find new perspectives and solutions.

A good card to work with is the Hanged Man.

Did you know that the Hanged Man is the card of yoga? This card carries the energy of meditation and yogic practice.

Here's a way to see how and where your life is going and then rearrange it to your specifications!

When you think about it, that is divination at its best. Divination shows us our possibilities and our options. When we seek information from the Universe we get a sense of our tools, skills and abilities, as well as the energies around us. With that, we can direct our energies toward our most possible positive outcome.

Here's what you need to do. You can do this in sacred space, while journaling, or even as an exercise with your tarot friends.

Here's some tarot magick to relieve anxiety, worry and self-sabotage. All you need is the Eight of Swords from a Waite-Smith or Waite-Smith clone tarot deck.

In the Waite-Smith Eight of Swords we see a woman who is blindfolded and bound. She is in a cage of swords.

The suit of Swords is related to the element of Air. In the language of tarot we can see each sword as a thought, an idea, a word. And so we see the woman's cage is made up of her own thoughts and her own ideas.

We often perform house blessings and garden blessings. A house blessing may protect the home and those in it. A house blessing may bring prosperity and success to those who dwell within.

A garden blessing may increase fertility and the abundance of the harvest. It may offer health and wealth to those who visit the garden.

It is simple to offer blessings to the home and garden with tarot. One way to do this is with disposable tarot images - cards that you do not need to return to a working deck.

At this turn of the Wheel of the Year many people celebrate Imbolc, or Brigid. This holiday is in anticipation of the coming spring.

Brigid, as the Goddess of healing, smithcraft and poetry, challenges us to use creativity to inspire our healing, and to use our need to heal to inspire our creativity.

This is a piece of meditative magick. You will use the tarot images to help you focus your mind and ask Brigid herself for guidance. Your answers will come through your intuition and your connection with Brigid. You will feel your answers in your heart, in your mind, and in your dreams and visions.

Someone recently asked me if some decks carried more magickal power than others. I thought that would be a good topic to address here on 78 Magickal Tools.

The magickal power in a tarot deck comes from a number of sources. The first and most important source is the power of archetypes. This power is inherent in virtually any tarot deck.

What are tarot archetypes? Each tarot card holds a specific energy. One of the ways we can describe that energy is as a theme or character with which we are all familiar. For instance, we can see the Fool as the seeker on an epic adventure - he is Frodo, Percival and Don Quixote.  We can see the Hermit as the wise old man.  He is Dumbledore, Obi Wan and Gandalf. We can see the Lovers as the syzygy, or divine couple - Romeo and Juliet, Anthony and Cleopatra, Liz and Dick.

In earlier days of tarot reading a significator was cognitively chosen by the reader to represent the querent. The choice of the significator did not add to the interpretation of the reading in any way. It may have been simply part of tradition. It may have been seen as a way for the reader, the querent, the cards and the Universe to connect.

Significators were chosen from the sixteen Court Cards based on age, gender and hair color.

Only a few modern tarotists continue this tradition today.

Many tarot spreads have a significator position. The card that randomly falls into this position describes who the querent is at the moment of the reading. This can be very helpful information in a reading.

Significators have an important place in tarot magick, too.

There are many tarot spreads and techniques that we use to make predictions for the coming year. We can also use tarot magick to create the coming year.

You can incorporate this tarot magick technique into any kind of ritual, or simply perform it as a magickal working on its own.

While those who follow the Wheel of the Year celebrate October 31^st as the ending of the old year and the beginning of the new, many of us also celebrate the calendar New Year as well. This magickal working is appropriate for either New Year celebration, or both.

First, remove the Hermit and the Sun from your deck. These cards have a specific place in the ritual. In this magickal working the Hermit and the Sun represent the old year and the new year, respectively.

The four tarot Aces are potent magickal tools. In some tarot decks, their images are similar to the traditional altar tools used in many Pagan traditions. This is no accident. The four Aces are the Four Tools of Magick, and you can use them as such.

In divination, each tarot Ace can represent a new beginning. The Ace is the essence of its element as well as the beginning of a journey inspired by its element.

Here are three exciting ways to use the Aces to in your magickal life.