Mini-muse 014: An energised core

On using tarot to connect personally to archetypes

Mar 03, 2025

Hi little coven.

We often talk about archetypes within the tarot, but what does that mean, and how can we personally connect to the images and themes in the cards?

See the gorgeous 18th century tarot deck used by the first professional ... — *Imagery from Etteilla’s Livre de Thot*

For me, connecting to archetypes is a creative process that requires us to step outside the comfortable structure of definitions and categories. Archetypal work is intuitive, curious, mysterious, open-ended… it defies articulation.

And yet, if we are to do the work, we still need to have some level of clarity around what the work is.

Looking for the replay of our latest tarot journaling session? Find it here.

One of the most thoughtful and generous writers on this subject is

Alyssa Polizzi

, whose work I find to be the perfect balance of warmth, rigour, and mystery. Alyssa has an immense talent for guiding readers into the strange hinterlands of archetypal work.

Consider these words, from her essay on connecting personally to archetypes:

… archetypes are permeated with the qualities of the unconscious — shadowed, mysterious, difficult to grasp, undefinable. They are too large, too grand to contain and at the same time, too mystifying and inaccessible. Thus, as Jung says, we look towards the effects they make upon us to know that they are real. Collectively, these are the repeating figures, motifs, and ideas we see in mythology, art and culture. Personally, it is the patterns of emotions, thoughts, behaviors and images that anchor our lives. At the center of these manifestations are the archetypes, an energized core, a celestial body that draws these experiences into their orbit and at the same creates them.

She goes on to illustrate how tarot invites us into this orbit: “This interplay of personal and collective material is the rich ground for our inner work. Thematically, this is mirrored in the relationship between the Major and Minor Arcana of the tarot, whose basis is rooted in the archetypal images and symbols of the collective unconscious.”

I am so delighted to share that Alyssa will be joining us in Tarot Journaling Club this Sunday to lead us through an original tarot spread for examining this interplay and connecting personally to archetypes.