Tarot Thrones | The Court Card Blog

Category: Pentacles

  • Our Court Card for 2021

    Our Court Card for 2021

    You may already be familiar with the technique of working out which Major Arcana card will apply to the incoming year, but if not, I’ll give you a quick resumé on how to calculate it:

    Take all the digits in the incoming year and add them together. If the answer comes to 22 or less (The Fool having the value of 22 because nothing will add up to zero), simply select the Major Arcana card with that number and you are good to go. If all the digits added together comes to a figure larger than 22, then you must add those digits together to arrive at a figure of 22 or less.

    This year we are adding 2 + 0 + 2+ 1 = 5 and therefore Major Arcana card V will be our guide for 2021 – a Hierophant year for us all next year! Goddess knows how that might manifest for us in the UK – Covid19 AND Brexit hitting us a double whammy. Can hardly wait … *rolls her eyes so far back in her head that she can see the nape of her neck*

    You can also do a similar thing with Court Cards!

    A few years ago, I came up with a fun way to work with the Court Cards by looking at one’s personal details and the incoming year, but this can be expanded upon to working out which court card will be everyone’s guide for 2021.

    Take a look HERE to see how to calculate your personal guide for 2021 – and to see who is EVERYBODY’S companion in 2021!

    Since our Major Arcana card is 5, our Court Card for the year is also card 5, and in the table of court card numbers that you will find in the link above, this means that we are entering a Knight of Pentacles year.

    Knight of Pentacles from the Druidcraft Tarot
    Knight of Pentacles from the Druidcraft Tarot

    This makes sense to me because the Knight of Pentacles is the one of the adventurous knights who is compelled to remain closer to home than his brethern. Although he shares their questing and adventurous spirit, he revolves around his home base – whether he likes it or not.

    What this means for us is that while we too may want to let rip and run amok in hot countries and get a bit of sun on our bones (a la Knight of Wands!), Covid restrictions (and maybe even Brexit restrictions?) will keep us more local than we might like.

    Knights are risk-takers, even the Knight of Pentacles, so be alert to risks around your health, your home and your finances. I’m not saying DON’T take risks, but maybe only gamble with what you can afford to lose?

    How do you interpret the Knight of Pentacles and how do you see his energies affecting us all in 2021?

    How does the Knight of Pentacles interact with your own personal court card guardian for 2021 card for 2021?

  • Page of Pentacles | Baking | Focaccia di Recco

    Page of Pentacles
    on his way to Masterchef

    It doesn’t matter what age you are, we are all Pages at something or other. The Tarot deck’s Pages show us in our tentative first steps, those beginner steps at anything: those moments where you wobble uncertainly forwards, sometimes falling – but always getting back up again.

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  • The King and Queen of Pentacles | Druidcraft Tarot

    The King and Queen of Pentacles | Druidcraft Tarot

    We’ve looked at all the other couples of the Court, now we turn our attention to the final Royal Mr and Mrs: The King and Queen of Pentacles, depicted here in the DruidCraft Tarot (Philip & Stephanie Carr-Gomm and Will Worthington).

    As the Pentacles govern the North, Winter, Midnight, the Winter Solstice and Earth (in my system), I find these cards excellent representations of these mystical, wintery feelings.

    Both are dressed in green in red, but whereas the Queen is in mainly red with a green hood and cloak, the King is in green with a red cloak – nicely yin and yang.

    Are you rather surprised that the Queen is depicted out of doors while the King is holed up, nice and cosy in the great hall – the fire roaring away behind him with the hog on the spit?  The Queen is, after all, associated with the nurturing and growth aspects of a suit – why have the King all toasty and warm?

    I think that the King has been depicted like this because the King of Pentacles also represents the luxury of success.  This is the Druidcraft equivalent of the big corner office and if they had been invented, the King of Pentacles would have been wearing red braces and smoking a fat Havana cigar.

    He is Earth and Fire (Pentacles and a King) which can be VERY productive if the energies are handled correctly – too much fire and the Pentacles energy hardens and shatters.  Controlled fire, as in a kiln, can create much that is useful and luxurious.

    The oak leaves oh his shield, by his side, tell us that he’s a wise, strong and a slow to react sort of a chap.

    His bare foot rests on a plinth that depicts a goat – Capricorn – although I tend to think of him as a Taurean character – what do you think?

    The Queen sits in a similar pose to her husband and she plays on her bodrum drum with a snow-white bone – simple and effective.  It feels to me, looking at these two characters side by side, that he is more interested in high status and symbols of success (heck, even his BEARD looks fancy!) than his good lady wife, who is content to play her music outdoors to the audience of a single bemused hare.

    The hare halts as he hops past, his winter coat contrasting against the greening grass.  Hares are prolific breeders – a nod to the Queen of Pentacles ability to create (on many levels!)

    At her feet are snowdrops – the earliest herald of Spring – and the dark silhouette of a naked tree shivers behind her.  Yet she doesn’t look cold.  She is at home here.  In her element.  The Queen is Water and Earth – the creative pulse of our planet.

    While the King rests his feet on a Capricorn goat, the Queen’s throne is decorated with the Taurean bull.  What do you think of these associations – do you have them the other way around?

    Both these royals are barefoot – this keeps them close to their native element, the earth, and keeps them grounded and in tune with their roots.

    The sky behind both seem to be at the liminal stages of either dawn or dusk.  I choose to see the King at dusk and the Queen at dawn. These threshold periods are important magically and just as the King presides over the dusk and the Queen the dawn, between them they oversee our safety through the dark of the night, and also the dark of the winter.

    As a pair, depicted this way, neither of them seem particularly bothered about the other – but they appear relaxed in each other’s company.  The other way around, their heads incline towards each other, with the Queen looking a bit more interested in the comfortable surroundings of her hubby.  The King, on the other hand, continues to gaze out at us as if to say ‘yeah, I knew she couldn’t stay out there in the cold for ever.’

    What do you think of the King and Queen of Pentacles?

    Update 24/4/19 – there is an updated V3 of Druidcraft Tarot available to buy – larger box means larger accompanying book!

  • 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…)