Tarot for the End of Times - A Podcast with Sarah Cargill

In this final installment of the Interlude mini series, Sarah fully transitions out of Iteration 1 of Tarot for the End of Times by answering your most frequently asked questions. She shares what's new and what's next for the podcast as she invites listeners to stay connected while she prepares for Iteration 2 and other exciting offerings that are in the works.

Question Timestamps:

1:31 - Will you be covering the minor arcana?

3:00 - Any tips for memorizing/internalizing card meanings?

4:58 - What is your opinion on the Court cards? How do you work with a divination system that reflects oppressive hierarchical power structures while also keeping your practice decolonial and intersectional?

11:37 - Do you have any suggestions for using tarot to engage in ancestor work? Especially for those of us who are disconnected from our family of origin but want to spiritually connect with the lineage?

13:48 - Any tips for creating and/or choosing a spread?

15:50 - If you have a lot of decks to choose from, how do you select the appropriate deck for a reading?

18:12 - When you’re reading your own cards, what are the best ways to distinguish major themes from minor themes?

21:11 - How do you know when you’re getting a “real” message vs. when you’re trying to see your reading through rose-colored glasses?

25:03 - What’s the best way to break in a new deck?

26:26 - What’s the deal with reversals?

In observance of Black History Month, Sarah dedicates this episode to all the Black spiritualists, hoodoos, conjurers, healers and medicine keepers who, despite everything, keep the tradition and the magick alive. You deserve the world. One day, may the world deserve you.

In the wake of her personal Tower season, Sarah takes a silent retreat in Joshua Tree, CA to get right with the Spirit of Justice. Pulled straight from the archives of Sarah's audio journal, she shares her reflections on spiritual justice, ancestral intervention, and the unchecked violence of white supremacy as she process the gap between the justice she deserves and the justice that's materially available to her.

Support & Connect with Sarah:

Find Sarah and continue the conversation on Instagram @snakeskin.tarot

Sarah returns to the podcast with the reintroduction of Interludes, a segment designated for tarot-adjacent topics and conversations that inform her craft and the practice. In this two-part conversation, she is joined by her partner, Kimi Mojica (pronouns: they/she), to discuss spiritual companionship, karmic entanglements, and the radical act of witnessing.

In part 2, Sarah and Kimi unpack the Dharma of tarot as they discuss the power of choice, what it means to bear WITHness, and the parallels between the life and story of the Buddha and the archetypal story of the Fool's Journey.

Accessibility Note: Spotify now has captions! In response to this update, Sarah is experimenting with a new format that does not include a separate transcript. If this creates a barrier to access, Sarah wants to know! Please leave a comment in the Q+A section of this episode and/or DM her directly on Instagram @snakeskin.tarot.

Support & Connect with Sarah:

Find Sarah and continue the conversation on Instagram @snakeskin.tarot

Sarah returns to the podcast with the reintroduction of Interludes, a segment designated for tarot-adjacent topics and conversations that inform her craft and the practice. In this two-part conversation, she is joined by her partner, Kimi Mojica (pronouns: they/she), to discuss spiritual companionship, karmic entanglements, and the radical act of witnessing.

Recorded during a partner's retreat in July 2023, part 1 offers behind-the-scenes insight into the making of "The World" episode and what it means to hold emotional and spiritual boundaries with those who make up one's relational ecosystem.

Accessibility Note: Spotify now has captions! In response to this update, Sarah is experimenting with a new format that does not include a separate transcript. If this creates a barrier to access, Sarah wants to know! Please leave a comment in the Q+A section of this episode and/or DM her directly on Instagram @snakeskin.tarot.

Support & Connect with Sarah:

Find Sarah and continue the conversation on Instagram @snakeskin.tarot

Sarah concludes Iteration 1 of Tarot for the End of Times with a conversation that unpacks the problems of "light hegemony", the virtues of Darkness, the necessity of shadow work, and the indispensable role of community throughout one's spiritual development.

Find Sarah and continue the conversation on Instagram @snakeskin.tarot

Want to submit a question for the Q+A Special? Comment on this episode OR send Sarah a message on Instagram!

Some seasons are for f---ing around, but Judgment is when you get to find out! Sarah begins this episode with a firm call-in as she contextualizes this archetype in a conversation about Juneteenth, economic justice, community care, and reparations as a form of spiritual work. She then goes on to discuss the relationship between accountability and reciprocity, the difference between review and rumination, escaping indecision purgatory, and everything else that goes down at the center of the crossroads. 

What if the armor that protects you from disappointment is the very thing that keeps you from accessing the full range of your joy? 

Hope is what we find at the intersection of love and freedom. The Star reminds us that we are big enough to choose both.

The Tower asks: how will you summon your freedom?

Sarah returns for another installation to talk about spiritual co-regulation, holding space for suffering, and how The Tower works to activate personal and collective agency. 

The Karma Keeper is tired of watching you undermine your power and play small. The Devil asks: in what ways do you unconsciously or habitually diminish your own power and agency as a means to relinquish responsibility or maintain a false sense of safety? 

Consider this: what if the Devil actually wants to see you win? 

How might the angelic archetype of the Temperance card support us in metabolizing our spiritual homecoming through the vehicle of the body? With tenderness, humor, empathy and embodied wisdom, Temperance prompts you to integrate to your most persistent wounds, rousing a level of agency that may not have been available to you before your unraveling.

The beliefs and habits that keep you small and safe might also, eventually, become the very thing that kills you. And that would be a shame, because the Death Card wants you to live.

In this episode, Sarah takes her own advice and gives herself permission to transform, introducing the Death Card in conjunction with her new spiritual home, Snakeskin Tarot.

Surrender (verb) sur·ren·der | \ sə-ˈren-dər

The process of relinquishing control while daring to trust the invisible machinations of the Divine, the Universe, and the otherwise inexplicable.

Which holding patterns beg for release? How might we make space for our sacred unfurling?

What possibilities open up when we choose to uplift dignity over objectivity in the name of justice? How might this shift in focus transform our relationship to accountability? 

Sarah opens this intimate episode with reflections gathered from the last year and announces exciting new offerings. She unpacks the polarities of this symbolically dense card to ask: how might we look to the contradictions of the Wheel of Fortune to unhook ourselves from the energetic traps of fatalism? 

In solitude, we encounter opportunities to pick our poison or to cultivate our medicine. The Hermit encourages us to choose the latter. 

In your most critical moments, who did you have to become to survive? Does that version of yourself still serve you? Is there another way? The Strength card stewards the inner fire of our hearts to help us reckon with these inquiries.

How do we cultivate a generative relationship to our intuition so that we learn to trust our ability to make choices that serve our highest good? How might this shift our understanding of what it means to embody the fullness of our personal power?

Love is a mutual recognition of the divinity that exists within each of us.  The archetype of The Lovers reminds us to choose what heals. 

As the momentum of change unravels institutions that represent and enforce outdated values, what will it take for us to restructure them so they reflect the ethics that we aim to live into? What will we bring with us? What will we leave behind? The Hierophant teaches us how to discern connective and liberatory community traditions from harmful and narrow-minded dogma that upholds a toxic status quo.

The Emperor's sacred fire has the capacity to assist in performing great acts of human compassion and nurturance, as well as the power to destroy all that it touches. This episode explores what The Emperor teaches us about walking this razor's edge. 

The word "precious" is only two letters away from the word "precarious".  What are you doing to acknowledge and honor this delicate relationship?

This episode is dedicated to the memory of the precious Black lives that were stolen from us.  May their spirits live on through the movement for Black lives. 

To my non-Black listeners: Instead of asking, "what can I do?" to your exhausted and grieving Black friends, please check out the resources below. Here are some ways to affirm Black life and contribute to the dismantling of anti-Black violence:

What does The Empress teach us about managing and sharing our abundance in ways that reflect our sense of self-worth? How might we learn to care for our shadows and inner child so that we may embrace the whole of who we are? 

Ambiguity provides tension that serves a purpose. The High Priestess urges us to build our capacity to hold space for ambiguous, mutable information, and to reexamine our relationship to sacred pause. 

How might we show up in our partnership with the Universe? This episode explores the wisdom that The Magician card offers around the themes of personal power and manifestation, agency, and the negotiation between effort and ease.

Sarah introduces the first archetype of the series. What does The Fool teach us about beginning new cycles with equal parts trust and discernment?

In this episode, Sarah introduces the series and provides an overview on the symbolic language of the tarot. She offers personal anecdotes that frames her approach to the practice.