Anna K Tarot

I’ve just ordered the Anna K Tarot. Yippee!

More on this when it arrives…

Hudes – 5 of Pentacles

Thinking about this reading, two things have struck me about the Hudes 5 of Pentacles today.

The first is that the stained glass window appears to contain an Escher-like optical illusion. Look closely and you will see that snow has settled on both the lower sill and the upper arch. Yet if you look even closer it seems that the lower sill recedes, which means there should be no upper arch for the snow to rest on. Did the artist knowingly include this? To me, it suggests something about this card. Pentacles, the suit of Earth and the physical realm, combines here with the number five, which challenges, disrupts, and breaks the box. In this optical illusion, we see something that is physically impossible. It challenges our perception of the world; it hints that there is more to life than what can be touched and held. It’s significant that this optical illusion appears in the stained glass window of a church as it introduces a magical or spiritual element to an otherwise mundane scene.

The second is the two figures at the bottom of the card. The central figure – the figure in grey – looks miserable. He is huddled, clutching his cloak tight against the cold, and his face bears a pained expression. The figure in brown is different: her head is only slightly bowed and the expression on her face is calm. Her closeness to the grey man and the positioning of her body suggests to me that she is guiding him, perhaps with a hand placed gently on his arm or back that we can’t see. The grey man is so wrapped up in his misery that he doesn’t even seem to know the brown woman is there. It’s as if she’s his guardian angel, invisibly supporting him in his time of need. It reminds me of the “Footprints” poem, where God says, “During your times of trial and suffering when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you.”

Feb 1 – Feb 7

As I don’t seem to have time to draw daily cards at the moment – let alone think or write about them – I thought I’d try this: a 3-card reading for the week ahead which I can think about and write about in dribs and drabs (maybe).

I used the Hudes, which is my Deck of the Month for February. I’m warming to this deck day by day.

1 – Opportunities – 5 of Pentacles

2 – Challenges – Page of Swords

3 – Advice – 9 of Swords

Thoughts on this to follow (hopefully)!

Joy Ride

In what will surely become known as “The January of Mad-Crazy Tarot Deck Buying” (see below), I have acquired the Hudes Tarot.

This is a deck I thought I hated and would never own, simply because of the Magician card which “graces” the front of the box. Frankly, it’s an ugly card. The Magician looks old and crabby and snippy whereas in my mind he should be virile and charismatic and crackling with energy. Because of this, I have never really looked any closer at the Hudes (well, that, and the fact that the scans at Aeclectic are truly, truly awful).

Yet, for some unknown reason, I suddenly wanted the Hudes. This has happened before – a strong feeling of suddenly being drawn to a deck I’ve shown no previous interest in – and I’ve learned to just go with it (it’s how I met the Haindl). And guess what? The Hudes is a lovely deck. It’s warm and calm and often very beautiful in a modest way. If the Hudes was a bird, it would be a wren.

As I’ve grown older and more set in my ways, I’ve become less forgiving of tarot decks that don’t align with my own takes on the cards. I rarely buy a deck nowadays that puts Justice at VIII; I avoid decks that cop-out and rename Death; and I almost certainly would poo-poo a deck that used any old circular object to represent the Wheel of Fortune just to make the card fit a theme (okay, that last one is probably still a good reason to avoid a deck).

The tarot world is full of different perspectives – that’s what fascinated me about it in the first place. Yet, lately, I’ve become less willing to experiment and explore. This is a mistake. Instead of looking at the Hudes Magician and thinking “that’s wrong, I don’t like that”, I should think “hmm, what an interesting depiction of the Magician, I wonder why the artist chose to portray him like that – I must investigate further”.

It is perhaps only by approaching new decks in this frame of mind – with open curiosity – that we can continue to learn more and more, to broaden our tarot horizons and keep ourselves from becoming stale. In this way, we are like Fools, and each new deck starts a new journey. Some journeys will be short-lived and take us nowhere (such as the short trip I took with the Tarot of the Secret Forest). Others will take us further than we dreamed possible.

Anyway, this post is my gift to you. Feel free to use it as an excuse to buy a new deck (or more). So far this month I’ve used it as an excuse to buy the Fairytale Tarot, the Hudes, the Truth-Seeker’s Tarot, the New Palladini and the Caring Psychic Family Tarot.

The Prairie Tarot

In my early teens, I went through a phase of wanting to be a cowboy. Which, I’ll readily admit, was a little weird for a middle-class girl from suburban England, but then Young Guns was out and I was easily impressionable.

Anyway… I’d actually forgotten all about that until a couple of days ago when I got a sneak peek at Robin Ator’s new tarot deck. Robin Ator, as I’m sure you know, is the extremely talented person who gave us the International Icon Tarot and the Ator Tarot. This new tarot, however, is something altogether different. I’m going to quote what Robin wrote in his email as it’s far more eloquent a description than I could muster:

“The whole point, for me, has been to do a deck that reflects my own experiences growing up in northern Montana.  It was a high-prairie, bare, sparse place, with its old echoes of farmers, cowboys and, of course, the animals and Indians who were there before any of us. 

The Prairie Tarot is a very personal deck.  It’s made only for myself, really, and is not an attempt to create any sort of universally-accepted canon…It reflects my own experience of the people, and stories of the place I heard and read growing up.”

And here are the images he sent me (which he also kindly permitted me to reproduce here). Quite frankly, they took my breath away:

       

        

It may be a personal deck but, from these few images, it’s clear to me that it will be a highly readable deck. A sign of a good deck I think is when you can instantly connect with an image the very first time you see it – when meaning is conveyed through the image, without any need for explanation or deciphering. These images speak to me that way.

The Hierophant, for example, stands as a living example of ages old tradition and wisdom passed down through Native American culture. His clothes and headdress convey a sense of belonging, yet he stands alone, and his face is in shadow, making him seem distant and austere. It’s a very solemn card, but also strangely reassuring.

The Wheel of Fortune, with it’s full spectrum of colour, shows sometimes the wind blows hot and sometimes it blows cold. Sometimes circumstances complement us and sometimes they oppose us. Even in the 21st Century, when we try to manage our lives down to the smallest detail, the weather is a reminder of forces outside our control – that there are things bigger than we are. The power of the wind can be harnessed and bring us good fortune, but it can also flatten houses and destroy crops, making this card a perfect symbol for the Wheel of Fortune.

So, beautiful and meaningful. Suffice to say, I’m very much looking forward to seeing the finished deck.

New Year’s Day

New Year’s Day is my favourite day of the year. After the excess, pressure, and general mayhem of Christmas, New Year is a welcome relief. Whereas the success of Christmas seems to be all about the various trappings and preparations, New Year requires no special equipment – you just need to keep one ear open for Big Ben. And because it’s so simple and so short a celebration, it’s magical in a way that Christmas can never be.

For me, New Year is a time of great promise, hope, optimism, enthusiasm and joy. I look forward to the long year ahead and believe that I can spend it doing whatever I set my mind to. I always associate the Ace of Swords with New Year – because it’s so bright and pure; because that shining blade pointing north is just like the hands on a clock pointing to midnight; because it symbolises good intentions, fresh ideas and new resolutions; because its crisp clarity is the perfect partner to the cold month of January and because, like New Year, its influence eventually fades. As the year progresses, I seem to get more and more bogged down by bad habits and sidetracked by trivialities but on January 1st, my newly laid plans seem so easily achievable.

My New Year’s wish for 2009 is that I will write more and read more, and relish the time spent doing both.

Happy New Year.

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.