by Kooch N. Daniels and Victor Daniels, authors of Sacred Mysteries: The Chakra Oracle (illustrated by Pieter Weltervede), and Tarot at a Crossroads: The Unexpected Meeting of Tarot & Psychology. Kooch N. Daniels is also the author of the Mystic Spirit Tarot Playbook.

In California, four dollars will buy a latté or espresso and a free pass for a seat in an outdoor garden where you can dive into your favorite book. That might help you feel a little better deep inside, or offer you new tools to handle your relationships — however complex they might be — with a smile. Maybe you’re learning to read tarot or oracle cards. Or maybe you’re searching for insights that you haven’t already found in the years or decades you’ve been collecting decks and traveling a divinatory path.

If any of that fits, we invite you to join us on an adventure. Even if none of it does, we’re guessing that whatever else you might be thinking or doing, you can always enjoy a new adventure.

What kind of an adventure?

You won’t have to travel far or even leave your comfy cushion.  At this point in the year we’re arriving at the crest of springtime and the old-world tradition of saying goodbye to winter and rebirthing into the new season by honoring the fertility rites of Beltane.  If you’re envisioning people dancing and wrapping rainbow ribbons around the Maypole, with the Green Man waving to the Lords and Ladies who wear little but flower crowns, you can be sure the Green Goddess of May is smiling upon you. But in these contemporary times, we’d like to consider celebrating Beltane in a different way that’s better suited to our current strange period of Covid-19. 

We invite you on a journey into your chakras. 

Perhaps you’re thinking–

“What do you mean? How can this be an adventure?  I know all about the chakras. There’s the sleeping snake at the base of the spine, kundalini, and clearing chakra energy, and all that yoga stuff. So what’s new?”

This present adventure offers a mini sample of what you might find when using our Sacred Mysteries: The Chakra Oracle card deck that expresses and extends Tantric philosophy.  It goes beyond the conventional “balancing the chakras” approach and offers practices for working with the energies within each chakra. Divining with the 49 cards in this beautifully illustrated oracle is a unique way to awaken fresh insights and enhance mental clarity. 

Because we’re celebrating Beltane’s renewal of the life force, also called the Festival of Fire, we’re exploring the peaks and valleys of our inner fires that inspire fertility, new growth, and regeneration. This same springtime energy in nature causes the sap to rise, flowers to bloom, seeds to sprout, and erotic impulses to stir. Inside our being it’s connected mostly with the third chakra — the one located beneath the stomach — linked with the element fire, our flames of desire, mating impulses, the heat of the digestive process, and issues of power as well as powerlessness, domination, and submission. This includes such simple but critical items as the willingness and ability to say “yes” or “no” when that’s what we feel rather than giving in to someone else’s wishes when they’re not right for us.

“Onward!” is the inner affirmation that will inspire you to celebrate Beltane and follow practices in which you can kindle your passions and dialogue with your third chakra energies.

This inward journey can enable you to move beyond what you might already know about your “power center” and expand or change the way you connect with and communicate your personal strength. It offers a chance to dive within where infinite possibilities await your discovery. 

To begin, we’ll take out the seven oracle cards from our deck linked with the third chakra.  Key themes connected with this chakra are fiery energy, power, willfulness, assertiveness, control, and wealth. Because all cards in the deck are color-coded in relation to the chakra they represent and the pages in the book about them — and red is the color our Tantric teacher’s lineage associates with the third chakra — it’s easy to find and select all third chakra cards because they have a red title bar.

Just as if we were getting ready to do a reading, we’ll place these seven cards face down and shuffle them. While we randomly select two cards from those seven to initiate crossing the bridge of logic to the fairy ring of intuitive sensing, we’d like you to think about any feeling(s) you might have about your emotional, mental, sensory, or spiritual power or powerlessness — your strengths or softness.

The next step on our journey to celebrate Beltane is to think about the third chakra in relation to this question:

“How can I tap into the energy of springtime to revitalize my body, mind, emotions, and spirit?” 

To take a look at potential answers, we’ve selected our two cards:

First, let’s examine the card entitled Power by looking at its picture. What’s your first sense of it?  What intuitive, gut response do you feel in relation to its title, image, color, or symbols?

Let’s go deep within and do a third chakra meditation. Get into a comfortable sitting position. Close your eyes and focus on your breath.  Scan your body. Release any tension that you may feel.  With each breath, tell your inner self to relax more and more. Imagine that as you inhale, you feel a deep sense of peace, and when you exhale, you release tension wherever you notice it. 

Now take your attention to the midsection of your body.  Notice whether your stomach feels relaxed, tense, or even all knotted up. Ask that part of your body to help guide you in knowing what’s right for you and wrong for you — what to do and what not to do — in a given situation.

Next, consider how you dance with power. How do you guide and control your heated passions and power? Power is neutral. It’s how you use it that makes it what it is.  Imagine yourself expressing your fire and taking action to use it. Take a pen and scribble down any words or phrases that come to you as you think about how to tap into a renewed sense of strength — how to fan the embers of a positive rebirth? When you feel like you’ve contemplated your inner fire as much as you care to right now, breathe out whatever lingering traces of winter energy you might have noticed.

Now select three of those words or phrases that you wrote to express your observations. Give yourself three minutes to sit silently and notice whatever mental pictures come through your mind in relation to those words or phrases. Finally, choose two of those mental pictures that seem quite different from, or even opposed to, each other and take five minutes for a written dialogue between them. Back and forth, just one line from one, then one line from the other in reply. (If they say all they have to say before the five minutes are up, stop there.)

Let’s look at the second selected card, Perspective. Which of your keywords or phrases describe your outlook on power? Do any of them trigger particular feelings or any judgments about how you use your inner fire? Can you think of any mental habits or patterns related to those feelings?  Are you willing to imagine a different view or perspective about any of them?

The messages you give yourself are key to the journey you take and your personal evolution. Your choices put you in charge of how you connect with the power of your inner fire. Make sure you empower yourself to choose wisely.

Certainly, the exterior world — including the environment and outside stressors — plays a role in influencing how we feel. Sometimes a very strong role. Even so, your perspective is key in handling difficulties adequately or even well instead of being taken down by them. Be both thoughtful and intuitive as you consider which seeds to plant in your springtime garden to grow an abundant harvest. Don’t overlook doing little things that can strengthen the core of your being and help you keep a cheerful perspective.

Finally, take any thoughts or feelings that disrupt your peace of mind and mentally throw them into our communal celebratory fire of life. Breathe into your power and detach hooks attached to negative thinking that may have a hold on you. If any insights, goals, or strategies for success occurred to you during this brief journey, jot them down. Then fold your paper into a closed triangle. Silently ask your Higher Self to help with the fulfillment of your wishes. Now tuck your folded paper under a crystal or any object you think has positive energy. Don’t open or read it until the seeds of your ideas have had time to incubate and sprout. 

When you look at your note in the future, you might be surprised at what it says.

Merry Meet, Merry Part!

About the Authors:

Kooch N. Daniels, a lifelong professional intuitive as well as a lover of Tarot and chakras, uses mystical tools to help enhance awareness of truths and treasures hidden beneath the surface of understanding. She has taught Tarot, divination, and intuitive arts at Readers Studio, BATS, and NWTS, plus many other national and international venues. For Schiffer Publishing she has co-created with Victor their Tarot At A Crossroads, The Unexpected Meeting of Psychology. Her book, Mystic Spirit Tarot Playbook was birthed in the spring of 2020.

Victor Daniels is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at Sonoma State University. His interests include humanistic, existential, and social psychology, Asian and Western transpersonal psychologies, and Gestalt therapy. He has served as Psychology Department Chair and Director of the India Studies Program. He and Kooch have taken several trips to India to study with teachers and interview the world’s leading authorities on the chakras. Besides writing with Kooch on the Tarot and chakras, he has written on psychology and politics. He holds a Ph.D. from UCLA.