In the run up to Christmas (yes, I dared speak its name!) why not carve out an hour or so with me on Saturday 9th December at 2pm (UK) while we go through our elemental tarot court card families and how to place all 16 of them on the Wheel of the Year?
You don’t need to be a member of TABI to take part, but it’s a few shekels less expensive if you ARE a member – £5 for members and £8 for non-members.
All you need is a tarot deck and stuff for note-taking. Maybe bring a mince pie. Maybe a li’l Christmassy sherry. Maybe a party hat. Maybe a sweater with a Santa on the front. Maybe a flashing red nose a la Rudolph. You do you! Come along and join the gang!
Look forward to seeing you – the more the merrier!
Stop being confused by court cards! Start being excited by the possibilities! Become a court card adventurer along with me 🙂 The Tarot’s Court Cards are my specialist area. They talk to me. Not LITERALLY though ….
We have worked out what the Year Card will be for 2021 and who our personal guardians will be for 2021 too, but we can also use the same technique to work out our lifelong court card companion. Curious to find out who walks by your side every day of your life?
Let’s find out!
First of all, let’s go over the technique for this:
Stop being confused by court cards! Start being excited by the possibilities! Become a court card adventurer along with me 🙂 The Tarot’s Court Cards are my specialist area. They talk to me. Not LITERALLY though ….
Just a bit of Tarot Court Card light-heartedness to start us thinking about what we want for ourselves in 2021. I’ve done this for the past five 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 2021 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 41 (ie 20+21, the incoming year). Here’s an example: mine! 4 + 8 + 41 = 53
Since there is no Major Arcana card numbered 53 (hey, we’re not using Minchiates here, people!), these digits need to be further reduced by adding them together, giving us a total of 8. My theme for the year will be inspired by Strength *Given the 2020 that we have had, a spot of Strength will be gratefully received*.
If you are using a Marseille-type deck, your Major Arcana VIII will be Justice.
What a sad looking lion he is!
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 🙂
The King of Wands is the most ethereal and fiery of the bunch, so he is given the top slot and number 16, closest to touching those Major Arcana archetypes that float above us.
Taking my example again, this means that my 8 Strength year – becomes further compounded by Court Card 8…. the Knight of Wands!
The Knight of Wands – Card no: 8 in my table of correspondences
This year is going to be my Fiery Challenger year, and my challenge will be to develop some strength and not let myself get burned up or burned out. Possibly also score myself a passionate lover. *tumbleweed blows through*
Try it for yourself – find your Major Arcana year card and your Court Card Guardian. How will they combine for 2021?
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
This technique can be further explored into finding the Court Card for the year and your own personal life-long guardian. So stay tuned for further blog posts in December!
Stop being confused by court cards! Start being excited by the possibilities! Become a court card adventurer along with me 🙂 The Tarot’s Court Cards are my specialist area. They talk to me. Not LITERALLY though ….
The World Divination Association (WDA) have done it again and have prepared a weekend-long workshop for YOU at the beginning of December to prepare you for 2021 – and let’s face it, after 2020, we need all the help we can get!
I’m providing a workshop on finding your Tarot court card guides for 2021 – figure out whose energy will help you navigate next year and make that work to your advantage!
I’ve got a discount code – BIGBANGALISON – which is co-incidentally my porn movie star name. Not really – everybody knows that your porn movie star name is your mother’s maiden name and the name of your first pet …
Anyhoo, I digress – this is a weekend of fun to help you up your skills and perhaps lead you off down the rabbit-hole of new divination systems for next year.
You in?
Use that discount code and get 25% off! Here’s the place to sign up!
Stop being confused by court cards! Start being excited by the possibilities! Become a court card adventurer along with me 🙂 The Tarot’s Court Cards are my specialist area. They talk to me. Not LITERALLY though ….
Lockdown has been extended for at least another three weeks in the UK. I’m exceptionally lucky – I have my partner and son at home with me at the moment and we have a lovely garden and (miraculously!) great weather in Scotland. Despite these blessings, like many others, I find a huge swell of fear rises up in me with our 24-hour news cycle that brings endless tides of things to be frightened about.
If you draw a large circle on a sheet of A4 and fill it with everything that you are worried about, this is your Circle of Concern – that’s EVERYTHING: social isolation, your mother’s health, your finances, global warming …. not being able to buy toilet roll for a month … the PM developing Coronavirus and being hospitalised …. Trump lobbying to open up various States in the US …. you get the idea.
Now draw another circle inside that circle. This one is much smaller. Inside this new circle write only the concerns that YOU can exert any kind of control over. So you can move your finances, your own social isolation … maybe even your mother’s health in some way … into this smaller circle.
The small circle is what you can work on and influence. The other stuff? Not so much. But rest assured that it WILL fall into some other person’s Circle of Influence somewhere. All you can do is work on your own stuff.
With sincere apologies to people who make infographics for a living.
So far, so what? You might be asking yourself – you know this stuff already. If you do, great! If you don’t, please explore the idea further because it will help keep you from flipping out during this pandemic.
The additional flavour that I would like to bring to the infographic is how to change the size of that little inner circle. The smaller this circle is, the fewer things in your life you feel that you have got control over. The larger it is, the closer in size to your area of concern, sure, you have more things to be concerned about …. but also with MUCH GREATER INFLUENCE in the world to effect changes.
You might be reading this thinking that you don’t have very much influence. You’d be wrong. Not only can you influence those directly around you, but those that you come into contact with through the internet – your blog, your youtube channel, your facebook page etc.
Look at me! I have not much reach nor much influence in the world, but here YOU are, lovely reader, reading this and – hopefully – gaining a little bit of encouragement or even insight into your own influential reach!
How do the Court Cards help? These 16 cards represent character traits, personality styles, that we can try on and off like clothes in a T K Maxx changing room. Some will be a perfect fit and you can wear them naturally. Others might look hellish on the hanger and require a bit of a contortion to get them on, but once you see yourself in the changing room mirror … you look a million bucks! Who knew that yellow could look so GOOD next to white hair?! *I’m joking. It NEVER does*
So, let’s pull your 16 courts from your deck and give them a good shuffle. Settle your mind as you shuffle. There are no wrong cards. When you feel your mind calming, ask your cards – who helps me increase my Circle of Influence?
Pull a court card! Who did you get?
What’s the first positive trait that springs to mind about this card? Be more THAT to increase your Circle of Influence this week. What’s the first negative trait that springs to mind about this card? Be LESS that this week to increase your Circle of Influence.
Let’s take a worked example:
I shuffle and the card I pull from my Court Card Arcana is the Knight of Wands:
Knight of Wands, Alexander Daniloff’s 2012 Tarot
First positive thing that comes to mind when I think of the Knight of Wands – being physically active. This week, get more physically involved in my Circle of Influence.
Social Isolating – I’m allowed to exercise once a day – run every day, just a mile; can I physically assist a neighbour who is socially isolating by getting some basic shopping or picking up a prescription? Could I volunteer to help people?
My Finances – Start getting the paperwork together for my next Tax Return. Yes. Really. Also, I am an Amazon Affiliate, but am increasingly disgusted by Jeff Bezos who is raking in $11,000 PER SECOND during the Covid19 pandemic AND looking for a government bail out to help his employees. CRAZY. The guy is worth BILLIONS. That’s why, as from today, I’m going to be working as a HIVE Affiliate instead of an Amazon Affiliate. Sure, it’s not got the reach of Amazon, but hey, we all have to do what we all have to do to feel better about ourselves.
Look at my Circle of Concern – world hunger – is there ANYTHING that the Knight of Wands could help me with here? I could help support my local food bank – it’s not ending world hunger, but it’s WHAT I CAN PHYSICALLY INFLUENCE THIS WEEK.
The first negative thing that comes to mind about the Knight of Wands is … he’s not much of a deep thinker. This week I can extend my Circle of Influence by thinking more deeply – maybe not flying off the handle at some crazy facebook posts. Maybe not getting myself so upset by them? Gosh, that will most certainly help my mental health if I could do that!
So – there you have it. Using the court cards to help extend your Circle of Influence.
Stop being confused by court cards! Start being excited by the possibilities! Become a court card adventurer along with me 🙂 The Tarot’s Court Cards are my specialist area. They talk to me. Not LITERALLY though ….
I’ve not been blogging about Tarot as frequently as I would like to. A combination two jobs, new website clients, a sudden obsession with a weaving loom, my son being away at university and being trapped in the burning building that is my menopause have sent me scuttling off into some dark corners, let me tell you.
And other than jogging and meditation, one thing that has kept me sane is my own personal tarot practice. So, even though I haven’t been here blogging as often as I planned, I have been keeping the faith, I promise you!
It’s a bit of a struggle, adapting to cronehood. I’m probably not out of the woods of random inconvenient periods yet – but I think I’m getting there. There have been a few hospital visits and … ablation (don’t ask).
Anyway, here I am, returning to the blogging fold, like the Prodigal Tarot Daughter and hoping that you are still here too. If you are, I am so grateful that you’ve hung around!
Here is an example of my own daily practice. It’s brief, but it’s kept (keeping?!) me from throwing myself off the pier.
Card 1: Today’s strengths Card 2: Which court helps me channel these strengths?
I confess that I did start off with a couple of additional cards: ‘Today’s challenges’ and ‘which court helps me counter these challenges’, but I found that wasn’t helpful as I started imagining challenges in places where they didn’t exist! I chose to limit my practise to cheerleaders only!
I am making greater use of my Samsung mobile now – posting regularly on instagram as well as taking pix for m’blog. Although things still end up in on the wrong platform, but it’s a wee step in the right direction, every day.
Whenever I find myself withdrawing, reacting badly, throwing pots and pans across the kitchen, bellowing uncontrollably at the dog, head-desking onto my keyboard …. I make a point of sitting down (very 4 of Swords!) studying the images for that day AGAIN to see whether there is ONE thing that they inspire me to take action upon. Just ONE thing.
By taking even just a single action, I often find that my head and heart will follow. A kind word instead of an angry word. It works. I promise you.
Here’s today’s combo:
Alexander Daniloff 2012 Tarot – isn’t it pretty?
Page of Cups and 9 Pentacles
The 9 of Pentacles shows that today’s strengths are to count my blessings and appreciate the many wonderful things in my life (I love this deck because the bird sits on a branch and is not held captive and blindfolded by the woman – she can see and appreciate the bird in all its majesty!)
I do find it easy to focus on what is chaffing at me in life – and let’s face it, wherever you are in the world, there is a LOT chaffing at most of us in some shape or form – the climate, your government, my government, local government, neighbours, family, friends … take your pick!
The Page of Cups will help me see these blessings by encouraging me to look at everything with his imaginative eye. Stop being so jaded and really SEE what’s around me. For every thing that is wrong, find one thing that is going right, that is beautiful, that proves life is worth the living. Because it is. Hot flushes and anxiety attacks and everything.
Another thing for you to try with a Tarot court card!
Stop being confused by court cards! Start being excited by the possibilities! Become a court card adventurer along with me 🙂 The Tarot’s Court Cards are my specialist area. They talk to me. Not LITERALLY though ….
I find that one of the trickiest things in working with a card of the day, month, year etc is that I often forget all about it. Maybe it’s my age. I went into the fridge to look for tea bags the other day…
The best way to remember things that I’ve found are visual reminders that prompt me every time I see them.
First of all, study your court card and find something in it that you can recognise as a symbol of it: For example, crescent moon, rearing horse, black cat.
Nothing in your card that springs out?
Have a think about the keywords that you chose the other day, to help you manifest that card’s energies in everything that you do… what springs to mind as a symbol for that?
Still nothing coming to mind?
No problem! Pick a symbol that you really enjoy and perform a ritual to create an association between the symbol and your court card. Although that symbol might not be present, a strong ritual will forge that link between the card and the
Here are 3 ways to employ prompts to help with your 2020 court card:
TarotCourt Cards on Your Gadgets: We all seem to be welded to our phones these days – use the image of your Court Card as your phone or tablet lock screen, or your screensaver or background on your laptop or desktop.
Court Cards on Your Keys: Whether you live in rented or owned accommodation, you’ve got house keys. You might even have car keys. How about splashing out on a personaliseable (My God, is that even a word?!) key ring? You can get this kind of thing from Amazon for £3.50
Snap in a print-out of your court card and you’re off! Even better, check out the Tarot’s creator site and see what they have created to go along with their deck – you might find they have key rings etc already made!
Tarot Court Cards on Your handbag: For most of my life, I existed without owning a handbag. I used plastic bags from supermarkets or simply stuffed everything I needed into my pockets. A few months into my first job, my appalled colleague pulled me aside and gifted me one of her hand bags. And thus started my downfall dependence on a handbag.
If you use one every day, why not look for some kind of charm that you associate with the card or your chosen symbol that you can clip to a zip on your hand bag.
Other ideas:
Jewellery – google is your friend and your worst nightmare for this one! Bookmark – you read, right? Think … pendants? bracelet charms? Mug – you’ve got to drink your coffee, right? Bag – makeup bag, pencil case etc Framed Print (sounds grand – but could be £2.00 IKEA print and image from magazine!)
None of them appeal? Go to Google and type in some of those keywords that you created the other day to associate with your card’s energies. Then hit ‘images’ and see what wildness pops up. You might find something outrageous and magical that will be a delight to use every day! Also – might net some results that are NSFW!
… and get ready for next year – see who your card is for 2021 and keep your eyes open in 2020 for marvellous visual triggers!
Stop being confused by court cards! Start being excited by the possibilities! Become a court card adventurer along with me 🙂 The Tarot’s Court Cards are my specialist area. They talk to me. Not LITERALLY though ….
If you have worked out your Court Card for 2020, you will hopefully be factoring in their guidance for the coming year.
I like to look at them as attitudes that can affect your every interaction – if you let them. (See tomorrow’s blog post!)
I patiently worked out that my 2020 companion in arms would be Court Card No 7 and promptly checked my ready reckoner of court card number allocations and tooted to all and sundry that my main man for 2020 was going to be the Knight of Wands.
Not, in fact, THIS GUY.
Reader, I got myself a THEME TUNE, some words to live by and was very much looking forward to roaring into 2020 with my fiery companion.
Except I was wrong. Head-the-desk-stoopid wrong.
My companion is, as was gently pointed out to me by a much more reasonable head than my own on instagram, the Knight of Swords. For it is HE who is No 7.
I double-checked. Which is crazy because I quadruple-checked the first time. And yet I’d still read the information wrongly.
Far too much hash-bash-let-me-at-em Knight of Wands energy and not enough cerebral Swords energy.
And YET, now that I see him, he is indeed the perfect energy that I will need for 2020. Heck, even this morning I shared info about Northumberland Humane Society thinking that it was Northumberland in the UK, when it was actually Northumberland in CANADA.
Yeah, Swords energy is going to be very, very important this year.
So, my dear friends, for all of you who have ended up confused AF as to how Court Card 7 can be the Knight of Wands when the eyes in your head are showing you that Court Card 7 is the Knight of Swords …. I am truly sorry. Also – I like to keep you on your toes 😀
Proof, if proof were needed, that I don’t so much as have feet of clay, as boots of concrete when it comes to Tarot Court cards.
On the upside, it shows that it works – I’m in much more need of the Knight of Swords than the Knight of Wands – witness the cock-ups that I am making a scant 3 days into the year.
And with that, I shall now edit my own 2020 info in the other posts to make better sense.
Stop being confused by court cards! Start being excited by the possibilities! Become a court card adventurer along with me 🙂 The Tarot’s Court Cards are my specialist area. They talk to me. Not LITERALLY though ….
If you have worked out your Court Card companion for the year, now’s the time to begin to employ their services usefully!
For those of you who used a deck that had a keyword on each card, this will be simplicity itself – find the keyword on your 2020 Court Card and make it your watchword for the coming 12 months.
For the rest of us, it’s going to take a little work – 10 minutes or so, sequestered away from the rest of the world with just you, your court card and a pen and paper.
Prop up the card so that you can see it comfortably, without straining your neck up or down. And just sit. Quietly. Leave your stresses and strains and duties and noise outside of your little space.
Just sit.
Let your breathing steady and lengthen naturally.
Just sit.
Look at the card.
Look at the character in the court card – is it a person or an animal? Both?!
What is the energy of the card – active? pensive?
Look at the position of the character, the expression.
How does this character make you feel?
What colours are used in the card – which is your favourite?
What else is in the card?
As you tune more deeply into the card’s energies, ask the main character what it is they want to empower you with for the coming year?
Here’s mine, using the Knight of Swords from The RWS Tarot.
Learning into action Mental agility (oh my God, do I need this lol!) Air Speed Other points of view
Taking these words are the essence of this card (and your card image might be quite different, for the same court card!) my talisman words for 2020 will be … LEARNING TO FLY.
Hey – I’ve even got a ready-made theme tune! Stand by for spot of darling Dave and The Foo Fighters!
Stop being confused by court cards! Start being excited by the possibilities! Become a court card adventurer along with me 🙂 The Tarot’s Court Cards are my specialist area. They talk to me. Not LITERALLY though ….
Photo by Ba Phi from Pexels | What makes us who we are – nature or nurure?
It’s a hotly contested
subject in real life – do external forces such as environment and
education fashion who you are or are you born with a predisposition
to act/be a particular type of person? While the argument goes on,
it is currently accepted that much of who we are, mentally and
physically, and what we do as adults is a combination of our nature
and our nurture.
So, how do these
factors manifest in our Court Cards?
Our cards come with only two pieces of information, the rank and the suit. Which of these represents our card’s nature and which represents our nurture?
The RANK (Page, Knight, Queen, King etc) shows us the NATURE of the card while the SUIT (Swords, Cups, Pentacles, Wands etc) gives us the NURTURE, the environment that the character must function within.
Consider the Queen of
Wands – she is a Queen by nature, but she must function in a Wands
environment. How does someone who is by nature caring and empathetic
function in an environment where assertion/aggression, adventure,
courage and ambition are ways of life?
The answer is: with
difficulty.
Here’s an example to
consider:
Picture the scene *does the wavy hands thing* we’re in a play park: A group of parents is sitting on benches chatting amongst themselves while their children explore all the exciting features – they are on swings, they are sliding down chutes, they are climbing over the frames, they are chasing each other.
Suddenly a wail rises through the conversations and laughter and the parents turn to see who is crying. A small child stands in tears, with knees scraped and bloodied after tumbling off the slide.
This child’s parent is
a Queen of Wands type.
The challenge that the parent faces is – do I kiss the knee and make sympathetic noises, give cuddles and dab away the tears (which would be Queenly) or do I encourage the child to shirk off the minor upset and run back to join in with the game again (Wands)?
A healthy Queen of
Wands knows when to kiss the knee and when to chivvy the child along.
In my forthcoming book,
Genetics of the Tarot Court (yeah, it’s not catchy, still working on
a title), the Queen of Wands lies on the same axis as another three
court cards who face equally challenging integrations of their nature
and nurture.
I hope that you’ll enjoy finding out who they are and the challenges that they face.
Stop being confused by court cards! Start being excited by the possibilities! Become a court card adventurer along with me 🙂 The Tarot’s Court Cards are my specialist area. They talk to me. Not LITERALLY though ….
