THRESHOLDS

A Course in Decolonial, Divinatory Literacy.

Taught online via Zoom by Christopher Marmolejo

11 week intensive, Sundays, Starting April 14 2024, 3pm PST, $450 admission

“For me—a writer in the last quarter of the twentieth century, not much more than a hundred years after Emancipation, a writer who is black and a woman— the exercise is very different. My job becomes how to rip that veil drawn over “proceedings too terrible to relate ” The exercise is also critical for any person who is black, or who belongs to any marginalized category, for historically, we were seldom invited to participate in the discourse even when we were its topic” -Toni Morrison

How do you read tarot? How do the cards decolonize the psyche, the self and the querent? How does the tarot as an aesthetic object engage a process of cultural transformation that will ultimately create a revolution in vision? How can tarot take us away from the real only to bring us back with renewed perception? Find the dignity in divination that is denied in dominator culture. 

Thresholds offers a comprehensive tarot education in red reading. This is not an appropriated, aka white-washed new age spirituality. This is a course that moves toward the invention of the decolonized self, as it seeks to set our imaginations free. This course will vivify your tarot cards and your divinatory reading so that your experience within the course, and thereafter your cartomancy can heal the psychic wound inflicted by assault from the forces of imperialist, racist, classist, sexist, domination.

We will work together to enter the subconscious, the dream space, the heart center, the soul spheres via the portals offered in each card. Thresholds teaches tarot as a literacy of the heart and soul. I am committed to both providing a technical proficiency with the structure, varied meanings and uses of the tarot, in reading for self and others, while also using the cards as a tool for critical self-inquiry as a byproduct of a communal process. I offer this course as a humanizing education, through which you become conscious about your presence in the world, to then transform the world.

In the cards find the lost reflections of your love, your strength and resiliency. In the cards confront your fear, your pain, your potential.  Thresholds is a course in threading the disparate cords of consciousness into a rich tapestry of life. This is a course in transformation, magic, manifestation, healing, ritual and decolonization. 

But it is so much more than a course.

It is a classroom, it is a conjuring, a vehicle, an incubator, a threshold through tarot towards transformation. It is a space of emancipatory possibility, designed and facilitated by the love and passion I have for my craft and my community. It is a witches garden in the 3 of cups, and a safe haven in the 3 of pentacles. You will learn tarot differently because this classroom will teach you how to think through the tarot, rather than rely on memorized meanings to spout. Thresholds will catalyze your divinatory relationships because it engages the cards as cyphers for decolonizing consciousness. The cards will be made real as we catalogue the wisdom distilled from our experience with them. Thresholds is for you if you want to create an authentic, organic, empowering and revelatory relationship with SPIRIT through tarot.  It is for you if you are Black, Red, Brown and or White and want to unlearn anti-blackness and deject the internalized white supremacy. It is for you if you want to use tarot as a prothesis to mend the ruptures of colonialism upon our birthright to richly intuitive, animate, multivalent divinatory psychic faculty.

Thresholds reads tarot as a theory of multidimensional freedom, and practices that freedom through queer community building. This course is a space to learn together, to challenge un/conscious conditioning, to be witness to moments of revelation, which such a tarot reading offers.

In this way it is perfect for beginners and seasoned readers alike. This is course is a study in consciousness, it is a movement practice. We spiral in this course. We circle around as the stars and planets do, and as we syncretize the cards with the cosmos we come to understand the soul’s process, to heed celestial cues. It is perfect for astrologer’s who wish to expand their divinatory literacy, while finely braiding the cards into their practice. 

My classroom is distinct also in its engagement of critical consciousness. The cards are neurological pivots, subverting the logical dominance of society and self. The cards are taught as tools to reengage alternative epistemologies assaulted by colonial imperialism. Here tarot is taught as a radical epistemology.  My practice is soul-centered to primarily and powerfully transform the objectified, the oppressed into the self composed of very rich multivalent relationships. Come to explore the potential of reading the soul, discerning the subtle cosmic threads which connect all things. Discover an alternative learning, a transformative tool and experience. It is a course engaged in the ontological and historical vocation of becoming more human, by offering you a mirror to see with more clarity, respect and agency.

Why study with me?

As a queer, brown de-tribalized native from an under-resourced, marginalized community, I came to tarot already transgressing the status quo. Tarot has helped me hone that transgressive power and in Thresholds I teach you to do the same. I bring to it my formal pedagogical training in critical race theory, my experience as an English teacher with a Masters in Education, working with students of all ages. I bring to it my training and education in astrology as well as my experience in private consultations as a professional diviner. I seek not to reform colonial institutions but to create thriving communities outside conventional society.

Transform Collective Consciousness

Read the soul, open your eyes to the numinous, gain a tool for transformation.

Thresholds is medicine for those who are lost, alienated, or who’ve been cast aside. Those who navigate a myriad of attacks upon their selfhood. Those who were born subversive, those on the path of self-determination, persisting because there's no place for self-hood within dominant white culture or white cultural consciousness. It is for astrologers, tarot readers beginning and experienced alike, for yoginis, queer bois, femmes, butch babes. It is for teachers and counselors, writers and readers of all kinds. 

Thresholds is designed for those at the critical edge of life, navigating extreme uncertainty. It’s for those who may or may not realize their embodiment is a resolution of the history of colonial imperialism. Those seeking to learn the tarot from a decolonized, intersectional perspective and apply that perspective into a praxis of liberated self-exploration and renewed self-expression. Thresholds is an experiential guide in transmuting trauma into love. 

It is for those who seek to decolonize, learn tarot, deepen a ritual practice, and strengthen the intuitive channel. This course for anyone who wishes to catalyze an ever more authentic expression within a safe and inclusive community. 

This course seeks to use tarot as a means to transgress internalized oppression, seeking ontological decolonization as its highest aim. By that I mean uplifting the cosmic order possible when we elevate and center the divine, queer, black and brown beings of this earth. Thresholds promises to facilitate radical physical-psychic change in the self of each student, the various worlds in which we exist, and to which we aspire.  

When, Where & How

COURSE SCHEDULE

April 14 - June 30 / Sundays, 3pm pst / $450 admission (payment plans are set up with an additional $50)

Week 0 - Sunday April 14, 3pm, Zoom

• Introductions, Orientations & Entry points - Ritual Relationships, Interpretation Tools, The Fool, Personal Cards

• Reading: Red Tarot: A Decolonial Guide to Divinatory Literacy Introduction, The Red Read

Week 1 - Sunday April 21, 3pm, Zoom

• Lecture:The Magician, The Wheel of Fortune, Pages, Elemental Ace’s

• Seminar: Visual readings, Significators, the Question

• Reading: Red Tarot ‘One” chapter; Speaking in Tongues: A Letter to 3rd World Women Writers, by Gloria Anzaldúa 

Week 2 - Sunday April 28, 3pm, Zoom

• Lecture :The High Priestess, Justice, Judgment, the Hanged One, Elemental Two’s

• Seminar: Magnifiers, Bottom of the Deck, Reversals, Critical Questioning exercise

• Reading: Red Tarot ‘Two” chapter; The Esoteric Meaning of the Twin Pillars Boaz & Joachin / audio of Toni Morrison’s Nobel Lecture in Literature

Week 3 - Sunday May 5, 3pm, Zoom

• Lecture: The Empress, Death, Queens, Elemental Threes

• Seminar: Cards of the Natal Chart/ Decanic organization of the minors.

• Reading: Red Tarot ‘Three” chapter; Learning the Grammar of Animacy, Robin Wall Kimmerer/ The Colonization of Women excerpt by Marie Mies and Vandana Shiva

Week 4 - Sunday May 12, 3pm, Zoom * potential reschedule to Saturday May 11 for Mother’s Day

• Lecture: The Emperor, Temperance, Kings, Elemental Fours

• Seminar: The Four Aces Spread

• Reading: Red Tarot ‘Four” chapter; “the Closet as Myth” Excerpt from De-colonizing Trans/Gender 101 by B. Binaohan

Week 5 - Sunday, May 26, 3pm, Zoom *note a 1 week break from week 4 to 5 due to travel

• Lecture: The Hierophant, The Devil, Elemental Fives

• Seminar: Timing & Tarot, the Structure of a Safe & Powerful Reading

• Reading: Red Tarot ‘Five” chapter; The Wounded Word: The Phenomenology of Prayer by Jean-Louis Chrétien

Week 6 - Sunday, June 2, 3pm, Zoom

• Lecture: The Lovers, the Tower, Elemental Sixes

• Seminar: Lauren’s Love Spread

• Reading: Red Tarot ‘Six” chapter;  World Traveling and Loving Perception by María Lugones
  “Remaking Human Being: Loving Kaleidoscopic Consciousness in Helena Maria Viramontes’ Their Dogs Came with Them” By Paula M.L. Moya

Week 7 - Sunday, June 9, 3pm, Zoom

• Lecture: The Chariot, The Star, Kings, Elemental Sevens

• Seminar: Star Guides Series & Shadow Keys part 1*

• Reading: Red Tarot ‘Seven” chapter; Toward a Pedagogy of Acompañamiento: Mexican Migrant Youth Writing from the Underside of Modernity by Enrique Sepulveda III

Week 8 - Sunday, June 16, 3pm, Zoom * potential reschedule to Saturday June 15 for Father’s Day

• Lecture: Strength, The Moon, Elemental Eights

• Seminar: Star Guides & Shadow keys part 2*

• Reading: Red Tarot ‘Eight” chapter; Bi bell: Spirituality and the Sexual Intellectual

Week 9 - Sunday, June 23, 3pm, Zoom

• Lecture: The Hermit, The Sun, Elemental Nines

• Seminar: Star Guides & Shadow Keys part 3*

• Reading: Red Tarot ‘Nine” chapter;  Audre Lorde: Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power

Week 10 - Sunday, June 30, 3pm, Zoom

• Lecture: The World, The Fool review, Elemental Tens

• Seminar: Collective Threshold Reading

• Reading: Red Tarot ‘Ten” chapter

What this course covers:

Behind each card is an integrated analysis weaving together: 

• The cards as signposts for the stages of the souls journey

• Astrology behind each card, including Decan association for minors

• Timing and tarot

• Shadow keys for the cards

• The structure of an ethical, comprehensive reading

• Personal cards / signifiers

• Clarifying cards

• Reversals

• Herbal associations

• Journal prompts

• Psychology

• Multicultural mythology

• Numerology

• Queer, black eco-feminist text application and recommendation 

• Ritual recommendations

• Unique spreads for each week

As my style of teaching is socratic and dialogic, I will be the psychopomp facilitating our soul journey in our time together. Live classes are focused on application and skill development in reading. In the live class we cover special subjects as timing and tarot, the cards of the chart, reversals, shadow work and more! This time is for digging deeper into the week's material, sharing perspectives, conducting group readings and sharing space.

In class we will establish a ritual space, and together will cross the thresholds, learning what it means to transform in community. 

Course Structure

• There are pre-recorded modules covering every single card in the tarot via a numerological grouping / teaching/ understanding. The prep material includes 11 workbooks with journal prompts, herbal associations, decanic associations and unique spreads.

• Also included are critical texts, podcasts, and resources for each week to deepen the reading of each tarot archetype. Please purchase my new book Red Tarot: A Decolonial Guide to Divinatory Literacy in text &/ or audio form for the full experience and lesson in red reading.

• There are a total of 11 live video classes, each around 2.5 -3 hours, which are now provided as transcriptions as well! These classes are workshops where we apply tarot techniques, read group spreads, Q&A and build community. In the live calls you get personalized feedback to develop your relationship with the tarot, and your competency as a reader.

• You’ll have life-time access to this material, allowing students to participate at their own pace, or follow the guided structure of the live sessions.

• The standard edition has over 50 hours of live/ recorded content available for lifetime access.

• The live classes are recorded and archived for your benefit. *Please note times may be subject to change to accommodate the various time zones of students.*

• Keep building community by getting access to a private Discord server for the class, which offers student recommendations, resources, insights and live interaction.

• All material and a recording of your cohort’s live classes are yours to keep forever!

FAQ

When are the live meetings? What if I can’t make them live or I miss one?

Our first live class will be April 14th at 3:00 pm PST.

*Please note times may be subject to change to accommodate the various time zones of students.*

Classes will be recorded in case you ever can’t make a class!

How long do I have access to all of the course content?

Forever! You’ll have 24/7 access to all course content as it’s released and a copy of your live cohort!

How do I set up a payment plan?

Payment plans are available!

(scroll below to sign up)

Feel free to email with any other questions you may have about this course.

Do I need to download or buy anything?

You will need to download and install Zoom to participate in our classes. I highly recommend purchasing Red Tarot: A Decolonial Guide to Divinatory Literacy to accompany your learning experience. (students will get a discount code for the book after enrolling) The only other thing needed is your own tarot deck of course! Let me know if you need any recommendations, or feel free to check out my blog to see the variety of decks I work with regularly. No other material or experience is required for the course!

Could you recommend any specific tarot decks?

Well first, any one that calls to you! But here’s a list of some of my favorites:

Mahogany Tarot 

Smith-Waite Deck, Centennial Edition

Afro-Avatar Tarot

Tarot Yohualli Ehécatl

Pagan Otherworlds Tarot 

Botan Tarot

Star Spinner Tarot

Terra Volatile Tarot

I know a good amount of Tarot, is the course too beginner for me?

Absolutely not! My experience as an English teacher has taught to me craft the course to be accessible for beginners and experienced readers alike. Though, I promise you’ve never seen an integrated intersectional teaching of tarot like Thresholds offers.

I don’t know much Tarot at all! Will this course be too advanced for me?

This course is designed for you! If you’ve always wanted to learn tarot but have trouble learning from “the little white book” then this course will give you a comprehensive understanding to all Tarot has to offer.

This is an opportunity of a lifetime

In my commitment to providing accessible and equitable work, I encourage people experiencing financial hardship and/or systemic marginalization to reach our for limited scholarships.

This work supports Queer Brown & Indigenous intellectual labor, teaching and being. I am a nonbinary independent educator working against capitalism devaluation and exploitation. Consider this an investment into your intuition, into your overall well-being within the safe container of community. I have invested my Spirit, education, and experience into this course and welcome your wholistic investment as well. Committing to this offering is to accept invitation to a field and frequency of devotion, right relations and revelation.

Gift This Course

Know a soul who would appreciate and benefit from this course? Gifting this course is another form of investment into direct communal abundance! The easiest way to gift this course is to sign up with the recipient’s name and email, and complete the purchase using your payment information. Please feel free to email me if you have any questions about this process.

You can also donate to support this work below!:

Ready to cross the Threshold?

COMBINED, ACCESSIBLE STUDY

Committing to this offering is to accept invitation to a field and frequency of devotion, right relations and revelation. Payments can be processed on automatic monthly basis once you sign up, or in-full upfront for discount.

Thresholds - in-full upfront, discounted Tuition: $450 ($50 discounted for upfront investment). (scheduling block to the right / below)

Payment Plans: Four payments of $125 (totaling $500 tuition) (the first being the enrollment month). (scheduling block to the left /above, make sure to use code after setting up payment plan to then enroll in the Thresholds course) Please reach out if you have any questions!

**You will receive a code / link in the payment plan confirmation email that you will then use to enroll in THRESHOLDS. Make sure to finish enrolling, with this code, after setting up a payment plan**

Rather do Some solo Seeking?

No matter if live enrollment is open, you can always do some solo seeking with this stand-alone option. This is a bundle deal with the lectures, lecture transcripts slides, herbal associations, prompts and spreads from THRESHOLDS offered at a discounted rate. Available for immediate access upon purchase. You can also purchase individual lessons from each week of Thresholds via the workshop page here.