An Experiential Journey

This class at its core is an experiential journey, and the key way to learn and grow is to do the assigned experiential practices. The essential practices you need to do, if you want to get the most benefit, are:

1. Regular Altar-Crafting with 5 Card Spreads: at least 3-5 times per week for 15-20 minutes each session.

2. 2-3 Skywatching expeditions per month to connect with the energies of the New Moon and monthly Moon-Venus conjunctions. At least one evening sky expedition near sunset and one morning sky expedition near sunrise. You should plan on about an hour for each outing, but could be as little as 30-45 minutes.

Objectives for Tarot and Flow Students

1. Integrate sky watching into your monthly experience.

2. Become a devotee of the Moon-Sun and the Moon-Venus cycles of time. Three times in the 8 week class you are invited to connect with a New Moon/Moon-Venus conjunction. On three other occasions, either in 2-3 days just before the Moon conjoins Venus (when Venus is visible in the evening), or in the 2-3 days after the Moon conjoins Venus (when Venus is visible in the morning) you are invited to connect with the New Moon. The assignment is to ritualize these moments with an altar and 5 card spread. You are also invited to embody it with greater self love and self care practices. To create altars, pull cards and connect in nature to the sky in these moments is the core practice for the 8 week container. 

This is a two month container and two month intention window.

3. You are invited to set a strong intention to devote significant time and other resources (financial resources, emotional availability, spiritual availability) over an eight week time period, (starting during a Moon-Venus conjunction) to a learning process that is also a spiritual process. You will learn the foundation for a lifelong devotion to astrology, and you will also learn to love tarot/oracle card practice and altar creation. These practices also are meant to strengthen your intuitive abilities, and by the end of the 8 weeks you will be making stronger intuitive choices that will lead to happier timelines.

4. You will learn the essence of tarot, and through daily practice, you will develop a stronger connection with your higher self.

5. You will become a better shuffler, learning to balance the left and right hemispheres of the brain, and become a pro at dropping into inspirational flow states.

6. You will develop stronger psychic abilities, learning to receive impressions and guidance from the voice of your higher self, and also develop a higher form of communication that can happen with the people you love the most. 

7. You will gain experience in astrophotography, taking photos to commemorate your sky communion experiences.

8. You will learn to understand and love the 19 month and 8 year pulses of the Venus cycle.

9. You will learn to love crystals and the practice of crystal magic.

10. You will learn about thought forms and spell craft, and learn how to manifest the life of your dreams through mindfulness and working with your chosen thought forms.

Main Quest and Side Quest Content

I have used the language of video games for the structure of this class, and you will find both "main quest" and "side quest" content for each week. Just like a video game, the core content of the class, and the content designed to give you the experience/fun/result that you are looking for, can be found in the main quest sections. All of this main quest content was created and recorded during the most recent version of the live class, in the spring of 2024.

I promise if you watch the main quest videos and do the assigned main quest practices each week, you will, by the end of two full lunar cycles (8 weeks) have been transformed into a happier person, making happier intuitive choices, and with a stronger connection to your loving higher self.

The side quest content is totally optional and can be explored either during your 8 week journey or afterwards. Some of this side quest content was also created in 2024, but most it is from the 2019 class. While there is some overlap between the 2024 videos and the 2019 side quest content, I think it could still be valuable to watch these earlier videos if you are pulled towards checking them out.

For example, I go through the entire major and minor arcana sequence in Ma Deva Padma's Osho Zen Tarot in both the 2019 and 2024 class recordings, but I think there is value in watching both sets of videos. One thing that is different with the 2019 Osho Zen Tarot ("Deva Deck") videos is that I was focusing exclusively on that deck, while in the 2024 videos I compare it to three other decks, so there is a foundation laid in 2019 that I built on in 2024.

I was also in a very different place personally in 2019, and I think some of my commentary reflects this and brings a unique perspective to the journey of Ma Deva Padma's Fool.  I was recently divorced when I taught in 2019, whereas in 2024 I was recently remarried and had become a father to a one-year-old boy. I think the fact that I was in one of the most challenging moments of my life in 2019 may have allowed me to see certain dimensions of the tarot and astrology that might not have been available to me otherwise. 

It is also true that the collective astrology was different in 2019, so there is a unique energy in those recordings that I think is special. The ideas and practices of Tarot and Flow were being "born" at that time, and so there is a strong energy that comes with that. The class started under a Moon-Mercury-Venus-Neptune quadruple conjunction (square to Jupiter), which is an ideal alignment for the approach to astrology and tarot that you will be learning in your class journey.

These planets together bring the support necessary for receiving loving messages of guidance from a higher source of compassion and love. So I feel like the 2019 content has a quality of direct transmission from the divine feminine, and it is very worth exploring, even though there is some overlap with the 2024 content.

The 2024 class had a very different dominant energy, a once-in-thirteen-year Jupiter Uranus conjunction, which is an alignment associated with breakthroughs and peak experiences. It is also a fantastic alignment for skywatching as the two together are associated with the most expansive breakthrough perspectives, like the perspective that comes from traveling to the stars and seeing things from the view of our solar system.

There are videos in the course materials on the astrology of 2019 and 2024 that could give you some insight into the energies that gave birth to the class. These energies are relevant to those years, but are also very relevant to any moment when you engage with the class content. Those energies left their mark on the content and assignments, and they continue to live on for anyone who works with this content.

Side Quest Practices

Perhaps the most important side quest I would encourage you to go on, is a journey with astro-photography. Even if only to keep a record of your skywatching expeditions this is a great practice. It can also add an artistic element to your practice, as you can hold the intention of taking aesthetically pleasing (to you most of all) photos. If you challenge yourself to take better photos with each month and year of your skywatching journey, there is a kind of flow state that can come as you are more and more pleased with the images you capture.

I also encourage you to take photos of the cards you pull and the altars you create. This is helpful for keeping track of the cards that are coming regularly, and also for being able to meditate on these cards/altars throughout the day/week.