One could argue that adversity and revelation are the two sides of awakening. Adversity takes us into awakenings, which are moments of upheaval and chaos but also moments of truth and liberation. Awakenings clear the way for revelations of hitherto unknown or shunned aspects of reality.
The respective faculty of consciousness is meditation. We’re used to thinking that meditation is something fancy and difficult, but actually, every time we use our mind, we meditate. Using the mind comes naturally. In fact, we can’t stop the mind from doing its thing. This is one reason ageless wisdom assigned the epithet natural intelligence to this card.
In the context of meditation, the pool beneath the woman symbolizes the mind, the water signifies consciousness, and the vases represent mental objects, like thoughts, desires, memories, and imaginings.
The picture shows the two principal ways we can use the mind: to think, desire, and imagine (internalization) and to deal with the external world (externalization).
The orange vase illustrates the principles of internalization. Attention fills a thought with consciousness and pours the thought into the mind. This produces ripples on the mind’s surface. Desiring, imagining, and recollection work the same way. These ripples form the internal dialogue.
The green vase on the right symbolizes how we deal with the external world. The woman pours consciousness from the green vase onto the ground (the external world), which forms five rivulets. These rivulets represent the five senses, the five links to the external world.
Usually, we take in experiences through the five senses, react to them emotionally, think about them, and judge their significance. But this card shows the spiritual use of the respective faculty of consciousness: the flow of consciousness through the five senses out into the external world, which attracts experiences. You know this operation as the law of attraction.
Hence, suggestion plays a role here. The numerical correspondence of this card shows this. The card’s number is 17. 17 reduces to 8 (1+7=8), which is the number of the Suggestion card. Suggestion is the essence of meditation.
There are two basic types of meditation: involuntary and voluntary. Involuntary meditations comprise thinking, mulling, reminiscing, daydreaming, and fantasizing.
Voluntary meditation is skilled and focused. We usually think of this when we hear the word meditation.
Being in the flow is meditation, too. Have you ever seen a monk raking a Zen garden’s sand patches? He was meditating.
Mindful meditation takes voluntary meditation to the next level. Mindful meditation works by distancing oneself from one’s mind, watching the internal dialogue, and refusing to engage and judge. Mindful meditation reveals how things really are at the expense of how we want them to be. This is where the secondary meanings of honesty and righteousness come in.
The next level of conscious meditation is visual meditation, aka guided meditation, aka creative meditation. The power of suggestion excels in this kind of meditation. Visual meditation is the most powerful way to manifest. Artists use visual meditation to picture their art. Athletes visualize their performance, and businessmen visualize success.
The next higher level of meditation is focused meditation, i.e., the continuous flow of consciousness into a particular object of contemplation. Focussed meditation leads to the revelation (gnosis) of the inner nature of a thing, being, situation, or cause. This is the reason the woman in the picture is nude.
Most of us can restrain the mind from wandering for only a second or two. It takes years of practice to increase focus to a minute. The ability to hold an unwavering focus for ten minutes is already a superpower. Lao Tse referred to this superpower when he said, “When the mind is still, the universe surrenders.”
Most people can be in the flow only for fifteen to twenty minutes. The Pomodoro Technique makes use of this knowledge. It suggests working around 25 minutes, having a brief break, and working another 25 minutes, and so on. Our creative attention span lasts three to five hours a day. Best practice: use three to five hours in the morning for important, creative, and mentally challenging tasks, and use the remaining three hours for routine tasks that don’t require energy.
The Revelation card calls for integrating conscious meditation into our daily lives. It also calls for seeking and accepting revelations. Mind not all revelations are welcome at first. In this respect, the Revelation card stands for the sixth Kübler-Ross phase, the acceptance of a new or hitherto repressed aspect of reality.
An inauspicious Revelation card may indicate that a lack of meditation caused the querent’s challenge. Or worse, that catastrophizing and rumination attracted the querent’s challenge. Rumination involves the repeated dwelling on distress, trauma, and negative expectations.
On the Tree of Life, the path of the Revelation card connects the 7’s and 9’s spheres, creativity and energy. In this context, the yellow star symbolizes the higher self, the seven white stars represent Creativity (the seventh sphere), and the pool signifies Energy.
This symbolism hints at the countless benefits of conscious meditation on our reservoir of energy. This leads to relaxation, revitalization, stress reduction, better sleep, emotional relaxation, and regeneration. An inauspicious Revelation card refers to the sickening effect of catastrophizing and rumination.
The titles and the five core meanings of the Revelation card are:
Enlightenment Tarot title: Revelation
Traditional title: Star
Power of consciousness: Meditation
Constructive use: Focused meditation
Unconstructive use: Rumination, catastrophizing
Auspicious state of mind: Revelation
Inauspicious state of mind: Devastation
On the spiritual-intentional level, the Revelation card stands for spiritual meditation and revelations. It also represents lucid dreaming, the art of dreaming (Castaneda), the dreamtime, OBEs, and astral projections. An inauspicious Revelation card may indicate the danger of lucid dreaming and astral projections without the guidance of the higher self (the yellow star).
On the creative-feely level, the Revelation card stands for visual meditations and creative revelations. An auspicious Revelation card calls for a creative use of energy. An inauspicious Revelation card may indicate creative rumination caused by the fascination with a creative idea.
On the intellectual level, the Revelation card stands for mindful meditation and cognitive revelations, i.e., the revelation of (internal) truth or (external) facts. As mentioned, the intellect is prone to manipulation. In particular, on this level, an auspicious Revelation card calls for honesty and righteousness. An inauspicious Revelation card may indicate that the querent is lying to herself and may even suffer from psychosis. An inauspicious Revelation card may also indicate intellectual rumination, which can take the form of a rumination over an exciting anticipation or a rumination over a negative event like injustice.
On the bodily-practical level, the Revelation card stands for the default mode network. This is the brain’s neural network that allows us to internalize (the activity of the orange vase). On this level, an inauspicious Revelation card may indicate traumatic rumination or emotional rumination, for example, anxiety-driven rumination. An inauspicious Revelation card may also indicate, in particular in children, sensitivity to the following afflictions: issues with the calves like muscle cramps, Achilles Tendinitis, Deep Vein Thrombosis, Peripheral Artery Disease, and Compartment Syndrome (see body zone below).
More Attributions:
Number: 17
Letter: Tzaddi, meaning fish-hook (meditations fish for revelations). The hook is the right question to ask.
Astrology: Aquarius
Color: Violet
Body zone: calves