Archer Tarot

Long story short: Gone off tarot lately so thought I would start drawing a daily card from the Haindl to try and get back in the swing of things.

Today’s card is XVIII, the Moon:

Unlike many tarot decks in which the Moon is often one of the most beautiful major arcana cards, Haindl’s Moon is quite unsettling. Central to the image is the head of a unicorn, but there is no body; instead, the head appears to grow out of a pillar of stone. And the unicorn’s horn is very large, reminiscent almost of a clown’s hat. Combined, these evoke a twisted image of childhood, as if the unicorn head is some sort of nightmare hobby horse.

The Moon was one of those cards which I never used to draw. Over the last month or so, however, it has come up several times in readings for myself and others. It is clear why*. Like the Wheel of Fortune I wrote about in my last post, the Moon’s pull is affecting my life in a big way at the moment. Everything may seem the same on the surface, but there are strong undercurrents at work - maybe even dangerous undercurrents - that threaten to cast me adrift. (Does all this talk of water sound familiar?)

Funnily enough, today I find myself looking back at a reading I did for someone else in April. In that reading, the Moon appeared in the position of “what you can do”. Its message seems relevant for me today:

“It refers to unfamiliar territory – not just physical territory but also psychological and emotional. It can signal a period of great confusion where each step you take is filled with trepidation. It sounds terrible(!) but it doesn’t have to be. Attitude is very important when this card appears. We humans tend to be creatures of comfort – we like the familiar and the safe, it makes us feel secure. When the Moon appears, and we are called to – or forced to – venture outside our comfort zone, it can be frightening and stressful.

The key here is to decide how you will deal with this uncertainty. Will you tremble and hesitate and let fear and doubt consume you? Or will you (to coin a phrase) “boldly go” where you haven’t been before, trusting that nothing can be as bad as you imagine and that you will be able to deal with whatever you encounter? Basically, in answer to the question “what you can do”, this card tells you to embrace the unknown. Things rarely turn out to be as bad as we fear.”

*Apologies for the veiled references to what’s going on in my life. It is too soon to talk about but all will be revealed in time. I guarantee, however, that when I tell you it won’t be anywhere near as exciting as what you’ve been imagining.

The Wheel of Fortune has always been for me something of an abstraction. I understood what it represented - fate, destiny, changes, things outside our control - but had never really felt the effect of its slow, indifferent movement on my own life. Perhaps I was blind to it, or perhaps I believed that most things - most important things anyway - were all a result of my own efforts. After all, the Wheel of Fortune is the ultimate symbol of fatalism, which is a philosophy I’ve never really put much stock in.

Yet, in this month of April, 2008, at the age of 32, I feel the Wheel of Fortune turning for me for the first time. Suddenly, things are happening in my life which are completely outside my control. Suddenly, I find myself watching my life change before my eyes - slowly, yes, but no less resolutely. The future that I thought lay before me is morphing into something else entirely, like some weird virtual reality special effect.

It’s strange, but it’s not unwelcome. The Wheel of Fortune doesn’t wait for you to be ready for change. It doesn’t always come along at just the right time, when it’s convenient for you, and it doesn’t ask for permission to turn. It just rolls on in, does its thing, flips your life upside down, and rolls on out.

Fortunately for me, I see this particular turn of the Wheel as a blessing. Perhaps another time in my life, the Wheel will bring me nothing but heartache. Or perhaps, no matter in which direction the Wheel turns, it’s simply your attitude that determines whether it brings you good or bad fortune. Things are happening to me, yes, and I have very little say in what’s going on, but I’m not a victim, crushed under the Wheel’s heavy tread. Rather, I’m like a message in a bottle, floating in a sea of uncertainty. I don’t know where I’m going, or even if I’m going anywhere. I may fill with water and sink like a stone. But I float anyway, trusting the waves to take me where they may, if they may.

I quite like it.

I was recently given the Shining Tribe Tarot as a gift. I got a sudden, unexplainable hankering for it after reading The Forest of Souls - no idea why - and a forum friend had a copy they weren’t using so they very generously let me have it. Here are some of my favourite cards so far:

It’s a highly unusual deck. Looking through it, I’d be hard pushed to identify most of the cards if the titles weren’t there. The images are unconventional and in some cases not even that attractive, but they have a naive charm and are chock-a-block full of symbolism. I thought it would be difficult to read with but my first reading went very smoothly. Granted, it’s the only reading I’ve done so far, but it was six cards and it didn’t feel like hard work at all. Strange as it may sound, the images seem to bristle with energy and I read by following the movement of this energy from one card to another - the movement being depicted in lines and spirals and other similar formations. Although there’s a lot of symbolism, it’s very simple, natural symbolism and therefore quite easy to create meaning from it.

Several of the cards have been renamed. In the majors, the Hierophant is named Tradition, the Wheel of Fortune is the Spiral of Fortune, The Hanged Man becomes The Hanged Woman, and Judgement is called Awakening. This card in particular reminded me of the film ‘The Lady in the Water’ which I saw around the same time as I was reading Forest of Souls. If you’ve seen the film, hopefully you’ll know what I mean. I was going to explain it here but it’s quite complicated and I haven’t got the stamina.

The suits have also been renamed, in line with nature and the elements. So Wands are Trees, Cups are called Rivers, Swords are Birds and Pentacles/Coins are Stones.

The court cards are very unusual. In fact, they’re not really court cards at all and Rachel Pollack calls them ‘vision cards’. Instead of Page, Knight, Queen and King (or the usual variations on that theme) they are called Place, Knower, Gift and Speaker. I quite like the method she’s used here. Many people struggle to interpret the court cards in readings and so, by de-personifying them, Pollack has cut straight to the essence of each card. Here’s an explanation in her own words (from the Shining Tribe Tarot book) which I’m sure makes more sense:

“The Vision cards also teach us more directly about the elements than the numbers [numbered minor arcana cards], for their theme is understanding and using the power each element can give to us. … We can interpret them for their separate meanings, but we can also follow them (through such techniques as meditation or guided visualization) to gain the wisdom and gifts of the elements.”

For example, in the reading I did a couple of weeks ago (for someone else), I drew the Place of Trees in the position of “Gift”. I described it as a playground or creative sandbox. Here’s what I wrote:

“This card represents an environment - a state of mind or an actual place - where we feel safe and nurtured and able to grow and play. You have a safe place in which to test many of your ideas, without risk to yourself - as long as you can operate within the given boundaries. Use it to play and experiment.”

I’ve been trying to decide which card I would most like to share with you from the Paulina Tarot and after much deliberation, have settled on the 8 of Wands. Seeing as it won’t be long before the deck is published, it seemed an appropriate choice.

I’ve known about this deck for a while after seeing it on Tarot Dame’s blog (left hand side, scroll down a bit), but it was only last night that I visited Paulina’s site and had a look through all the cards. And I can now safely say, without any hesitation, that this deck is utterly, utterly charming and quite stunning (and on my wishlist, surprise surprise).

My keen detective senses tell me that US Games will be publishing it and that it’s set for release this year, so I won’t have that long to wait. It reminds me of Mary Poppins, but not the film. Years ago I found an old book (pink-striped!) of Mary Poppins stories and they are every bit as whimsical and magical as this deck. (It seems the real Mary Poppins isn’t quite as posh as Julie Andrews would have us believe. Anyway, that has nothing to do with anything.)

If you’d like to keep up with developments and know when the Paulina Tarot is published, you can sign up for Paulina’s mailing list here. Just don’t pinch my copy.

Today I placed my first order with a new supplier for lots of lovely decks to add to the store, including the Mystic Faerie, the Llewellyn Tarot, the Sheridan Douglas, and the Pearls of Wisdom. There’ll also be some old favourites such as the Robin Wood and the Tarot de Paris (both of which I used to stock until my previous supplier decided they couldn’t be bothered any more), as well as a few decks I’d never even heard of until I flicked through the catalogue: Love is in the Earth Crystal Tarot anyone??? (Actually, I just did a search - seems it isn’t that unheard of so it must just be me.)

I’m also getting lots of new books - Tarot for Yourself by Mary Greer and Corinne Kenner’s Simple Fortunetelling with Tarot Cards to name but two - so I will be positively bursting at the seams with new stock. This tarotious bounty should arrive on Monday, so now the fun part’s over (i.e. choosing which decks to order), I’ve got to get cracking on adding it all to the site - the only downside to ordering twenty new items all at once. Well, except paying for it…

Temperance has been coming up in readings quite a bit for me lately. As I was thinking about this earlier today, I realized that I would do well to apply a little Temperance to my life at the moment. No, I’m not hitting the bottle for breakfast, but I am being impatient. I keep fiddling with things, trying to make them yield results, disappointed that nothing happens straight away and then fiddling with them some more. My readings website for example. I’ve changed it yet again this weekend. I like it and I’m glad I changed it, but I only uploaded it on Saturday and already I’m thinking ‘what if I did this, or that?’ (Truth be told, I’ve already fiddled with it twice since it went live. I should be ashamed of myself.)

Temperance teaches the art of patience. Pour water from one jug to another, then pour it back again. Pay attention, be calm. It’s a very zen card. Meanwhile, while you’ve been busy focusing on the jugs of water, the sun has risen behind you. Did you believe that simply pouring water from one jug to another could make the sun rise? Sometimes the smallest movements can have the biggest effect.

(Temperance from the International Icon Tarot.)

Over the last week or so, I’ve been getting re-acquainted with my Morgan-Greer. I can’t remember exactly when I bought it but it’s been a few years and for the first few months that it was in my possession I lived and breathed it. I’m not sure what made me stop but I imagine another deck came along (probably the Druidcraft). Whatever the reason, the upshot is that 20 or so decks later my Morgan-Greer had been relegated to the very back of the drawer.

Which is a crying shame. Not only is the Morgan-Greer a classic deck, it’s also a very beautiful deck. It’s easy to learn, easy to use and easy to read. What’s more - and most important - it’s familiar to me. It’s the comfortable shoes among the impractical heels, summer sandals and heavy winter boots that make up the rest of my tarot collection. It’s my good-old-reliable, which makes it even more of a crime that I had forgotten about it for so long. It was only when I recently compiled the list of My Top Decks of All Time that I realized - or rather, remembered - what a truly great deck it is.

Fortunately, it’s never too late to set things straight. Me and my old friend Morgan have been catching up and we’re having a whale of a time. As it turns out, neither of us has changed that much over the years and we’ve still got all the same things in common. My guess is I won’t be so quick to let us fall out of touch in future.

I’ve learned something valuable this week, which is: It’s okay to scrap a reading and start again if it doesn’t make sense. This is something I didn’t think possible until yesterday. I always believed the cards you drew were the cards you were meant to draw and that was the end of it. Figure them out or abandon all hope ye who shuffle here.

Now I think differently. A tarot reading is like a conversation: you ask a question and receive an answer. Tarot cards are what facilitates communication - they provide the language. I’d say I spoke pretty good tarot, just as I (used to) speak pretty good French. If I didn’t understand something someone said to me in French, I’d ask them to repeat it, or say it slower, or explain it in a different way. I might rephrase my question if I thought that would help. The same goes for tarot. If the first reply you get sounds like gobbledegook, ask again. Change the question - make it more specific, for example. Or change the spread. In one of the readings I gave yesterday, I did both these things - twice! By the third time I shuffled and laid out the cards, I understood.

It sounds like cheating, but it’s not. When I looked back at the cards I’d drawn the first two times, I realized they carried the same general message as the cards I’d interpreted (in fact, some cards repeated themselves from reading to reading). The message was just conveyed a different way - using more complicated language, bigger words. I needed to hear the message explained in a way I could understand. (If you’re thinking that makes me simple you’re probably right, but in my defence simple isn’t necessarily a bad thing.)

Perhaps I should have tried harder; perhaps I was having a bad day. Perhaps I’m not as good a tarot reader as I like to think I am. Or perhaps, as one forum friend put it, the force just wasn’t with me. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t really matter. What’s important is ensuring the lines of communication stay clear so we don’t wind up like teenagers in a horror film - miles from anywhere without phone reception. It never ends well.

I made a startling discovery today. Whilst compiling the list of my personal top decks of all time for a forum topic, I realized only THREE out of the 25 decks I own made the grade. What does this mean? Are all the other decks I own no good? Have the last five years of tarot deck acquisition been wasted? Should I get rid of all my other decks? (Don’t panic - that’s not a serious question.)

It’s possible my standards are too high. When I sat down to make the list, I thought it would consist of 5-7 decks (including the Haindl and the Mythic which are no-brainers). I got my decks out and looked through them. And for almost all of them, I just couldn’t place my hand on my heart and say, Yes, this deck is an all-time favourite, This is a Top Deck.

I am (generally) not a compulsive deck buyer. I think 25 decks over five years shows a moderately restrained approach to deck-buying. I’ve also recently sold several decks which I no longer had feelings for. (Which, okay, means that it’s probably been more like 35 decks over five years, but still…) My point is, I thought nearly all the decks in my collection were top decks. It was quite a shock to find out how few of them I would publicly honour with that title.

So why did I reject so many? Well, here are the ones I considered but didn’t pick:

International Icon
Transformational Tarot
I Naibi di Giovanni Vacchetta
Original Rider Waite
Hoi Polloi

The International Icon is a desperately underrated deck. I think the world needs a deck like this, a neutral deck - unthemed, un-esoteric, devoid of any references to gender, race or belief system. But I don’t read with it often and, unfortunately, I’ve come to associate it with work after spending so long with it during the making of Tarot Stripped Bare. So I can’t honestly say it’s a top deck for me. 

The Transformational Tarot has given me some very good readings over the year or so since I got it. The cards combine well to tell stories. But it’s a very personal deck (personal to its creator, that is) and I find some of the cards difficult to relate to. As a collage deck, it occasionally feels inconsistent to me. Some images are very beautiful whilst others, well…not so much.

The Vacchetta is without doubt a deck of outstanding artistic skill and production quality. It was a thirtieth birthday gift from Hubby so will always be treasured. But I rarely read with it and the non-scenic pips and Marseille-ish structure of the deck mean it doesn’t altogether feel like tarot to me. At least, not the tarot I’m used to.

If I had to choose a RWS, it would be the Original. I prefer the grainy colours of this version to any other (I think I recently described this deck as “vintagey”, which seems a good a label as any). But the RWS has never been a favourite of mine. It’s a useful reference deck and you can’t argue its contribution to the tarotverse, but “top deck”? I’m afraid not.

Finally, the Hoi Polloi. Hmmm…the most expensive deck I’ve ever bought. I love the colours, the stylized art and the feel of the cardstock, which is soft and chewy (not that I’ve tried eating it, but that seems like a good word for it). This almost made the cut. It missed out because I find it difficult to read with (no idea why) and because some of the images are a little muddy. The suit of wands, in particular, could be more appealing.

So those are the almost-rans.

And now, finally, without further ado, procrastination, umming, ahhing or beating around the bush, here are my top tarot decks of all time (so far):

1. Haindl Tarot
I like this deck because I find the art profoundly beautiful and it weaves together so many different traditions. I also like the respect it shows for nature, the earth, and history. I have studied it for almost a year now and I have barely scratched the surface. I am continually learning from it.

2. The Mythic Tarot
This is probably my favourite reading deck. I like it because I love Greek mythology, and because it doesn’t pull any punches - in particular, the swords suit seems to delight in portraying as much tragedy and suffering as possible. It has good “range” - meaning I think it’s able to address all kinds of problems and situations.

3. Morgan Greer
I’ve had this deck much longer than the other two so it’s an old favourite. I like it because it is a very strong, masculine deck. In readings it says what needs to be said. I also like the bold colours, the “close-up” artwork and the lack of borders.

I have discovered Etsy. Don’t - whatever you do - make the same mistake I did and type “tarot” into the search box. It will result in much coveting and yearning. Here are a few things I’m now desiring: 

- A handmade set of 22 major arcana cards
- And another one, the Black Lilly Tarot
- A beautiful Fairy Queen tarot bag by BabaPrague
- And this totally-impractical-would-never-be-worn-but-need-it-anyway tarot charm bracelet