Tarot Thrones | The Court Card Blog

Month: June 2012

  • Hello to the Queen of Swords

    I know that this post is a little late, but I didn’t want the Summer Solstice blog post and the Incoming influences card post to overlap too much, so I held the Incoming Influences card reading over until this week.

    I feel weird.  And sad.

    At the end of this week, my son will leave the innocent delights of Primary School behind him and set his face towards his secondary school education in August.   I should feel happy – we’re halfway through his formal education and we’re doing fine. Right?

    But I laid out his uniform for him this morning and waves of sadness washed over me as I hung up the little white shirt and tie.  ‘This is the last Monday that I’ll do this for him,’ I thought.

    I know.  I am totally working Queen of Cups reversed.

    He has mixed feelings about moving on too.  On one hand he is excited about the new challenge.  On the other, he is wary of being one of the Wee Ones again in a new school.  ‘We’re starting at the beginning again,’ he told me glumly as he straightened his tie.

    Yes, we are.  But it’s a whole new ball game.

    He’s growing his hair.

    His feet are nearly the same size as mine.

    He’s got the full eye-rolling, sotto voce cursing, audible sighing thing down to an art form.  And he’s not even 12 yet.

    Honestly? I miss the little boy that he was very much.  His small, hot hand readily snaking into mine to cross the road….. the guileless hugs and kisses.

    These days I’m too uncool to be seen with, so he walks a few steps ahead and I am only hugged and kissed when he wants to play with my ipad or seeking my agreement that he can play the Playstation for a while with his friends.

    The truth is that I feel increasingly redundant in his life.  I used to be his sun and now I’m just some cold little moon whizzing round Pluto, right on the edge of his universe.

    I wish that there was some way of helping parents cope with these strange feelings – the sense of loss, of time passing too quickly….. that we cannot keep him safe for ever.

    But it is also tempered with pride – he is turning into a lovely young man, he has a kind heart, he has friends, he should do ok academically…… unless he is beset by his hormones and side-tracked by girls and tempted by all manner of other stuff that he should Bloody Well Stay Away From.

    Was I surprised then, that the incoming card for this period was the Rider Waite Smith’s Queen of Swords?

    Not at all.

    I am going to depend upon her no nonsense energies to ensure that my sad thoughts are kicked into line and that I am less emotional about all this stuff.  She sets her face towards the future, her sword bolt upright and ready to cut out any overly-maudlin nonsense.  Her hand is raised to welcome the next phase.

    She tells me that while it’s ok for me to honour my feelings, it’s also good for me to recognise that they are not FACT and that I can change them. And indeed I MUST change them to make sure that Sonshine’s last week at school is memorable for all the right reasons.

    Wish her luck.  She’s going to need it!

  • Celebrate your Solstice!

    Welcome to This Game of Thrones, my blog about the Court Cards of the Tarot.  Chances are you have alighted here as a stop on the Tarot Blog Hop from either Donna Faber’s blog or Priestess Tarot’s blog.  Heck, perhaps you wafted in here from Twitter or Facebook links and haven’t a clue what the Tarot Blog Hop might be!

    The Tarot Blog hop is where a whole load of Tarotists (what is the collective name for a bunch of Tarotists anyway? a Fool of Tarotists? A World of Tarotists?!) blog on the same topic, relating it to Tarot or Oracles in whichever way the Muse moves them.  We all post at the same time (that’s the theory and the challenge lol!) and link together like a daisy chain. Today our subject is: Celebrate The Sunrise.

    Today, the Summer Solstice, is the longest day, and along with the Winter Solstice, these two tend to be the dawns that we consider significant amongst the other 363.  But surely EVERY dawn is worth celebrating?

    ‘Every day you waken up, you’re winning’ is a quote, from goodness knows where, which I hold very dear.

    So, my question today was, how can we best celebrate our sunrise, not just today, but every day?

    I selected a court card at random from the Gaian Tarot by Joanna Powell Colbert.  The card drawn was the charming Child of Earth. Standing in his verdant green woolly sweater beneath a great apple tree, the little fella is completely engrossed in the scarlet apple in his hands. 

    In this deck, the Child cards (equating to the traditional Page) all ask us to approach life with ‘Beginner’s Mind’.

    I like that, for me there is no better way to look at a sunrise as an opportunity to start afresh; for us to look at life with new and curious eyes. We can choose to drop our baggage of experience and refuse to let our previous encounters taint our enjoyment of the new day.

    And of course this works on other levels.

    We all have our own particular sunrises, those things that light up our lives with hope.  The could be our families, our faith, our career, our hobbies – the thing that makes your life worthwhile!  The Child looks at that apple as if he’s never seen it before, appreciating it for the miracle that it is.  And he urges us to do the same.

    Be honest, we tend not to do that.  Just think – I wrote this on a little box in Scotland and you are reading it on your own box somewhere else in the world.  We are linked together by cables, plugs and, frankly, magic!  We have SO much magic in our lives that we no longer see because we have grown complacent to it and accept it as ‘normal’.  We can fly like birds to every part of the world! We can switch on a box in the corner of the room and watch a football match being played live on another continent (obviously there is WAY too much Euro 2012 footie on the telly!)! We eat fresh vegetables from distant counties (and countries!)…. our lives are filled with the most amazing and wondrous things.  And we tend not to bother about them 🙂

    One of the things that lights up my life is my recently-found pleasure in learning to playing the keyboard.  Beethoven I’m not, but I really enjoy plinking away at Killing Me Softly or Danny Boy.  Mind you, I’m not sure whether my family enjoys it QUITE as much as me.  The Child of Earth prompts me to appreciate how far I’ve come, how much fun I have with it, and to take delight in the noise that I make!

    The Child card urges us to keep that personal sunrise fresh, unjaded, curious and fun. Approach your own sunrise as a miracle for your day, just as the sun rising over the horizon is a miracle to ALL our days!

    The Child’s companion animal, the rabbit, is often found at dawn and dusk ‘when it is easiest to slip between this world and the Otherworld,’ Joanna reminds us. 

    Most of the time we don’t give much thought to sunrise or sunset – we sleep through the former and the latter passes in a blur of TV shows. But dawn and dusk are very special times of the day, thresholds between this world and the Otherworld, as Joanna says.  We should honour them all, don’t you think?

    As far as our own personal sunrises are concerned, when you are doing something that you love, you tend to zone out or enter Flow – isn’t that a perfect way to experience the Otherworld?

    Through the Child of Earth, we can celebrate our sunrise (in whichever form we recognise it) by allowing ourselves to be delighted and amazed by its existence in our lives.  On a daily basis we can give thanks for all those things that light up our day.

    Can we look at an apple and see it for the first time?

    I hope that you have enjoyed your time here on This Game of Thrones and maybe you’ll come back and visit me again.  You might like to sign up for my Court Card newsletter so that we can keep in touch? 

    Next stop on the tarot blog hop trail…..

    Feel free to hop backwards though the list to the lovely Louise at Priestess Tarot too!


    http://www.priestesstarot.co.uk/tarot-blog-hop-litha
    And if any of the links are broken, please visit the Blog-Wrangler’s master list!
    http://innerwhisperscouk.blogspot.co.uk/p/litha-blog-hop-master-list.html

  • Away with the Birdies!

    Today I thought I’d introduce you to the Court Cards of the Secret Language of Birds Tarot by Adele Nozedar and Linda Sutton (artist).

    Before we talk about the Courts in this deck, you will see that this suit, Cups, is entitled Coppe. Adele pays tribute to the Italian 15th century origins of the Tarot (as we currently understand them!) and each suit and Major is named in Italian, but fret not, the accompanying book has it all in English too.

    Each suit is allocated a bird; for the Cups it is the Kingfisher, as you can see.

    The Court structure has been re-imagined by Nozedar and we see the Page/Princess role now taken by the Queen and the Knight/Prince role is now filled by The King.  I can see your eyelid starting to twitch – is that confusing the hell out of you, dear Thothites? 🙂

    The two high profile roles that had belonged to the King and Queen have now been transferred to the God and Goddess of the suit.

    The reason for the inclusion of a God and Goddess is that birds have always had associations with the divine because they can fly right up there to the highest heavens and commune with the Gods themselves.  They have also been associated with Divine messsages and interaction with us in mythology (eg Leda and the swan) and also in biblical stories – the Dove and the Raven in the Noah’s Ark story for example.

    By adding the God and Goddess elements, Adele reminds us of those divine links between the birds and us and the birds and the Gods, and us and the Gods.

    Adele and Linda have sneaked in the occasional famous face too – and here you can clearly see the young Elizabeth Taylor….and I’m pretty sure that I should know that other dude next to her – Is he Dylan Thomas? That’s who provides the quote that opens the section on the King of Cups, so that’s who I’m plumping for! *complete philistine face*

    To marry bird augury,  one of the most ancient forms of divination, with Tarot (the most popular!) is, I think, inspired!  In the accompanying book, Adele gives many interesting details of the mythology of the birds and how it’s an appropriate symbol for each card.

    The Kingfisher symbol transforms into the Feng Huang – the Chinese equivalent of the Phoenix as it enters the realms of the gods.  This transformation also takes place as the bird rises towards the Gods in the other suits too.

    And you will see that the Court structure doesn’t end with the God, but the Goddess! I like the idea of concluding the Courts with a Goddess and not a God – keeps it fresh!  *high fives anyone passing* 

    So – what do you think of Adele and Linda’s Coppe Court Cards? As ever, I’d love to hear your comments!

    Published by Schiffer. Words Adele Nozedar. Art Linda Sutton

    You can find our more about Adele’s work here and Linda’s work here

  • But what do you MEAN?!

    The Queen of Swords from
    Marie White’s Mary-El Tarot
    Published by Schiffer

    I once did a Tarot reading for a newly-engaged lady and in her Celtic Cross spread, there were NINE court cards.

    NINE!!!

    Once I had dragged myself up off the floor and wiped the tears from my panic-stricken eyes, I set about giving the reading, my voice thin and reedy with stress.

    ‘Are you finding a LOT of people trying to tell you how to organise the wedding?’ I asked gingerly.

    She nodded.

    …and so, dear Reader, we come to the first meaning of a Court Card when it pops up in a reading – the energies of people who are somehow involved in the scenario in question.

    It wasn’t too long into the reading until we had ascertained the other two traditional meanings of the Court Cards

    a) the energies of the sitter herself and
    b) the energies of the court card around the situation generally.

    The majority of the Court Cards that arose were Wands and Swords and I asked whether the input from a lot of people was getting on her nerves – albeit well-intentioned. 

    Yes, she replied.  Especially from the groom’s mother.

    She pointed to the Queen of Swords (I was using the Rider Waite Smith for this reading). ‘What is it about that card that makes you think she represents your future mother-in-law’?’

    The bride-to-be shrugged, reluctant to say anything.

    ‘I promise not to tell Evan,’ I said seriously, holding my hand up in an approximation of a court room oath.  And then she was off like a hare out of the traps…..there was almost no sin that this poor woman was not guilty of….from wanting her grandchildren at the wedding, to disputing the flower choices, the vegetarian menu choices and butting in on just who was sitting at what table.

    The thing is, I *knew* her future mother-in-law and although she was quite a powerful woman, she was not the shrewish manipulator that the bride was painting her out to be.  Indeed, the future mother-in-law had been upset and hurt by the bride’s reluctance to even sit still and listen to any ideas that she had for her son’s Big Day.

    ….and that brings me to the final point that I wanted to make about the Court Cards when they tip up in a reading.  The Court may just be a projection of how the querent sees someone’s energies, not how they actually ARE.

    When I pointed out the positive qualities of the Queen of Swords – her social adeptness, her dislike of spin and bullshit, her unflinching honesty – the bride reluctantly agreed that they WERE qualities that could prove useful when planning a wedding.

    We talked about this and the bride accepted that HER attitude to her family’s well-meaning input was spoiling the whole big run up to the day.  And, tadaaaah! – the wedding was a great success!

    So, to recap, in a reading, Court cards can mean one or more of three things:

    The energies of the sitter
    The energies of someone involved in the sitter’s scenario
    The energies generally around the scenario

    But perhapsthre is also a fourth interpretation….. the sitter projecting her own thoughts and fears onto other people and turning them into the Court Card.

    What do you think yourself? I’d love to know if you have alternative ways to interpret the Courts.

  • Farewell to the King of Swords!

    Did you miss me?  I took myself (and family) off to Blackpool for a few days so that my son had a better memory of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee than just a day off school.

    Ever diligent, I took my laptop with me, but when your hotel overlooks Blackpool Pleasure Beach and this is the view from your bedroom window, blogging kinda goes OUT the window!

    You’re probably thinking ‘Jeez, what a shit view!’ but, dear reader, I REQUESTED a bedroom with a view over the rollercoasters because I LOVE listening to their thunder and rattle (and the excited screaming!).  I feel happy when I hear it.  Odd?

    I did take my Tarot stuff with me because, like I say, I’m trying to be diligent! And as we walked back to the hotel from the Pleasure Beach after the Queen’s Jubilee Party late on Monday night, I saw the full moon glowing above the deserted streets and remembered that I had to select a card to show the energies that will recede as the moon wanes to darkness.  So, who appeared from the deck for me this time?

    The card drawn was the Mary El King of Swords.

    With his fingers thrumming the string of his bow and his other hand holding a white feather (check out that inky black tip!), the King of Swords looks beyond us.  He has no sword to wield – but his weapons are ink-dipped quills and his thoughts. He looks oriental with that beard and his bald head (and with that huge dragon tattoo that consumes his back!)   The sky, clouds and feathers remind me that Swords are airy, cerebral, truth-valuers.

    Around the outline of his body snakes script, almost echoing the curved dragon – I cannot read the script and there is no mention of it in his description in the LWB *note to self: You need stronger specs*  I choose to interpret these words as acting like a protective shield around him – words are his weapon and his defence.

    I am very fond of the King of Swords in any deck and I am loathe to part with his good qualities….so I hope that his negative qualities are on the wane over the coming weeks.  This will mean that I will no longer let my (or other people’s!) thoughts, doubts or fears harm me nor hold me back.

    *sharpens quill and unscrews top from ink bottle*

    I’m ready.  Are you?  What does this King of Swords mean to you? Do you like him?!

    If you like this image, and want to see more, check out Marie White’s website: www.mary-el.com.  The deck is published by Schiffer.