Tarot Thrones | The Court Card Blog

Year: 2012

  • Yule Blog Hop | 12 Oracles of Christmas

    Hello and welcome to my blog *plumps up the velvet cushion on best chair*  You may just have moseyed in here by chance or be studiously working your way through the 22 blogs taking part in this Yule hop.  Christiana Gaudet is the blog before me and Arwen Lynch is the blog after me.  Whichever way you reach me, I am really pleased to see you here!

    My blog focuses on the Tarot court and the theme of the Yule blog hop is ‘Christmas Presents’.  So I thought that my Christmas Present to YOU on this blog is a short slideshow (featuring the Courts – of course!) outlining 12 great Tarot and Oracle decks that you might want to PRESENT to yourself! Maybe as a little treat to yourself for just GETTING THROUGH THE SEASON WITHOUT RESORTING TO MURDERING A FAMILY MEMBER 😀

    Grab  coffee and enjoy the show!

     If you are interested in procuring one of these lovely decks for yourself, here are some places that you can buy them:

    12  The Camelot Oracle (John Matthews and Will Worthington)
    11  The Dreaming in Color Lumen deck (Mindy Somers)
    10  The Steele Wizard Tarot (Pamela Steele)
    9   The Mary-El (Marie White)
    8   The Ma’at Tarot (Julie Cuccia-Watts)
    7   The Gaian Tarot (Joanna Powell-Colbert)
    6   The Touchstone Tarot (Kat Black)
    5   The Margarete Petersen Tarot (Margarete Petersen)
    4   The Wildwood Tarot (Mark Ryan, John Matthews and Will Worthington)
    3   Le Petit Eclectique Lenormand (Helen Riding and various artists) ** possibly not available yet **
    2   The DruidCraft Tarot (Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm, Will Worthington)
    1   The Tarot of Alexander Daniloff (Alexander Daniloff)

    If you would like to learn more about working with Court Cards, please sign up for my newsletter and become a ‘follower’ of the blog!

    <—–You can ho! ho! hop backwards or…..

    Ho! Ho! Hop forwards!   —->

    I hope that you have a wonderful Christmas, Yule, Midwinter Festival…..whatever you want to call it…..have a wonderful one!

    Any breaks in the chain?  Check out the master list !

  • 30 Day Tarot Challenge | Day 2

    DAY 2:  What was your first deck and why/how did you get it?

    The first deck that I bought was back in the 1980s and it was a Marseilles Tarot.  I bought it, not because I was drawn to the artwork, but because it was the only Tarot deck that I could find in Glasgow.

    Why did I get it? I can’t remember what spurred me into buying it….probably a desire to be Solitaire in Live and Let Die …… or maybe an episode of Tales of the Unexpected?

    I do remember that I was pretty desperate to get my paws on a set!

    However, I wasn’t enamoured of the blocky, naive artwork of the Marseillesl, but hell, you have to just take things as you find them, right?

    I do remember feeling very wicked when I bought them – as if I’d just bought something very illicit!  I trundled back home on the train, walked the mile home and then sneaked the cards up into my bedroom.  Like most folks, I started doing readings for myself as soon as I could get the cardboard packet open!

    Of course, the LWB was a very necessary part of the equation – I had not a clue what any of the cards meant!  A couple of weeks later I found myself back in the bookshop and procuring Alfred Douglas’s book, The Tarot to help flesh out my readings.

    Even with the book, I was hardly knuckling down to learning the cards’ keywords – my inner Pages of Pentacles and Swords had not kicked in at that point! I was still having to refer to the LWB and Alfred Douglas’s book – but still coming up with interesting readings (but they took aaaaaaages to do!)

    And after I scared myself witless giving myself a reading that turned out to be too accurate to be comfortable, the cards were shut away in a sports’ hold-all and I turned my attention to nights out clubbing with my girlfriends and buying DREADFUL 1980s clothes 😀

    I think that I gave the cards and book to my sister in law in the end……

    If you want to take part in the Tarot Challenge, you can find the full list of questions here: http://78keys.tumblr.com/post/36652622634/30-day-tarot-challenge

  • Dark Moon | Haindl Tarot | Pixie’s Astounding Lenormand

    So I thought that since it was the dark moon before Christmas it would be a good idea to see who is going to be helping me get through this stressful – but fun – time.

    I selected the court cards from the Haindl deck – the first proper deck that I bought myself, before I started learning the cards properly – and using a card from Pixie’s Astounding Mlle Lenormand as an amplifier.

    So what have we got?  White Buffalo Woman representing the Daughter of Stones in the West .  She does not look like a woman looking forward to the Festive Season, does she?!

    OK – let’s start at the beginning.  The Courts in the Haindl don’t follow the traditional Page, Knight, Queen, King format.  Instead they are Son, Daughter, Father, Mother.  The suit names differ from traditional associations in one suit only – Pentacles equates to Stones.

    Each suit is accorded a culture and here with Stones we have the Native Americans.

    Depicted as a shadowy portrait above buffalo, White Buffalo Woman.  The legend of White Buffalo Woman can be found here.  She is a goddess who gives a sacred pipe and its rituals to the Lakota tribe.  As she leaves the Lakota, she turns into various buffalo – the lower image in the card.

    The book that accompanies the Haindl (by Rachel Pollack) gives us options of regarding the Courts as Teachers and Helpers.

    White Buffalo Woman teaches me not to look at the world literally, but symbolically – and if that isn’t suitable for the coming season, I don’t know what is!  She’s all about working intuitively, not from books and to respect the visions of others.  She urges us to see sacredness in everyday life.

    Hmmm – wonder if that means that I should be more understanding of my mother’s idealistic ‘visions’ of happy family Christmas times?

    Perhaps.

    And what of Birds?  What do they add to my understanding?

    Birds can indicate a meeting or an interview.  Well, that’s interesting because I’m in the process of setting up a meeting with some local people with regard to my Tarot work.  They’re to do with communication, chatter, siblings,….and that’s entirely congruent with my family coming to visit before Christmas.

    I haven’t seen my brother in over a year!  I’m very excited about him coming to visit – even if it’s only for the day.

    What might these cards mean if they came up for you? How would you interpret them?

  • 30 Day Tarot Challenge

    Beginner’s Tarot Mind!

    I found this over on Tumblr at the end of last week and thought that it might be fun to do.  However, I won’t be making blog posts about myself on a daily basis, but will take 30 days in total to do the challenge.

    The challenge originated here:

    http://78keys.tumblr.com/post/36652622634/30-day-tarot-challenge

    So the first question is:

    Q1:  What got you introduced/involved in Tarot


    Like lots of people, I had a dabble with the tarot when I was much younger.  I bought a Marseille Tarot deck from a lovely bookshop in Glasgow (John Smith & Sons) which sadly went defunct with the arrival of Borders and Waterstones in the city.

    I couldn’t read them without referring to the LWB!  It was a lot of fun, but I didn’t really gel with the images on the cards – but there was simply no choice around at the time.

    Everything was going swimmingly with my readings until I did one that indicated The Empress (ie my mother) was going to be the Incoming Influences and in the likely outcome Temperance Rx indicated that I might be unwell.  Well, who wants to be ill? I put the cards away and forgot about it.

    Within weeks, my appendix burst spectacularly and I was rushed into hospital.  On discharge from hospital, I was looked after by my mother.

    I know.

    SCARY.

    I was ill for 10 weeks after the operation – a swab had been left inside me.  I thought I’d never feel well again.

    So the cards were put away in a bag in a drawer and never looked at again until….

    I watched a TV programme with Jane Ross and Michelle Knight.  Michelle was teaching Jane to read Tarot cards and I just fell in love.

    Tefcat on the Children of Artemis website recommended that I join TABI to learn how to read properly.

    I joined.

    And TABI went on to form a core part of my Tarot development 🙂

    Now – YOU have a go!

  • 2013 | Getting Ready!

    The Dream Enchantress Tarot
    Lo Scarabeo

    Next year is 2013.  It’s less than 30 days away!! I *know*.  WHERE did 2012 go?!

    If you add up the digits in 2013, you can see that it’s a six year – the Lovers.  Which means, to me, that we’re all deciding what we REALLY want next year.

    Oh sure, we can have nice shoes and buy as many handbags and bottles of perfume as the bank manager will allow, but really, that hollow feeling inside you won’t be filled by a new lipstick.  Or even a packet of Kitkats.

    Looks like next year is going to be about making better decisions to help us fill that void and raise our spritual consciousness.  Man.  *waves hands about like a drug-addled hippy.  Or Keith Richards.  It’s sort of the same thing*

    But what of your personal odyssey in 2013?


    Take your birth day and month and add to 2013 to find your own personal slant on the year.

    For example:  I’m 13 August….so this equates to 13+8+2013 = 2034 = 9.

    The Hermit.

    Again!   I think that the Universe is metaphorically whacking me over the back of the head!

    What’s your personal 2013 card?

    And how does your own 2013 card look once you filter it through the lens of The Lovers, the card for 2013?

    For me, it would seem that in order to progress my own spiritual path, I will be lighting the way for others (and, as a result of that, myself too).

    It’s that or I’m buying a big Hermit-like cloak and totally working the  Margaret Lockwood ‘Wicked Lady’ look.  I already haz the hat 😀

    But of course, THIS blog is all about the court cards, so let’s add a little Court Card magic to the exercise!

    I’ve already established that I’ll be working The Hermit through The Lovers next year.

    So, what I need to know now is: Which Court card will assist me with this endeavour and which court card will hinder me?

    Here’s the card who’s not proving useful – the Page of Wands.

    Here’s the card who IS going to be useful – The Page of Swords
    Significant that they are both Pages, don’t you think? It seems that the mind of a beginner will be useful, but not the actions of one!
    So, tell me (I’m being nosy, in true Page of Swords style!) what comes up for you in this exercise?

  • SFX Challenge | Game of Thrones

    A while back I stumbled upon a site called SFX and a competition that they were running for people to design Tarot cards incorporating the characters from the Game of Thrones books (or TV show).

    Since MY Game of Thrones is a nod and a wink to the OTHER Game of Thrones I thought that I’d share the finalists’ images with you (with permission from SFX)

    There are a few here that I’d LOVE to see worked up into a Tarot deck, they have such nice technique!

    To see the other cards by S.A.M. visit the SFX website:

    What do you think of these efforts, aren’t they excellent?!

    If YOU were to allocate the various characters in the series (to date), who would you allocate to each Tarot Court role and why?

  • Lunar Elipse Spread | The Result

    There was nothing to see of the penumbral lunar eclipse up here in Scotland.  By the time the moon had risen over the hill behind the house, it had been over for a couple of hours. Pity!

    Undeterred, I carried out the Lunar Eclipse Spread from the other day, using my beloved DruidCraft.  Who was hidden in the shadow of the world?  The Hermit.

    I like this card, but it’s not something that comes up for me much in readings.  I don’t feel as though I’m much of a hermit!

    I love how his face is in shadow here and he holds his light up as much to show others the way as to light his own path.  Heck, his own eyes could be closed! In his lantern sits, I fancy, The Star. She offers us hope, guidance and ambitions…. how interesting!

    We also see the crescent of a waning moon – something is ending – perhaps the Hermit’s lonely sojourn up there in the mountains?

    The dawn breaks on the horizon, emphasising the start of something new, a new day – new opportunities.  Of course, it could just as easily be a sunset! Either way, we have the idea of something drawing to a close.

    The light gleams upon a distant river that twists like a lightening bolt through the landscape.  For me, water in the Tarot represents the subconscious and this is no still pool – this is moving water; Something Is Happening.  Yikes!

    The staff that he leans upon reminds me of The Fool,  HE stepped off the cliff to start his journey.  Our Hermit will wend his way back down into the bosom of humanity via the easier route, the path.  I wonder whether The Hermit created that path – cutting a path isn’t easy!  But then, when you’ve got the energy of the Wands at your disposal (as in his walking staff), anything is possible!

    And the Hermit’s four-legged companion, the wolf – what will become of him? Will he remain on the mountain – a shamanistic guide and teacher? Or will he descend the path to walk amongst us, warily, at The Hermit’s side?

    So WHAT does it all mean?!

    Well, I am really enjoying being a tutor on the TABI Training Course, so perhaps The Hermit heralds a little more in that direction? I also admin the Glasgow Tarot Meet Up Group and am really pleased with how the group is growing.  I have such plans for them! Day-long Tarot intensives! Visits from authors and artists!  My goals are limited by the funds we have…. but I’m a great believer in Things Turning Up when you need them 🙂

    And, just the other day,  I learned that I will be talking about Court Cards at the UK Tarot Conference next October – in the lunchtime slot – and a big thank you to Kim for being brave enough to give me my first chance as a Tarot speaker!

    There are other Tarot projects too, a couple of which have been sitting on the back burners, but with the news that The Hermit needs his light to shine, well, I might just think about giving them a stir!

    What about you? Did you try the spread?

  • Lunar Eclipse Spread

    Please click on image to visit
    Alexander’s site

    Tomorrow night is a lunar eclipse (28 November) – the last one until April 2013 – and it’s a wonderful event to witness.  What makes it very special, for me, is that hardly anyone looks up at the skies these days – perhaps lovers, foxes and those of us who have to travel by ferry 🙂  People are trudging home from the pub or work, usually looking at the ground….and I’m sitting in the garden hugging a mug of tea for warmth, staring at the sky.

    During a lunar eclipse, the Earth’s shadow falls across the face of the moon, turning her cool white face into a warm, earthy blush.  The red moon is magnificent to see!

    It’s a humbling, awe-inspiring event, guaranteed to remind you that you are but a tiny speck on a big ball spinning in space!

    Here’s a fun spread to do during the eclipse.

    Apologies to readers who are also members of the Glasgow Tarot Meet Up Group because they are already familiar with this 🙂

    It’s very easy:

    1  Shuffle your cards whilst contemplating the thought: ‘what energies are being eclipsed in my life?’
    2  Complete your shuffle.
    3  Turn your deck over so that the images are now facing you.
    4  Flick through the cards until you find your World (or equivalent) card.
    5  The card BEHIND the World is what you currently hold in shadow.

    You can also expand upon it by adding in a Solar Eclipse element to the spread.  As you search for your World card, also keep an eye open for The High Priestess card at the same time and locate the card directly behind her too.

    Why the High Priestess?  Well, The High Priestess is the card who represents the Moon, if you work with Astrology in your Tarot practice.  So with THIS adjunct to the spread, we can find out what a Solar eclipse hides from us too.

    You can further expand upon the spread by bringing in more cards – how can I bring this energy out of darkness? How will this energy benefit me? and so on.

    *** Edit: info added:  If the card you are seeking is right on the bottom of the pack, with nothing behind it, refer to the FIRST card on the top of the pile, as if they had been laid out in a circle.

    I’ll be working a Court Card variation of this spread tomorrow and posting on Thursday.

    If you try the spread, I’d love to know how you get along with it 🙂

  • Meet the Courts | Alexander Daniloff Tarot

    Come on in to the wonderful Italianate, medieval-inspired world of Alexander Daniloff! *throws open the door*.  This glorious Tarot is still very new to me, but I wanted to share his Court Cards with you so that you can see why I am so enamoured of this man’s work!

    There is no accompanying book with this deck, but I don’t think that this detracts from the cards as a working deck at all. It’s very RWS-based in its imagery.

    Without further ado, TADAAAAH! Here they are!

    The Swords Courts

    As you can see, the common colour to the Swords Courts is black – quite in tune with the suits associations with grief and loss.  But black is powerful, threatening… also, makes you look slimmer 🙂  There are lovely pops of colour in these cards too – and love the raven perched above the queen! I already spoke to Alexander Daniloff about the Page, with is artfully hidden HEWGE sword here.

    They’re all looking the same way, to our left.  They have the sort of dark expressions that one might associate with the suit – although the Queen looks downright sneaky lol!

    The Cups Courts

    Check out the delightful aqua and blue hues of the Cups, less obvious in the King perhaps.  Unlike the Swords, this family all face to the right.  I adore the big clumsy-looking Knight and love how the Queen of Cups slides her gaze to him!

    The common colour for the Wands is green – reflecting the liveliness of the living Wand.  The Wands Knight looks like a character from The Far Pavilions (not read it? read it. I luffed it.) The Wands look predominantly out to the left other, like the Swords.  Apart from the pesky Page who looks to the right! Look at the sad-looking lion skin belonging to the King of Wands.  He’s skinned the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz.  And the Queen – with her golden ripe harvest and fiery ram’s fleece……. The Wands are scrumptious!

    The Pentacles Courts

    I think that this might be my favourite family in this deck because, if you look closely, the Pentacle in each card is different.  The Page has a game, the Knight has a coin, the Queen has a globe-like sphere and the King’s Pentacle is part of the trappings of his wealth, his robes.  I love the Elephant and Castle on the escutcheon that makes up the King’s torso.  This is where the lack of a LWB can be a little maddening lol! Mind you, I’ve seen fairly significant symbols go unmentioned in lots of LWBs, so there’s no guarantee that I would be any the wiser if Alexander had included one.

    From a bit of an internet trawl, the elephant is associated with strength.  And castles with defence – so strength and defence might be their motto?  And yes, I’m also aware that it’s the name of a significant junction in London 😀
    All the Pages are depicted as youths with banners representing their suits, standing on boards.  They have a small area of influence.
    The Knights are depicted behind helmets and shields (in the Germanic style).
    The Queens are depicted in a similar shield shape and have playing card suit references
    The Kings have their coat of arms as their torso.
    Each card has its associated astrological symbol prominently placed to the foot of the card, which makes these cards lovely to use as Significators based on astrological references. The poor Pages have, of course, no astral real-estate and so have no astrological symbols. Don’t blame Alexander, blame the Golden Dawn 😉
    Knights, who are traditionally mutable, have frilly moveable fronds around them
    The Queens who are cardinal are in a human-heart shaped vignette and are before a swagged entrance.  Cardinal signs are the entrance signs (first signs) encountered when looking at astrology of Courts 🙂  Look, I’m trying to help pin the associations here lol!
    The Kings are fixed, as denoted by the cityscapes in their thrones.
    Oh there is so much else that I want to add about these characters, but I shall save it for another day!
    So what do you think of them? Love them? Loathe them?!
    *whispers* it had better be love or you and I may have to break off our engagement 😀

  • Hors de Combat | The Queen of Pentacles

    I have been under the weather with the Noro Virus and it has been ghastly.  I freely admit to being a bit of a drama queen, but honestly I hate not knowing which end of my body to drape pathetically over the loo.

    It is on the way OUT – if you catch my meaningful drift – so I thought I would take a look at a suitable Tarot Court to help get me back on track.

    Because it’s a health issue, I’m choosing from the Pentacles family.

    I’m going to go for the Queen of Pentacles because I am feeling pretty sorry for myself and want to some ideas about how best to look after myself.  The Queens are all about nurturing, so the Queen of Pents should be the very gal to help me out.

    I’m using the Queen of Pents from my new Tarot from Alexander Daniloff.  Which I am luffing to DEATH.

    Here she is:

    All the Queens are presented in this ‘gallery’ format.  I hope to be able to show you the Court Cards very soon so that you too can marvel at their sheer AWESOMENESS 🙂

    Anyway, let’s take a better look at her.  I am loving her earthy colours and her bountiful fruit – pears and grapes, two of my favourites.  She looks relaxed and comfortable in her environment, with her hand lightly placed upon her Pentacle (which looks like a globe here), so she rules her world with a light and tender touch.  She has luxurious clothes on too…. that appeals to the Leo in me like you wouldn’t believe!

    So how can she help me with my health?

    Why not try upping my fruit intake?
    Relax a little more?
    Treat my ‘world’ (in this case my body) with a light and tender touch – massage?
    Get out of my slobby ‘sick clothes’ and into nicer stuff.

    Would adding an Oracle card or two bring any further information that I could use?

    Delving into my Dreaming in Colour deck by Mindy Somers (my favourite for this kind of exercise), I drew the Power card.  I like how the colours are sympathetic to the Queen of Pentacles shades.

    Maybe I could try some orange/bronze shades to make myself look a bit less corpse-like?

    And of course POWER.  I am loving the whirling spiral as it rises from the bottom of the card to the top.  This is exactly what I need to do –  I really need to be getting out and about again as I’ve hardly crossed the threshold since Saturday night.  I also acknowledge that if I was a bit more active, maybe I wouldn’t be so laid low with this?  In my house I am notoriously sedentary.  My son did a portrait of me and it was basically the back of my head, sitting at the computer. I know.  Scary.

    I don’t want you to get sick of seeing the same sorts of cards on here, so let’s expand our horizon and end with a different Oracle card.  This one is from the Celtic Animal Oracle by Anna Franklin.

    He’s BADGER!  I love badgers and the keywords for this card are Tenacity, Strength and Defence – which are appropriate!

    Badger urges me to look after my home, my world, to be strong ….. and to infect cattle with TB 😀

    What do you think of these cards? Do you have a spread or a card that you refer to when you’re feeling below par?