Tarot Thrones | The Court Card Blog

Month: October 2016

  • The Tarot Court | The Bridge card

    If I were to ask you to lay out the your favourite tarot deck in order, how would you do it?

    Would you lay out the Major Arcana from The Fool to The World and then dive into the Minor Arcana via an Ace from one of the suits? And work up to the 10 and then head over to the Page and end at the King before beginning at the next suit’s Ace?

    I reckon I’d begin with The Fool and work through them until I culminated with the King of Pentacles as the 78th card.

    But that’s not how A E Waite saw it.


    I’ve been revisiting Waite’s The Pictorial Key To The Tarot, one of the Tarot books that you can freely enjoy on www.sacred-texts.com or buy on Amazon for a couple of shekels.

    Admittedly, Waite’s style of writing is convoluted and a bit disdainful of anyone who isn’t himself (like many of his ilk). Frankly, if he was any more up himself, would be able to see the back of his own teeth.  BUT, on the other hand, he did give us The Rider Waite Smith Tarot deck that we all know and love, so I figure that he is worth another look.

    Waite says:

    “In respect of their usual presentation, the bridge between the Greater and Lesser Arcana is supplied by the court cards ..”

    He then goes on to say that there is no special idea connected on the surface with the ordinary court cards, that they are merely ‘a bridge of conventions’ that lead to the ‘simple pretexts’ of the Minor Arcana.

    He concludes, no doubt from a melancholic slump on his red velvet divan:  ‘We seem to have passed away utterly from the region of higher meanings illustrated by living pictures.’

    Waite’s occult snobbery about the value of the Minor Arcana aside, what he’s saying is that the COURT CARDS are the link between the Majors and the Minors.

    But which one, Mr Waite? Who’s the lucky guy/gal?

    *clears throat and stands up to relay the important news*

    The reclining court card that reaches upwards, Adam-like, from the earthly Minor Arcana to brush fingertips with the celestial glories of the Majors is……. *pauses to build tension*….  THE KING OF WANDS.

    For me, the King of Wands is magnetically attractive, potentially dangerous and, just like the Fire he represents, can be all-devouring. However, in addition to the traits that we would normally bestow upon him, it is time to add one other.  For it would seem that The King of Wands is a spiritual lighthouse.

    Yes, yes, this is all well and good, I hear you thinking, but SO WHAT?

    Well, what it could mean is that when The King of Wands arises in your work, we readers can be aware that THIS court card – more than any other – has a link with the archetypal energies of the Majors.

    Not only can we interpret the King of Wands as perhaps a person (the querent or someone known to the querant) or reflecting the energies around the situation being discussed, he may also act as a signal that some BIG Archetypal Type Changes are a-coming because HE is the Bifrost.

    Yes, the King of Wands can be the flaming rainbow bridge that links the world of the archetypes with our own humble abode.

    That makes me think of Thor.  And by default, Loki.  I know that you’re not really surprised to see this:

    … and sorry, this post has nothing whatsoever to do with the Danish TV series and Saga Noren either.  NOTHING.

    Or Simon and Garfunkle.

    Or dental work.

    So, do you think that the King of Wands is a very special sort of a guy, being The Bridge?

  • Beautiful Creatures Tarot | J R Rivera & Jasmine Becket-Griffith

    Let’s just get something sorted, right away: If you like large liquid eyes and cupid’s-bow mouths, you are going to love this deck.  If you don’t, well, loving it is going to be a big ask. Think ‘The Crying Boy’ painting meets Crowley 🙂

    Published by Schiffer, the author of this deck is J R Rivera and the artist is Jasmine Becket-Griffith.

    So let’s look at the size of these cards.

    They are quite chunky in the hand – I couldn’t fit four of them abreast on the scanner (just under 13cm tall and under 9cm wide).

    They come in a really lovely quality Schiffer presentation box along with the 151-page accompanying book.

    All the cards – including the Majors – are in the same darkly kitsch style that you see here in the Court Arcana.

    Let’s look at the Fires court cards first of all.  All the cards are renamed : The Fires’ ranks are Nymph, Archer, Ram and Lion.  If you are familiar with astrological associations in tarot, you will know that the Archer, Ram and Lion are descriptors for Sagittarius, Aries and Leo, AKA the Fire Signs.  This motif continues through all the courts and each suit’s court cards helpfully contains its astrological glyph.  For example, you can see in the Fires courts above the arm tattoos and the blue ‘brand’ on the haunch of the Archer.


    The Nymphs (aka Pages) are regarded in the same vein as the Rider Waite Smith – they are the purest elements of the suits and aren’t accorded an astrological sign.   
    A comment made about the standard Rank hierarchy in Tarot is that the King sits at the top with the Queen second in command, as it were.  In The Beautiful Creatures Tarot this is not the case.  There are only TWO recognisably male figures – on The Lovers and the 2 of Waters (which takes its inspiration from the Wedding of the Arnolfinis).

    Remember: the sex of the character in the courts of ANY deck does not prevent their energies from being applied to other sexes. And neither does the colour of the characters in the cards limit them to one particular ethnicity 🙂

    In the book by Rivera, each card is depicted as a full page B&W illustration, with a page devoted to interpreting the card in question.  Each card has an opening statement of selfhood.  For example, the Virgin of Earths says: ‘I have analyzed that going forward will help you cross the finish line.’

    Her Keyword, Endurance, is provided followed by a paragraph description of what you can see in the card.  Rivera then outlines the traditional tarot archetype of the card and what she might mean if she pertains to a situation.

    The Minor Arcana are fully illustrated, but they are not RWS clones by any means – if you deborder the cards, you might struggle to know which image represents which card.

    The cardback design lends itself to reversals and Rivera includes reversed insights in the accompanying book.

    Many of the Majors are renamed, but none so differently as you wouldn’t know from the title who it was.  For example, The Swinging One, is clearly this deck’s version of The Hanged Man and shows a Fragonard-inspired girl on a swing… Death is Transformation…. The Tower becomes The Unexpected.

    Rivera and Becket-Griffiths have included two additional cards.  The first, intended to be used as the sitter’s significator is – You Are One.  The second ‘The Supernatural’, intended to be used for the sitter’s situation.

    The book also has a handful of spreads ranging from a single card reading to the 7-card Family and Hereditary spread.

    What do I think of the deck?  The width of the cards might be tricky for small hands and the style might turn some people off, thinking it too cutesy.  If this deck was a cake, it would be a Hallowe’en cake – a dark chocolate with a sweet centre 😀

    I think that the court cards are great – all the visual clues you need to remember which astrological sign is associated with which card (as long as you can remember which card name is associated with the traditional one!) and ideal for someone who is starting work using astrology with their court cards.

    Do you use it?  Tell me what you think of it?

  • Tarot | Noa Ikeda | One To Watch

    Sometimes my friend Gav is the worst enabler in the world.  And by that I mean that he is the BEST enabler in the world.  It was Gav that alerted me to this deck by illustrator Noa Ikeda.  And now I want it.  More than oxygen.  Or Biscuits.

    I love the colours and the Japanese styling of this jewel-bright deck.  So I zapped off a missive to Noa with some questions and to obtain permission to share the images of her deck’s Queens.  PLEASE visit her website to check out the Major Arcana images – they are glorious.

    The Queen of Swords

    Here we have the Queen of Swords, who is veiled – which I really love!  We have several elements that Swords are associated with Air – wings and clouds abound!

    Here we have the Queen of Cups who is simply gorgeous, decked out in her elegant white gown surrounded by watery imagery – seated in a shell with the ocean at her feet.

     This is the Queen of Pentacles, who is seated in a woodland grove with a tree as a throne. She is surrounded by earthy symbols, flowers greenery and a white rabbit.

    The Queen of Wands is the epitome of a fiery Queen.  She is the only one not to wear a dress.  As in the RWS she holds a sunflower as well as her Wand of power  and a great black panther (a tad bigger than the black cat of the RWS!) dozes by her side.  She is seated in a desert-like environment.

    I sent off some questions to Neo about the forthcoming deck and her court cards but she was off to an event.  Never fear, I will get the answers soon and share them here!

    You can keep up with the development of Noa’s deck
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