Tarot Thrones | The Court Card Blog

Tag: Chloe McCracken

  • TABI Tarot Conference | The Day!

    As one of the organisers, you need to be up bright and early to make sure that all is going according to plan.  Witness the breakfast table at 8am:

    Late night in bar = this breakfast table

    Yes, that’s my lonesome plate of food 😀

    Anyway, Caroline materialised soon afterwards and we started to get the show on the road.  Caroline manned the check-in desk and I manned the Conference room.

    Every year we are supported by various publishers in our goody bags for attendees.  This year we had help from PGUK, Eddison Books, Schiffer and Carrie Paris (although Carrie’s Siren’s Song Lenormand is still getting printed!)

    We had lots of lovely attendees this year.  In fact we sold out of places! We were joined by Kim Arnold (London) and Kirsten Buchholzer (Verbandes Tarot e V – Germany)… Barbie Davidson and Linda Marson (Australia) and Rashunda Tramble (Switzerland) …. along with the many other well-travelled TABI members!

    Goody bags – with TABI branding on the front.
    I *know* super posh

    Our first speaker was Karen Mahony from Baba Studio and she began with a presentation about their move to Kerry from Prague and the work of the studio.  She then moved on to talking about working with the Majors and the Minors and gave us a couple of spreads to demonstrate:

    Karen Mahony | Baba Studio
    ps – see that li’l white adapter on the table ….
    that was the source of ALL my worries the previous day
    God bless the lad at the Apple Store 😀 

    It was then the turn of long-time TABI member and creator of the Celtic Lenormand Oracle, Chloe McCracken.  She took us on a journey through working with a pendulum and the chakras… and the Tarot!

    Chloe McCracken | Pendulum work

    Now it was lunch time and everyone piled back into the dining room for a self-service that let you stock up on whatever you wanted with as many revisits to the food bar as you needed!  And dessert!!

    After lunch it was over to Emily Carding to explore the use of Tarot and Sigils.  Drawing from the ability to create compound images with her Transparent Tarot and Oracle, we set out to explore making sigils using standard tarot cards.  With an amazing ritual at the end of the workshop, we had a blast!

    Emily Carding | Tarot and Sigils

    At afternoon coffee break we drew the raffle – with the top prizes being our kickstarter copy of Andrea Aste’s Book of Shadows Tarot and a silk scarf kindly donated by Karen, from Baba Studio.  I, of course, won absolutely nothing.  I never win ANYTHING in raffles 😀

    Then it was the turn of our last speaker, Julia Jeffrey who had accompanied me down from Glasgow.  Julia is the creator of The Tarot of the Hidden Realm and we had the opportunity to work with her beautiful deck, exploring various Hidden Realm spreads.

    Julia Jeffrey | Tarot of the Hidden Realm

    And suddenly it was allllll over!  I presented Caroline with a well-deserved art voucher for all her work – double-deserved given that all the things I had volunteered to do to take some of the weight off her, I ended up leaving back at home in my computer bag.  And Caroline, bless her cotton socks, on behalf of TABI gave me a lovely voucher for Bute School of Art – which I will very much look forward to using!!

    For almost everyone it was over, but for us travelling back to Glasgow, we had one more night in Aston and then home.  And what a lovely evening that turned out to be – both our Australian attendees, Linda and Barbie, were there, as was Rashunda our attendee who was flying back to Switzerland on the Sunday.  We had a lovely …. and slightly irreverent … bar meal and glass or two of wine to unwind.

    And then on Sunday, it was the long (and not uneventful) drive back up the M6, the M74, the M8, the ferry …….. and home 🙂

    See you next year!

  • Which Tarot court card hand-rears baby birds?

    No, it’s not a trick question, but a genuine one because as of yesterday afternoon, I am guardian to a baby crow which is FAIRLY close to ‘black bin bag’ territory, if you catch my drift…..

    I was weeding in the greenhouse (in a foul mood actually because 24 hours earlier I’d planted a rather ‘spensive clematis in the front garden and discovered today that Tartarus has joyfully weed-killered it). Reader, I was attacking those tiny green unwanted SOBs with GUSTO (imagining each one of them to be a tiny husband).

    A shadow fell across the doorway:  Tartarus.

    ‘I suppose you’ll be wanting to try to save this one too then?’  I turned round expecting to see another weed-killered plant, but instead it was….


    ……a very floppy chick.

    Well, I say ‘chick’ but it was quite well-on;  it had all its feathers, but he just didn’t have any energy to fly in this really hot weather.  His eyes didn’t look too bright and it’s never good when you can actually manage to pick them up.

    I marched up the garden to the shed and opened the door – very cool and dark in there AND it is all geared up for imminent baby crow arrival (a big lidded box with newspaper).  Sadly, this baby bird feeding lark is a road I’ve been down before.  And found it to be a cul-de-sac.  KNOW WHAT I’M SAYIN’?  *looks at you meaningfully*

    Tartarus tipped chickie (let’s call him Noir because he’s black) in to the box and he just sort of sat there.

    Well, nothing ventured nothing gained, isn’t that what they say?  So I got my tiny dropper (available from any chemist) and a little glass of water and between us, Tartarus and I managed to give Noir a couple of droppers of water.

    We shut up the box and went off to, well, basically be in The Huff with each other about the callous clematis murder in the front garden for a few more hours.

    About an hour later I thought I’d better have a look in on the bird and was heartened to see that he was much more active.  And he’d done a poop – always good news.

    Time to try a little mashed dog food.

    Nero (our greyhound) looked very interested indeed as I opened some Pedigree Chum and spooned some into an egg cup and frantically mashed it to bits with the back of a spoon.

    Tartarus got his gloves on again and I set-to with the dog food and tweezers.  Noir was very active indeed and we considered letting him go at this point.  He hopped out of the box and teetered unsteadily on the edge of it, his eyes were now nice and bright…..and – would you bloody believe it – the damned dog made a lunge for him!

    Cue much screaming and shouting at the dog as we scooped up the bird and popped him back into the safety of his box.  Well, if he survives until tomorrow he will have survived more than any of the other birds that I have tried to rescue.

    So, which court card am I?

    Unfortunately, I think I’m a bit Knight of Wands about all this – rushing around, trying to rescue a bird that has probably been abandoned because its not viable.  The Knight is definitely someone who TRIES to effect a rescue.  Is he successful?  Perhaps not. The Knight doesn’t have a lot of ‘stick-to-it-ness’ as fellow Tarot blogger Chloe so wonderfully pointed out.

    Like the Knight, I have NO plan at all for this bird, other than getting it to live until tomorrow. What if Noir survives? I haven’t thought that far ahead – I’m offsky at the weekend to a gig on the mainland – what then?! Should I look for 23 blackbirds and a packet of pastry?!

    What I really NEED to be is the Queen of Pentacles and patiently nurture and care for this little soul in dire straits.  I need to take things more slowly, be more deliberate, find out what care he really needs and be prepared to do what it takes.  Even if that means mashing up worms.  Or consigning him to the Black Bin bag.

    And the Queen of Pentacles will do well to remember that we can’t all be James Herriot.

    **NB** I wrote this post a couple of nights ago and I’m delighted to say that I released him back into the wild, well, the garden at any rate, this morning.  I spotted him this afternoon, up a tree, so providing he can pick up some grubs and stuff, he can keep himself out of harms way.  I’m calling this a ‘successful outcome’.  Until I find his desiccated body in the undergrowth in a few months.

    Update 25/6/14 – He returned to the garden twice since I wrote this post.  He had a few chunks of dog food and then proceeded to enthral me with some wobbly flights.  Yesterday, 24th June, he flew out of the garden over the gate, lovely and straight, away over all the back gardens – he can feed himself and he can fly.  Job done.

    Queen of Pents!

  • My Favourite Court | Chloe McCracken | Page of Pentacles

    Once upon a time, I decided to offer other Tarot bloggers the opportunity to come into the Kingdom of the Courts and have a chat about their favourite court card.  Chloe McCracken, who writes the TABItarot blog eloquently and possesses the stamina of a HORSE to post every DAY, was invited to be my first guest.

    But lo! The post failed to schedule.  Yes, I was going through a phase of trying to be organised and practical – very Queen of Pentacles – but failing miserably!

    So, I trawled back my posts to 2012 *oh the SHAME!* and share it with you on this Easter Monday!


    Take it away, Chloe!

    “When Ali asked me to write a post on my favourite Court card, it wasn’t my astrologically and age- and gender-related card that popped into my head, nor the one assigned to me by the Thoth system of decans.  (To find out about those, take a look at Ali’s posts…..)  Despite having written – here , here http://innerwhisperscouk.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/bad-rep-well-deserved-knight-of-swords.html , here http://innerwhisperscouk.blogspot.co.uk/2010/10/bad-rep-well-deserved-queen-of-swords.html and here  – about the undeservedly bad reputation of the Swords court, it was none of them that I thought of.  Nor was it the Queen of Wands, who has been appearing to me a lot of late, and whose energy and characteristics I love.  Instead, it was the studious Page of Pentacles who clamoured to be heard and seen.

    Ali suggested I choose my favourite version of whichever Court card, and the one that sprang to mind was this one from the Ancestral Path Tarot (OOP, U.S. Games, 1996).   This was the first deck I chose for myself, after buying the Radiant Rider Waite (U.S. Games, 2005) for a tarot for beginners course I took at Mysteries in Covent Garden (London). Yet, looking at it again now, I was surprised that the Ancestral Path image – renamed Princess of Sacred Circles – doesn’t actually speak to what is in my mind when I think of this card!  She has been influenced by the Thoth version, and while I like the idea of pregnancy suggesting our own creative forces, and bringing something new into the world, it doesn’t really match with my main thoughts about the Page.

    You see, the first book I read about tarot was Rachel Pollack’s classic “78 Degrees of Wisdom” (HarperCollins, 1997, but first published in 1980!), which deeply influenced my understanding of tarot.  Digging it out again and turning to the suit of Pentacles, and the Page in particular, I found the roots of my enthusiasm and the mental picture I have of this card: “the Page need not refer to someone actually in school, but simply anyone approaching any activity with those qualities of fascination, of involvement, of caring less for rewards or social position than for the work itself.” (p. 239)  

    I love that sense of being an eternal student, ever fascinated with the world, constantly learning something new just for the joy of it, caught up in what you’re doing.  Not just learning through reading, but through trying and playing and doing again.  Rachel Pollack points out that the Page of Pentacles: “partakes of the suit’s practical nature by symbolising the actual work of the student, the study and scholarship, as compared to the inspiration symbolised by the Page of Cups.” (ibid)  Or, it might be added, compared to the rational thought processes and joy in reading of the Page of Swords!  So, looking through my decks, although the Page of Pentacles from Lisa Hunt’s Celtic Dragon Tarot (Llewellyn, 1999) comes closer to what I had in mind, it’s still not quite there.  

    More than just learning through doing and learning for fun, for me the Page of Pentacles is  also about learning something spiritual.  Once again, Rachel Pollack talks of this mystical side to the suit of Pentacles: “However far we may travel in spiritual meditations we must begin and return here – or lose ourselves in the process.” (ibid, p.232)  As she explains: “the natural world, because it carries a firmer reality than the other elements, because it does not lead so easily to confusion or misconception or ill use, opens the way to more mystic experience.” (ibid. 233)  I think that’s part of what I loved about the Ancestral Path take on the Page/Princess of Pentacles/Sacred Circles – her connection to spirit as well as her groundedness in her own body.  

    Not that you have to get all mystical about it.  For me, a perfect example of Page of Pentacles energy is found in practising yoga.  You always feel things a little differently, and are open to learning something new about your own body, your mind, what it is to be human, or the pose that you’re in.  It’s spiritual, without being woo-woo.  More simply, it’s just about bringing “beginner’s mind” to whatever you do.  

    In that sense, I love Joanna Powell-Colbert’s take on the Page of Pentacles/Child of Earth (Gaian Tarot, Llewellyn, 2011). Looking at anything, even an apple, as though you had never seen it before.  Feeling its smooth skin, smelling its crisp, fresh scent, enjoying the crunch as your teeth break through the peel, and the spray of yummy juice that squirts into your mouth before you’ve even finished biting off a chunk.  Still, it’s not my favourite version of this card.

    After trawling through my decks, I realised that my absolute favourite depiction of the Page of Pentacles is from Anna K (self-published).   The sky is sunny and warm as our intrepid Page goes fishing.  S/he is doing something practical, and s/he might even get dinner out of it, but that really doesn’t matter – it’s just so amazingly interesting.  S/he looks intently at the bobbing pentacle, enjoying the feeling of the grass under foot, gazing at the sparkles in the water and the ripples from where the fishing line enters the water.  Engrossed in the moment, in the possibilities, s/he is learning a new skill, but doesn’t see it that way, just enjoying the day and the fun of doing something new.  Without even realising it, s/he slips into meditating on the nature of water, or the life cycle of fish, or the best way to sit so as not to get a dead leg.  It’s all good!  

    For me, learning tarot is like that, too.  No matter how long you’ve been playing with the cards, every reading, every draw, offers new possibilities.  The context is different every time depending on who you’re reading for, what spread you use, what deck you choose, what’s going on in your life.  Each day, we can see the cards with new eyes, and there’s the potential to spot something we never thought of before.  Yet, no matter how mystical the question, or how emotional, there is something grounded about using the cards.  Not just because they are (mostly) physical bits of card that we hold in our hands (though that helps).  But because they’re talking about our lives, here and now.  Even if we’re asking about the nature of the universe, it’s about how we can see and experience it in this moment.  We learn, we explore, we play, we experience.  Definitely Page of Pentacles 🙂


    Chloe McCracken writes the TABITarot blog, the Inner Whispers blog and is about to publish the Celtic Lenormand Oracle (artist: Will Worthington)