News

It’s been a busy few weeks…

I am now a member of TABI – the Tarot Association of the British Isles (after protesting that I’m not a “joiner”).  So far, so good. They seem like a decent bunch and although I had reservations to begin with about what I would actually get out of joining, I do feel that it was a good move. I could, if I wanted, be a “silent” member and not get very much out of it at all (as I’m not, currently, a professional reader). Instead, I seem to have got stuck in and am looking forward to not only being part of the membership but also to helping to steer the Association and, indeed, tarot itself, towards bigger and better things. My that sounds presumptuous, doesn’t it?

One instant benefit is that I have a new outlet for my writing. A while ago I wrote a tarot article for Prediction magazine who, in their infinite wisdom, didn’t want it. That article has just been published in The Tarot Reader, TABI’s quarterly e-zine. And I’ve got a whole stack of articles planned for future issues, so that’s very exciting. I’ve decided that 2009 is going to be an industrious year of reading and writing for me.

What else? Oh yes, for Christmas Hubby gave me two beautiful bags from Baba Studio (the Alice Shower of Cards and the Fairy Hunt). They really are lovely. The first one seems to rather like my Lunatic Tarot, which was feeling a bit chilly all naked out on the kitchen table. And the second one features an image from the Fairytale Tarot, which is now winging its way to me from Amazon, courtesy of some Christmas money from the in-laws. I’m hoping it doesn’t take too long to get here as it will be my Deck of the Month for January. Sadly, the Lunatic Tarot didn’t get much playtime in December, the main reason being that…

I now have a daughter. More beautiful than a thousand Baba Studio bags, more lovely than any new tarot deck, and more fascinating and enthralling than any number of articles I could ever dream up. She is keeping me busy – hence the lack of recent posting and hence also, this rather perfunctory post. I am not yet at the stage where I have anything intelligent to say, but I wanted to prove that I could still write something!

We will say nothing of the fact that it took me three days to write it…

In Search of Justice

This afternoon I spent quite a bit of time searching through all my decks looking for Justice. It couldn’t be any Justice though. What I was looking for was my ideal representation of Justice - or, at least, as close as I could get to it in my small collection of 20+ decks.

What’s my ideal representation? Cold, analytical, detached, impartial. I thought it would be easy to find but actually, most of my decks seem to have a rather lax view of Justice. I almost gave up. The facial expressions were all wrong, you see. I can’t have Justice sitting there with her sword held straight and true, and her scales perfectly poised, with an expression of doubt on her face. No, she needs to be certain, unwavering, inscrutable. Robotic almost.

Thankfully, I found her – in the second from last place I looked. And here she is. Justice from the Crystal Tarot. Nothing else in my collection comes close.

Daily Drawing With Intent

I keep changing my mind about daily draws. Lately, I’ve got into the habit of drawing a card in the morning but I tend to draw it blind. That is, I don’t ask a question or ask for advice for the day or anything like that. I just draw a card at random “to ponder on”. As you might expect, this has mixed results.

I’ve tried drawing daily cards for advice in the past but either a) I spend most of the day trying to figure out what particular situation the card is giving me advice for, or b) I go through my day thinking very little about the card and forget to follow its advice!

Anyway, as I was walking the dog this morning, it occurred to me that I could be using this daily card a bit more constructively. My idea was to decide what it is I want to achieve that day. It might be something practical such as complete a particular task at work or make some progress on my book. Or it could be something less tangible like be supportive of a family member. I guess it could also be something negative, like “I don’t want to waste so much time clicking around forums today”. Then I draw a card to give me advice on how best to go about achieving my goal for the day.

I quite like this idea. It’s less random than a random daily draw, and it makes me ultimately responsible for the content of my day. As well, since I’ve been doing this Deck of the Month doo-dah thing, I’m invariably using a deck I’m not that familiar with so this method of “drawing with intent” gives me a better chance of getting to know the deck. I find it much easier to understand what a card’s telling me if I have some kind of context in which to interpret it.

Okay, so let’s put this to the test shall we? Today is a lovely sunny Sunday in December and now the work stuff and chores are out of the way, I’ve got the rest of the afternoon and evening to spend however I like. So what do I want to achieve today? Well, at the forefront of my mind is the fact that baby is now 8 days overdue. I’ve got a hospital appointment tomorrow where I’m sure they’re going to start talking about ways to hurry things along and that makes me nervous. What I really want to do today is try to relax and regain the patience and “what will be, will be” attitude I had a few days ago. What will the Lunatic Tarot advise?

King of Wands

Well, I have to admit…I was expecting something a little more calming. But this makes sense. The reason I’m starting to panic is that I feel the consultant I’m seeing tomorrow is going to steamroller me. I feel that they’re going to start dictating what needs to happen and when, whereas I still want to allow more time for baby to arrive when she’s ready. The King of Wands tells me that I need to retain authority over my personal realm, i.e. my body and my baby. They can’t make me do anything I don’t want to so I need to go in there with my own ideas and not be afraid to be assertive. This king looks very sure of himself and very much in control. Also, with his red hair and white beard, he doesn’t seemed concerned about going against the grain.

Whilst this might sound like a reading about what to do tomorrow, it does help me today. If I’m confident that nothing will happen tomorrow that I don’t want to happen, then I’ll be able to put any worries out of my mind today.

The New Mythic Tarot

If you frequent any tarot forums anywhere then you probably already know that the Mythic Tarot is being re-released and that the publisher has chosen to replace Tricia Newell’s lively art with copies by Giovanni Caselli. The Mythic Tarot is one of my favourite decks so I am not amused. It seems so disrespectful to the original and also smacks of “hey, I’ve got a great idea to make some more money”.

Anyway, as I was mindlessly surfing tonight, I came across some scans from the new version of the deck that someone had posted in a thread at Aeclectic Tarot. I encourage you to take a look, just to see what can happen when you mess with something that really was perfectly fine in the first place. It makes me shudder.

Let this be a lesson to us all.

A (Rather Hesitant) Prediction

Well, this is an apt post to follow the last one. I don’t usually go in for trying to predict what might happen or when but in a moment of weakness on Sunday, as I was shuffling my new Lunatic Tarot, I wondered when baby might put in an appearance. And so I drew a card…

The card I drew was the 4 of Wands. The image is based on the familiar Rider-Waite scene but drawn in the unmistakeable Lunatic Tarot style. At the very top of the card there are four stick-like trees, and next to that are two figures and a castle-like building. A long, straight path leads from the trees all the way down to the bottom of the card.

To me, this card is predicting baby will arrive this Thursday – the 4th of December. I usually associate Wands with days (because of the link with the element of fire, and therefore the sun). And Thursday is four days away from Sunday, which is when I drew the card. There’s also the rather obvious correlation of four with the 4th.

Okay, so it’s shaky at best, but as I said I don’t usually do this type of reading. I thought I’d post it here though for fun and giggles, to see if anything comes of it. (Because, of course, if it does turn out to be correct, no one will believe me if I say so after the fact.)

Watch this space…

A Helping Hand

Something else I got for my birthday last week was Rachel Pollack’s Tarot of Perfection – a collection of tarot-inspired short stories. I’ve only read the first two so far but, oh my, I thoroughly recommend it. They are just wonderful – magical, exotic, wise. A real pleasure to read. Plus the book has a lovely cover!

This post was inspired by the second story in the book, “The Pickpocket’s Destiny”. I don’t want to give too much away, but the story is about a pickpocket who consults an oracle to discover his true purpose in life. On each occasion, the answers he gets are – to him – disappointingly uninspiring, yet he follows the oracle’s advice anyway and eventually, over time, his small blind steps lead him to his great destiny.

The story is a beautiful, subtle illustration of the nature of destiny and what happens when we consult oracles such as the tarot. Those who consider tarot reading and fortune-telling to be a form of cheating would do well to read it, for it demonstrates both the possibilities and limitations of divination.

When we consult the cards, we are often given insight not only into our present circumstances but also into the possibilities that await us in the future. It is, of course, up to us to mine those possibilities in order to create our destiny. At any given time, however, we are only shown a small piece of the puzzle. It is as if we walk a dark path, unable to see our own hands in front of our faces, and tarot is a torch that we carry with us – bright enough to illuminate the next few steps perhaps but no more.

Eventually, as more and more steps are illuminated, we may eventually start to see the bigger picture – a sense of the path we’re on and where it leads. But on the whole, all tarot does is encourage us to keep moving forward, steer us in the right direction, and hold our hand as we tentatively place one foot in front of the other in the dark.