Tarot Thrones | The Court Card Blog

Year: 2012

  • OOTK | First Operation | Golden Dawn

    OOTK.

    I know.

    It sounds like something an orangutang might say if it happened to be the librarian at a University for Wizards* but in this case it stands for Opening Of The Key.  And it’s a Tarot spread.

    The whole OOTK shebang involves four stages, but today,  we are going to look at only the first part of the first stage, or First Operation.

    I could write pages on the background to this spread, rattling on about the great occult meanings imbued within it – the Princesses!  The Aces!

    But I like to keep things simple, so I’m providing only a tiny bit of background for you – but be aware there is more to know 🙂

    OOTK was designed by the Great and The Good of the Golden Dawn, it is an impressive set of four manoeuvres that perfectly suits that highly intellectualised GD approach to the Tarot.

    Today we’re just looking at the First Operation. Actually, just the first part of the First Operation.

    This can be used perfectly well as a stand-alone spread and one need never venture into the thigh-high swirling waters of the other three operations if you don’t want to.

    Anyway, let’s crack on!

    Using whichever manner you are comfortable with, select a significator for your client. Or let them select one.

    Allow the querent to shuffle the cards and formulate their question.

    All you are going to ask them to do is split the deck into four.

    First of all you ask them to half the deck – placing one half on the right of the area to which you will use for the spread and the other half towards the left.

    The red arrow shows the position of your two initial stacks

    Then half each portion again, again laying half immediately to the left of the portion from which it was cleaved.

    The blue arrows show the positions of the second stacks.

    The cards on the extreme right (the stack to which I am pointing) represent the Fire energies , then Water, then Air and the final stack on the extreme left represent the Earth.

    Now, you might be lucky and have all four piles roughly the same height.  More than likely you will have one pile substantially larger or smaller than the others.

    You might be able to hazard some thoughts about what the largest/smallest pile might mean?  You can include these musings in your reading, if you like.

    Turn each stack over and read according to the stack that it is in.

    To illustrate:  the 6 of Cups  in the Fire stack.  The Water of the Cups weakens the Fire of the stack.  This might indicate that one’s natural fiery energies (optimism, expansion, career) are being adversely affected by the watery Cups energy of the 6.  Perhaps the sitter is brooding on something from the past that is holding back their natural enthusiasm for a situation?

    Do the same for each of the four stacks and it will give you an overview of what the rest of the reading is about; paving the way for the subsequent Operations.  However, you can actually just stop there if you like!

    But since WE are concerned with the Court Cards and their role, here as significator, we’re going to plough on a tiny bit further……..

    Search through every pile – without disturbing the order of the cards – until you find the stack that the significator is in.

    At this point, the Golden Dawn advocate the following:

    If the Significator is NOT found in the correct stack then the reading is abandoned.  What they mean by ‘correct stack’ is that if the question is to do with the emotional problems of a relationship, you would hope to find the Significator in the second stack, the Water pile.  If it was to do with one’s health, one might expect to find it in the Earth pile……and so on,  but I don’t ascribe to that *shrug*.

    I’m in the Carry On Regardless Team 😀

    The reason for this is that it is not always clear to the sitter (and consequently to the reader) what the querent’s issue is REALLY about.  For example – maybe the sitter thinks that it is a problem about sex (for me, that would be the fire stack) but the issue may actually be entirely emotional, or health-related (ie either the Water or the Earth stacks).  So I’m all for continuing with the reading!

    So, you’ve found the stack with the Significator.  Let’s assume that you are going ahead with the reading – what next?

    ………..tune in next time to find out 😀

    *If you don’t read any novels by Terry Pratchett, then this reference is completely meaningless.  I apologise.  But urge you to read them.

  • Farewell Queen of Discs!

    I usually draw these cards based on the Dark Moon (incoming energies) and the Full Moon (outgoing energies) in the evening, once my son has gone to bed.

    But our term time routine is now upset and it will take us a week or so to create a Summer Holiday routine.  As such I’m blogging on an ad hoc basis (basically whenever I can get in front of a computer without a small boy hanging over my shoulder!).

    As you can see, the outgoing influences over the next couple of weeks until the Dark Moon is the regal Queen of Discs from the Intuitive Tarot by Cilla Conway.

    The motif that winds its way through the entire deck is the oval frame for each character, giving the appearance of looking at each figure through a lens.

    She is depicted, slightly aloof looking, in front of her home – comfortable rather than stately.  She is dressed in shades of green and gold (appropriate!) and holds a great shield of organic design in similar colours.  Loving that head-dress – very art deco!

    The suit of Discs or Pentacles is associated with Health, Wealth and Home and the Queen is the emotional heart of that set up.  So I’m a bit glum to see her energies retreating, for a little while at least.

    What could it mean?

    Will my son and I end up eating packets of biscuits for our evening meal?

    Will the house tumble into chaos while my other half works away out of the country (probably, it usually does – I’m a bit feral when it comes to house-keeping to be honest).

    Will my money be frittered away on books, bling and booze?!

    Will my clicking ankles continue to plague me, even if I stop jogging?

    So many questions!

    In Cilla’s deck, this Queen stands for the organised home-maker and astute business woman, but she may also bolster her fragility with material goodies – Ugg boots perhaps?  Cilla says, in the accompanying book: “A natural beautifier, she loves comfort and her home.   Often very beautiful *coughs* she is ambitious, confident and energetic.  She is highly skilled in practical situations, especially to do with home or business. She makes things happen.’

    She can also be, however, grasping, overly-ambitious, egotistical and wrapped up in her possessions.  Hmm – maybe the death of my Ugg boots are a sign*, right enough!

    How does the Queen of Discs manifest in your life right now?

    Queen of Discs image from Intuitive Tarot by Cilla Conway, published by St Martin’s Press

    Cilla also has a wonderful Oracle deck called Devas of Creation – check it out if you like working with abstract decks.

    *They’re not really dead.  But they sure don’t look as good as they did before they got soaked 🙁

  • Significator Card | Dame Fortune’s Wheel Tarot

    I’m always on the look-out for something interesting for you and this morning I discovered this: Dame Fortune’s Wheel Tarot by Paul Huson (published by Lo Scarabeo) actually has a Significator card!

    Of course, you may still select a Significator using whichever method you prefer, but what a time- and sanity-saver this card will be!
    The deck itself takes the medieval wood-cut style of the Marseilles but expands the colour-scheme and adds a semi-illustrated Minor Arcana to the mix (the pips are presented within a meaningful scene).  The suits themselves are Batons, Cups, Swords and Coins with each suit rendered in a particular palette and bordered in the same colour – making suit identification possible from the merest sliver of card.
    Anyone familiar with the Rider Waite Smith deck would be able to use this deck very easily, I think.
    In the Major Arcana, the card names are traditional – a Juggler and a Female Pope replace the Magician and the Hgh Priestess.  I also see that Strength transforms back into Fortitude and occupies the 11th Arcana place, while Justice slips into her traditional 8th position.
    I notice that Major Arcana card (Death XIII) is numbered but not titled!
    The Courts are sufficiently interesting that they warrant a little blog post of their own.  
    I was amazed to see that the deck had its own Significator – do you know any other decks that have this feature? Do tell!

  • 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.

  • Significators | Finding The One

    I’ve already written at length (ad nauseum?!) about various methods of finding a Significator for your sitter (or yourself) and in one of the resulting blog post comments, Chloe McCracken mentioned a way to use them that I thought was GREAT and am going to share with you here.

    By the way, if you’re not familiar with Chloe’s work, please check out the @TABITarot blog where she tirelessly blogs for TABI and also manages to find the time to write her own blog, Inner Whispers.

    As with all the best things in life, it’s really simple to implement:  You chose your significator, insert it back into the deck, let your client shuffle and chat about their issue……then you carefully go through the well-shuffled deck and read the cards either side of the significator.

    Here’s a worked example:

    I chose the Queen of Wands for myself because of the lions on her throne and me being Leo *tosses mane imperiously, sits with knees apart*.  I slipped the card into the middle of the deck and started shuffling, thinking all the while about how I could Improve Things…..

    Once I was satisfied that I’d shuffled sufficiently, I inched through the cards until I found the one I was looking for, the Queen of Wands.  The card before her was the 2 of Pentacles and the card after her was the 8 of Swords.

    The first thing that struck me was that she seems to have turned her back on the dancing Pents dude and has turned her head towards the sword-hampered figure in the 8Swords.  She is inclined towards the Swords.

    Mind you, that guy’s hat is a bit strange…..

    Anyway, although she is inclined towards the Swords, she IS still looking out at us – and her cat is certainly not side-tracked by the show on either side of the cards.

    I see water in both of the cards either side of her.

    So, here’s how I interpret these cards for the query: How I can improve things:  I am naturally inclined towards the self-limiting behaviour of the 8 Swords.  Sometimes my emotions/hormones (I’m at a funny age!) DO whell up and I feel overwhelmed (see the puddles of sea-water around the Swords gal’s feet? – and let’s not forget that this queen embodies Water and Fire – not always comfortable bedfellows), but that feeling of restricction is ENIRELY avoidable (that Swords girl can easily shirk off those bonds and get off her blindfold – if she wants to.  And she’s not trapped by swords – the whole front of the card is sword free.  She just THINKS she’s stymied. *I* just think I’m stymied.  And that’s wrong-headed thinking.

    Instead the Queen would do well to take a better look at the juggling Pentacles chappie.  Strange hat notwithstanding, he’s managing to juggle his disks – and rides out the waves. He’s on one leg.  He’s got balance.  He is not subsumed by the waves/emotions/hormones.  Once I get a metaphorical boat, I’ll be fine.  I’ve maybe even already GOT the boat 🙂

    Have you tried Chloe’s idea? How did you get on with it?  What would you add to my interpretation?

    Deck: RWS Centenary Edition, published by US Games – words, A E Waite, artwork Pamela Colman-Smith

  • The Wild Ones!

    This week my blog posts have focussed on animal court cards – the Rabbit Tarot, the Ferret Tarot and now, the daddy of them all, the Wildwood Tarot Courts – every one of them a stunningly represented animal native to Northern Europe.

    The deck, created by Mark Ryan and John Matthews, is a reimagining of Ryan’s earlier and (these days!) hugely sought-after Greenwood Tarot, with Chesca Potter.  In this new deck, the artwork is by Will Worthington (Druidcraft Tarot, Greenman Tree Oracle, Druid Plant Oracle, Druid Animal Oracle).

    We have the standard ranks of Page, Knight, Queen and King – but the suits themselves have been renamed – Bows for Wands, Arrows for Swords, Vessels for Cups and Stones for Pentacles.  That ‘Bows’ association may stump you for a moment until you remember that bows are not just for firing arrows, but also used for making fire and turning wood.

    Having your entire court comprised of animals can be wonderfully freeing – you are not limited by those old associations for physical attributes, but, on the other hand, you need to do a certain amount of anthropomorphising to help you to apply them to living, breathing people.

    The entire Wildwood fits into a complex Wheel of The Year layout (which you can see in the accompanying LWB and the watermark image on the Wildwood Tarot website (www.thewildwoodtarot.com).  All we need to know about it here is that, unlike the Thoth family, even the little Pages have their place in the grand scheme of things.  Which is nice because they tend to miss out on all the fun, yet they’re allllll about the fun!

    Lets look at the Arrows (Swords) first – each of the courts is represented by a bird – which ties in nicely with the element of Air.  But don’t go fooling yourself that all birds = Arrows.  Birds appear in other suits too.  The accompanying book attributes these cards to the season of Spring

    As you can see, the Page is a tiny close-to-the-ground bird, the Hawk represents the fast-moving Knight, the regal Swan represents the Queen and the vibrant fisherman Kingfisher represents the King.

    Bows, or Wands as they are traditionally known, are represented by land creatures.  This suit is associated with Summer and the element of Fire. The Page is represented by the close-to-the-ground Stoat, the wily Fox as Knight, the fertile Hare for Queen and the fast-moving adder for King.

    Here we have the Vessels family and as you can see they are all associated with water – which is handy because that’s the element associated with them too!  We have the playful Otter as Page, the speedy, slippery Eel as Knight, the instinct-driven Salmon as Queen and the patient Heron as King.  The Vessels are associated with the mists and mellow fruitfulness of Autumn.

    Stones, representing Pentacles, has land creatures – and is associated with Earth and these characters occupy the Wheel of the Year around Winter.  The shy Lynx is our Page, the wild Horse is our Knight, the protective Bear is our Queen and the leader of the Stones pack is the Wolf.

    For some excellent information on how to work with the Court Cards of the Wildwood, please visit their Wildblog where Caitlin Matthews has created some unique exercises and insights to these fascinating, but tricky courts.

    You can keep up to date with what’s happening in the Wildwood by visiting their blog or their website – www.thewildwoodtarot.com .

    What do you think of the Wildwood Courts – like ’em? Love ’em? Loathe ’em?!

    This deck is published by Eddison Sadd (Connections publishing).  Created by Mark Ryan and John Matthews, artwork by Will Worthington

    ** EDIT** Eddison Sadd is now known as Eddison Books 20/4/17