Tarot Readings 20

Leadership, power, taking charge; these are all qualities we associate—rightly or wrongly—with the masculine. And it does seem that my female clients have, in general, a harder time expressing these qualities than my male clients. Even younger women seem to struggle with expressing their “masculine” side. I imagine we could speculate for days on end about why this is—but I’d rather take action to change. When my clients are struggling to embody their inner male, I have them work with some of the most powerful archetypes in the Tarot to help them cultivate their Divine Masculine.

There are many ways to define what we in the New Age world call the Divine Masculine. It is a term I became familiar with through Jungian psychology (as the animus), but it is found in many traditions and cultures. The idea is that each of us contains an inner masculine and an inner feminine, regardless of our physiological gender. The Divine expression of either is the highest embodiment of various archetypes. For the Divine Masculine, these archetypes could include Father, Priest, Warrior, Teacher, Sage...and so on.

Most women find it easier to express their feminine qualities than their masculine, yet we all benefit (men included) from having access to both masculine and feminine attributes. Expressing the Divine Masculine can look like enlightened leadership, a healthy expression of anger, or making empowered choices.

Shelly is a client of mine who works in the corporate world. She often calls about work issues, and our latest session was no exception. She was being asked to head a work project, and her team included a few men who had been with the company longer than her.

“I’m having a hard time taking charge,” she said. “I know I can do this, but for some reason, I keep deferring to my colleagues. I hate it! Why is it so hard to take a leadership role?”

When we brought in Shelly’s spirit guides to help her work through this issue, they were clear that she wasn’t comfortable expressing her masculine side, and the many experienced men on the team made this harder. We did a Tarot spread, too, and the card that showed up as “inner work” for Shelly was the Emperor. As an archetype, this card is about stability, power, good leadership, and sharing the resulting benefits with one’s “subjects.”