00:00 Episode Preview

00:32 Opening

01:07 Introduction

02:09 Interview Begins with Robert Ryan

02:49 How It All Started

04:42 Living the Tarot

06:17 Tarot, Symbolism, and the Artistic Journey

09:45 The Power of Symbols

11:43 Embracing the Tower

13:50 Spiritual Evolution in Tarot Creation

17:01 Destruction as a Path to Clarity

18:03 Overcoming Ego in a Divided World

19:47 Letting Go to Find True Spirituality

21:37 Finding Wonder in Every Moment

22:23 Embracing Change as Transformation

24:04 AD – Join our Tarot for Alchemy Course https://learntarot.mysticmondays.com/

26:09 Finding My Voice in the Cards

27:31 Tattoos as Tower Moments

28:51 Finding Stillness in the Storm

30:12 The Tower Falls, The Star Rises

31:39 Spiritual Technology

33:29 When Transformation Strikes

34:50 Embracing Life’s Knockdowns

36:03 Finding Strength in Determination

37:46 Will and Surrender

39:58 Overcoming the Fear of Imperfection

42:02 Anger as a Catalyst for Change

42:54 Seeking Recognition vs. Staying True

44:04 Making Art for Love, Not Likes

45:41 What is your Sun, Moon, and Rising Signs?

47:23 What Advice Would You Give to Your Younger Self?

47:37 How Would You Define Everyday Magic?

47:52 What Are Your Favorite Rituals?

48:16 What Are You Looking Forward to in the Near Future?

48:37 Collective Reading from the Tarot Tantra Esoterica by Robert Ryan

53:18 Closing Statements

54:05 End of Episode – Make Sure to Leave a Podcast Review!

55:08 End Card

Welcome to the GRACED Podcast! A space for everyday magic for your everyday life. We do this through rituals, aligning yourself to your soul’s purpose, and creating Alchemy to heal our mind, body, and spirits so that you can bring in more love and joy, manifest your desires, and believe in your dreams.

Listen and watch over at graceduong.com/podcast and on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Instagram, TikTok and all the places you can find me on social media.

Now let’s dive into today’s episode.

💖 Introduction

Grace:

Welcome to the GRACED Podcast, a space where we talk about everyday magic for your everyday life. Today’s guest is Rob Ryan, the powerful force behind Tarot Esoterica a project and practice that deep dives into the roots of Tarot, mysticism, and personal transformation.

In this episode, we’ll explore themes of the Tower Tarot card. The Tower represents those moments when everything falls apart so that something more true and authentic can emerge. We talk about the beauty and pain within destruction, how to hold space for sudden change, and why breakdowns often lead to breakthroughs.

And we’re also doing a giveaway of Rob’s deck, Tarot Esoterica over on Instagram, YouTube, and all of the socials. More details on how to enter this giveaway over on the @grace.duong and @mysticmondays Instagrams.

Now let’s dive into this episode.

✨ Interview Begins with Robert Ryan

Grace: Hello, Rob! Welcome to the GRACED Podcast.

Rob: Hi. Thank you so much for having me. It’s a honor and a pleasure to be here.

Grace: Yeah, so excited to have you. Rob is the creator behind the Tarot Tantra Esoterica with a beautiful book, and I just wanna flip open the few of the pages for people who are viewing the video, but it’s super gorgeous, very well thought out, beautifully designed, and just custom made everything from like the box it arrived in, and I just loved receiving it and using it, and also incorporating the themes of the Tower Tarot card, which can talk about destruction, creating space to rebuild from the rubble.

✨ How It All Started

Grace: But first I just wanted to talk about your inspiration behind creating the Tarot Tantra Esoterica, and what your journey has been like creating this Tarot deck.

Rob: In the past, I had a very like adversarial relationship with the Tarot. I’ve always loved it. I’ve always thought after it, and it was always mystifying to me. But I’ve joined a group of friends. We climbed Mount Shasta. And painted a version of the Major Arcana. That was the first time I had attempted to recreate any kind of Tarot related art or kind of started getting involved in the study of the deck.

So then after we’d completed that, I had felt like we wanted to complete it. We just couldn’t. We were all from different coasts and different parts of the world, and we really couldn’t realign to complete it. So I felt incomplete about that, and then I was hired. To paint the deck by a company in England, and it just didn’t work out.

We didn’t see eye to eye. We had different kind of ideas of what we thought that the deck should look like and the overall vibe of the deck. So I quit. I never quit jobs. It was one of the first jobs that, that I had like ever resigned from, and I just felt like really incomplete and just like I felt like I was left in a bad way. Felt a little guilty about it.

And then I was having dinner at a friend’s house in California, and Kim Krans was there who drew and painted the Wild Unknown deck. And we were talking and I explained my situation and she just turned to me and said, you need to paint the Tarot. And said, okay. And then from that point on, I took a plane home from California and, you know, here was this like very successful, very grounded, accomplished person with such experience with the Tarot that she’s telling me to do it.

So I took that, I tried to pay attention to that, and I saw it as my guru, as my teacher telling me, you should paint the Tarot. So we learned to see the teacher in everything. So I took that as a command from the Tarot itself to paint it. So I worked on it day and night for a year and wrote the book and painted all the cards.

✨ Living the Tarot

Grace: That’s amazing. So I know you share some of your journey inside your book and you write:

“I painted 78 cards and wrote this guidebook in six months. I was completely absorbed in the Tarot, so much so that I didn’t realize that I was living through the Major Arcana as I was working to complete it. Not until I really dug deep into the meaning of the cards was I able to see them in my behavior, my thoughts, my habitual patterns, and making sense of how I have arrived at this place of inner reflection through the cards. There were hard lessons to contemplate, and the knowledge that the cards convey was hitting me on profound levels.”

So I’m wondering what lessons did you learn and were living while you were making your cards?

Rob: Well, obviously from step one, it was a Fool’s journey. And, I had to step off the cliff to do it and when I did step off the cliff, man, it was the most difficult six months of my life. I was experiencing flooding in my home when it was happening, my relationship had suffered greatly because I wasn’t being attentive, I was just like consumed by the cards.

I kind of refocused and rebuild my relationship, much like the Tower. I had to like completely destroy everything to get this thing done. In order for it to manifest. And then where I could see my life with clear perception, like the Sun, I was seeing it illuminated through the cards in a different way, and that was really beautiful for me.

It was really hard, hard lessons learned obviously. It made the whole thing worth it. And I feel like that vibration manifested in the deck too. And I feel like we’re all truly living the Tarot every day of our lives if we really pay attention. But that being said, for me, this moment of my life was very tarotic.

✨ Tarot, Symbolism, and the Artistic Journey

Grace: Yeah, I feel like each Tarot card is the depiction of the human experience. Whether you’re experiencing a Major Arcana moment like the Tower where things are falling apart, or maybe you’re having a Two of Cups moment where you’re aligning with a business partner, perhaps like your publisher or something.

And I feel like there just so many moments where, like for example, when I was illustrating. The Moon card in my deck, I just like zoned out and I don’t know what happened for the next four hours, and that was just like one of those cards where I just like zoned out. But your story really resonates with me because I feel like right before I made my Tarot deck, I went through a Tower moment as well where like I moved several times, not on purpose.

My security deposit was stolen twice in one year. And I find that when those Tower moments happen, there tends to be order in the chaos where perhaps the structure of where you need to be to create, let’s say like for me it was like the first 22 cards because I know for me, I really wanted to make the first 22 cards, but with all the life stuff happening, it just got pushed till the end of the year. So I ended up locking myself up in my apartment and I was living in LA at the time, so all of December, just creating the first 22 cards. And then I came out and I was like, oh, hello society. That’s what that’s like again.

And it’s really interesting because I do feel like creativity does sometimes need to be done in solitude to really zone in on your artistry and get things done. And I know you are a tattoo artist, but it also sounds like you are a painter. And could you tell us more about your artist journey and how you came to the Tarot?

Rob: Yeah, so through tattooing I learned a lot about symbolism and using a visual vocabulary. And after I did paint the Tarot, I realized I’m doing Tarot readings every day. Someone randomly pulling an image out of their mind or out of their experience, out of their consciousness.

Bringing it to me, asking for it, I’m creating it and it normally, we talk about it and we kind of ha go through the steps of a reading almost in the process of a tattoo. Doesn’t always work like that, but normally it does. And I got very symbol literate through tattooing at a young, I started tattooing pretty young. I was 23 when I started. I’m now 51.

Also, I have a spiritual practice that’s based in Sanatana Dharma and that’s all very much expressed through a lot of symbolism and visualizations. So between tattooing and my spiritual practice and music and everything else, and all the other aspects of my life. The Tarot just seemed to be like another conduit to tap in to the secret language.

The secret expression that defines our entire existence. Like I, I feel like the Tarot cards are so packed. Like with mantra, I practice mantra. Each mantra has a seed syllable, and I feel like each one of the cards has a syllable that can grow the entire universe from it. I don’t think that it’s so much a act of divination that anybody can manifest with the Tarot.

You know, with the cards, any card will resonate with any person’s situation. Regardless of what it is. It’s just giving you a different kind of beacon and a way to see things that it shines a light in usually what’s the darkest parts, depths of our understanding. It gives clarity and to be able to like try to tap into that and share that with people was pretty important to me.

✨ The Power of Symbols

Grace: Yeah, and I feel like symbolism is a language of the universe where sometimes we can’t necessarily speak something where it totally makes sense. Like if we have a dream, and let’s say we see unicorns in the dream, and we might have a meeting in like 3D Life, what that means versus what the Unicorn is doing in our dreams or whatever.

But I feel like creating symbols, creating a Tarot deck where you then see. That version of it in real life could then mean something to you. And I feel like with tattoos, they’re very significant to people because they tend to hold a lot of meaning, whether it’s a specific like time in their lives or remembrance of a special person or something like that.

Like let’s say sunflowers, if you see a sunflower, many people might associate that with the Queen of Wands card because there is a S sunflower in that card. Or maybe when they see it out in real life, they may. Think of confidence or maybe, you know, someone might see like the same angel numbers over and over again.

And so I’m wondering, since you are so adept with symbolism and you see it all the time, are you noticing certain patterns and symbols as you like walk about in your daily life?

Rob: Yeah, definitely. It’s funny, the magnetic pull that a symbol will have on somebody, like, you know, you said a tattoo could be very meaningful, but that person might not be able to find the meaning of their tattoo till they had it for years.

Or they might not ever understand why they were drawn to that image. And the same thing happens in the Tarot. Like when you pull a card, you, it might make sense years later. It might make sense minutes later. It might make sense in that present moment. The thing that I love about it is you have this archetypal fixed meaning to all the cards.

But it applies to every single person’s unique personal experience. And that’s what’s so lovely about it. And that also happens in tattoos. Like a heart for someone might mean something, it might mean their family or somebody else. It might mean like some, you know, they might love music or they might love art, or it can have a wide range of meanings, just like the Tarot does.

✨ Embracing the Tower

Grace: Yeah, and I definitely agree that through time that one’s relationship with a card can change. So maybe one year you may have a relationship with the Magician card, and maybe like three years later something else is revealed about the Magician card. And I feel like a lot of these cards, the upright meaning tends to be positive and the.

Reverse meaning tends to be like more negative. But with the Tower card, that’s one of the cards out of the Tarot deck that people seem to fear.

Rob: Yeah. That’s so cool that you asked me about it because it’s my favorite card and, and I know every time people are like, oh my God, you know, Tower, why do you like that one so much?

And for me, I don’t think there’s any bad card. I don’t think there’s a bad reading. It’s what you choose to do with that reading could, which could be viewed as good or bad, positive or negative. I think the card can offer you a million different ways of looking at things that there’s no Judgement in the card except for the Judgement card.

I don’t feel that there’s ever a bad reading how it applies to you. Is what makes makes it positive or negative. And that’s why I love the Tower card so much. ’cause it’s like, it’s the fast acting upheaval, which agitates creation, everything has to come to a close for it to be reborn. And I love that it’s in the middle of the deck too.

Like uh, I think that really holds a significant place ’cause it’s the middle of the journey and it’s when he really. For me, it’s really the destruction of the ego, which I think is super important. When, which is like kind of one of the biggest tools that many spiritual practices use you to open the heart.

You need to learn humility, and I think the, the Tower is a very, very strong expression of humility.

Grace: What is your definition of humility?

Rob: That you are able to see yourself with as your true self, as consciousness, rather than what we identify with every day. And once you’re able to do that, you can definitely put others before you.

You can put the needs of your friends and your loved ones and the world before, your habits and your needs and your desires and your fears and all those things. I think humility creates the big eye by reducing the small eye.

✨ Spiritual Evolution in Tarot Creation

Grace: Yeah, and it’s really interesting that you say that because I feel like with the Fool’s journey, we start off with the Fool as an individual journey, and when we get to the like later, 11 cards, it’s more about that.

Collective journey where I see the world really as like we’re all one kind of message that I get from the world. And it’s really interesting that you say that the Tower is destruction of the ego because I do feel like in order to see oneself clearly, we need to remove the ego to really see where we are actually situated, not where we wish ourselves to be.

And I feel like sometimes that destruction can make it really clear. That perhaps there are things blocking you, whether it’s you or situations in your life, to really clarify what’s working and what’s not working. And sometimes the universe tends to throw very drastic measures and something I associate with that tends to be breakthrough moments.

So I’m wondering, when you were creating the Tarot, tantra esoterica, did you come across any breakthrough moments?

Rob: Yeah, so I think a big part of the deck that I created or that came through my hand was that the first 10 are the Dashavataras of Vishnu, which teaches one of the aspects of the symbolism of the avatars of Vishnu is to teach spiritual evolution.

So you’re starting with a fish moving to an amphibian, then you’re into these half-man, half-creature deities, then you move on to the dwarf incarnation of God. Then it moves into the hunter and gather then to Krishna Rama, the perfected man, so forth and so on. So, and then the following 10 are the 10 wisdom goddesses who are the Dasa Mahavidya.

And they teach 10 different practices that guide you along the spiritual practice. Those 20 cards lined up, I based my deck from the Marseilles deck, and one of the rules I gave myself before I began painting it was that I didn’t want to take anything away from the Marseilles deck so that people that normally read the Marseilles would be able to use it and it wouldn’t confuse them, but I would only add to it.

So by adding those 20 symbols of the Dashavataras and the Mahavidyas, they lined up with those first 20 cards amazingly, like uncannily. I switched one Buddha and Krishna just because the Chariot card was made sense to be with Krishna and the Hermit made sense to work with the Buddha. But aside from that, I didn’t change the order of the those 20, and they lined up perfectly.

That to me was very special and meaningful and it gave me a really strong base to work from. The Tower card is Chhinnamasta, who is the goddess that takes off her own head and she is nurturing her two attendants. And she’s standing on top of lust and anger. Yeah. So in that, she’s not normally she would be, but she’s normally standing on two figures too.

But the removal of the head to me was uncanny with the removal of the top of the Tower. And that was kind of the first card that I visualized before I started painting them.

✨ Destruction as a Path to Clarity

Grace: Yeah. So I hear in your spiritual practice that there is a mind body connection in the Tower card and the goddess that you portrayed.

There’s a disconnect that happens between the head and the body, and I think the head and mind tends to direct the body. And so it’s almost like a new mind is being formed.

Rob: Yeah. And it’s removing the head is removing the thought and the thoughts are what keep us from using our heart a lot of times. So to open the heart, the head must be removed and there’s three streams of blood coming from where she’s removed her head from her neck.

Those are the una, which is the creation, sustaining, and destructive forces of all mankind. It’s something that happens with everything. Everything is created, everything sustains for a certain amount of time, and then it dissolves. That’s expressed through the three bloodstreams, and it’s also the Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna, which are the three chronic energy flows that flow through the body. So that’s what those three bloodstreams are symbolic of.

✨ Overcoming Ego in a Divided World

Grace: Yeah. So you mentioned leading with the heart or communicating through the heart. And we do live in polarizing times where there’s so much happening and going back to the ego where I. I think a lot of it is driven by being right or wanting to be right and not necessarily wanting to hear anybody else’s opinions that might maybe conflict or confront somebody else.

And so I’m wondering for anyone who is looking to open up their hearts, what are some ways they can do that?

Rob: Understand that you yourself are pure consciousness. And the person that you might be judging, arguing with, correcting or doubting, is also pure consciousness. And we’re each perceiving our own pure consciousness through the reflection of one another.

And I think that’s a good place to start off. And it’s a not very easy because someone could be saying something that’s. Totally upside down to you or offensive to you, but you have to kind of figure out where they’re coming from and why they might be expressing themselves in that manner. Each one of us is on the Fool’s journey if we’re talking about the Tarot.

So however we choose to walk it, it’s our own decision and our own choices and what the choices that you or I might make might not be the right ones for somebody else. So I think that’s a good way to find some pluralism. And I think the best thing that people can do when you talk about polarization is the polarization of the mind too much, too little.

You know what I like, what I don’t like, I want this, what I want. That expectations come from all those polarizing thoughts and to not expect anything of anyone and just see them as the light that you are and that I am. I think that’s the basis where we really start to understand each other.

✨ Letting Go to Find True Spirituality

Grace: When you talk about expectation, what are some of the, I almost want to call it like dangers, but maybe like disappointments behind expectations and are expectations created to serve the ego?

Rob: Yeah. And we talk about the ego and I don’t wanna say too much bad things about the ego ’cause the ego serves its purpose. The ego always gets its garland somewhere, you know, like the ego causes us to do a lot of things that can be, you know, there, I’m sure there was egoic purposes for me to paint the Tarot in some point and for artists to express themselves. But the point is you don’t wanna have the ego driving the car.

Maybe make ’em a passenger or stop by and say, hi, move along. But as far as expectations, expectations are really dangerous. Like the first thing I had to learn to ever make any kind of progress in any kind of understanding of any spiritual concept was that I needed to destroy what I thought spirituality was.

All the things that I thought would make someone spiritual, I had to throw right out the window. When you start to gain like a mature understanding of like, what makes my life spiritualized or charged and what makes the path I wanna walk, what gives that merit? You need to like throw a lot of the preconceived concepts that you might have had.

Out the window to get anywhere because if not, you’re gonna be comparing everything, this teacher’s better than this teacher. This retreat’s better than that retreat. This Tarot is better than that Tarot. This kind of meditation’s better than that meditation. This magic’s better than that magic. And it’s like it’s all magic.

And the magic that someone practices might be, might not fit their, the magic that I practice. They might not be compatible in each other’s lives. But, you know, you’re still trying to find an understanding of what the true self might be through the practice of ritual or breath or meditation or all those things.

✨ Finding Wonder in Every Moment

Grace: So how do you find magic in moments in your life?

Rob: I try. My goal is to find that that every moment is magical. Each moment is a gift, and that doesn’t always work that way. There’s a lot of times where I’m dismayed, confused, bummed out about things, you know, maybe anxious about the way things are going in the world.

But every morning, every moment, every day that I wake up is a gift. And when you start to kind of appreciate what you’ve been given and all the opportunities that you’ve had, and all this stuff that’s able to be learned and to be studied and to connect with, like all the, to me that’s the magic is constantly there.

We’re kind of like peeling away the layers so we’re able to see it.

✨ Embracing Change as Transformation

Grace: Yeah. And I know for a lot of people when they pull the Tower card, that does not seem like a blessing. It seems like something scary is gonna happen. People are like falling off the Tower, they’re like lightning bolts. And I don’t think people like change, but I feel like one of the main messages from the Tower card is that change is coming and for anyone that you know that struggles with change. What would you say to them?

Rob: I think it’s important to identify your goal. Say you wanna have a reading, a Tarot reading, and what’s bringing you to that reading? It’s usually that you need a change in your life or a change of perspective, but in order to experience that change, you have to wanna make a change.

And changing the mind is a huge gift to give yourself, to be able to do that. And to be able to be like, oh, maybe I was wrong, or, oh, maybe this is a better way of doing things. Like a change is everything’s constantly changing, you know? It’s always changing, but we as the self, we stay. We stay rooted in the self.

So that’s what the beauty of like, if you’re able to work through the change and still find your core, your center, and your strength and your determination to find the true self. I think that change can be a great ambassador to living a very interesting and beautiful and like a dynamic lifestyle that is filled with a bun with a lot of improvisation, which I love, you know? Each day, not the same day. Like you have the opportunity to change each moment.

Grace: Yeah.

✨ Finding My Voice in the Cards

Grace: So you mentioned having an adversarial relationship with the Tarot at first, and what brought you to, I suppose, come to peace with it or come to terms with it or, you know, you kind of mentioned that it was really challenging during that time period when you were creating your Tarot deck. Were there any Tower moments or were there any changes that had to happen to your thinking?

Rob: Yeah. I mean, I feel like the whole thing was the Tower the whole time. I had to build it and then knock it down for it to work. For me, when I became like friendly with the, when I started to communicate with the Tarot, when I started paying attention, what it was telling me. And I started talking back to it through the paintings and stuff like that.

When I found a voice, my own voice in the Tarot, I think that’s what definitely made it a change towards a more of a positive thing. But, I think the biggest part was I was afraid of just the sheer number of the amount of paintings. Most of the time I’m painting like three or four times a week.

And just knowing that I was going to be doing that many of one thing. For a long time, and then I didn’t wanna stray from, it was intimidating to me. So once I got over and started to find, at first it became almost like it was daunting but then it became like a great opportunity and I enjoyed doing it.

✨ Tattoos as Tower Moments

Grace: As a tattoo artist, I suppose in a lot of ways for people it can be very spiritual when they’re getting a tattoo. And since it has so much significance in their lives, what do you think happens when people wanna get that tattoo removed and what it means for that next phase in their lives? Is that kind of like a Tower moment also?

Rob: I think so. I think, well, I think the one thing is no matter how much you lighten or remove the tattoo, it. The experience of the tattoo is always gonna be there. You’re always gonna remember that you got it. And maybe that there’s regret for me. Would I have done things differently with my personal collection of tattoos or what I’ve done in my career as a tattooer?

Probably, but I don’t regret any of it. It got me to this point right now, and I think you learn that too. And even removing it, it’s painful and it’s expensive. I think it, it might at least give you a chance to reflect on like what you’ve done. Oh, maybe that was a rash decision. Maybe that wasn’t for me.

Maybe I thought I knew something. You know, who knows why someone might get something covered up. You know, where they are in their lives or what realization they’ve come to. That makes ’em want to get rid of it, but I’m sure that with the same tenacity as they got that tattoo, they’re trying to get rid of it.

And that’s something to investigate within yourself.

✨ Finding Stillness in the Storm

Grace: What do you think of the saying, order in chaos?

Rob: I think it makes a lot of sense. I think every moment that we’re living outside of this present moment is completely and utterly chaotic. And that’s when you get to confusion, when you start thinking too far ahead or too far back, maybe I should have done this. What’s gonna happen this day? I don’t know what’s going, like all these things.

I think when you start to work yourself up into the fervor that is life, I think that’s the chaos. When you can find order in that, and you’re just determined to stay on the course and figure this shit out. I think that’s where that balance comes. And I think that’s really important to see.

There’s the image of a Cali standing on top of Shiva, Shiva’s looking up at her. She was going crazy on the battlefield, killing all these demons.

And Shiva laid down before her and she stood on him. And when she stood on him, that’s when she stopped that only pure consciousness can stop the dance. And the dance is chaos. You know everything. Penn Station, trains coming in, trains going out, cars going this way, cars going that way, airplanes, politics, war, television, everything you know, EVERYTHING. The entire universe is happening all at the same time, every which way. But the true self remains, and I think that’s the order in the chaos.

✨ The Tower Falls, The Star Rises

Grace: Do you feel like collectively we are going through a Tower moment?

Rob: A hundred percent. I think we’ve been going through a Tower moment. I thought the Tower was 2012. And I feel like we’re in like a slow motion fall into what hopefully will be the next age where we can rebuild and like not build the cancer back into our society and what we share with one another.

Grace: Yeah, it reminds me of that saying after the Tower comes the star and there is the age of Aquarius, and the Star Tarot card is related to the Aquarius Zodiac sign.

So do you feel like with this Tower moment that’s happening collectively that it’s preparing us to move into more of an Aquarian age,

Rob: I think as a collective, yes. I think personally we go through the Tower moments throughout the course of our days, the course of our lives, course of important periods that happen in our lives.

Like I feel like we go, we live through all of them. So I do believe, like personally, we all experience it at different times, but as a collective, I think we are in a Tower moment for sure. What else tells me that we’re not, it’s like all the evidence is there, things are, all the old ways are falling apart. All the new ways are kind of weird and people aren’t really taking to them that well either.

So I think like, yeah, I think what we built has become, needs to be reevaluated and I think maybe built more sterily the next time around.

✨ Spiritual Technology

Grace: Yeah, there seems to be this like push and pull in the collective where people are like wanting something new. But then there’s some people really clinging to the old as well. So I feel like through resistance and through this, friction can come maybe a new way of being, or it creates a spark, like when you rub two sticks together and then it creates a spark in some way.

And you know, when we create elements together or when we combine elements together, we create maybe a spark or fire to create something new. And you mentioned spiritual technology when I was reading through your book and incorporating some of that into your deck. So how would you define spiritual technology and in what ways did you incorporate it?

Rob: Well, I think to go back a little bit from what you said, definitely everything is born out of a agitation.

Everything is born out of friction. The spark, two things rubbing together. That’s how we all got here, colliding skeletons. This is the way things are born.

So yeah, I think when they’re churning the ocean of existence to make the nectar of immortality, the demons were pulling one way, the gods were pulling another, and that was making the friction.

The first thing that came out of that before the nectar of immortality, it was poison. Was the first thing that was that came from it. So I think we have to go through the friction, go through the fire before we receive the light.

As far as spiritual technology, I think spiritual technology is the science of self re realization. I think it’s the scientific approach to spirituality. It’s not dogma. It’s not a ritual, it’s understanding the breath. It’s the understanding, the balance in life. It’s understanding the becoming a yolk, which is the root of yuga to yolk to the divine, you know? And I think that’s the spiritual technology that I was speaking of, or the scientific approach to one’s own spirituality.

✨ When Transformation Strikes

Grace: You describe the Tower as the highest psychic understanding and spiritual value. Why is that?

Rob: I think it’s what we talked about earlier. It’s the removing of the head. I was in the Met yesterday at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and I was seeing like all these headless. Statues, and that’s not even chinamasa.

The Greeks too. All the gods would destroy the demons. And I think really what that equates to is your daily practice, your personal practice. The things that you do to ground yourself and to become connected with the divine is the way to destroy thoughts. Because your ego will talk you out of doing all those things.

Oh, I don’t wanna meditate. I could just lay on the couch or I wanna watch TV. It challenges you and there’s a lethargy that you have to work through. And I think the Tower is that lightning bolt that comes outta nowhere that strikes you where you’re like. Wow, I need to change. Wow, this needs to happen.

It’s the urgency, the immediacy in the path that I follow. The deities that are called Ugra, which are the wrathful deities, they work a lot quicker. So if you do these practices, these suddenness to these wrathful deities, you’ll get faster results. But they might not be the results that you want. And I think that happens in the Tower too.

One might want change, but when faced with the action of change, you might be resistant. As you were saying earlier, like a lot of people don’t want change even though they think they do.

✨ Embracing Life’s Knockdowns

Grace: Yeah. So sometimes when we look back. On our personal histories, we can look at those moments as blessings in disguise.

So I’m wondering if you’ve had any Tower moments that have become blessings in disguises for you?

Rob: Yeah. If I zoom out my entire life, when I thought I was like kind of suffering or kind of in like a victim mode where why is this happening to me, bad things are happening around me. I look back and I was like, those were all mild markers and signals to where I needed to go, whether I paid attention or not, could be argued, or it could be reevaluated, but it got me from here to there.

So I’ve made a lot of bad decisions and have followed a lot of threads where you eventually learn like this is a waste of my time. So I think, yeah, I’ve had a lot of personal ones, but I like to zoom out as my whole life, and I think that was a very Tower moment, and every time I thought I kind of had something figured out, it had to be knocked down to start over, and each time it tempers a little bit.

Tempers the soul a little bit, and you become a lot less attached. After the Tower’s been knocked out, you don’t get so attached to the Tower anymore ’cause you know it’s eventually gonna fall and you’re gonna have to rebuild it again anyhow.

✨ Finding Strength in Determination

Grace: Yeah, it’s certainly a very humbling experience to experience a Tower moment where everything seems like it’s crumbling down, or perhaps you can become attached to an idea of yourself.

Versus the reality of what it’s actually like to live out that dream reality. And I think something coming through lately, for me anyway, is the word faith. Having faith that something will work out even if you can’t see the outcome just yet. Or having the faith to know that everything’s gonna be okay, even if there’s no proof of that actually happening.

And so are there any moments where you’ve had to call on your faith? To get you through those Tower moments or times that have challenged you?

Rob: Yeah, each and every day I’ve had to call on my faith just to continue my practice. What am I doing here? While I’m sitting on the floor for hours and hours, chanting these mantras and not my native language.

Learning a different language to do it, making the effort to do it. It all comes into play. And it’s funny ’cause I try to replace the, and faith is very important and I’m not, I don’t wanna discredit faith. I think it’s really beautiful. I really love the idea of faith. I love that people don’t need proof. I don’t need proof. I know that I’m surrounded by divinity and I wanna connect with it as much as I can. I love that.

But for me, I tend to replace faith more with determination. And that, that, to me, that’s really important to be determined and not give up. And by having a goal, I think it’s important for people that have any kind of practice or are doing any kind of inner work, that they have some sort of goal so they know why they’re doing what they’re doing.

I think it makes the experience a lot more rich. It can be very dry if you don’t have a goal, ’cause you’re just going through the motions.

✨ Will and Surrender

Grace: Yeah. And I feel like with goals, it’s a lot of conscious willpower where you’re actively making steps towards creating goals for yourself and reaching those goals.

And I feel like a lot of spiritual technology or a lot of ways that people want to see proof of their spiritual practices is in some form or fashion manifestation, where if you do these type of things, like whether it’s meditation or visualization, something physical, intangible will appear in your life in some way that will benefit you.

And I feel like in some ways we as humans need some sort of proof to help us understand and know that the universe is lending us a hand or have our spiritual team like watching out for our wellbeing and all of that. So what would you say is the balance between conscious. Willpower versus unconscious surrender because I feel like a lot of manifestation, you are setting a goal, but there’s also this surrendering that’s happening. When you’re manifesting.

Rob: It’s very well put. I think it has to bear fruit for you. You’re not gonna attend the garden if the flowers aren’t coming up. If you keep watering and watering and you keep weeding and tilling and nothing’s happening, you’re gonna give up on the garden. But when you get a glimpse of just that first little seedling come up from the ground, that’s all the inspiration you need to know that your garden could be in full bloom at some point in your life.

And I think that’s really like, I think you get breadcrumbs along the way. And that definitely supports our faith. It supports our determination, it supports our journey. And I think that’s what, how the Tarot is so cool ’cause like as the Fool meets the Magician and then meets the emperors and the Emperor and all these are little clues like keep going, keep going, keep going.

Then you get the Sun and then you wind up with the World. You can go from the Fool getting bit on the butt by his dog to having the entire world, the celestial dance of the world. So just from the first step has the potential for the ultimate reality. Every step has the creative potential for the ultimate reality.

✨ Overcoming the Fear of Imperfection

Grace: Yeah, I love that. I feel like we’re always consciously or unconsciously manifesting. And every moment is a creation of sorts, even if we’re not necessarily doing something. And I think a lot of the Tower, like you mentioned, how sometimes delivers us moments where we’re not necessarily asking for it.

We’re like, please don’t do that. Like why did this happen? And et cetera, et cetera. And I feel like we’re always creating. I’m wondering, as artists and creatives for people who are naturally creative at heart, what would you say to anybody who may be really hard on themselves in their creative process or may doubt their abilities as natural creators?

Rob: Uh, that’s a great question. What person that’s created something hasn’t doubted themselves, it’s part of the experience, but never be too hard on yourself. Don’t be too hard on yourself, but be hard on yourself. Like there’s not much sunlight between self conceit and self deprecation. Self deprecation can be just as egoic as self conceit, and that’s it.

Actually in the Devi Mahatmyam, which is one of the scriptures that I study. Durga kills those two demons. They’re a pair of demons that come together. Self conceit and self-deprecation, and self-deprecation could be one of the most demonic forces, especially a creative person’s life. Not that imposter syndrome, not thinking you’re good enough, of course you’re good enough, you wouldn’t be doing it you weren’t.

And who are you measuring it by? Who needs to be pleased? The most is your yourself. So don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s so sad to me when I see creative people just agonize over it. Of course, you want it to be the best you can. Who doesn’t want that? But like not knowing how the food gets made is some of the magic too.

Every person has to pull their creative process out of the fire at some point, and I think that’s part of the beauty of it. Of course it is. You know, there’s always folly, a Fool. He is tripping through the world and I think that’s important to remember that we’re all fools. And to be a Fool for this world is a blessed thing.

✨ Anger as a Catalyst for Change

Grace: Yeah. And I tend to associate the Tower card with creation, liberation, destruction, but also anger. Like there’s just this energy of anger that comes from the Tower card. And I feel like a lot of people might be fearful of anger or becoming angry, or maybe not in today’s climate, but. I do feel like anger is one of those catalysts that then can create change, because if you’re angry about something, then you actually wanna get up and do something about it.

Rob: It could be a huge motivation, and anger doesn’t necessarily mean hatred. Anger could just be like, you know, anger is a reaction. It’s barely even an emotion. You know what I mean? Sadness, of course, is something different, but anger could be like the, uh, ultimate motivating force just as inspiration and happiness and it’s two sides of the same coin.

✨ Seeking Recognition vs. Staying True

Grace: Yeah. Let’s say we have an artist who’s super hard on themselves and they’re angry that they’re not getting anywhere. You know, they’re putting their work out there, but it’s not being seen. So in that scenario, what would be like. A way to approach that anger in a healthy way versus an unhealthy way.

Rob: I think a good way to begin is like, are you pleased with the work you’re making?

And if you are, continue and don’t be attached to the fruits. Be attached to the root of what brought you to this creative moment, and who cares if it resonates with people. Something in you, that inner voice moved you to make this thing. And if you’ve created. Mission accomplished after that, however, it’s received.

It’s outta your hands. Once it’s created, it’s outta your hands. And if we start to look at things that way, it takes a lot of the pressure off the creative person and it takes a lot of the Judgement off of yourself and judging others ’cause you’re not gonna compare yourself to other people.

And I think that’s where you get a lot of expectations of just all other kinds of nonsensical time wasters and kind of these like creative pacmen that just dissolve all your energy.

✨ Making Art for Love, Not Likes

Grace: Yeah. I like how you mentioned that it’s about the root of why you’re doing something, which I feel like has a lot to do with intentions and you know, while you’re doing something.

So for example, if the maybe hidden intention is that you really want. People to really like it. And maybe you’re valuing your worth on people’s reactions to your art. That could be really quickly dehumanizing in some ways, because then you’re placing your expectation of your worth, of your art based on how other people are perceiving it.

And although we do live in a world where that is important because you. You then want people to buy your art. I do feel like it becomes paralyzing real quick if you then place all your value in that kind of expectation or attachment to the outcome.

Rob: Yeah. I think if you’re a creative person and the motivating force is validation, you’re never gonna be happy and you’re never gonna be satisfied.

Being creative should be a gift enough. The fact that you can be creative, that you can make something, should be a gift enough for you, and then if you do it with love. You’re not gonna care what people think of it. You’re just gonna keep doing it. I think if you’re motivated to gain followers or gain fame or even money, none of those things are bad and you can get all those things.

But if that’s the motivating force, it’s gonna shine through your work and people probably won’t resonate with it that well. You’re probably not gonna attract the type of people that you want to enjoy your stuff. I’m sure many people think about intention and the intention of why you make something or what’s bringing you to be creative.

And I think it, it is an important thing to consider.

✨ Fast Five Questions

Grace: Yeah, definitely. So let’s wrap up this interview by moving into the fast five questions. What is your Sun, Moon and Rising Sign?

Rob: Oh, geez. I’m on the Cusp of Aries and Pisces. So that’s always been at, leaves me in this kind of like hangman state where it’s like the first and last sign of the Zodiac, you know, of our Zodiac.

But then I have all this Vedic stuff that I follow too. So it’s confusing for me. So that’s a hard one. So I’m gonna pass.

Grace: Well, if it helps, I’m an early Aries, so I consider myself to be on that Aries Pisces as well. But then when I look at my Vedic astrology chart, all my signs change. So.

Rob: Yeah, me too. That’s what adds the confusion for me, but I leave it up to them.

When are you Aries? Are you a March Aries.

Grace: I am a March Aries.

Rob: So am I. It’s something that I’ve coped with my whole life learning to accept being an Aries, I feel like I’m almost like a poser Pisces, you know? I try to like front as a Pisces, but I’m really Aries and as I’ve gotten older, gotten a lot better at embracing it.

Grace: Yeah. Yeah, same. I feel like earlier in my childhood I resonated more as a Pisces and my Vedic sign would be like a Pisces Sun, but also in Western astrology, my Moon Sign is Pisces. So there’s a lot of Pisces energy going on regardless. But totally agree that I also feel like I grew more into my Aries sign.

Like it wasn’t a natural thing, it’s just something as I became an adult I just grew into.

Rob: Yeah. Which is awesome ’cause the stars are fixed. But we’re not, and we can grow into our signs and I love that about it, you know?

Grace: Yeah. So what advice would you give to your younger self?

Rob: Stay focused. Don’t get distracted.

I’ve learned to focus a lot later in life. It would’ve saved me so much if you would’ve just listened to your heart and stayed focused and not got distracted.

Grace: Yeah. How would you define everyday magic?

Rob: The instantaneous interaction with every single person that you meet, every exchange can be magical if you really look into it and see that.

There is an energetic exchange happening at every moment.

Grace: Oh, I love that. What are your favorite rituals?

Rob: My favorite one is actually right behind me, the bathing of the Shiva Lingam, which is called Shiva Lingam Abhishekam. So it’s the bathing of the Shiva Lingam with different powders and offering of different flowers and incense and food and things like that, and the lingam is unmanifested consciousness and worshiping of that consciousness within you.

Grace: What are you looking forward to in the near future?

Rob: Going deeper into my sutra practice, I’m really starting to develop a stronger pursuit of researching the things that I’m learning in my puja and in my mantras and things like that. So going deeper into the practice is what I’m looking forward to.

✨ Collective Reading from the Tarot Tantra Esoterica by Robert Ryan

Grace: Amazing. And we usually end the podcast interview with a collective reading from the guests. So I’m gonna go ahead and pull the Major Arcana cards.

Sorry, I put them in a pile and now I’m like, where? Let’s see, what did I do? Okay.

Rob: For those watching at home, I’ve requested a major reading just because I’m more familiar with those cards, and those are the ones that have the real juice in the painting of them.

Grace: I’m gonna go ahead and shuffle these majors.

Oh, here’s some more. Shuffle. These majors. I’m gonna pull a card. Okay. So, Hmm. We have the Star, which is so funny.

Rob: What a great card. I love that. The Star, she’s found her place in the world. And I love that there’s the bathing, like we had just talked about the bathing of the lingam. There’s something very pure about the bathing underneath the stars.

I think that’s a real cleansing of the soul in that card.

Grace: Yeah. Who is this figure here on the Star card?

Rob: That’s Bhuvaneshwari and she’s the goddess of the universe. She’s the true earth goddess, and she’s born cesarean from Shiva’s navel, and she’s the Shakti of Shiva.

Grace: Wow, amazing. And I will say that a tattoo I got, I would say, I don’t know if you can see this, but I like have to awkwardly shift my arm, but it’s like three stars on my wrist and I got this tattoo about two months ago.

And it was kind of like an unplanned tattoo. It was one of those kind of like tattoo apprentices giving away tattoos. And I was like, I want a tattoo. So this was unplanned. I had originally wanted like a Moon on my finger, but at that time she wasn’t allowed to like give me that tattoo. ’cause she was still a fairly new tattoo artist.

So anyway, this was kind of like a random tattoo that I kind of love because it reminds me of Star Family.

Rob: Yeah. Everything’s written in the stars, you know, our entire lives, not even this life. Millions of lives written in the stars. And when you start paying attention to the stars, so much magic happens in your life and to commemorate it on your bodies, it’s beautiful.

I have stars all over me too. And I love what a great service that you’ve done for this tattoo apprentice because you gave them a opportunity to learn a little bit more, and then you carry that with you for the rest of your life. So what a great exchange, you know? And that all happened under the same stars that our great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandparents were doing their activities under the same stars.

And I love the idea of just finding your, that you found your place under the Stars is such a beautiful card.

Grace: You have stars behind you too.

Rob: I do. Yeah.

Grace: Yeah. And what I thought was so funny about this card is the saying after the Tower comes the Star. And so, quite literally, if you happen to be listening to this episode and the Star episode is out. But you know, pulling it back into this moment right here, what I’m saying is I feel like there’s hope. So for anybody that might be experiencing a Tower moment and they’re like, oh my God, it feels like everything’s falling apart. Why is this happening to me? There’s so much chaos, there’s hope and have faith that everything will work out.

Maybe not in the way that you had envisioned it originally, but. I do feel like things tend to happen for a reason. Maybe there’s a lesson in there to learn. Maybe there’s something that’s unfolding for you in that moment, but believe in the magic. Believe in the order that comes from chaos. You know, believe in yourself, most of all.

And I think that when it comes to star power emanating the power of this card is to believe in your star power. You know, to believe in the ability you have in transforming situations. Into something else, which is alchemy, but also to come back to the moments of the star where it has a lot to do with following your own North Star.

So maybe the advice of other people are just not working anymore, and maybe it’s time to listen to yourself.

Rob: Yeah. And also I think it, it’s a point where you’ve passed through this heavy experiences. You’ve reached death, you’ve reached the Devil, and you’ve reached the Tower. And now is the baptismal.

You’re cleansing yourself of this powerful experience of life. All these dangers and trepidations and doubts and fears and attachments and un attachments, and all the things that, all the change that happened. Then you baptize yourself, and then what are you ready for? The Moon, the Sun, and the World, you’re ready to embrace the beauty that this world has to offer, but you must become clean through that card.

I think that’s amazing.

✨ Closing Statements

Grace: Yeah. Super cool. Well, thank you so much, Robert. This was such a pleasure.

Rob: Thank you so much. This is a great conversation. Thank you for having me.

I guess you’ll be able to tell the people where they can get the deck if they’re interested.

Grace: Yeah. Why don’t you tell us?

Rob: The guidebook in the deck is carried through the publishers Raking Light Projects, and you can search them out online.

They’re great curators of so many wonderful artists and I’m so honored to be a part of that crew and that team. I’ve done quite a few works with them and Andrew who runs Raking Light is very supportive of arts and has really curated a large family of amazing visual artists, great prints and publications and stuff like that so that you can get it through them, Raking Light Projects.

✨ End of Episode – Make Sure to Leave a Podcast Review!

Grace: Thanks so much for tuning in to today’s episode with Rob Ryan. This conversation was electric, deep, raw, and a true reflection of Tower energy. Rob reminded us that collapse often comes with clarity. And that chaos can be a sacred invitation to rebuild from truth.

Here’s a journaling prompt. Now that you’ve listened to this episode, what have you had to let go of in order to grow? What Tower moments have changed the course of your life?

Feel free to share your reflections in a Spotify comment, Apple Podcast review, or on YouTube as a comment. I love hearing your stories and as a reminder, we will be doing a giveaway of Rob’s deck, Tarot Esoterica over on Instagram, YouTube, and all of the socials, so make sure to check that out.

Until next time.

Give yourself space to breathe and rebuild. If you are moving through big shifts, you’ve got this. Sending you Grace today and every day.

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