Curiously Carnal Tarot

08/05/2026

One of the hardest truths to face is that the person you think you are… is mostly a collection of labels, memories, roles, and stories that were handed to you.

From the moment you were born, they gave you a name. Then they gave you an identity. They told you your nationality, your religion, your status, your career, your worth, your failures, your traumas, your political side, your social class. Layer after layer, they built a character—and eventually you forgot that you were the one wearing the mask.

But stop for a second and ask yourself…

If you had no name, who would be offended?
If you had no title, who would need to prove themselves?
If you had no past, who would be carrying guilt?
If you had no story, who exactly would have the problem?

The ego hates these questions because it survives by convincing you that the character is all that exists. It clings to old wounds, old relationships, old identities, and old suffering because without them, it fears it will disappear.

Real transformation is not adding another layer of self-improvement. It is stripping away everything that was never truly you. It is the uncomfortable, terrifying process of watching old versions of yourself die. The victim dies. The people-pleaser dies. The seeker of approval dies. The identity built on trauma, fear, and survival dies.

And yes, it can feel like a psychological death.

Most people never allow this process because they would rather stay trapped in familiar misery than step into the unknown. They would rather suffer as the person they have always been than face the silence that comes when the old identity falls apart.

But maybe that emptiness is not something to fear.

Maybe that “nothingness” is the place where you finally meet what is real. The awareness behind the name. The observer behind the thoughts. The quiet presence that existed before the world told you who you had to be.

You are not your job.
You are not your possessions.
You are not your followers.
You are not your trauma.
You are not your successes or your failures.
You are not even the story you keep repeating to yourself every day.

The greatest prison is not the world around you. The greatest prison is the identity you defend without ever questioning where it came from.

The most radical act of freedom is not becoming someone new.

It is having the courage to let the false version of you fall away… and discovering that underneath it all, you were never the mask to begin with.
~Intimate Oracle

07/24/2026

FIVE OF PENTACLES

The Anxious Outcast

We are not born feeling inadequate. Life experiences and emotions create that sense within us in a variety of destructive ways. Not enough money, not enough time, not enough love, not enough… All this scarcity stems from the faulty core belief: “I am not enough.” A belief which keeps us on the outside of everything. Worry is a type of mental lethargy that can become a habit. An unconscious negative self-talk loop, constantly reinforcing itself through negative life experiences. An atelophobia with debilitating consequences. Here Mercury has been stifled by the gravity of Ta**us. This Five card reminds us that we are presently inanimate: dead to action. We can change directions, be they financial, physical, emotional or mental only by moving. You were born enough and always will be.

Card Description

A woman on her knees flogs herself with a cat-o-nine tails: an indication of how worry is self- abuse. Selfishness, self-pity, self-indulgence, self-delusion and self-renunciation are the five stripes that she has placed across her own back. The setting is cold and dark reflecting her thoughts and feelings about herself. She is outside a warmly lit house with open doors and a celebration going on inside. She is welcome, if only she moves. There are five inverted pentacles on the house which imply difficulties and/or that the fears of the body have conquered the will. The symbols for Mercury and Ta**us reside in the dark sky. Mercurial energy is opposed in Taurian earth, simply because earth has a natural tendency to be stationary while Mercury is in swift motion.

Meanings & Musings

Worry about material things or health, feeling trapped in past pain, problematic communication, fear of existence, insecurity, deprivation, exclusion, dishonesty, persistence.

We inherit a deeply ingrained narrative that who we are in this moment is inherently deficient. To cope with the underlying terror of this perceived inadequacy, the human mind eagerly seeks refuge in absolute certainties and rigid belief systems. We attach our entire sense of self to these external frameworks, hoping they will finally grant us the validation we feel we lack. In doing so, we unwittingly outsource our innate power to a script that dictates our behavior and measures our righteousness. We become locked in a cycle of trying to earn love and safety from a mechanism that thrives on our ongoing sense of incompletion. The profound misunderstanding is that we are looking for an outside force to cure a defect that only exists as a concept in our minds. Real freedom is the sudden, beautiful realization that you have spent your whole life trying to become what you already are.
~Intimate Oracle

06/29/2026

THE LOVERS

Combination of Contrasts

Love is the heartbeat of life. It is the dynamic pulse of creativity, destruction and evolution. The Lovers card is not one of childish romance, or a quest for security. It is one of solve et coagula: the basic rhythm of alchemical transformation. The Lovers represent Venus and Mars or, on a higher level, Sun and Moon. This is the path of the sword, which implies that self-annihilation is practiced when one is "in love." Love requires self-sacrifice. Love is a longing to merge with something greater than oneself. In every kind of love is a force that holds the promise of taking us beyond the limitations of our individual lives. Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself. Love does not possess nor would it be possessed. For love is sufficient unto love. And do not think you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. So summon your courage and trust in The Lovers. In all ways, Love wins.

Card Description

A couple sits in a yab-yum position which literally translates as "father-mother." The male figure represents compassion and skillful means, while the female partner represents insight. Beside them, also in yab-yum, is a pair of bonobos, a species of great ape that shares nearly 99 percent of our DNA. Bonobos are the only non-human primate to engage in such s*xual actions such as face-to-face s*x, oral s*x and tongue kissing. They are a reminder of our own carnal nature. Above the couple is perched a white cockatiel, a symbol of both our inherent need to be social and also of the witness to our higher selves. A volcano erupts in the background showing the combining forces of nature that result in life itself. A sword stands in the flame indicating the path of Zain (the sword). The Gemini symbol is tattooed on the man representing the astrological ruler of the card. And the symbol Ofagrim Bel, for Unity, is tattooed on the woman. It reawakens the joyful link to everything in existence, conveying to us a sense of universal unity.

Meanings & Musings

Devotion, melting into one another, empathy, surrender, repression, trust, courage, mutual pe*******on.

06/24/2026

Dante did not write the Inferno as a horror story. He wrote it as a map.

The Divine Comedy begins in darkness, in a forest, at midpoint of life, completely lost. Before Dante can ascend through Paradise, he must first descend through every circle of hell. This was not an accident of narrative structure. It was the teaching. The journey upward is only available to the one who has first gone all the way down. There is no shortcut that bypasses the descent and arrives at the light. Virgil does not lead Dante around the underworld. He leads him through it.

Every tradition that has mapped the inner journey has placed this same requirement at its center. The alchemical process begins with the nigredo, the blackening, the stage of putrefaction in which everything the ego has constructed is dissolved. The Sufi path requires the annihilation of the self before union with the divine becomes possible. The shamanic initiation across cultures involves a symbolic death, the dismemberment of the old self, before the healer can return with the capacity to heal others. Jung called this the night sea journey, the descent into the unconscious that precedes genuine transformation.

The reason most people do not reach paradise is not that they are incapable of it. It is that they are unwilling to begin in hell. They want the ascent without the descent, the light without the darkness, the resolution without the suffering that makes resolution possible.
Hell, in Dante’s framework, is not punishment. It is the honest confrontation with what is. The souls in the Inferno are not there arbitrarily, they are experiencing the full reality of the choices they made in life. To walk through hell is to see clearly. And clarity, however painful, is the beginning of every genuine ascent.

The path does not avoid the darkness. The path goes through it.

What descent have you been refusing to make, and what might be waiting for you on the other side?

06/21/2026

QUEEN OF SWORDS

Wisdom’s Harsh Edge

Once, when darkness shrouded the world, this darkness had a queen. This Queen offers her hand to be kissed and can form it into a fist while smiling the whole time. She is ruled astrologically as the Virgo-Libra cusp. This is the cusp of beauty and she is a vision of perfection, balance and grace. As the watery part of air, she has a dual nature: she is passive and receptive due to her watery nature, and thus takes in information, yet she is active due to her presence in the suit of swords, and therefore her realm is that of the active mind. She represents the mastery of objective which is the deepening of a centered rational mind; the quality of mind that demands objectivity, authenticity, and abandonment of pretense. As an Observer within our consciousness, she is detached from roles and assists us in reconnecting with our child-like truth. She is harsh and unforgiving, yet she desires nothing more than fairness, liberty, and willing students to whom she can pass on her knowledge. Thus she is not only a victorious battle goddess, but also a teacher. Her words of wisdom are an elixir of life for those who drink of it.

Card Description

This Queen poses with grace and dignity in front of her palace. Her only adornment is a gold tiara reminding us of her royalty. She has a sword in each hand showing her two- sidedness. A raven lands on one side, showing her willingness to engage with darkness. Her palace grounds are a Zen garden revealing her preference for order, reason and logic. A statue of Quan Yin on a quarter moon reminds us of her compassionate nature. The symbols for Virgo and Libra can be seen beside the open door. The I-Ching hexagrams for water and wind are painted on the stones. On the roof is the symbol Klira Bei, meaning Clarity. This symbolizes the clarity of understanding ourselves, other people, and events around us. Clarity has always been one of the most fundamental tendencies of the enlightened person. Use the symbol of Klira Bei when you long for clear vision, clear sky, or clear goals, or when you wish to drive away the dark clouds and enlighten yourself with deeper understanding.

Meanings & Musings

Teacher, advocate, communicator; independent, cold, cunning, wise, possessing freedom of mind and soul.

We inherit a deeply ingrained narrative that who we are in this moment is inherently deficient. To cope with the underlying terror of this perceived inadequacy, the human mind eagerly seeks refuge in absolute certainties and rigid belief systems. We attach our entire sense of self to these external frameworks, hoping they will finally grant us the validation we feel we lack. In doing so, we unwittingly outsource our innate power to a script that dictates our behavior and measures our righteousness. We become locked in a cycle of trying to earn love and safety from a mechanism that thrives on our ongoing sense of incompletion. The profound misunderstanding is that we are looking for an outside force to cure a defect that only exists as a concept in our minds. Real freedom is the sudden, beautiful realization that you have spent your whole life trying to become what you already are.
~Intimate Oracle

06/20/2026

Carl Jung once said: “The greatest and most important problems of life are all fundamentally insoluble. They can never be solved, but only outgrown.” And the problem that will haunt you the most isn't your trauma, your failures, or your past. It's the quiet, comfortable life you've built that no longer fits the person you're trying to become, and the terrifying truth that you can't solve it. You can only outgrow it.

Most people spend their entire lives trying to solve the wrong equation. They think if they just arrange the pieces more perfectly, a better job, a slightly more fulfilling relationship, a more optimized morning routine, the hollow ache will finally disappear. But the ache isn't a problem to be fixed. It's a signal that you've outgrown the container you're living in, and no amount of rearranging the furniture will make the walls any wider.

You built this container for good reasons. It kept you safe. It gave you predictability. It earned you respect from people whose approval you no longer even crave. But the psyche, Jung understood, is not a problem-solving machine. It's an unfolding. It grows in spirals, not straight lines, and when it reaches the edge of its current form, it doesn't ask for a solution. It asks for a death. The death of the smaller self so a larger one can breathe.

This is the velvet coffin in its truest form: not a crisis, but a ceiling. You're not breaking down. You're not depressed in any clinical sense. You're just too big for your life now, and the friction you feel isn't a sign that something's wrong. It's a sign that you're ready to shed a skin that's become too tight. But shedding requires the one thing your comfortable life was designed to eliminate: willing, conscious discomfort.

The reason people stay stuck isn't that they don't know what to do. It's that they keep trying to solve an existential problem with a practical answer. Quit the job. End the relationship. Move to a new city. And sometimes those are the right moves. But they aren't solutions; they're just larger containers. The real outgrowing happens inside, in the quiet, unglamorous work of letting go of the identity that the old life gave you.

That identity will fight to survive. It will tell you you're being ungrateful. It will remind you of everything you've built and ask how you could possibly walk away from it. It will whisper that the unknown is a cliff, not a doorway. This is the shadow of outgrowing: the part of you that would rather stay small and miserable than risk becoming someone you can't yet predict. And that voice is not your enemy. It's just old wiring, trying to keep you alive in a world that no longer exists.

Holy friction, the chosen, daily step into what scares you, is how you outgrow rather than solve. You don't need to blow up your life. You need to stretch it. One honest conversation. One hour of genuine solitude. One creative risk that has no guaranteed payoff. These acts don't fix the problem. They expand the self, and a larger self finds that the old problem no longer fits. It hasn't been solved. It's been rendered irrelevant.

The door out of the velvet coffin isn't a solution. It's a willingness to grow until the coffin can no longer contain you. You were never meant to spend your life solving the ache. You were meant to outgrow the person who needed the ache to feel alive. The ceiling is not your limit. It's just the top of the current version of you. Keep growing. The rest takes care of itself.
~Intimate Oracle

06/13/2026

See the CCT Death card in the comments.

The image of the Grim Reaper that most people know today is surprisingly young. The hood, the empty eye sockets, the exposed bone and lowered scythe are not ancient symbols. They rose to dominance in medieval Europe after plague, famine, war, and mass graves changed how people imagined dying. Fear reshaped Death into something hollow.

Earlier worlds imagined something very different.

In ancient Greece, death arrived as Thanatos, not as a monster waiting in shadows, but as a calm and often beautiful winged being. He was depicted as youthful, peaceful, carrying the dead with gentleness rather than violence. His presence meant the struggle had ended. Sleep and death were even imagined as brothers, Hypnos and Thanatos, crossing together between worlds.

In Egypt, Anubis did not hunt souls. He guided them. He stood at thresholds with the head of a jackal and performed sacred duties, overseeing transition and weighing the heart against truth. Death was ceremony, order, movement.

Across the north, Hel ruled the realm of the dead. Early descriptions do not present endless punishment. Her world became a resting place for those who did not fall in battle. She was not the ending. She was what came after.

In Mesopotamia, Ereshkigal sat beneath the earth as queen, feared yet necessary. In older traditions, death often had a face, a throne, a purpose.

The skeleton arrived later.

After the Black Death swept through Europe and entire communities disappeared, art transformed. Death became bone. Paintings filled with dancing skeletons, open graves, and reminders that kings, priests, mothers, and children all meet the same end. The scythe appeared from harvest symbolism. Human lives became fields. Death became the reaper.

Yet underneath the cloak, older myths still whisper another idea.

Perhaps death was never meant to terrify. Perhaps it was first imagined as a sacred es**rt. Not the hand that steals life, but the one that opens the next door.

06/13/2026

Just hours after Uranus squares the Nodes, presenting many of us with unexpected choices, redirections & opportunities to see our lives from a new perspective, Venus forms a square to Chiron at 29°44’ Cancer.

The timing feels meaningful. For nearly eight years, Chiron’s been moving through Aries, helping us confront wounds around identity, self-worth, independence, courage & authenticity. Many of us have spent that time questioning old roles, shedding expectations & discovering who we are beneath the conditioning we inherited from family, culture, relationships & society.

As Venus reaches the final degree of Cancer, she forms one last challenging aspect to Chiron before he eventually leaves Aries for Ta**us.

Because it is a square, this transit may bring a reminder of conversation, a memory, a relationship dynamic, a familiar insecurity or something that briefly reconnects us with the very wounds that have shaped our growth over the past 8 years.

But this doesn’t feel like a setback… it’s more like perspective. Although our situation may not be perfect, the wound may not be completely healed, or a scar may still be visible - something within us has changed. It’s as though we can respond, understand & trust ourselves differently.

One of the greatest misconceptions about healing is the belief that we must completely eliminate a wound before we can move forward. Chiron teaches otherwise.

Healing isn’t always the absence of pain.
Sometimes it’s reaching a place where the pain no longer determines our choices.

Venus in Cancer honors this past. She remembers where we’ve been & what we’ve survived. But only a few hours after this square, Venus enters Leo, shifting the energy from protection to expression, from looking backward to moving forward.

It’s almost as if the cosmos is offering a final acknowledgment of the work we’ve done. A hand over the heart moment of gratitude. A recognition that while the last eight years may have left their marks, they have also left us wiser, stronger & more self-aware. Our scars no longer define the road ahead.
~Intimate Oracle