The Starry Camino
TENZ Open For Enrollment
“What are these celestial expressions and words? The words are the stars, the expressions are their composition, their order, their harmony, and their course. Consider how the way of preaching in the heavens is in accord with the style that Christ taught on earth. In both cases, it is a matter of sowing: the earth sown with wheat, the sky sown with stars. One must preach is if one were sowing, not as if one were paving or tilling. Ordered, but like the stars: Stellae manentes in ordine suo. All the stars are in order, but it is an order that inspires, not a laborious order. God did not make the heavens in the form of a checkerboard of stars, as preachers make a sermon a checkerboard of words.” - António Vieira
Tarot is a circuit of sacred motion, or at least it can be. A circuit is a multipronged and multisensorial field. It links nodes that would seem separate otherwise, and every card is a nodal point. Those who study the stars recognize in the tarot a mirror for the celestial map. Cards can carry the cosmos, all the more when that immanent meaning is made explicit in consciousness. Tarot then becomes a movement practice, way of walking, a way of documenting how the practitioner imagines, processes and transmogrifies their journey within and without.
Cartomancy becomes a cartography to map Black Latinx strategies of survival, resistance and ritual. All the more necessary for those in a diasporic context. Tarot in transit, as a starry study, becomes a quest. Our fluid immigrant syncretism becomes theory and our card-pulling and star-gazing becomes a practice of collective psychic survival.
Not all, but many tarot readers are also astrologers or at least interested in astrology. The Smith-Waite tarot deck becomes particularly well suited for this intersection because the Golden Dawn, an English magical society of the early 20th century, syncretized the Tarot to astrological signs, planets and decans. These choices saturate the images Pamela Colman Smith created for the iconic Smith-Waite deck and these choices have had massive impact on images that would proliferate onward.
“Decans are 10-degree zodiacal sections of the sky, 10-days intervals of the year, and they have a profound place in magical history. Thought to be dwelling places for spirits, gods and other mysterious figures, they’ve provided inspiration for magical workings for centuries. The images of the decans come from many sources—Egyptian, Hellenistic, Indian, Arabic—and many epochs, dating back as far as 3rd millennium BCE”1
TENZ is a course in decanic tarot, it is a camino. It is an invitation to read and think of tarot as transit, whereby with our personal and shared movement we write, remember, read, and gather all the dimensions of an embodied life. So as we walk together, using these cards as sign posts across an ever-turning celestial map the morphology of the body will change.
And while many may now be familiar with “the decan walk” thanks to the modern practitioners championing this work, embarked upon their own personal chronicling of a year, done decan by decan, the task of TENZ is to gather the insurgent, rebellious and affirmative traditions in Black Latinx queer life, or a faggotology as Carlos Ulises Decena describes. The aim is to touch the Divine through the abject.
In this year-long journey we will re-interpret and extend the historic decanic imagery ( a four-millenia long collection of spirits and symbols) through a modern textual application for the decolonial diviner. Of course we still study that history but we will pursue a path of dignity that is queer in its self-determination.
TENZ teaches decanic tarot as a peripatetic path. It is a borderlands course. Its circuitry aims to fuse relationships by honoring a narrative tradition which creates poetic coherence out of a life of movement and fragmentation, as is the case when modern readers traverse dissociative linguistic, colonial, cultural, psychic and physical borders. Our maps will be different and our methods may differ these cards will be our compass nonetheless.
Each class section divides the minor arcana astrologically to amass observations, insights, personal stories and theories that, in their assembly, task readers to consider a complex divinatory meditation of living socially otherwise. By seeing, hearing, touching the texts (cards, cosmos and curated critical texts accompanying the course), the nodes become narrators for ancient spirits that one could not anticipate or imagine. An ensemble will dwell here. We will gather in excess.
Class Format
March 2025 - March 2026, 3-5 Pm PST
Class Starts March 20th, 2025
The class is cut into 12 zodiacal units, following the cards / decans of the current zodiacal season, which cuts the zodiac down to a finer grain (36 distinct faces versus 12).
Each season consists of a pre-recorded lesson (about 1.5 hours each), and 2 live class (each approx. 2 hours each) to focus on integration and application. The lecture is accompanied by a downloadable presentation, which includes a summarized critical reading of the decans, journal / tarot prompts and tarot spreads for personal inquiry. Also provided are ancient translations of the decans for a well-rounded exploration and learning. There is an additional introductory live lecture on defining and explore decanic history and dignity. This is a primer to start our journey together. In total there are 37 (12 recorded, 25 (!) live) classes here offered.
Live sessions will take place between Thursdays and Fridays, twice a zodiac season, from 3-5 pm PT (though subject to change based upon the collective availability). These will be held via Zoom and are recorded for future reference, and to ensure students who can’t make it live, are kept current. Once enrolled you will gain access to the monthly lectures and presentations, and invitations to live classes, exclusive texts, and a private discord channel. Check out the syllabus and course schedule on the webpage here.
Student Testimonial:
"TENZ, the year-long decanic walk of the minor arcana was insightful, liberating, and healing. The way Christopher teaches tarot and astrology through a queer, feminist, and ecological (to name a few) frameworks is extraordinary. It felt like some of my favorite critical theory classes mixed with spiritual development and group therapy - all things I admire deeply. The synchronicities were really felt throughout this process and Christopher's teachings influenced me to feel the planets' transit(s) or placement(s) in the decans in a much richer way. Along the way, I was able to connect with and learn from others who shared such beautiful, poetic experiences and delineations. This would have only been possible through Christopher's careful curation of textual pairing and witnessing/space-holding despite a virtual setting. I highly recommend working with Christopher whether it be for a reading or a workshop/class and look forward to seeing more of their brilliant work in the future." - Alex H., a recent graduate from TENZ year 1.
This is year 1 of a 2-year stellar program and I only open enrollment for it once every two years. As befits such a limited enrollment period, my cohorts get poured into with love, intention and care and as we build trust we share vulnerably. We open each other and study the contours of each other’s charts. We become accustomed to ritual in our time together and we support each other on this walk through incarnation.
Won’t you walk with me under starlight?
x,
Christopher
p.s. Thresholds is still open for enrollment. We begin Feb 18th and this an excellent foundational 11-week tarot course in decolonial divination.
T. Susan Chang, 36 Secrets: A Decanic Journey through the Minor Arcana of the Tarot, Anima Mundi Press, 2021, x.