Year: 2012

  • Knight of Pentacles | Dan Donche | Darkana Tarot

    This Knight of Pentacles certainly differs from most other Knight of Pentacles that I’ve seen, and I like him all the better for it!


    Dan Donche, the artist behind this forthcoming Darkana deck (and smarty-pants GENIUS behind the hilariously Inappropriate Tarot Readings) hasn’t done the LWB for his deck yet, so I’m just going to go with my own thoughts about this guy and you can tell me what you think.

    Pentacles is the suit usually associated with the element of Earth and all the Knights are associated with the element of Air. So he’s a mixture of Earth and Air – traditionally, that’s a mix that doesn’t sit comfortably together.  You can read more about the rules of Elemental Dignities on Paul Hughes-Barlow’s Super Tarot website here.

    So, for me, this guy has a conflict between how he thinks (Fast and Airy, like a Knight) and how he acts (slow, dependable and Earthy, like a Pentacle)



    His head moves faster than the rest of him! 

    Dan has his Knight of Pentacles on a motorbike – by far and away the speediest Knight of Pentacles I’ve seen for some time! I’m not sure what sort of bike it is, but it looks kind of vintage to me, so I’m going for a cafe racer style.

    These date from around the 1960s but are getting pretty popular again….but they are not the fastest bikes on the planet.  And, for me, that steed quite suits the Knight of Pentacles. 

    I’m not sure what Dan’s other Knights might be doing – but I’m wondering whether they might be on other motorbikes – maybe a blue Japanese sports’ bike, like a Suzuki for the Knight of Swords, a sleek scarlet Italian Ducati for the Knight of Wands……maybe the Knight of Cups could be on a dirt bike?!  

    The point being – the Cups and the Pentacles guys would be on the slower machines, with the Wands and Swords guys on the madly fast machines.  Maybe? Well, we’ll see soon enough!  rubs hands together*  Can’t wait to see!

    I absolutely love Dan’s chosen artwork style for this deck – a sort of grunge, graffiti style that reminds me a great deal of Banksy’s work. Here’s an example of one of Banksy’s stenciled graffiti works in London:

    Snort:  Banksy

    With ‘snort’ a white trail of paint was followed through the streets of the capital which ended here, at the drug-taking copper.  Witty and politically pointed.

    Dan says: “The Darkana Tarot Deck combines a modern grunge style with non-traditional tarot symbolism. Every image is personally designed by me……this deck is everything I want to convey.

    “Most decks end up being representations of the Rider-Waite deck, which doesn’t offer a lot in the way of new, groundbreaking material out there. It is my opinion that the best tarot decks challenge current views and inspire. One way I seek to do that is by using more modern symbolism with clever artistic techniques, all packaged into a current style that’s both rich in context and appealing.”


    Sounds great doesn’t it?!

    Dan has keywords on the bottom left corner of his card – for this Knight it is Stubborn Obsessive.  The stubbornness is undoubtedly a Pentacles trait…..and obsessiveness – could be Airy?  According to the Golden Dawn attributions, two thirds of the Knight of Pentacles astrological associations are with Virgo (the other third is in Leo).  And Virgo is pretty obsessive! 

    The Court Cards can be associated with different Astrological signs – lots of different systems exist and if you want to use one, just pick one and learn it!  

    If you would like to see more of Dan’s forthcoming deck – or even donate a few shekels to help him get it published – you can see more here

    So – what do YOU think of this Knight of Pentacles?

  • Whitney Houston | Queen of Charts

    Forty-eight, that’s all she was.

    But the bubble-permed Queen of the 1980s Charts  had perished a long time before, lost beneath the waves of her turbulent marriage to singer Bobby Brown and years of substance abuse.

    Which court card encompasses the dark struggle of these last years, do you think?

  • The Many Faces of Angie

    The Many Faces of Angie

    Tarot Thrones | Angelina Jolie as the Queen of Wands
    No need to Google, it’s Atelier Versace, darling

    Here she is – the immaculate A-list movie star.

    I *know*.  Look at her wrists and arms.

    Thin.

    That woman needs a box of Cadbury’s finest confectionary or at least a cople of packets of Tunnocks Caramel Wafers Fed-Exed to her immediately….

    Aaaanyway…..

    Let’s take a look at the many faces of our Angie…..

    (more…)
Tarot Thrones | Angelina Jolie as the Queen of Wands
No need to Google, it’s Atelier Versace, darling

Here she is – the immaculate A-list movie star.

I *know*.  Look at her wrists and arms.

Thin.

That woman needs a box of Cadbury’s finest confectionary or at least a cople of packets of Tunnocks Caramel Wafers Fed-Exed to her immediately….

Aaaanyway…..

Let’s take a look at the many faces of our Angie…..

(more…)
Tarot Thrones | Angelina Jolie as the Queen of Wands
No need to Google, it’s Atelier Versace, darling

Here she is – the immaculate A-list movie star.

I *know*.  Look at her wrists and arms.

Thin.

That woman needs a box of Cadbury’s finest confectionary or at least a cople of packets of Tunnocks Caramel Wafers Fed-Exed to her immediately….

Aaaanyway…..

Let’s take a look at the many faces of our Angie…..

(more…)
Tarot Thrones | Angelina Jolie as the Queen of Wands
No need to Google, it’s Atelier Versace, darling

Here she is – the immaculate A-list movie star.

I *know*.  Look at her wrists and arms.

Thin.

That woman needs a box of Cadbury’s finest confectionary or at least a cople of packets of Tunnocks Caramel Wafers Fed-Exed to her immediately….

Aaaanyway…..

Let’s take a look at the many faces of our Angie…..

(more…)
Tarot Thrones | Angelina Jolie as the Queen of Wands
No need to Google, it’s Atelier Versace, darling

Here she is – the immaculate A-list movie star.

I *know*.  Look at her wrists and arms.

Thin.

That woman needs a box of Cadbury’s finest confectionary or at least a cople of packets of Tunnocks Caramel Wafers Fed-Exed to her immediately….

Aaaanyway…..

Let’s take a look at the many faces of our Angie…..

(more…)
  • Pick a card!

    You don’t need to know anything else about this chap other than what’s in the newspapers about him – and you don’t even need to like football to take part.

    Have a think about which Court Card Harry Redknapp represents for you…..and then turn your cards until you hit the first court card in your deck.

    In what way is Harry Redknapp (in this story) like the random court character card you have turned?

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/feb/08/redknapp-trial-harry-held-court  <- here’s the story!

    So – what was the card you chose – and what was the random card?!

    Happy Thursday peeps!

  • One Singer, one song, but which Court Cards?

    So, here’s a little whimsy to get us eased into Wednesday – there are two well-define characters in this song (and I am NOT apologising for luffing a bit of Kenny Rogers) *defiant face*.

     Which Court Cards do you think they might be – right-sides up or reversed?

  • And it’s Good Knight from him!

    There are lots of spreads that you can do to mark the passing stages of the moon.  Last night was a full moon, so I thought about whose personality energies would be now lessening their grip on me from here to the Dark Moon.

    Of course, when it’s the Dark Moon, I’ll be looking to see whose energies are going to become more powerful as we draw towards the next Full Moon.  There are lots of variations on this reading theme, but that’s the two that we’ll initially be looking at.

    The card drawn was The Knight of Cups.  And here he is;

    Copyright info:  Published by US Games
    Words/Art – A E Waite/Pamela Colman-Smith
    You can buy it here:   
                                                                                         
    The Original Rider Waite Tarot Deck
    This is one of two Knights in the Rider Waite Smith deck that I’d quite like to give a damn good shake. Look at him, trotting around totally absorbed by the Cup in his grasp.  I could smack him.
    His character is similar to the river that runs through the card: it slowly twists and turns through the countryside.  It meanders.  The Knight of Cups meanders.  This is a Knight who is in grave danger of disappearing up his own ass if he doesn’t rouse himself from the adoration of his Cup to some kind of action.  
    He’s a Knight – the Knights are not supposed to demonstrate the maturity of their Kings and Queens.  It’s their job to QUEST and to seek for that elusive THING and he’s seeking something in that Cups of his.  
    Frankly, I’m tired of looking for The Knight of Cups Thing.  You know The Thing.  The Thing that will Make You Emotionally Fulfilled.  If you’re lucky, you won’t know what I’m talking about – but if you’re at the Knight stage of anything, you’ll know just what I mean 🙂
    As a member of the Cups family, you would think that this chap is all about those Watery traits (the fish on his tabard, the waves on his horse’s bridle) such as love, compassion, warmth….but as a Knight, he also has a lot of intellectual, logical Airy energy blowing around too (check out those wings on his helmet and spurs) and for me, this Watery/Airy combination manifests in a character who is more interested in examining  his own experience of emotions than anyone else’s.  Looking again at the river in the card, I can confirm that point of view by the almost arid landscape that is clearly not much nourished by the water that runs through it.
    This is a guy who will lovingly compose a ballad for you, but only really for the pleasure of hearing himself sing!  He will sweep you off for a weekend to Paris, but forget to buy Euros….. Oh don’t get me wrong – he will declare his undying love and genuinely mean it.  Until he doesn’t and you’re dumped unceremoniously from a great height.  And he’s off again on his Great Quest…. do you recognise him?!
    So from now until the moon becomes dark, the disengaged emotional pleasures of the Knight of Cups ebbs from my life as does his dilly-dallying abstractedness.  Thank goodness!
    I wonder whose energies will take his place?!
  • Hello!

    Hello and welcome to the first ever post on my tarot court card blog!

    Glad that you found your way here! It was a bit of a struggle for me too – does the world need yet another Tarot blog?!  Well, we’ll soon see 🙂

    Hopefully you’re here because you want to expand on what you know about Court Cards…. and are up for a bit of fun at their expense too!  If you came here looking for the latest gen on the Lannisters and the Starks, you’re in the wrong place.  That’s the OTHER Game of Thrones.  It’s not as much fun as THIS one is going to be…….

    There have been some birthing pangs with this blog – and I’m sure that I’ve got some changes to make over the next few days – but like any other proud parent, I got a free natal chart from Astrolab:

    Happy birthday,  This Game of Thrones!  So which Court Card could represent the blog – based on the moon, sun and rising sign?

    (more…)