April 15th, 2015 § 0 comments § permalink
In Tarot, the Sun card focuses on themes surrounding optimism, joy, enlightenment, and happy conclusions, all things that make life good.
In the video below, put together by Michael König using images from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, you can see the actual sun, the celestial entity that literally keeps our world alive.
Take a look … though it’s got nothing to do with Tarot, it’s pretty amazing (to say the least).
March 23rd, 2015 § 0 comments § permalink
Though Astronaut Ron Garan doesn’t mention Tarot’s Universe card in the video below, his orbital perspective is definitely worth listening to.
Take a look at Garan’s Big Think video, visit his website, and/or check out his new book – The Orbital Perspective.
September 15th, 2014 § 0 comments § permalink
In Tarot, the Star card often indicates hope, renewal, optimism, and a welcome respite after some sort of difficulty.
From a scientific perspective, stars are massive balls of energy that ultimately created us all.
In the video below by TRBQ, NASA astronomer Dr. Michelle Thaller describes how we’re all made of star dust.
Take a look, it’s very interesting stuff …
April 27th, 2014 § 0 comments § permalink
If, like I did, you missed the lunar eclipse on April 15th, you might want to take a look at this time-lapse video called Lunar Odyssey by Andrew Walker. It’s pretty spectacular.
Even if you did get a chance to see the eclipse yourself, it’s unlikely that you saw it quite like this (or with a spooky 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack playing in the background.)
And watch out for the Solar Eclipse this coming Tuesday.
March 11th, 2014 § 0 comments § permalink
Keeping on with the science theme from yesterday, today we have a very amusing video from Psychic Bunny, which recreates a psychological experiment from 1944.
In that experiment, Dr. Fritz Heider and Dr. Mary-Ann Simmel used a short animated film they created to study social perception and causal attribution.
In the video below, the Heider-Simmel experiment is recreated using improv actors from LA’s Groundlings and the Upright Citizens Brigade as subjects, each of whom are asked to watch the short film and describe what’s going on.
Given that card reading seems to (at least partly) involve this same area of the human psyche, I’m intrigued by the experiment. And though I’m not sure how scientific this particular version of it is, it’s pretty hilarious.
March 10th, 2014 § 0 comments § permalink
Researchers at the University of British Columbia are experimenting with Ouija boards.
They’re not trying to contact the dead, but rather, the subconscious minds of the living.
Using a traditional Ouija type board, the research team at UBC’s Visual Cognition Lab are trying to prove what many of us already suspect – that we know more than we think we do.
Take a look at the video below to see the fascinating Ouija experiment in action, and visit the Inner Intelligence Project website to learn more. You might even want to sign up and take part.
Very interesting stuff.
December 3rd, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink
In the video below from SpaceRip, you can see NASA’s Curiosity on its trek across Mars. It’s pretty amazing stuff.
I bring it up here, not because there’s any Tarot in the video, but because there’s a little Mars in Tarot.
In the Golden Dawn system of Tarot, Mars is the planet associated with the Emperor, and in the RWS version of the card, the Emperor is shown sitting on a stone throne in front of some craggy red mountains.
Doesn’t the terrain around him look a lot like the one Curiosity is crossing right now?
I think we’ve finally identified where the Emperor sat for this portrait. He was somewhere on the road to Mt. Sharp.
November 12th, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink
Director Michel Gondry sat down for a series of conversations with linguist, philosopher Noam Chomsky, then animated their conversation.
He actually hand drew pictures to illustrate the words and ideas that they were discussing. From those pictures he made the film Is The Man Who Is Tall Happy?
There’s no Tarot in the film, but like the cards themselves, it tries to put big ideas into picture form, and that’s something I really appreciate. I can hardly wait to see it!
October 25th, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink
The other day, after watching an episode of the TV show, Closer To Truth, I asked my Science Tarot “Is the Universe ‘about’ something?”
The card I got was the Queen of Swords, Ernst Haeckel, Storyteller.
Exploring the World Riddle
Ernst Haeckel was an artist, philosopher, and biologist largely known for his illustrations of animal, plant and microscopic life.
His work helped in explaining Darwin’s theory of evolution to the general public, and he’s credited with discovering, describing, and naming thousands of new species.
According to Wikipedia, his philosophical text, The Riddle of the Universe, from 1901, is the genesis for the term world riddle, which of course is a phrase describing the exploration of the very nature of the universe and the meaning of life.
How perfect – that’s exactly what I was asking about … the big riddle.
Though I doubt that the cards were telling me that Haeckel’s theories explain all the cosmic secrets, I do think they were letting me know that the riddle is worth exploring.
Science, art, philosophy … my beloved Tarot – all can help us in our quest to understand. And like Haeckel, all of us can be storytellers along the way.
I guess the answer to my question, “is the Universe ‘about’ something?” is to just keep looking.
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A few days after pulling the Ernst Haeckel Tarot card, I unexpectedly came across this video called Life Forms by Thomas Lelouch and Antoine Presles. It’s a tribute to Ernst Haeckel. Nice.
July 30th, 2013 § 0 comments § permalink
In the Golden Dawn system of Tarot/Astrology, the World card is associated with Saturn.
At least on a superficial level, such an association always seemed a little odd to me.
Though of course I see that both the planet and the card have rings circling a central figure, there’s a definite feeling of celebration in the World card that seems missing in Saturn’s astrological reputation as a task-master.
Seeing the video below called Around Saturn by Fabio Di Donato though, gave me a whole new way of looking at the planet.
Just as the lady in the World is always dancing, if you look at Saturn from the right perspective, it’s always dancing too!