Assume the Juxtaposition!

Much of Tarot's dramatic ability to generate new insights stems from how the cards force you to think of something familiar (like your problem) in unfamiliar or unexpected ways (suggested by the numbers, keywords, symbols, or illustrations on the card).

This week, why not let Tarot's remarkable random energy spill over into other areas of your life? The goal is to do something outside your comfort zone ... to try something new ... to deliberately confront the unexpected. Alter your perspective (and boost your creativity!) by trying these twenty-two 'less traveled roads' inspired by the twenty-two Major Arcana cards of the Tarot:

The Fool: Spend the afternoon with a dog from the local animal shelter.

Magician: Learn a simple magic trick. Show it to four friends ... and four strangers.

Priestess: Attend a service or class at a church, synagogue, or temple other than your own.

Empress: Resolve to eat only those desserts you make yourself, from scratch, for a month.

Emperor: Set a productivity goal you think will be impossible to beat -- and try to exceed it.

Hierophant: Try starting and ending each day with five minutes of prayer or meditation for a week.

Lovers: Write down six different aspects of your life -- hats you wear (painter, office clerk, mom) or things you do (jogging, singing, surfing the web) -- and put them into a bowl. Draw two, and come up with a project that brings these two unrelated areas of your life together. What might happen if you fused your love for singing with your love for painting? Your work as a parent with your love of photography?

Chariot: Drive home by a different route every day for a week.

Justice: Claim to be writing an article, and ask to ride along with your local police one night.

Hermit: Go to a city where no one knows you. Explore the town and interact with the locals -- but don't allow yourself to speak a single word.

Wheel: Celebrate a holiday at the wrong time of year. How might Christmas change for the better if it were celebrated in August?

Strength: Try the 'fifteen minute diet.' You can have whatever it is that you want, as long as you put off having it for just fifteen more minutes.

Hanged Person: Play Monopoly backward, distributing all money and property to every player, and giving it away as you go around the board. The person with the least money left, wins.

Death: See life in a whole new way by pretending, for a day, that you've been allowed to come back and relive a single day from your own existence.

Temperance: Eat odd things, mixed together. Ice cream with wasabi peas, anyone? Peaches and rice? Oreos and peanut butter?

Devil: If your life partner were a total stranger, how would you go about seducing him or her? Now --go do it!

Tower: Buy some Lego, some Lincoln Logs, or blocks -- and spend an hour building something with your hands. (You can break it later, if you like.)

Star: If you home town sold �Maps to the Stars Homes,� what local people would be considered �stars?� Make the map.

Moon: Chart your creative, romantic, and emotional moods for a month, and see the extent to which they fluctuate with the phases of the moon.

Sun: Reverse some element of your schedule, swapping day for night. If you normally buy groceries in the morning, go at midnight. If you normally see a movie in the evenings, go to the matinee.

Judgment: Take a month's worth of classes for an instrument you never dreamed of playing (a horn, maybe?).

World: Take a belly dancing class -- or a course in some other skill you may dismiss as impractical or impulsive.