Carnaval Cards of Truth

Carnaval Cards of Truth

[00:00:00] Introduction and Welcome

[00:00:00] Laura Barat: Hello everyone. Welcome back to The Vedic Astrology Podcast. My name is Fiona Marques.

[00:00:07] Fiona Marques: Today I'm thrilled to introduce a topic that I really don't know very much about. If you are here with me in Portugal, you'll know that today we're celebrating Carnival, which is a big party full of symbols of cards, plenty of Harlequins, plenty of Mad Hatters, plenty of Queens of Hearts. And it seems like a lovely time of year too, perhaps talk about how cards, what we think of as playing cards, are maybe linked to Vedic Astrology and how we can use them in tandem. For those of you like me who have Kala Software, you might be aware of these Cards of Truth, but not really know anything about them, and that's why I've reached out to a dear friend of the podcast, Laura Barat.

Laura, welcome back. Thank you so much for sharing your time and knowledge with us today.

[00:01:00] Laura Barat: Oh, thank you. Thank you for inviting me. I love being here.

[00:01:04] Fiona Marques: And it seems to me a great month for us to explore just a whole new topic. While the world is a bit crazy, sometimes it's nice to put one's attention to something completely unrelated. And so this month I'm speaking with Laura about Cards of Truth, and then a little bit later in the month, I'm going to speak to Karyn Chabot Martino, who also uses cards with Vedic Astrology. So this month, if you're listening to the podcast, you're going to find out a whole lot more about cards and Vedic Astrology.

So then, Laura, that brings me to my very beginning. I really know nothing about it. And when I was doing a little bit of research, I came across these beautiful synergies between cards and the rhythms of life, which I've never connected before. So I've jotted them down. This is how much I don't know them, but perhaps I could share them. And you might like to comment a little bit about whether any of these are Significant or not. 

So I know that there are 52 cards in the card deck, and there are 52 weeks in the year. So I can see there's some synergy there.

I can see that there's two colors. There's a Red kind of cards and Black kind of cards. And it makes me think about duality. In Vedic Astrology and Vedic philosophy there's often this sense of duality; Masculine, Feminine, for example, Day, Night, 

[00:02:26] Laura Barat: Right. 

[00:02:28] Fiona Marques: I can see 4 Suits and I can see 4 Seasons.

12 Months and 12 Court cards.

And then I saw on the internet, 13 cards in each Suit, 13 weeks in each Season, and 13 Lunar Cycles.

[00:02:44] Laura Barat: Right.

[00:02:45] Fiona Marques: And I'm just beginning to see that there is a lot of crossover between cards and our rhythm of Earthly life. 

Is that important? Is are these by accident?

[00:02:58] Laura Barat: No, these are actually a very highly developed system. It's interesting because playing cards as we know them, are read more in places like Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Southern France, and more, more so than Tarot. And actually Tarot was developed out of playing cards, not the other way around.

And so yes, all of those are linked to seasons and the unfoldment of life. And you can link each card to certain stages of growth. 

[00:03:33] Overview of the Cards of Truth

[00:03:33] Laura Barat: The system of Cards of Truth is a little different than some of the other systems out there. Okay. There's a few other systems. There's Robert Camp. He's one that's really popular. There's some other people. And they assign different seasons to different Suits. But in the Cards of Truth System, there is a whole connection to nature and why it is that way, and that is also connected to the Elements of the Signs and the Modalities of the Signs.

 I'll just explain it really quickly.

So they have 4 Suits. The 1st Suit is Spades. In the Cards of Truth system, the 1st Suit is Spades. And the Ace of Spades is the 1st card. And that is a highly occult card. It means the beginning of life basically. Spades, when you even look at them, they look like an acorn, or a seed.

The Spade is the first beginning of life erupting, and and the first beginning. The Ace of Spades means the beginning of life, the very beginning. And it also can mean the ending of a cycle. The ending of a cycle, and the beginning of a new cycle. So Spades represents Spring. And in other systems that's not the case. But in this system, it works really well. Spring is the beginning of life in the Northern Hemisphere. So Spades represents Spring. 

And the Black Suits are Yang energy or the Masculine energy. And the Red Suits are the Feminine energy, the Yin energy, the receptive energy, getting our due, getting what we've worked for. You work, work, and then you receive, which is the Yin energy. And it's more passive. You are able to make decisions based on what comes into your life. You're attracting things into your life with the Red Suits. With the Black Suits, you're working towards a goal.

 We're born, we come into life, we have our body, which is Spades, our health, our psychological and mental health. That all has to do with the Spade Suit. The Spade has to do with the self. Whenever you see Spades come up, it's more about you that year. If you have a lot of Spades in your spread, you're more of an introverted person. You're more concerned about your mental wellbeing, your psychological health, your physical health. You're more focused on the self. It's also connected to the spirituality of going within a lot of meditation or moving energy in the body. It can be a very inner path. So Spades is the beginning. 

So then the 2nd Suit is the Hearts. And the Hearts are, "Okay, here we are, we're on Earth. Let's make a connection. Let's connect to things. Let's have relationships. Let's connect to animals or nature or spiritual path". That's all in the realm of Hearts. Hearts is art and music. Things that make life beautiful, things that come from the heart basically. And Hearts are connected to the Summer season. 

And whenever you do a timing reading, if you're pulling cards for timing, if the 10 comes up, the 10 of Hearts, the 10 of Spades of that Suit, that means in that season. So the 10 of Spades is the Spring season. 10 of Hearts is the Summer season. Now this is very different from some of the other authors out there. That's why I just wanted to say that. 'cause it might be a little different than what other people have been taught. But based on this Cards of Truth system, that's what it is. 

Then the next Suit after Hearts is Clubs. So it goes Black, Red, Black, Red. So the next one is Clubs, which is Autumn. After you've made connections, after you have figured out what it is you want to connect to on Earth, then you have the Fall season, which is Clubs. And that Clubs has to do with, "Okay, now I want to work towards something. I'm interested in something, I'm using my intellect to learn about something. I have ideas about things and I want to work and gather information". So that's all within the realm of the Clubs. That's knowledge and working a career. It's very career oriented. And also it has to do with social contacts. Not necessarily the, social contacts that are heartfelt as in the Hearts, but just things like a social network and interacting with people and moving around. Because in the Fall, all the leaves fall off the trees and are blown around by the wind, so everything gets blown around, lots of movement. So that's the Clubs. And the Clubs look like leaves, if you look at them, they look like a leaf. And they represent when the leaves change and then fall off the trees. And they're mostly a very intellectual knowledge based Suit. 

And then the last Suit is the Diamonds. So the Diamonds are the Winter season. And the Diamonds represent our reward, everything we've worked toward, actual concrete things that have value in our real lives, whatever that may be. For a lot of people, that's financial prosperity. That can be skillset that makes us more valuable. That can be somebody who advances very high in spirituality and is able to help other people. Someone who's very wise in giving their teachings, but whatever is extremely valuable to a person, that's the Diamonds. That's what they get. That's their life. The reward they get for their work, for their connections, for what they love. So Diamonds mean, "Okay, this is happening in actual life. This is actual concrete things that you will receive because you have certain talents and you've been working towards them and this is what you get from it. This is the outcome".

So Diamonds usually mean you get more material abundance or financial prosperity, or you have all this wisdom and you're able to dispense it around, or you have certain really strong skills that people find that value in and they listen to you.Diamonds are what other people are going to recognize is valuable in you. And the Diamonds, believe it or not, so there's 3 cards of psychic psychics, astrologers, spiritual counseling, and they are all Diamonds, witches even. So the 3, 6, and 9 of Diamonds are those cards of intuition, psychism, Astrology, helping other people. Intuitive counseling. They're all in the Diamond Suit, believe it or not. And they have to do with a person that has that super strong skill, counseling others. It's very much about a strong value recognized, socially and something that's of value.

[00:10:58] Fiona Marques: It's like being a kid in a candy store at the moment. I can just see lots of shiny things that I want to talk about. 

[00:11:03] Laura Barat: Never having any experience with cards and seeing this from an Astrology perspective, what is it that connects over mentally the concepts from one to another? So you were just saying that the Signs also link over.

[00:11:16] Rasis and Cards of Truth

[00:11:16] Laura Barat: Yes, they do. And there's two parts to this. So, the 1st Suit is the Spade Suit, and that is the 1st Element or the beginning of life. The 1st Element is Fire. The Fire is the beginning of life. What is in every living being is a Fire is an electricity. And so that is the Spade Suit. So Spades represent Fire Signs. 

Hearts represent Water Signs. Hearts have to do with making connections and sticking. Water is the Element that allows things to clinging and stick together. If you're like ever washing windows and the sponge will stick what you, it'll stick to the window when you're cleaning. That's Water. Venus rules Water Element. In the 5 Elements, the 5 planets, you rule the 5 Elements and Venus rules Water because it brings things together and makes them stick. And also Water has to do with the motion and, the flow of life and all of that. So Hearts are Water Signs. 

Then you have Clubs. Clubs have to do with Air of course. Air is blowing everything around. It's in the Autumn, the leaves fall off the trees. And also Air has to do with the intellect and thoughts and thinking and communication and desire. Air is a big desire Element because we move around to see what we want. By moving around in the world we come into contact with things that we have a desire for, and we communicate things that we want. 

Then you go into the Diamonds are the Earth, the Pentacles in the Tarot. And they have to do with the actual concrete thing that is valuable. 

The Face cards. So the Jacks, Queens, and Kings. 

I'm just going to tell you this.

This is a fun little thing to do with people. You take out all the Face cards of a deck and, if they don't know their Rising Sign, you just ask them to pick a card or you pick it for 'em. Or if you are curious, you pick a card of those 12. That's going to give you their Ascendant .Or it's going to give you a Sign. If you ask those 12 cards to give you a Sign of someone. The Jack of every Suit is the Cardinal Sign of that Suit. So a Jack of Spades is an Aries. Jack of Hearts is Cancer, Jack of Clubs is Libra and a Jack of Diamonds is Capricorn. It's the beginning of those Suits. Jacks mean beginnings. Jacks are Uranus. They're connected to the Uranus energy and the beginning of things, full of this creative force that just wants to create, so those are the Cardinal Signs. 

Then the Queens are the Fixed Signs. And the Queens do everything. Like a Queen in Chess. The Queen does everything except for jump. But mostly the Queen can do everything everybody else can do. And is the most powerful. And the Queens are very long term. They mean a long term commitment, like a Fixed Sign. And something that we work on. Like a Queen is a mother, that represents a mother. And a fetus in gestation, that's a 9 month period where you carry the baby and that whole time you're taking a little zygote and you are making a human being. And so that's what the Queens are doing. They take something that's already a foundation and make it into something very beautiful over a really long period of time. So they are the Fixed Sign. So the Queen of Clubs is Aquarius. That is a Fixed Air Sign. The Queen of Hearts is Scorpio. The Queen of Spades is Leo. And the Queen of Diamonds is Taurus. 

The Queens are linked to Neptunian energy. And Neptune is a planet of transcendence. And seeing the divinity in nature. Seeing the divinity and creation. That's why they say Neptune isto do with, delusions or fantasy because we actually have a very high ideal when it comes to Neptune. We see things in a godly light. Like we see something in a transcendental light and we have all of these hopes for it and want to make it into something that's transcendent or we want to make it into something beautiful and perfect. And of course, because we have such a high ideal, sometimes, we get disappointed. But we can still work towards that ideal. We can touch the Divine through Neptune. And that's what the Queens represent, making something into its fullest expression. And that's what Neptune is designed to do with our planets. When it's transiting our planets, it's designed us to put in the work. The Queen puts in the work, puts in all of its energy. The Queen takes everything it has. All of its resources. And puts everything it's got into something. And that's what Neptune does over a long period of time. And that's why when Neptune transits certain planets, we can touch the Divine through that planet because we're trying to reach a really high goal. And sometimes we don't reach that goal. So we get disappointed of course, we thought it was a fantasy. But it's not. It's not. It's actually we just have this wrong idea of what we believe perfection to be. And that's what Neptune shows us. And it takes a long time to realize that. But anyway, those are, that's what the Queens represent. 

And then the Kings, okay, so the Kings are the Plutonian energy. And so the Kings are the Dual Signs of their Element. And what the Kings do, the King is someone who says "No". The King says, "This is my Kingdom. Everything in here is my Kingdom. Everything out there is their Kingdom. Or it's outside of my concern. I don't know about it. I don't want to know about it. I'm concerned with the people in my Kingdom". And the King is the expert. So the King is the person who specializes in something. Whereas the Queen does everything, takes everything at their disposal, is just very resourceful and it is able to do everything. The King specializes in one thing. And has a very intense focus. And because they specialize, they know this doesn't belong. This is what belongs, this is what doesn't belong. So the King always has the final say. And the King is the highest elite level we can reach. That's the Dual Signs, because they're Signs of transition. So they take the essence of something and transition into something else. They take the absolute essence that was created by the Queen, or the Fixed Sign and takes that essence and moves into something higher. It's time to transition now. 

So the King of Diamonds is Virgo. The King of Clubs is Gemini. The King of Hearts is Pisces. And the King of Spadesis Sagittarius.

And so that's how you link up. So it's real, it's a fun thing to if you want to know the Sign of somebody, just take out this card, shuffle 'em, and do a little reading.

[00:19:21] Fiona Marques: Wow. Okay. That is what is going to be my obsession I can tell. For the next several weeks I'll be asking everyone to pick cards. So you've helped make some connections for me there with cards and Signs and also with these Face cards and the outer planets. So now my mind is interested do the cards relate to planets as well?

[00:19:41] Laura Barat: Okay. They do. 

[00:19:44] Planets and Cards of Truth

[00:19:44] Laura Barat: So Aces relate to the Sun, all Aces. because the Sun is number one. the Sun is the 1st planet. Sunday's the 1st day. It's the beginning of something. So Sun, Sundays and Aces are related to the Sun. 

2s are like, "Okay, let's connect to something, or something comes into my life. I'm attracting things into my life. I'm comfortable with something. This is my environment I'm comfortable with". That's the 2s. The 2s relate to the Moon.

And 3s relate to Mars. And 3 has to do with strength and growth and struggling against something, or struggling for something, or, fighting for something. 3s relate to the strength card in the Tarot, but they have to do with huge spurt of growth. And and fighting. There's a clash. There's obstacles there that need to be overcome, and there's a real passion, a real need to get over those obstacles. So they, they are related to Mars.

4s are related to Mercury. Mercury has to do with security. Because Mercury rules the Earth Element and Mercury rules opportunities. So anytime we get an opportunity that is Mercury. Like an opportunity comes our way to move forward or grow or learn something, or, make more money, whatever it is, that's Mercury. Mercury is such an important planet in general. But people underestimate how important Mercury is. Mercury is one of the planets that give what they call broad activation. So when Mercury is transiting through a house, it's activating that house for opportunities. But Mercury is number 4, and that is the foundation. Mercury is the 4th planet. This also is related to Vedic numerology. So it follows the number scheme of the planets. And then that's related to the cards. So 4 is Mercury. 

Number 5 is Jupiter. And all odd numbers have some difficulties to them. So 5 has to do with growth too. It's a big card of growth and I mean, a huge leap. And 5s, believe it or not, are cards of wealth. So when 5s come up in spreads during your yearly spread, or just if you're doing a spread, it doesn't matter what Suit, of course, 5 of Diamonds is going to be the strongest. But if a 5 comes up, if you see a 5, that usually means, yeah, you're going to make a huge leap forward. You're going to get there. It's going to come in a windfall. It's not going to be step by step. It's going to go boom. You're going to move forward fast. So, so that's a 5 and that's Jupiter. And 5s also can give difficulties, especially the 5 of Spades. They rule judgment and justice in the Tarot. And Jupiter actually rules judges. You get justice with Jupiter. And you get what you deserve. So sometimes if you're moving forward, you're going to encounter a lot of obstacles, but you get through them. So, 5 is a big card of growth too. It's a big card of growth. 

Then you have 6s. 6s are Venus. And 6s have to do with reaching the pinnacle in a worldly sense. Reaching the best of what the world has to offer. That's Venus. So Venus rules little or small pleasures, luxuries or going on a cruise or, things like that. And that's why Venus rules relationships 'cause most people think relationships are going to give them aer, wonderful experiences that you can have on Earth. And so s6 is the epitome that you can reach in a worldly sense. All you're going to get out of it from the world, not in a spiritual sense, but in a more worldly sense. So when you see 6s come up, it means, okay, you've reached the top here. All you have to do is maintain it. 6 is just a card of maintaining something and reaching as far as you can reach in that realm. You just have to put enough energy into something to maintain that thing. If you don't do that, then it will come to an end. It might come to an end anyway, but it's going to come to an end. Which leads us to Saturn.

Saturn is number 7. 7s relate to Saturn. 7s show the end of something or seeing the limitation. We reach the highest of heights and then it needs to end. There's things about it that needs to end. It doesn't mean that the whole thing may come to an end. Sometimes it does mean that you just have to read, the cards or the Astrology around it. But it means that something about that is ending and you've reached the limit. That's Saturn. 

 So then we have number 8. And 8 is really interesting because 8 relates to Rahu. And 8s usually brings new experiences that can cause a certain amount of fear. 8 relates to Rahu. New experiences around career choices, career predicaments, that is an 8 of Clubs. But 8s can bring success. Especially the 8 of Clubs and the 8 of Diamonds. They can bring success if we see our self worth and self love. Because the 8s have to do with mirrors, you're going to attract what you are. So an 8 of Hearts is very much about self love and increasing your self love. 8 of Diamonds is about increasing your value.And 8 of Clubs has to do with increasing your knowledge, your own knowledge. And you usually do that through groups. And the 8 of Clubs, rules groups so you can bounce your ideas off of other people. They can give their feedback, and you increase in knowledge, they give you their knowledge, and then you attract the knowledge and the career opportunities, the work opportunities that you need to move forward. So the 8 of Clubs is a big card of success or on the road to success. So, 8s have to do with Rahu and it could be a little disconcerting because it requires a self journey. And then 9s relate to Ketu. So 9 is the last number before 10. The 10s represent the entire Suit, all of the numbers, all of the, what they call the PIP cards, all of the numbers up until number 9.

But 9s are the end, and 9 has a strong occult Significance. 9 is a very occult number. They're, they even write songs about, there's a song number 9, I think it's by John Lennon. But it's, it is a very strong, you've reached the complete end, the highest you can reach the expert level, the elite level with a 9. And so that's why a 9 of Spades the Black 9s, both 9 of Spades and 9 of Clubs, has to do with the Hermit in the Tarot.

 It represents the yogis, cards of yogis especially 9 of Spades. Then you have the Red 9s. 9 of Hearts is Divine love. Spiritual love. 9 of Hearts is a card of getting your wish, usually. Because you've reached the culmination, the end of what you really desired in your heart. So when a 9 of Hearts comes up, that's a great card. The 9 of Diamonds is also similar to the 9Hearts, except that a 9 of Diamonds has to do with charity allowing value and wealth to flow through you in a divine way, seeing the divinity and wealth and resources. So when it comes up, it usually means you're going to move forward significantly in financial prosperity or whatever it is that is valuable to you. And that's Ketu. And Ketu is perfection, it's the planet of perfection, of reaching the ultimate, of liberation, of total freedom. The next card is the 10 is ecliptic, and you are asking about this, is there an ecliptic related? That's number 10. The 10 relates to the ecliptic. It also relates to the Earth plane or the Earth, basically the Earth, the planet Earth, and the ecliptic, the entire thing. Because 10s are related to the Juggler and the Wheel of Fortune in the Tarot. Where you're juggling all of the different things of the Suit, and that's you're getting all of the things of certain Suit with a Wheel of Fortune. You're getting something. And 10s usually mean you've reached a higher level, it's time to move on to a higher level. And 10s also mean that you will be experiencing all the different facets of that particular Suit. So, so 10s are very powerful. Aces and 10s are very powerful. 10 is like an Ace, but up on a higher level. 

You brought up the ecliptic Is the Sun each day moving through and stimulating these cards, like all this energy.

 Every day there's a new card, there's a card of the day. And if you're born on that day, that becomes your birth card. It is from sunrise to sunrise. We don't measure it in midnight, like the modern measuring of time. And so if you're born on a certain day, like I'll just use me as an example, I'm born on March 2nd. I was born be right before sunrise. So I'm on the March 1st actually. If you're born before or after sunrise then you are a certain card. You can't use it by the midnight to midnight. If you are born near sunrise, then you have to have software to have it calculated correctly. Because it's judged by the Sun rising on the equator. 

[00:30:48] Fiona Marques: And are those,days consecutive cards or is every day a different Suit?

[00:30:54] Laura Barat: No, it starts out with, the King of Spades is January 1st, and then it it goes backwards. Like you got the King, Queen Jack, January 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and it goes backward through the spade Suit. But there are some differences. So most of the Spades happen in the Winter. 

[00:31:12] Fiona Marques: But it's not necessarily an even distribution. There are some cards That there are more birthdays that line up with that card, and then ...

[00:31:20] Laura Barat: Right, there are. So the card that has the most birthdays is the King of Clubs. More people are King of Clubs than any other card. And then or more days I should say. And then the really rare card is the King of Spades. The King of Spades is only January 1st. 

[00:31:37] Fiona Marques: And then is it possible, I'm seeing how there's a connection between Astrology and the cards. Is it possible to see things like Lajjitaadi Avasthas or, or relationships that are going on in a person's chart? Can you see them in cards as well?

[00:31:54] Laura Barat: Absolutely. Absolutely. So, , I'll explain this. 

[00:31:58] Fiona Marques:

[00:31:58] Lajjitaadi Avasthas and Cards of Truth

[00:31:58] Laura Barat: So when you have your chart, like you have your regular astrological chart, and so when I was relating the numbers to the planets. So in the spread, you have a birth card, you have your birth card, then you have the Sun through Saturn cards. And those represent the Signs. So the Mars card represents Scorpio and Aries. Mercury is Gemini and Virgo. Those Sun through Saturn cards represent the Signs they rule. For every planet that's two Signs, except for the Sun and Moon, which are the first two positions or the first two cards, and that's Leo in Cancer. 

So let's say you have a shamed Venus in Taurus. Let's say Venus, Saturn, and Rahu are in Taurus. That would be in the Venus card. You're going to have that shame in whatever the Venus card is. So you're going to have shame or shameful experiences, problems with that specific card and its meanings. So that any of the planetary states I like to call them, I just use the English phrasing that Lajjitaadi Avasthas, wherever that is, if it's in a Sign, let's say you have Jupiter, Mars, Ketu, and Scorpio, that's going to be in the Mars card. That Jupiter shame will be in Mars card, and then you're going to have Jupiter shame type of experiences around that card. So it just adds another level of details and situations, events, based on that card and which is really nice. 

And in this system, you can use it when you don't know your birth time exactly. You just know your birthday. You can get a lot of information from the Cards of Truth if you're not sure about your birth time. 

[00:34:10] Fiona Marques: So then Laura, tell us a little bit as, as best as we know this seems like a portable chart reading system when you didn't have a chance to lay out all of your Ephemeris and calculate chart, you can wander around with this very portable system. But 

[00:34:27] Origins of Cards

[00:34:27] Fiona Marques: what do we understand are the origins of something like Cards of Truth or of mapping Astrology to a portable card system?

[00:34:36] Laura Barat: There was a guy who did this, who started it named Robert Camp, and he made this system and linked it to Astrology. But Ernst revised that into a way that aligns with Astrology, but also the Vedic Numerology. Because the planets, have a number system and the cards have a number system and they're related to Seasons, Elements,that are ruled by planets. So that makes a lot of sense. Because when we think of Astrology. What Astrology really is, is Numerology with Elements. And the Signs are Feminine and Masculine sides of that planet which are connected to the chakras. So that's how with the Cards of Truth system, it is related to how we count the Sun through Saturn, Rahu, and Ketu. Then the Earth. We always have to have the Earth in there. So whatever your Earth card is also called, the ecliptic card, it can be called the ecliptic or the Earth card is a very important part of your life just as much as the birth card almost. And then you have the 3 outer planets that he relates to the creative, sustaining and destructive force. Which makes sense to me becausethe outer planets are not visible to the naked eye. Like you can't just go out and watch the sky. You can do that. You can even see Saturn with your naked eye. But you can't unless you have a telescope, the outer planet. Uranus sometimes, like very rarely you can see it. But those are planets of consciousness. So they're related to the, the 3, the tri the systems of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva. That's how he related it. 

 As far as the history of it there is a lot of linking up, but there was never a system that made it through. They destroyed that knowledge. It still comes out through the Tarot in some cases, but with playing cards, it's been lost. But it was, it's still connected to the Tarot. I don't know why, because the Tarot actually came from playing cards. It's not the other way around. 

And at some point they added in a 4th Face card. They have, the "Page", the knight, the King and Queen. In Ernst's system, he said that was added later. in the Renaissance or even after that. And that shouldn't even be there. So he advises if you have a Tarot deck, take out the "Pages" so it aligns more nicely with the playing card deck.

[00:37:33] Fiona Marques: So we don't know whether theoretically, way back in time the cards were created as a way of having a portable Astrology chart with you at all times. Or whether Astrology is one of those enormous interconnected fields of knowledge that, that everything that you look at resonates at that frequency of Astrology. So you can use the tools that you have to use Astrology. We don't know if it's like a chicken or an egg.

[00:38:00] Laura Barat: I actually think there are, if you do a lot of research into it, yes. You can find the connections there and that it was connected, but I really don't know for sure. 

[00:38:11] Farewell and Conclusion

[00:38:11] Fiona Marques: So Laura what is it that you would like to share with people who maybe today is the 1st time they're hearing about using cards as a way of understanding Astrology or even just as a tool for understanding the self or making predictions? What would you like to share with people before we leave today about Cards of Truth? 

[00:38:29] Laura Barat: I love this system. It is so insightful. It adds another layer of detail. And even without the Astrology, just by knowing your birth card and the spread that supports and makes you who you are, that birth card. Which is 13 cards below the birth card itself. You can really understand yourself and even make strong predictions even if you just don't add Astrology. But with Astrology added on, it is a phenomenal way to understand yourself and make predictions and see even in a higher level of detail some of the things that you are working on, some of the challenges you have in life. Whether as far as like the spreads from year to year, being able to predict that year in a high level of detail as well. And you can get it down to weeks. So like you were talking about 52 weeks, you can see your cards for the week based on your birth card. And each day how it goes. So it's it's lovely. I, I love this system. 

And then just, with the playing cards in general, because they are linked to the Tarot and just, doing a reading, asking for a reading, just to use the playing cards for timing, for what's happening, if you have a question about something. So I love this system. I think it's beautiful. I use it all the time. 

[00:40:01] Fiona Marques: You've really piqued my interest. And Laura, I, I know I use, on your website, you have a page devoted to each birth 

[00:40:11] Laura Barat: Oh, that's right. Yeah. I forgot about that. Yeah, I do.

[00:40:14] Fiona Marques: It's such a great resource. So if you are listening to this podcast, you don't know much about birth cards and you just want to have a feel for the richness of what Laura's speaking about, you could go visit Laura's website (laurabaratastrologer.com) and find a beautiful description of your birth card and those supporting cards. So she can't obviously talk about the layout of your own planets because you might do great Laura, but you can't predict what everybody's individual different birth, data is but for all of the supporting, like you said, the ecliptic and all of those more deeper consciousness currents that are running through your life, you can access those right now on Laura's website (laurabaratastrologer.com) .

[00:40:53] Laura Barat: Yes, that's right. I talk about mainly the outer planets. And those are the cards of consciousness. Working through you. Those cards for each birth card.

[00:41:03] Fiona Marques: Yeah. So that might be a great way to get started. And I know using Kala software that the cards themselves are there available. And Laura, you were saying that you don't teach cards.

[00:41:15] Laura Barat: I'm not right now. I probably will make some videos about Cards of Truth later. I was talking about making the subscription on my YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@LauraBarat). I'll throw some Cards of Truth Interesting videos about that as well, so

[00:41:29] Fiona Marques: Laura, I want to thank you so much for your time today. I have learned a lot about cards of Truth, enough to know that I want to know a lot more. And that it's really neat how they're, the mapping between this, playing card system and the Astrology chart that I use every day. So certainly something that I want to investigate more. You've really helped us out enormously. And I recommend to everyone to go to Laura's site (laurabaratastrologer.com) and look at her resources. Plus you have many videos about it on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@LauraBarat), so it'd be a great way to follow up. 

And then of course, the next episode of The Vedic Astrology Podcast, we're going to speak to another Reader, another expert in cards and Vedic Astrology so that you can be exposed to, as Laura was saying, different systems read cards differently. So it's going to be a month of learning a bit more about cards and Vedic Astrology. 

So thank you so much, Laura, and thanks everyone for your time and listening to us today, and look forward to seeing you again next time we get together for the Vedic Astrology Podcast.

[00:42:30] Laura Barat: Oh, great. Thank you.

[00:42:32] Fiona Marques: Bye everyone.

[00:42:33] Laura Barat: Bye.

[00:42:34] Fiona Marques: Bye bye. Thanks so much, Laura.

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