The Orange Tarot – XVIII The Moon

Everyone knows the moon is made of cheese – Red Leicester cheese in this case, which was very tasty.

The Moon is a deep and complex card, with hidden depths, and the Orange Tarot version is no different. No doubt tarot scholars will spend hours examining and analysing the particular shape of the bite marks, for instance – how they ulitise sacred geometry to both conceal and convey the secret teachings of the Golden Dawn. And note too the subtle markings on the Moon’s surface: Hebrew letter? Yods? Stellar constellations or the strange familiar hieroglyphs of a language not yet discovered? And what of the cheese itself? A flight of fancy, like some child’s nonsense verse, or a nod perhaps to an ancient tradition of cow worship?

Only 1 day and 18 hours until the Phantomwise Tarot gets squashed by the auctioneer’s hammer. Can you feel your heart racing? Are your palms clammy? Is your index finger twitching excitedly on your mouse? I thought so…

The Orange Tarot – XVI The Tower

Another card made possible by the unstinting generosity of my little girl. As she will testify, the higher you build a tower (and the smugger you get about how high it is) the more likely it is to collapse.

There’s a short film (well, shortish – it’s 48 minutes long) called Green that you can watch online that’s about a female orangutan rescued from an oil palm plantation in Indonesia. Although many parts aren’t easy to watch, it shows directly the very real, and unnecessary damage, caused by deforestation.

Happy Orange for Orangutan Day! May there be many many more to come…

The Orange Tarot – VII The Chariot

To find out what the Orange Tarot is all about, see this post.

Here’s the Chariot. Yes, it’s a car. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get hold of any orange horses or a proper chariot so this will have to do.

Actually, this car looks a lot like a jeep. Jeeps and pick-up trucks are essential items for the Orangutan Foundation as they enable them to send out teams to rescue baby orangutans whose parents have been killed (because they’re seen as pests on palm-oil plantations). They’re also used to transport orangutans to release sites – carefully protected areas of forest where they can live out their lives in relative safety.

Want to see the cutest orangutan picture ever? Take a look at these wonderful orangutan photos by Brain Matthews on the BBC Wildlife Magazine website. And don’t forget to bid on the Phantomwise Tarot! 100% of the proceeds of the sale will be donated to the Orangutan Foundation.

The Orange Tarot – III The Empress

This week it’s Orangutan Awareness Week which includes – on Wednesday 10th November – Orange for Orangutans Day.

To do my bit, I have created the Orange Tarot. Actually, I am still creating the Orange Tarot – I was hoping to have a whole deck to show you but life got in the way so I only have 7 cards. Still, let’s call it a work in progress. Seven cards over seven days fits quite nicely anyway.

So, what is the Orange Tarot and, more importantly, why is it?

In making the Orange Tarot, I decided to photograph only orange things I could find that somehow expressed each major arcana card. Apparently, it’s more difficult than it sounds. I wasn’t allowed to buy anything – I had to use things I had in my house or garden. Fortunately, I have a toddler so she helped by letting me borrow some of her toys. The card you see here is the Empress. I figure she’d quite like these flowers – and she can sew them onto her clothes as well, so that’s nice. Please note, the deck is supposed to be fun and not…ahem…aesthetically pleasing.

I wanted to do something for Orangutan Awareness Week to help raise money and…er…awareness. The Orange Tarot is just a way of making you look. Then, as you’re casting a critical eye over my rather childish offering, I leap in front of you rattling my donation tin. See, it’s a genius plan!

My way of getting you to cough up is to ebay my copy of the Phantomwise Tarot. Basically, you can raise money to save orangutans (and the money really does save orangutans, loads of them) just by bidding on my auction. Here it is – go and bid now, please. If you don’t win, you don’t have to donate any money at all – but by bidding you’ve increased the amount of money raised. Great, isn’t it?

Of course, you can donate as well. Here is the Orangutan Foundation’s donation page on Just Giving which tells you how to do so.

Come back tomorrow to see the next card!

Phantomwise Tarot

Every time Adam McLean sends out a newsletter announcing a new deck in his Artwork Tarot series, it pains me. True, there have been some in the series that haven’t made me salivate but those are few and far between. What usually happens is this:

1. Click link
2. Sigh
3. Scroll down
4. Sigh
5. Scroll back up
6. Sigh
7. Look at price
8. Close window

Today, his Devilish temptation is the Phantomwise Tarot – a stylish black and white deck of dark storybook art by Erin J McCauley. Here are a couple of cards. Nice, isn’t it? In a small way, it’s kind of got a Smashing Pumpkins ‘Tonight Tonight’ thing going on. Apparently, the artist is very much influenced by Lewis Carroll.

   

As with Millenaire Tarot de Marseille, the problem is not that the deck is too expensive. I’d say £40 (which is what the Phantomwise costs) is an excellent price for something that is a hand-printed, hand-cut, hand-laminated, limited edition, majors only collectors deck. No, the problem is that I just can’t spend that much on any deck. The most expensive deck I’ve ever bought was the Hoi Polloi, at £35, and that was only because a) it was out of print, b) I really really wanted it, and c) I promised myself I wouldn’t make a habit out of it. I never regretted that purchase and I have never seriously considered spending that much on any other deck.

Still, it doesn’t stop me pressing my nose up at the window.