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I have a question, one that has perplexed me for several years. 

Tomorrow is the first day of February, marking the festival of Imbolc. The days are lengthening, the night time grows shorter. We're halfway through winter. Or are we?

I know that 21st of December is supposed to be the first day of winter, but this makes absolutely no sense to me. If we look at the year as half of it where the nights are longer than the days and half of it when the days are longer than the nights, then surely, the date that the nights get shorter can't be the mid point? 

January 31 brings us a lunar eclipse in Leo. This is quite an enigma in many ways, for this is also the 2nd full Moon in the first month of this year, as well as being a supermoon. What does all of this mean? Is it really something spectacular? 

Well, yes, and no. Let's break it down. First, the supermoon. This doesn't give the Moon any additional magical powers or make its influence any more strong or mysterious. It's an astronomical term, meaning that the Moon is at its perigee—or less than 223,694 miles from the Earth—at the time that it was either new or full. That's it!

The supermoon isn't going to change the Moon's usual gravitational pull on us. There's not going to be any unnatural weather or otherworldly events because of it. The atmospherics may make it appear a bit larger, but that's also got to do with the angle at which you view the Moon; Moon rise always appears larger. It may or may not appear brighter; again, even if the Moon's brilliance is highlighted, just how much it shines is going to depend on atmospherics and the angle from which it is viewed. 

Unless you've been living under a rock, you're probably aware that there's a solar eclipse set to cross over the US on August 21st, right in the last degrees of Leo. Yes, this is a major astrological event (and a pretty cool astronomical one, too), but it also has some connections with the tarot too. The strength of those connections lies in the artist's interpretation of the decks, and some have more than others. When I teach the tarot, I always default to the RWS deck, and it's got some interesting imagery when it comes to eclipses, especially the Moon card. 

Now, I'm sure that some will say that the face on the Moon card in the RWS deck is just that; the face of the Moon. I want to take that further though. Some of the interpretations of the Moon card include 

I've been doing a lot of work with the court cards in the tarot, recently. Some of this is due to the projects on which I'm working in my mundane job as an author, and some of it is my own research. The correlation between numerology and the tarot has piqued my interest. However, the court cards aren't numbered, so how do you go about reading them when using numerology? Do you simply count them as 11 (Page), 12 (Knight), 13 (Queen) and 14 (King)? What if there were another way of looking at them? 

What I've found has resonated with me—and your mileage may well vary—is to look at the court cards as a more complex set of numbers, rather than just as court cards. In numerology the number 11 is known as a master number, and it does seem to resonate well with the energy of the Page. It's a combination of both 1 and 2. As the Page is the first card in the second part of the suit, the first card in the court cards, it also takes on the energy of both 1 and 2. 

You don't have to be an tarot expert to realize that numerology is very strong in both the major and the minor arcana. All the cards are numbered—and every tarot card resonates along with the number that is ascribed to it. Every number has its own frequency, its own vibration. Just ask a musician about the notes and timing of the score.

The major arcana is numbered 0 - 21, and of course 0 is just a placeholder. It's a pause, the place where anything is possible. It's the potential of an idea before that idea comes to mind.

Tonight is the night where the clocks fall back for most of North America. It's a fabulous time for ritual, because you can use the time change to your advantage to 'eat' something that you want banished from your life, and then recreate things the way that you would like to see them unfold. The fact that this happens over Samhain makes the work even more powerful! All you need is a deck of tarot cards, and some staying power, as you're going to be up late!

Preparation for this is easy. Before the appointed time--02:00--determine what you would like to rid from your life (I already have mine planned, I celebrated it's demise last night). Choose a card that represents that. For instance, if you are holding on too tightly to something that needs to be surrendered, you might want to choose the four of pentacles. Maybe you've got a personality trait of being too stubborn, and you want to learn to be more flexible; the king or queen of swords might be an appropriate card for that. You're going to have to know your cards a bit, but really, any card that resonates with what you want to see leave your life can be used. 

So last week I picked up a copy of Marcus Katz's 'The Ghost Train,' and I'm working through it. While Marcus actually recommends that you make it a study running up to the ending for Halloween, I'm doing it according to my traditions, and incorporating All Hallows Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day, with the final part ending (for me) on Monday.

Even though this is recommended for over the Samhain period, this exercise can be done at any time of year. All you need is the book (available through Amazon Kindle), and your favorite deck of tarot cards. It uses 'gated' tarot spreads, meaning that each spread must be experienced before moving onto the next one. It's a very well thought out process, and one that allows the querent to gather an in-depth way of experiencing clarity and deeper self-awareness. This particular book links the past to the present, helping the querent to better understand past experiences, in order to use them as a foundation for future awareness.