Episode Details

In this episode of The Tarot Diagnosis, I’m pulling cards for our collective monthly tarot reading for October and this month, we’re exploring the psychological space between who we’ve been and who we might be becoming.

For this October tarot reading, I’m revisiting a spread I originally created for my Tarot as a Transitional Object workshop, inspired by psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott’s theories of transitional objects, transitional phenomena, and transitional space. Winnicott was interested in the psychological territory between our internal and external realities, which he viewed as the space where play, creativity, experimentation, and growth occur. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, I think tarot fits beautifully within that space.

Tarot can become a bridge between what’s happening inside of us and what exists outside of us - where we bring our memories, projections, emotions, desires, fears, and relationships to the cards, while the cards still simultaneously exist separately from us. In Winnicott’s language, they are both “me” and “not me.”

Pulling the Hierophant, Three of Cups, and Queen of Wands, I explore what we may be carrying out of September, what October is inviting us to examine, and what we can lean on as we move between the two months.

Representing September, The Hierophant invites us to look at some of the systems, beliefs, expectations, traditions, or rules that we’ve inherited and perpetuated - even when they maybe have outstayed their welcome. Then the Three of Cups turns our attention toward relationships and personal identity. Rather than only viewing this card through its traditional lens of friendship and celebration, I explore it as a kind of relational mirror (ie. who are we around other people?). Finally, the Queen of Wands becomes our bridge between September and October, functioning as a reminder of our personal agency, creativity, confidence, self-trust, and our core Self.

October itself feels like a fitting month for this kind of work: liminal, shadowy, and transitional. I hope the month is treating you well and that you’re giving and receiving all the witchy tarot nourishment!

As always, let me know what cards you pull alongside me, or what came up for you in your own pull.

Want more of this type of tarot experience?

📚 Order my book Dark Shadow, Golden Shadow for more therapeutic tarot practices!

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Audio Edited by Anthony DiGiacomo of⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Deep Resonance Sound⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Music by Timmoor from Pixabay