Tarot Thrones | The Court Card Blog

Year: 2018

  • Tarot Court Card | 2019 Theme

    Tarot Court Card | 2019 Theme

    Just a bit of Tarot Court Card fun to start us thinking about what we want for ourselves in 2019. I’ve done this for the past three years or so and it’s just a bit of fun, not rooted in any deep and meaningful ancient system. Just my own 🙂

    So, you might be working out your Major Arcana card for 2019 to give you a THEME for the coming year, as inspired by your personal year data.

    To find our what your personal year card is, take your day and month of birth and and add to 39 (ie 20+19, the incoming year).
    Here’s an example: mine!
       13
    +  8
      39
      60

    Since there is no Major Arcana card numbered 60 (hey, we’re not using Minchiates here, people!), these digits need to be further reduced by adding them together, giving us a total of 6.
    My theme for the year will be inspired by The Lovers *and I absolutely need to make better choices for myself!*
    But since my blog focuses on the Court Cards, I thought we’d have a little fun and extend the exercise further:
    Instead of adding up your digits, above, until they total 22 or under (ie the number of Major Arcana cards we have), total them up until they are 17 or less.
    I numbered the Page of Pentacles, the lowliest of the lowly, as 1.  But your numbers will not reduce to one, so I’ve also accorded him 17 (because he’s also VERY special, as well as being the lowliest of the lowly).
    So, if you add up to 17, then you are having a Page of Pents year 🙂
    Taking my example again, this means that my 6 – Lovers year – becomes further compounded by Court Card 6…. which is The Knight of Cups.  This year is going to be my Grail year, and my search will involve making better choices for myself!  *gives facebook some side-eye*
    Want to take it further?! Well, you will be able to when my self-published book on court cards comes out at the beginning of July (at the latest!).
    Have a try yourself and tell me who you end up with as your Court Card theme for the year!
    Page of Pents (1) or 17
    Page of Cups 2
    Page of Swords 3
    Page of Wands 4
    Knight of Pents 5
    Knight of Cups 6
    Knight of Swords 7
    Knight of Wands 8
    Queen of Pents 9
    Queen of Cups 10
    Queen of Swords 11
    Queen of Wands 12
    King of Pentacles 13
    King of Cups 14
    King of Swords 15

    King of Wands 16       

  • Queen of Swords | House Moving Tale of Woe

    Queen of Swords | House Moving Tale of Woe

    So, Thursday rolled around – the date that we’d all been dreading – the day that my mother was moving to an apartment in an ‘independent living’ complex.

    Why the dread? The flat is lovely and I expect her to be much happier living there with lots of people around her and lots of emergency cords in case she has a fall. BUT she has lived in a 3-bed semi for 56 years and it is pretty full of 56 years of tat.

    By Saturday evening she was a weeping rag of a woman, sitting in her little armchair unable to process any more requests from my SIL or myself about what was to stay and what was to go.

    And my SIL and I were getting tired and fed up – irritated at the sheer volume of crap that we were packing at one end, unpacking at the other end and trying to find a home for.

    The laws of physics states – you cannot cram the entire contents of a 3-bed semi into a 1-bed flat.

    But by God, we have tried.

    I was a ruthlessly efficient Queen of Swords, able to bin off boxfuls of charity lapel pins as easily as my old Mother’s Day presents that had been quietly punted to a shoebox in her wardrobe as soon as every Mother’s Day was over.

    My SIL was more caring – constantly monitoring my mother’s physical needs over the day – cups of tea, glasses of water, enforced breaks for lunch etc.  A healthy Queen of Pentacles.

    ‘What about this?’ I say tersely as I stand before her holding a china nut-bowl in a raffia basket.

    “I am taking that with me,” says mother defiantly.

    “When was the last time you used this, mum?” I ask (knowing full well that it has never been out of its box). 

    “I’m planning on having some get togethers in my new flat.  I’ll need it.”

    I pack it with a sigh.

    I pull out another nut bowl, this time with bright Spanish-style flowers painted on it.  “Can I put this one in the charity box then?” I ask.

    Out comes the hankie.  “No,” she weeps.  “That was the last thing that your dad bought me on our last holiday together.”

    Only someone with a heart of stone would have thrown it into the charity box.  I considered it, because I am that heart of stone.

    “Could you maybe just take this one and put out the other one?”

    Mum shakes her head.  “No, the other one was a gift from Old Andrew, my old friend from the art class.  Do you remember him?”

    I do.  I also know that Old Andrew was probably glad to get rid of the raffia-swaddled nut bowl back in 1971 when he passed it on to mum.

    And so the days went on …. and out of 3-bedrooms, we have only one large box of outgoing items for the Salvation Army.  We have moved, however, many, MANY boxes of stuff that SHOULD go to the Salvation Army into her new house.

    So, here’s what this Queen of Swords would advise you all who are still to move their aged parents.

    1     Start thinning down everything NOW, long before your folks need to move – clothes, the drinks cabinet, the contents of the garage,  bedding, kitchen cupboard stuff.   Does my mother need THREE vacuum cleaners for a 1-bed apartment. A 1-bed apartment that she will pay a cleaner to actually clean for her.  Apparently she does.  *rolls eyes* 

    2     Try to encourage your folks to see objects as are they are, not as the stories they attach to those objects.  Those stories tie you to that clutter.  Without that story would you want that thing in your life? Old Andrew lives on in my mother’s heart, not in his nut bowl. 

    3    Prepare for your own move – to sheltered housing or even just your next house move – and thin down your own stuff.  I’m starting this week!

    4    Stop buying new stuff unless you are replacing old stuff.  I promise you, you do not need 15 coats, mum.

    5    Don’t hang on to things just because they are ‘good’ or may be useful.  Get ‘good’ stuff that you don’t ever use out into the charity boxes so that someone else WILL find it useful.

    6    Don’t put out anything shabby for the charity shops.  If it’s not fit for you to wear/use, it won’t be fit for anyone else either.

  • Tarot in Art | King of Coins | Salvador Dali

    Tarot in Art | King of Coins | Salvador Dali

    Salvador Dali | King | Coins | Tarot
    My quest to find more Salvador Dali Tarot court card images continues!

    I have not seen this one up for sale before; the King of Coins image by Salvador Dali … of Salvador Dali as the King of Coins.

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  • The Aquarian Tarot | US Games

    The Aquarian Tarot | US Games

    The Lovers VI | Aquarian Tarot | David Palladini | www.tarot-thrones.com
    My acquisitive quest for tarot decks is on an enforced go-slow at the moment and as a result, I am diving back in to some old decks that have fallen off my tarot rota.
    Today I wanted to chat about the Aquarian Tarot by David Palladini.
    The deck was originally published in 1970 (Morgan Press) and the version that I have is a later version from US Games.
    I loved the brand Biba in the 70s (still do!) and everything about The Palladini Tarot deck reminds me of that same stylised Art Deco feel with a 70s twist. It’s a full 78-card RWS-style deck with Strength as VIII and Justice at XI.

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  • Tarot In Art | Igor Makarevish | Majors Only

    Golly, this is one for those with very deep pockets!  A set of 23 tarot cards (all the Majors plus a Significator, possibly?) that are up for sale at the moment here.

    This collection of cards is called The Makarevich Tarot.  The lot also comprises of a cover sheet and are presented in a silk covered hard case, each mounted on paper; 14 signed, some with initials, and nine dated 1994 and one 1995.

    Each card ink and watercolour, and cover sheet ž ink on paper, 22 cards measuring approximately 20 by 13 cm, one 21 by 17 cm, and cover sheet 12 by 15 cm (each image size).

    The present owner acquired the cards directly from the artist in 1998.

    Sit down for this one:  They are expected to fetch between £5,000 and £7,000!

    The cards are by Georgian-born Igor Makarevich (born 1943 – still with us!).  Makarevich is a photographer and conceptual artist who studied at Moscow Art School as well as the Moscow Institute of Cinematography and in 2012 was awarded for “the Creative Contribution to the Development of the Contemporary Art”.

    Lives and works in Moscow.

    Auction date is 6 June.

    So, start saving up!

  • XVI The Tower | The Court Cards

    XVI The Tower | The Court Cards

    We all have roles that we play in life – child, sibling, friend, lover, partner, parent, colleague, boss, grand-parent, high priestess ….  hey, it’s your life, your roles 🙂

    Whether we are anchorite nuns, mothers of millions, CEOs of Fortune 500 companies,  we will all experience, God help us, that lightning strike that leaves us shattered like a broken mirror.

    Most often we associate this colossal blow with personal disasters such as the death of a loved one; an incident that leaves us cored, without a centre, without the familiar roles that anchored us to our lives so securely.

    The tarot card that illustrates this collapse of ourselves is The Tower.

    We build a tower for ourselves in life out of all these roles.  Each brick builds the tower walls thicker and higher. 

    Sometimes the tower that we unconsciously create is a restrictive prison – how fed up are you at returning to the family home to slot straight back into the role of ‘rebellious teen’ and you’re nearly 55? Just me?!

    Sometimes we nestle inside, secure and hidden behind this enormous facade that we have built – it can protect us.  We’re safe here from The Big Bad Wolf.  He can huff and puff as much as he likes, but he’s never blowing down these walls.

    But of course, he does.

    Because they were never really bricks and they were never mortared in place with anything other than our relationships -with outselves and with others.

    The bricks tumble and fall and our view of ourselves – and sometimes the way the world views us too – is forever altered.

    The number of The Tower in the tarot deck is 16 and we have 16 court cards in the deck. Yes, it’s just a co-incidence but humour me and stick with it for a couple of moments.

    For me, all the bricks in the Tower are the court cards.  They are all the different faces that we show to the world.   The caring Queen of Cups sits alongside the enthusiastic student Page of Swords.  Of course, some bricks will be bigger and more important than others.  If you are the Head of the IMF, your Pentacles Court bricks will be GINORMOUS and maybe those Cups bricks are reduced to nothing more than some pebbles in the mortar.

    Suddenly the lightning bolt strikes and the whole edifice falls apart.  Well, that’s got to be the end of the world, right?

    But I put it to you that while it is the end of ONE world, it also offers up a brand new opportunity to step into a new one.  One where the bricks are in a different order, perhaps with a different priority.

    The lightning strike can illuminate you and awaken you to new possibilities. 

    You can consciously build yourself a NEW Tower.  One that better reflects who you are NOW. 

    And, over time, THAT tower will also tumble and we will take our bricks and begin again.

  • Beltane Tarot Blog Hop | What Lesson Can I Teach The World? |

    Beltane Tarot Blog Hop | What Lesson Can I Teach The World? |

    Photo of Ganesha by Jose Luis Sanchez Pereyra on Unsplash
    Lord Ganesha

    Blessed Beltane to you! May the coming 12 months be fertile and fecund in whichever ways you need them to be!  You have either stumbled here fortuitously or come from the Sacred Healing blog or the Willow Path blog – whichever path you walked to get here – sit down, you are very welcome here at Tarot Thrones.

    So, our challenge for this Beltane hop is to wax lyrical about the ‘Lesson I Can Teach The World’.  Reader, I trawled through the archives of my life looking for some profound and enriching gem to share with you, but could only come up with:

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  • Pholarchos Tarot | Carmen Sorrenti | Arnell’s Art

    Pholarchos Tarot: card back

    I was part of that fortunate band of tarot fans who took part in Arnell Ando’s last Tarot Art Tour to northern Italy back in 2015.  Amongst the many treats we experienced during the tour, one was undoubtedly the visit to the Tarot Museum in Riola.

    There in the garden of the museum, a young woman called Carmen Sorrenti propped some intriguing and beautiful paintings against the garden fence – the first paintings of the Pholarchos Tarot.

    Since then I have interviewed Carmen for Tarot Thrones (where she delves deeply into the deck’s inspirations) and followed the deck’s development via her facebook page and I was beyond thrilled when Arnell Ando (the publisher of the deck and the self-same organiser of that Italy tour!) asked me whether I would like an advance copy.

    By the time the Pholarchos Tarot arrived on my door mat, I could barely contain my excitement sufficiently to get into the package! Reader, I wasn’t disappointed!

    The box is sturdy, with a lift off top (illustrated with the deck’s High Priestess… a self-portrait I think) which reveals the accompanying book and the 78-card deck beneath.

    The 40-page book is full colour (but not fully illustrated) and provides Carmen’s insights for the use of the deck.  It’s not a ‘keyword’ type book, but prose poetry and the emotional flow of the card’s energies.  Here is the entry for 13 Death, by way of illustration:

    “What you know turns inside out – you may not recognize this new place but it has great value. The pollen of a trillion flowers makes and unmakes you, this is the honeycomb of your bright existence.  Keep your wits about you as you harvest metamorphosis.”

    Deep and intriguing, right?

    So, let’s take a look!

    The deck measures 3.5″ by 5″ and the glossy finish to the card stock means that shuffling is a breeze (although if you have small hands, the width of the cards might mean some adjusting to your shuffle style)

    The Majors are traditionally named and numbered (Justice at 8, Strength at 11) using Arabic numerals, not Roman.  The positioning of the titles has been sensitively done, with everything placed so as not to detract from Carmen’s artwork.

    Pholarchos Tarot – Major Arcana examples

    The deck is infused with alchemical symbolism and language, but in a magical way that is at once accessible, but also compels you to expand your concepts about the cards:  This is not a ‘The High Priestess means X and the Fool means Y’ sort of deck.

    My favourite Major is, I think,  16 Tower (bottom right card, above)  How often do you get to say that about a Tarot deck?!  The leaping figure is impaled by a divine lightning rod.  The book describes the moment as ‘an awakening’ as one is split asunder in order to refashion our connections.  I love it!

    The Minor Arcana is the area of greatest departure from the Rider Waite style decks.  We have four suits – Sparks, Coral, Spirals and Wings.  Very broadly speaking, these could equate to Wands, Cups, Pentacles and Swords.  But they are very much Carmen’s own creation.

    The images on the Minors feel as if they have been created at speed and have a dreamlike quality that demands you abandon what you THINK you know and just dive into the symbolism and immerse yourself in the qualities of THIS deck.  YOU become the Pholarchos.  You become the shaman in the cave who watches and listens, the dreamer who carries messages back to the world from beyond the mundane.

    Here are the 3s of the deck, to illustrate what I mean.

    Pholarchos Tarot – Minor Arcana examples

    And here is part of the entry for the 3 of Wings (loosely, 3 of Swords) from the accompanying book:

    “The first great cries, words turned to daggers, frenzy.  Balancing the act of becoming conscious, division creates what seems to be unbearable pain.” 

    The Minors have the same kind of feel, to me, of Rachel Pollack’s classic ‘Shining Tribe’ (thanks for the correction info, Caitlin!) AND the Motherpeace Tarot (Vogel & Nobel).

    Of course, my blog is concerned with the court cards and this is where we head now.

    There are four ranks: Dreamer, Trail, Queen and King.

    The Dreamers of The Pholarchos Tarot
    The Trails of the Pholarchos Tarot

    Note that the Trails (who equate to the traditional Knights position) ARE in black and white (as are the Aces, in this deck). We follow the Trails every night as we fall asleep (our beds take the places of the ancient caves of the Pholarchos!). They are our psychopomps who guide us into another realm.

    The Queens of the Pholarchos Tarot

    I adore the images on the court cards – especially the Queens, perhaps because they feel like old friends to me now!

    The Kings of the Pholarchos Tarot

    This deck is perfect for someone who prefers to work with the tarot on a much more personal and intuitive level (or who wants to begin to work that way).  I would suggest that it is better suited to experienced readers because the jump from an RWS system to THIS system is not so vast that it can’t be made.  BUT if you start with THIS system and think that you can easily hop to an RWS system, I don’t feel that the leap will be so easy the other way! So, I wouldn’t recommend it as a deck for beginners.

    If you like working with the Motherpeace Tarot, Shining Tribe or the Margarete Petersen Tarot, then I think that the Pholachos would be right up your street.

    You can pre-order The Pholarchos Tarot here.

  • Druidcraft Tarot | Rebox

    Just before Christmas I was provided with a review deck of the newly reboxed Druidcraft Tarot.

    Druidcraft Tarot | all versions | Tarot Thrones
    new box, brighter coloured book cover

    Even a casual perusal of back posts from me will show that the Druidcraft is one of my absolute favourites and I fondly recall buying my first copy from a little incense-infused shop in Glastonbury when I met up with some tarot friends from TABI waaaaaaaaay back in the mists of time – 2004!

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