Tarot Test Kitchen: Summer Solstice Edition
Amy Thomas-Owen's 3-Card Summer Solstice Spread
Hi, dear readers! Today marks a number of beautiful moments:
It’s the Summer Solstice here in the Northern Hemisphere
The 78 Sponsors Support Community launches today at 4:30pm Eastern time
I’m starting a new endeavor that I’m calling “Tarot Test Kitchen”
What is Tarot Test Kitchen?
Tarot Test Kitchen is a space for experimenting with Tarot spreads and rituals suggested by other Tarot readers. I’ll always link to the original spread and attribute the author. Please heart and restack the original posts I link to—our community depends on mutual support!
Today’s Tarot Test Kitchen experiment is based on a 3-card Summer Solstice spread by
. Here is Amy’s bio:Therapist for overthinkers, perfectionists and quiet high-achievers who never feel like they're good enough 🌼 Helping you slow down, soften self-doubt & finally feel safe to be yourself.
This spread was published in 🍂 Slow & Seasonal (Hey Overthinker), where Amy writes about slowing down, saying no to the hustle, and learning “a kinder, effective way to live and work through slow and seasonal living.” So-called “talented and gifted” kids (IMO, a weird label that assumes other kids are neither talented nor gifted) will benefit from Amy’s invitation to resist the constant grind.
Without further ado, let’s head to the test kitchen!
Amy Thomas-Owen’s Summer Solstice Spread
Ingredients or Tools
1 Tarot deck
I’m using the only Thoth deck that I like, which happens to be my very favorite deck, Hannah Elizabeth Fofana’s The Field Tarot (you can pick up a slightly discounted, new copy of this deck in my bookshop; 10% of the sale feeds my cauldron, 75% is profit shared with independent bookstores, and 0% goes to Bezos).
Instructions
Step-by-Step
Shuffling and cutting the deck is a deeply personal ritual. For this spread, I felt called to cut the deck into three piles. I placed the piles in this order: first, last, middle, then I turned up a card on top of each pile, reading the cards from left to right.
The Cards
Well, this was unexpected! Three reversals, two Major Arcana. I’ve been working diligently to develop my Name-and-Key arithmancy system based on Pythagorean numerology, so let’s see what it reveals here.
Name-and-Key Arithmancy
Step One: Card Name Values
THE TOWER = T(2) + H(8) + E(5) + T(2) + O(6) + W(5) + E(5) + R(9) = 42, which reduces to 6.
SEVEN OF DISKS = S(1) + E(5) + V(4) + E(5) + N(5) + O(6) + F(6) + D(4) + I(9) + S(1) + K(2) + S(1) = 49, which reduces to 13 and then to 4.
DEATH = D(4) + E(5) + A(1) + T(2) + H(8) = 20, which reduces to 2.
Step Two: Card Keys
In an earlier post, I talked about how some Tarot scholars, notably Benebell Wen, refer to the numbers of the Major Arcana as Keys. We can combine Major Arcana card name values with Keys to “alchemize” deeper meanings.
The card name value of The Tower is 6, and its Key is XVI (16). 6 + 16 = 22, which reduces to 4.
In The Field Tarot, keywords complement each Minor Arcanum. The keyword on the Seven of Disks is Perseverance:
PERSEVERANCE = P(7) + E(5) + R(9) + S(1) + E(5) + V(4) + E(5) + R(9) + A(1) + N(5) + C(3) + E(5) = 59, which reduces to 14 and then to 5. When we add the base value of SEVEN OF DISKS (4) to the keyword value (5), we get 9.
The card name value of Death is 2, and its Key is XIII (13). 2 + 13 = 15, which reduces to 6.
What does all of this mean?
Good question! I’m still figuring that out. I think that, ultimately, Name-and-Key Arithmancy is simply a way to deduce the presence of additional patterns. In the case of our trio of reversals, here are my two cents, card by card, following Amy’s spread questions.
1. What can I feel proud of right now?
The Tower is known as the card of sudden destruction or upheaval. In reverse, perhaps this is not the case. When we alchemize “The Tower” with its Key, we get 4, the number of structure and stability, so maybe this means that, considering Amy’s first question, I can feel proud of the fact that I am still standing! In the time since the last Summer Solstice, I have faced some personally significant events that were sudden and beyond my control, and I have lived to tell the tale.
2. What pressures do I need to release?
On its own, “Seven of Disks” reduces to 4, but with the addition of our keyword, we come to the penultimate 9. This Disk (or Pentacle) is often regarded as the card of continuing to put in the work, but when I think of Amy’s call to us to abandon the daily grind in favor of slow living, the appearance of the Seven of Disks in reverse strengthens the invitation to take my foot off of the proverbial gas pedal. The “nine-ness” of my situation says that I’m almost there anyway, so going at a leisurely pace is not only healthier, but also won’t have a negative impact.
3. How can I honour where I am?
Death and The Tower are strange bedfellows! And, I know that I have nothing to fear. 6 is another Key alchemization that beautifully answers Amy’s question. 6 is both the survival of a test (we all know how challenging those Tarot 5s can be!) and the knowledge that I honor myself best by saying, “Hey, I did it!”
Additional Thoughts
In The Field Tarot, Death and the Seven of Disks have nearly identical background imagery. The idea that perseverance is somehow connected with death, at least on a visual level, is intriguing. I’ll have to ponder this connection more by looking at other decks.
The stormy nighttime scene in The Tower reminds me of a crazy wind storm we had a couple of days ago. A huge branch broke away from a tree in our backyard just minutes after I safely made it inside!
Maybe the Tower in reverse is symbolic of close calls. What do you think?
If you’ve come up with a unique Tarot spread or ritual that I should feature in Tarot Test Kitchen, please send me a message or comment below! I want to help our community grow through mutual support and dialogue that moves the Tarot forward and stretches our ideas about what a deck of cards can do for our world.
Please ♡Heart♡, Restack, Comment, Subscribe, or Leave a Tip! No amount is too small, and every penny goes toward sustaining my Tarot offerings. —Margaret Estelle ♡♡♡
I love the concept for the test kitchen, and your interpretation of the cards which came up Margaret!
Especially the part about being hard to recover from tarot 5s. So true for me 🤣
Oh yay! I LOVE the idea for this series and can’t wait to read more. And am also super intrigued by your arithmancy—definitely adds another pattern/nuance, as you say. Fun.