Side Notes
by BB Soto
The thoughts that don’t make the main text—but matter anyway ♥️
Tarot FAQ’s from My Table
Over the years, a few questions have come up often enough to become my personal Tarot FAQs. These are not the same as the information I provide for getting a reading, so if those are questions you have, please check out my Tarot page for answers to more generalized questions. These are the most frequently asked by people who usually get a reading from me at a public market, and they range from general curiosity to people who may be interested in learning to read for themselves. So in case you’ve ever wondered…
Astrological Symbols & Glyphs Gloassary
Coming to astrology from a background in tarot, I remember looking at my first charts and thinking I might as well be trying to read Greek. I was accustomed to pictorial representations that resonated with archetypal experiences in the human condition and were more directly related to the symbolism I had studied in my art history courses. Still, learning the tarot involved a degree of memorization—the order of the first 22 major arcana cards, which suits corresponded to which element, etc. And so, with learning to read a system that uses a language of glyphs, memorization, at first, is key. After all, that’s what we do in Kindergarten and 1st grade. We memorize the letters of the alphabet, their shapes, and their sounds. Then we learn to put them together and form words. Then we learn to put those words together and build sentences.
2026 Astrology Correspondence Timeline
This year, I’m keeping a living timeline—a kind of cosmic, digital field journal—that tracks the major astrological movements and aspects as they unfold. Sometimes I feel like reading ahead feels ambiguous and foreign, whereas reflecting in hindsight opens understanding. Think of taking a bird’s-eye view rather than nose pressed to the glass—a way to look backward and forward at once. Along the way, I’ll be layering in correspondences from mythology, folklore, tarot, literature, and art—not as decorative vibes, but as symbolic translators—so the movements in the sky start speaking a language that actually relates to daily life.
Winter Solstice: Traditions and Tarot Spread
A group of spectral riders led by Odin—known as the "Yule King" in Germanic-Norse versions—conducts a supernatural hunt during the Winter Solstice. This event was seen as an ominous sign that foretold wars, plagues, or death.
Witnesses weren't merely spectators, either. Legend has it that the ghostly riders might snatch them away, never to be seen again.
The spread is based on the concept of these ghostly riders—who I believe symbolically represent the past coming in to haunt us, possibly taking us if we don’t protect ourselves from their force, or leaving us to begin anew.
Exploring Divination Practices: Tarot and Symbolism
In this post, I share some of my favorite resources that I either have on my shelves or have used. I've checked out some from the library; others are web references or tarot readers and astrologers. These resources explore the many ways the universe can communicate with us and what people across cultures have often said these symbols mean.
Understanding Chiron: The Wounded Healer in Astrology (& Tarot)
In Greek mythology, Chiron was a centaur known for his wisdom, healing abilities, and mentorship. Unlike other centaurs, often depicted as wild and unruly, Chiron was revered for his knowledge and compassion. He was the son of the Titan Cronus and the nymph Philyra, making him half-god and half-horse.
Chiron's early life was marked by rejection and abandonment. His father, Cronus, was disgusted by Chiron's half-horse appearance and rejected him at birth. His mother, Philyra, was so ashamed of giving birth to such a creature that she begged the gods to transform her into a linden tree to escape her misery. This early experience of parental rejection became a fundamental wound for Chiron, shaping his compassionate nature and his ability to nurture others despite his own pain.
Chiron’s story is one of both pain and healing. Despite his divine heritage and immense knowledge, he suffered an incurable wound from a poisoned arrow. The injury occurred by accident when Heracles, battling angry centaurs, unintentionally struck Chiron with an arrow dipped in Hydra’s blood.
Mabon Tarot Spread: Harvesting Insight and Gratitude
Mabon, or the Autumn Equinox, celebrates the second harvest and the balance of day and night. This year, on September 22, Mabon is a time to honor balance, reflection, and gratitude for the year's abundance.
Historically, this sabbat didn’t have a specific name—it was simply the harvest celebration held in September. In the 1970s, Aidan Kelly, founder of the Wiccan group Covenant of the Goddess, coined the term Mabon. Though Mabon ap Modron, a Welsh deity, isn’t directly connected to the fall equinox or harvest, Kelly chose the name for its symbolic resonance with the season. The name has since become widely accepted.
Tarot Symbolism: The Empress
“She is above all things universal fecundity and the outer sense of the Word.”
—Arthur Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, 1909
To say the Empress is a fertility goddess archetype isn’t quite capturing the depth of her essence. When Waite describers her as “universal fecundity,” he is bestowing her with the possession of not only the ability to be fertile, but to produce and reproduce in plentitude.
It’s the difference between a woman who has one or two children—she had to be fertile enough to become pregnant and therefore had the ability—and the fecund woman who would be the mother with thirteen children.
No, the Empress is more than just fertility. She is the be all and end all of a nature/mother/love/fertility goddess. She isn’t just the mother of new life personified; she is the action that brings about new life personified. Even more, she is the energetic force that drives all creation and growth through all through all seasons through all the years—she is the force that turns that seasonal wheel.
Tarot Symbolism: Duality
In the Anglo-American tarot tradition, the Fool is the beginning and the end. Therefore the Fool is also neither the beginning nor the end.
The Magician points one hand skyward, another to the earth, all to illustrate that as above, so is below. The robed figure actively manifests awareness into reality. They are surrounded in earthy colors associated with consciousness, daytime, and masculine energy.
Tarot Symbolism: The Magician
Striking yellow, rich red, and pops of white catch the eye in the first official card of the Major Arcana. The Magician — unlike the insensate Fool who both begins and ends the Major Arcana — is standing in the conscious plane. Where the sun, representing consciousness, rose in the sky above and behind the meandering Fool, the Magician here is surrounded by the light of awareness. They are robed in pure intentions (white) and sparked with the life force, the passion, the vitality to manifest their destiny (red). The tools of the four suits, the four elements, and the four states of being are laid out before them now. They are the alchemist experimenting with creating the possibilities of creating through divine awareness.