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!

Lunar Eclipse Spread

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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.

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 :-D

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 :-D

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 :-D

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?

Court Cards | Masks for Protection

Well, it had to happen.  I promised you a posting today on Masks for Protection and then the fabulously entertaining exercises that had been pinging around in my head for days promptly flew out of my ears and left naught behind but a whistling wind.  I could not remember what I was going to say to you.

My thought process then went like this:

'I promised my lovely reader a blog post on Masks for Protection and now I've completely forgotten what I was going to write.  I'm such a TWAT.  Now EVERYBODY will see how clueless I am.  Why can't I remember it? It must have been rubbish in the first place.  That's it, the game Will Be Up and I shall be run out of Blogger as a FRAUD and a TERRIBLE person.  I may as well just QUIT.'

I then laid my head gently on the cold surface of my desk and wished I smoked cheroots.

This process of transformation from confident blogger to deranged harpy takes about 2 heart beats.