How Do I Love Thee?

What’s that you say? You desperately want me to post another activity from The Tarot Playbook? Well, okay, I suppose if you really want me to…

This one goes out to all the court cards in the house and it’s called:

HOW DO I LOVE THEE?

Roses are red, violets are blue,
I’m not a poet, that much is true.
But if you’ll allow me, I’ll make you a ditty,
Pass the thesaurus, you look very pretty –
And lovely and bonny and goodly and bright,
And stately and gracious, you’re such a nice sight.
Your eyes flash with passion, your hair’s golden fronds,
You look like a princess, you’re my Queen of Pentacles…

1. Pick one court card at random. If you fancy a challenge, try the one you feel least attracted to.

2. Gaze at the court as though they are an angel descended from heaven. (If you happen to have one of those angel-themed decks, all the better.) Look at the court as if you’re seeing them for the first time. Imagine they’re the most beautiful creature you have ever seen. Let yourself be swept away by their loveliness. Continue to be swept away until you feel the urge to write a poem about them.

3. Now, jot down what you consider to be the four most wonderful things about the object of your affection – be it their noble countenance, their statuesque posture, their sparkling eyes or their stylish shoes. If you’re struggling to find anything wonderful, just jot down the four things that you hate the least.

4. For each of those four things, write down a few adjectives that best describe their deliciousness. So, for example, you might decide the Knight of Swords’ armor is hard, glistening, smooth, and well–oiled. Or you might think that the Queen of Pentacles has ripe, juicy, fleshy knees.

5. To have any hope of winning your heart’s desire’s heart, you must turn your list of random words into a lyrical masterpiece – a poem at once tender and passionate, one that will make them covet you instantly. You should spend at least four months crafting the perfect ode.

6. When you have finished your poem, read it to your beloved. Hopefully, by the time you reach the end, they will feel the same about you, but don’t feel too bad if they don’t. As the saying goes, there are plenty more courts in the deck..

Cryptarotography

Okay, here’s another little taster of what’s in The Tarot Playbook: 78 Novel Ways to Connect with Your Cards. I chose this activity completely at random or, should I say, my deck did: I shuffled and drew the Tower which, when looked up in the handy card index at the back, pointed me to this. It’s called:

CRYPTAROTOGRAPHY

Tarot is a symbolic language. A bird is never simply a bird. A stone is never simply a stone. No Tarotist would ever dare call a spade a spade (as it’s clearly a sword). Hermetic occultists have spent lifetimes coding and decoding this most sacred and esoteric of alphabets. Fortunately for you, this piece of encryption should take less than an hour…

1. You will need something to write on and something to write with. The “on” should be crisp and white, and the “with” should be sharpened to an atom–sized point.

2. List the card names down the left–hand–side of the paper. Though this be a menial task, do not let your mind wander or you’ll miss one out and have to start all over again.

3. Place all the cards in a face-down pile. It doesn’t matter what order they’re in, although the order in which the artist painted them would be ideal.

4. Turn the top card over. Study it for a symbol or detail that you believe is unique to that card. Look for something distinctive and easy to recall. It also helps if it’s something quite central to the image – an arched window is good, a broken toenail is not.

5. When you’ve chosen, make a simplified drawing of that object next to the card’s name in the list. Imagine you are creating a hieroglyph – it should be a true copy of the original item but it should also possess a certain economy of style, making it easy to replicate. For example, if you’ve chosen a feather, you might draw one long curved line dissected by several shorter lines (this could also be used to represent a kebab).

6. Do the same for every card in the deck.

7. When you’ve finished, store your list of codes in a safe place. It is your personal Rosetta Stone. use these codes any time you wish to journal a reading that is particularly personal (or to thwart your nosy little sister). or, for even more fun and giggles, share your code with a close friend and use it whenever you do readings for each other.

This blog post was a sponsored broadcast by The Tarot Playbook: 78 Novel Ways to Connect with Your Cards. Available in all good bookstores and some bad ones.

Right, who wants one?

Five reasons you might like to buy it:

1. You don’t currently own a book called “The Tarot Playbook: 78 Novel Ways to Connect with Your Cards” so it would nicely fill that gap on your bookshelf.

2. You have been told by your significant other than if you buy one more tarot deck they will cut up your credit cards. But they didn’t say “tarot book”.

3. You are not interested in the book at all, but have heard it contains 78 different sized images that form a wholly unusable tarot deck when cut out (it does).

4. You can no longer take the plaintive cries coming from the decks that you’ve left neglected under your bed and you think this book might help (it will).

5. You haven’t bought anything else yet today.

Now in stock at Tarot Chest.

Something Foolish for April Fool’s Day

The Tarot Playbook is out this month (hurray!) so to celebrate April Fool’s Day I thought I’d give you a peek at the very first of the 78 Novel Ways to Connect with Your Cards. This one’s called:

COMMITTED

Making a commitment to spend 78 days, weeks, or any length of time with a deck you’ve only just met is surely one of the most foolish things you can do. What if you don’t get on? What if, after just one study session together, you realize you’ve made a terrible, terrible mistake? Your only choice is to suffer or fail. That’s why this book exists. The only thing that is required of you and your cards is an open heart and a willingness to act like a fool…

1. This ceremony can be performed at any time of year, though Springtime is best.

2. Before you begin, some preparations must be made. Dress in whatever makes you feel most attractive. Wrap your cards in a white silk cloth or large white handkerchief. Light a candle.

3. Place your cards on a high surface, such as a table or a kitchen worktop. Lightly rest your left hand on top of your cards.

4. Now, say these words:

I do solemnly declare, that I know of no good reason why I (say your name), should not frolic with wild abandon with you (say your deck’s name), from this day forward for as long as either of us cares to – forsaking no others, and with no strings attached, for no other purpose than to enjoy each other’s company and have a good time.

5. Unwrap your deck and allow it time to say the same to you (telepathically, of course).

6. Now cradle the cards in your hands and blow out the candle. The ceremony is complete. You and your deck have taken the first step towards present happiness. Celebrate by asking a random passer–by to take a photograph of the two of you together.

Intrigued? Stay tuned for more sneak peeks throughout April.

It’s here, it’s here!

My advance copy of The Tarot Playbook: 78 Novel Ways to Connect With Your Cards arrived today. I am enormously excited and keep carrying it around with me and clutching it to my chest.

Just think, you too could own one of these: 🙂

It stands up!

 

It has pretty pictures!

It has more pretty pictures!

It has playlists - so modern!

Your cat will love it!

Now just to wait 6-8 weeks until it’s officially published. Tick tock…

The Tarot Playbook – New Cover!

Search Inside

Did I mention I have a book coming out in April? Hmm…must have slipped my mind.

Anyway, Schiffer have got it on their website (you may also find it on some other websites that sell books) and now they’ve uploaded scans of three pages so you can see what its insides look like. Please note, these scans are not to scale!

What’s with the cakes, I hear you ask? Well, it’s simple. Selling books nowadays is so difficult. There’s just too much competition. So I decided I would offer something a little extra with my book to sweeten the deal. That’s right, if you buy my book you will also get – at no extra cost – a picture of cakes. I know, right?

P.S. Almost forgot! The book is called “The Tarot Playbook: 78 Novel Ways to Connect With Your Cards”

P.P.S. Here’s a picture of the cover. Due to a last minute coup, this probably isn’t the cover that will be on the final book. But I don’t have a picture of the new cover so this will have to do.

Imagine this, but with a lizard.

Typeface Tarot

What do you get when someone with no artistic ability decides to create a tarot deck? That’s right, you’re looking at it. The Typeface Tarot is a majors-only deck in which the only thing allowed on each card is the name of that card. All meaning has to be conveyed through choice of font alone.

The Typeface Tarot is mine – I made it by ruthlessly appropriating the creative talents of font designers who foolishly made their work available for free on FontSpace. Mwa-ha-ha!

I, in turn, have made the Typeface Tarot free – if you want it, you can have it, as long as you don’t mind downloading it and printing it out yourself (ah, there’s always a catch).

Anyway, here are some of the cards. Click here to see more!

Hoorah!

My first tarot book will be published by Schiffer Books in Spring 2012.

More to follow…

The Orange Tarot – XIX The Sun

Orange the colour and orange the fruit – both are happy, healthy and full of vitamin C. The Sun is the last card I have to share with you from the Orange Tarot (for now) and Orangutan Awareness Week is almost over. So, do you feel more aware?

Well, perhaps not, because unless you had oodles of time on your hands and a sudden hankering to do lots of reading, you probably didn’t follow (m)any of the links I posted. Which is totally understandable. So here’s a quick summary – How To Be Orangutan Aware in 3 Easy Steps:

1. Know that orangutans are endangered (Sumatran orangutans are critically endangered) because their rainforest home is steadily being wiped out. 90% has gone already and almost 3 million hectares are lost each year. If things carry on the way they are, wild orangutans will become extinct within a few decades.

2. The main culprits of deforestation are: OIL PALM PLANTATIONS, illegal logging, acacia plantations (for wood pulp), mining and fires. Of these, the most evilest is PALM OIL. Huge swathes of rainforest are cut down and replaced with miles and miles of oil palm monoculture, which is devastating not only to orangutans but all the thousands of species the rainforest supports. Orangutans and the majority of biodiversity supported by tropical rainforests cannot co-exist with oil palm plantations, yet the demand for palm oil is increasing.

3. What we can do:
– buy sustainably source wood and paper products
– campaign for supermarkets and large manufacturers to use sustainably source palm oil (which is found in all sorts of foods such as biscuits, cakes, bread products, as well as soap and various other things – often disguised as ‘vegetable oil’).
– write to MPs, sign petitions and generally kick up a huge fuss about rainforest destruction. Orangutans aren’t the only ones who need trees to survive…

And if you do have oodles of time and a sudden hankering to do lots of reading, this site has amazing info about palm oil and other issues concerning orangutans and does a much better job of explaining things than I do.

Well, that’s me done. Seven cards, seven days and the Phantomwise auction ends at 14:45 GMT on Saturday 13th November (that’s tomorrow). You have been warned…

Thanks for putting up with me. I’ll shut up now.