Tarot Thrones | The Court Card Blog

Tag: Druidcraft Tarot

  • Druidcraft Tarot | Rebox

    Just before Christmas I was provided with a review deck of the newly reboxed Druidcraft Tarot.

    Druidcraft Tarot | all versions | Tarot Thrones
    new box, brighter coloured book cover

    Even a casual perusal of back posts from me will show that the Druidcraft is one of my absolute favourites and I fondly recall buying my first copy from a little incense-infused shop in Glastonbury when I met up with some tarot friends from TABI waaaaaaaaay back in the mists of time – 2004!

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  • The King of Wands | The Power of Tarot’s Bridge Card

    Last week I wrote about the King of Wands and how A E Waite saw this card as the stepping stone from the glory of the Major Arcana to the mundanity of the Minor Arcana.  
    Today I thought I’d expand on this and show you how I am using The King of Wands card as a result of reading Waite’s insight.
    Let’s see how powerful he really is!
    First, procure your
    deck’s King of Wands card.

    Split your deck into
    two bundles – one for the Major Arcana and the other for the Minor
    Arcana and shuffle each bundle well.
    Ask your King of Wands
    card to guide you to the most significant Major that you need in
    order to make progress (in your issue, towards your goal, whatever it
    is that you are looking for help with).
    Place your King in the
    Major Arcana bundle and shuffle, all the while keeping your question
    for him at the forefront of your mind. 
    When you are content to stop
    shuffling, take your Major Arcana bundle, face down, and lay down
    each card in turn, as if you were playing snap or something. When
    you turn the King of Wands, you are paying attention to the NEXT card
    that you turn over – this is the Major that will help you.
    Do the same with the
    Minor bundle and your King of Wands card. Again, you are looking for
    the card that follows the King of Wands as you turn over each card in
    the bundle.
    You now have two cards
    – a Major and a Minor. These have been linked by the King of
    Wands.
    How can reading these
    two cards together help you with your issue?
    Here’s a worked
    example:
    The question concerns a
    stale relationship and a need for break-through:
    The Lady (Empress equivalent) and the 9 of Pentacles.
    I am struck by how sad
    The Lady looks, despite being surrounded by such luxury and
    fecundity. The harvest necessitates the cutting of the wheat, the picking of the fruit; the
    arrival of the baby heralds the end of her pregnancy. She is brooding
    the losses that come with creation.
    The 9 of Pentacles
    woman wears the same pensive expression and she too looks materially
    comfortable. Her hawk is held on the glove. In order for it to fly
    free, she has to let it go.
    The two cards that the
    King of Wands has chosen to act as a bridge tell me that in order to
    effect a break through, the sitter has to work on two things to make
    the necessary break through.
    • If comfort is
      paramount, then the sitter must be prepared to accept the necessary losses and
      restrictions in order to keep comfortable.
    • If, however, the sitter
      wishes the bird to fly freely, then some discomfort and uncertainty
      must be endured in order to create something new and better.  

  • February Full Moon | Princess of Cups

    The full moon of February is known by various names – Snow Moon, Wolf Moon and Hunger Moon (Northern Hemisphere) and Grain Moon, Sturgeon Moon, Red Moon, Wyrt Moon, Corn Moon, Dog Moon and Barley Moon if you live in the Southern Hemisphere.



    I’m in the Northern Hemisphere and Wolves are a bit thin on the ground here in Scotland. I don’t have any snow (at the moment) and since I’m in the throes of trying to cut down on the amount that I’m eating, I thought I’d plump for the Hunger Moon!

    The spread is just a one-carder gem and only uses the 16 court cards as my deck 🙂

    Who helps me successfully handle my hunger pangs from now until the next full moon?

    The answer comes in the form of the Druidcraft Tarot’s Princess of Cups.

    In this deck, the usual Page is replaced with a Princess, but she serves the same role.

    How she helps me with my hunger pangs, purely from the image:

    1  She has her eyes closed – don’t drool over gorgeous food when it’s a fast day.

    2  She holds a cup – drink plenty of fluids and make them as interesting as possible.

    3  She’s outdoors – get outside whenever I feel hungry.

    4  I like her clothes – focus on treating myself to a new item of clothing when I am less portly.  Honestly, just a few inches off my bosom and belly would be GREAT.

    4  Meditation.  And not involving the glories of the co-op’s almond croissants in any way, shape or form …

    So much for how she looks, but what might her Tarot meaning contributes to my successful wrangling of my hunger?

    Begin a relationship.  Well, Tom Hiddleston doesn’t know that I exist. YET.  So I prefer to flip this to mean that I should fall in love with SOMETHING. Maybe by focussing my attentions elsewhere, I won’t be too conscious of feeling hungry.  You know what it’s like when you fall in luff – you can happily exist on salad, even in the cold and damp 🙂

    The Princess of Cups is also a creative little soul – get the paints out and refocus.  But don’t paint pictures of food …

    How else can the Princess of Cups help me with my hunger pangs? What do you think? 

  • Full Moon | March | Virgo

    It’s that time of the month again, when the moon becomes full and we turn our attentions to the Court Card that bathes in its glorious light!  Yes, on 5 March, our Full Moon rides again!
    This month, the sun sign is Pisces and so our full moon lands in the opposite sign, Virgo.

    In Tarot, Virgo is represented by the Knight of Pentacles.


    I’ve saddled up a small collection of Knights for you to peruse.  Feel free to run your hands lovingly over their fetlocks…

    Consider first the Knight of Pentacles from the Alexander Daniloff Tarot.

    In warm shades of russet and gold, he proudly sports an enormous hat and announces that he is an Earth sign by gently holding his coin like a trophy against his torso.

    He carries no weapon, just a money bag at his belt.  His only concession to his military rank is his shield and his helmet.  Items purely for defence.

    Let’s take another look at that hat.  It would not look out of place on the redoubtable Dowager Countess of Grantham:

    It features some outstanding feathers – reminding us that Knights have an airy and unpredictable component.  However, when married to the solidness of Earth, they don’t sit comfortably together.

    He can find his Knightly duties a little tough: He is called to be adventurous and an explorer, but he’d really rather do his exploring a little closer to home.  ‘Why try to conquer outer space when we have not yet understood our oceans?’ thinks this Knight.

    In the Druidcraft we see him, almost shy, peeping over his shield as he rests his sword arm on his horse’s flank.  He’s in no rush to go anywhere.

    He is slow to anger or rouse to passion, but once his heart is engaged, he will not be swayed from his course.  He represents dogged determination and slow but steady progress.

    Of all the Knights that might set off looking for you, the Knight of Pentacles is the guy that WILL find you.  Yes, long after the Knights of Wands and Swords have galloped off on a new quest, long after the Knight of Cups rededicates his ballad to another fair maiden, no matter how long it takes, he’ll be there.

    In Lo Scarabeo’s The Tarot of The Masters, his keyword is ‘Responsibility’.

    The Knight of Pentacles can be a frustrated character – someone who longs to travel, but who is somehow prevented from doing so, either by home commitments, lack of finances or even health issues.

    Or he might be someone far from home who longs for the delights of her own fireside.

    This character is stubborn, the least flexible of the Knights, practical and single-minded in a way that the other, more exciting Knights are not.

    He directs us to:

    • Take on an adventure – even a tiny one!
    • Follow one project through to the end!
    • Explore new ways to make your money work harder (but not high risk!)
    • Try a new type of exercise – nothing too fast-moving!

    Sorry that it’s been a whole MONTH since I last posted.  I am still here reading and writing like mad.  I’m hoping that you’ll still drop by Thrones for a comfy chair and a coffee.  Maybe even Eccles cakes …

  • Full Moon | Taurus

    As we creep towards Yule, the nights here in Scotland are definitely chillier. I’ve unearthed my bed socks for another season and the central heating has been turned on*.  For us at Tarot Thrones, November heralds the full moon in Taurus.

    In Tarot, Taurus is represented by the King of Pentacles, so for 6 November, here’s how he will be influencing us all!

    In the Druidcraft Tarot, we see an older man who sits in his great hall in front of a roaring fire upon which a boar is roasting. I love how the carved points of the pentacle behind him look like horns!  Perched in the window is a little red-breasted robin.  The sky is darkening.  As the Stark family in that OTHER Game of Thrones might say… ‘Winter is coming!’

    Pentacles is the suit governed by the element of Earth and this, coupled with his Fiery Kingly energy tells us that the Full Moon in Taurus is a very productive time (think of how fire and elements from the earth come together to make pottery, ceramics, glass etc).

    This is a very sensuous character – he’s all about the experiencing (Pentacles/Earth) through the doing (Fire).

    He is very much at home with the finer things in life (just look at his fine robes and surroundings!) and while we may not all have the wealth that the King of Pentacles clearly enjoys, we can make the most of all the wonderful things that we DO have in our lives. Yeah, this is where I get all mushy and point out that even the dog lying snoring gently by your desk brings wealth of a sort to your life.

    Maybe not his in-sleep farting though.

    The King of Pentacles enjoys great wealth, but he is no risk-taking gambler.  His approach is steady and responsible and if you are in business, his influence shows sustainable progress.

    This full moon, he tells us:

    Be productive!
    Slow and steady wins the race!
    Enjoy life!
    Be generous!

    * How do you turn on your central heating system? Simple. You just say ‘hey baby, you are the sexiest heating system that I’ve ever seen.’  Old jokes.  Golden 😀

  • Significators | Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm | The Book of English Magic

    Click on image to visit site

    Since I started this blog, I have been ferreting out different ways to help you choose a significator for your client (or yourself!) in your Tarot work.

    Here’s another method:  Philip and Stephanie Carr Gomm have devised two sets of questions that help you (or your querent) work out which suit and which rank best suits your personality.
    I reproduce them here with kind permission from the Carr-Gomms:
    Finding the SUIT that best applies to you:
    A – I’m an intuitive, enthusiastic person, who loves starting projects and tends to have ten new ideas before breakfast. I’m not so good at finishing things, though, and I can lack focus because I’m interested in so many things.
    B – I’m a sensitive, emotional person. I feel very deeply, and can cry easily. My heart goes out to people and animals who are suffering, and I feel drawn to the arts and the healing professions.
    C – I spend a lot of my time thinking and analysing. Some might call me an intellectual, and I can be accused of having my head in the clouds. I sometimes feel detached from everyday events and can find it hard to express my feelings.
    D – I’m a practical person – I just like to get to work and do things, rather than endlessly theorising about them or talking about them. I’m good with my hands and like making people feel at home.
    If you choose A – you’re a WAND, B – you’re a CUP,  C – you’re a SWORD and D – you’re a PENTACLE
    Congratulations! You’re halfway there!
    Now you have to find the RANK that best applies to you:
    A. I feel young and innocent most of the time. Sometimes this makes me feel uncomfortable or embarrassed when I’m in the company of other adults who seem so ‘grown-up’. I feel as if I have so much potential that I’m only beginning to explore.
    B. I like to get on with things. I want to be of use to the world, but I sometimes jump into things too impulsively. It makes me feel clumsy sometimes, but I prefer action to too much thinking.
    C. I feel quite mature and aware of myself and what I’m doing in the world. I value creativity and compassion and like to nurture these qualities in myself and those around me.
    D. I feel in charge of myself and my life, and am considered an authority figure by some people. I have accomplished a good deal and try to be socially responsible.
    If you choose A – you’re a PAGE/PRINCESS, B – you’re a KNIGHT, C- you’re a QUEEN and D – you’re a KING.
    Isn’t that just THE most elegant, straightforward way to sort out the Court Card that best represents you?
    To find out more:
    a) The Questionnaire is on pp456-458 in The Book of English Magic
    b) Thumbnail personality sketches on pp 458 – 465 of the same book.
    c)  Delve into the large book that accompanies The DruidCraft Tarot.
    My own insight into this method is that if you answer the questions WITH YOUR TAROT QUERY IN MIND, you could end up with different Courts representing you for different scenarios.   However, if you answer the questions keeping in mind how you see yourself generally, you will come up with a Court Card significator to represent you in ALL instances.
    What do you think of this method of selecting a Significator? 

  • Philip and Stephanie Carr-Gomm | Interview

    Whose favourite Druidcraft Tarot card
    is this, The Princess of Swords?

    Hot on the heels of the Carr-Gomms’ highly successful Druidcraft video-conference sessions  hosted by Linda Marson at GlobaI Spiritual Studies, I was very honoured when they both took time out of their busy schedules to answer some questions for Tarot Thrones about the Druidcraft’s wonderful Courts.

    Me (A):  First of all – thank you so much for agreeing to be interviewed for my blog!  You are a Tarot duo that I have admired ever since I laid eyes on the DruidCraft 🙂


    Philip and Stephanie (P&S) “Thank you! And now we can start a mutual admiration society because we’ve discovered your blog and love the way you’ve given it the focus of the Court cards, which – as you know – is of great interest to us and starts off our book and the training we’ve developed that we’re calling Integrative Tarot.”  


    (Ali: more on this powerful Integrative method in a future post!)

    A: Quite often the Court Card section of a Tarot deck can be a real disappointment: very little thought or symbolism seems to be included in the cards.  Not so with the Courts of the DruidCraft who are exquisitely detailed characters both in the artwork and on the written page.  You and Stephanie put great emphasis on the Court Arcana with the Druidcraft – what prompted you to do that?”
    P&S: “The Hanged Man perspective! Looking at things in a completely different way – turning things upside down and inside out, certainly helped. When we worked on the DruidCraft Tarot, after looking at hundreds of decks, dozens of books, we noticed exactly what you have said. It’s as if the authors and artists focus on the amazing Majors first, then the pips, and by the time they reach the courts they’re exhausted and don’t seem to give the same level of attention to them. What convinced us was not turning things around and saying – “if everyone finishes with them, let’s start with them,” as a sort of attempt to be different or unique. No – it was because we realised that the Courts represent the Tarot’s own special typology – just as astrology has twelve, the enneagram nine types, and so on, the Tarot has sixteen. And when I remembered that the most commonly used personality typing system in psychology is a 16 fold one – the MBTI – that clinched it for me, particularly since the MBTI evolved out of Jung’s four-fold typology which correlates so beautifully with the principles of Druidcraft. Later I discovered in Mary Greer & Tom Little’s book that various others had made correlations, which was fantastic.

    “But the story goes on, because at that time I was working on the book in New Zealand. Steph was in Sussex, Will was in Manchester, the publisher’s art director was in London. Steph and I were skyping about the project, and emails were whizzing between all of us. A friend in NZ had trained with a teacher called Glynn Braddy who used the four elements as a key part of his teachings. This friend talked at length to me about his teachings and in particular about the different facial and body types associated with the elements, explaining that predominantly airy people had thin faces, aquiline noses, and piercing blue or grey eyes, while Earthy types were more likely to be stocky, with round flat faces,and so on. I relayed this information to Will, and so we have very consciously delineated differences between the Court figures of each suit. 

    “Incidentally, Glynn Braddy seems to have influenced a number of people, including Stuart Wilde, and an internet search will reveal comments such as:

    “Glynn Braddy, an Australian, was another lecturer who was particularly brilliant and of course controversial (almost all the greats are). Some considered him a metaphysical genius with his ability to combine science, nutrition, philosophy and metaphysics in his teachings. His mind traveled over a vast landscape. I use the past tense because I don’t think he teaches anymore but I attended a few of his workshops and they were in a league of their own. I use the information I learnt from Glynn on a daily basis.” James Wild. Leon Davis has produced a novel based on his four element teachings: ‘The Seasons Within’  as has Geof Spalding with his book The 33rd Sage .

    A: I e-mail interviewed  Mary K Greer (for my blog) and we spoke about the Personality Profiling that she and her colleagues did in her wonderful Understanding The Tarot Court and she said that they couldn’t agree on how to allocate the 16 types to match the 16 personalities of the Tarot Courts.  Do you think that this is because the Courts aren’t people, but facets of people’s character?”
    P&S “No I don’t think so. When you go into the subject of personality profiling and typology it becomes really quite complex and subtle – as it should do! After all we’re all quite complex contradictory creatures! And so I think it would take a lot of work to refine our understanding of the correlations between the MBTI types and the Tarot types, and maybe it isn’t an exact correlation anyway. But I think this requires more research and it’s rather nice to know that not everything has been discovered and worked out! I hope one day someone with a few years on their hands – perhaps a psychology graduate with a real interest in typology – will tackle this and let us all know their findings.”
    A: “Yes, that would be wonderful!

    “I very much enjoyed the two sessions that you and Stephanie did with Linda Marson’s Global Spiritual Studies and was impressed by the two sets of questions that you had developed to help people work out which suit and rank best represented them.  Do you think that one’s answers (and therefore Court personality card) to these questions will change, depending on the nature of the question that the sitter is contemplating?”  


    (Ali:  Those two sets of questions will go up here on  m’blog, with full permission from P&S next week!)

    P&S “That’s an interesting idea! The questionnaire as you know is very basic – but despite that it seems to often be quite accurate. I tried it last night on my mother and daughter – both Geminis – and they absolutely refused to go for one answer in each section. It took ages of saying ‘Yes but if I put a gun to your head which would you choose?’ before we could work out their types and I think they got a good fit. Your idea suggests that if – for example – you were struggling with an emotionally upsetting issue and you were feeling particularly vulnerable, you would be more likely to choose a statement that related you to a Cups Court, while if a day or so later you were wrestling with a practical or financial issue you’d be more likely to select a Pentacles court. I guess that’s certainly a possibility. One way around that would be to do the questionnaire separate from any reading, and to do it several times over a few months. If you consistently came up with the same Court I think it would be pretty accurate. “
    A: “My favourite card is the Queen of Wands – I love the expression on her face, the billowing fire, her pose, the cat beneath her throne…..THAT wand!  Which Court personality card is your personal favourite – and why?”
    Philip: “I love the Princess of Swords. In the original paintings the egg tempera blues of her dress and cloak are just stunning!”
    Stephanie: “I really like the Prince of Wands – he looks so joyful bounding along on his horse, over rolling waves of grass, he’s just having so much fun!”
    My favourite DruidCraft court card alongside Stephanie’s favourite!
    A: “We’ve had to wait a very long time for dedicated DruidCraft workshops to materialise – will you be running any more?”
    P&S:“We weren’t sure how a webinar would go – but we found that it’s a great medium to teach Tarot because the cards are a visual tool and therefore a visual medium like a computer screen is perfectly suited. And in addition, being able to interact with participants AND have it all recorded so students can go back over the material later is fantastic. So yes we’ll be doing more I reckon!”
    A: “I’m very interested in the creative process between deck authors and deck artists, can you tell me how you and Will Worthington went about creating these expressive cards? Did you send very detailed remits as to what you wanted to see in the images or did Will have a lot of creative leeway?”
    P&S: “For most we sent quite detailed briefs, but for some we said to Will ‘Why don’t you go ahead and just see what comes to you, as long as you have these two or three symbols/elements in there.’ Most of the time we agreed, but occasionally we struggled together but that’s good – that shows creativity is taking place. Giving birth isn’t easy after all, is it? It was definitely a joint process, for instance – ‘Death’ which we absolutely love, was our vision, which Will executed brilliantly. ‘The Wheel’ on the other hand was Will’s inspiration – and it’s fantastic, one of our favourite images!”

    A: Thank you so much to Philip and Stephanie for taking the time to answer all these questions! I hope that your interest is piqued by the Integrative Tarot style mentioned.  You can find out about the 16 personality types in much more detail in Philip’s book: The Book of English Magic, pp 45- 465


    See the full range of books by Philip Carr-Gomm:      http://philipcarrgomm.druidry.org/books.htm
    Read Philip’s blog:  http://philipcarrgomm.wordpress.com
    Find out more about OBOD:   www.druidry.org

    Druidcraft Tarot app – for iPad and iPhone on iTunes
    Druidcraft Tarot app – Google Play

  • Blog Hop – Love

     “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the
    barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

                                                                                                   Rumi

    Panic not, dear Reader!

    I haven’t gone all mushy and doe-eyed over some slim-hipped Lothario!

    The blog hop for this Samhain is about love.  And Rumi wrote a LOT about love.  But although the oft-quoted poet wrote about love, it a transcendental divine love, not the mundane love of two people making eye-contact across a shared pizza and ending the evening with a slow shuffle round the dance floor to Lionel Ritchie.

    What could I do for the Blog Hop about love? I decided that my contributionis a 3-card spread, based on the quotation above:

    Card 1:  You
    Card 2:  A barrier to the Beloved
    Card 3:  Removing this barrier to the Beloved

    Bear in mind that the Beloved needn’t be Hugh Jackman another person, but can be anything that you long for – a healthy relationship with your offspring, a promotion at work, or even something as mundane as new wool for a project.  I’m looking at YOU, yes YOU, all you NaKniSweMo peoples!!

    For Card 1 – pick a court card to act as a significator – you can use whichever method you prefer.  Here I’m simply going to choose the King of Wands because he represents my birth sign, Leo.

    I shuffle the deck, repeating the Rumi quote above and when I feel that my shuffling is complete,  turn the deck image-side upwards and work your way through the deck until you arrive at your Significator.

    The card before your Significator represents the Barrier (Card 2) and
    the card after your Significator is Card 3.  Card 3 shows a way to
    remove the barrier.  And by simply removing the barriers, you allow yourself to attain the Beloved 🙂

    Using my BELOVED Druidcraft, this is what I got. 

    First of all, my Beloved, for this spread was ‘to write a Tarot book’.   No sniggering at the back there!

    The Lady in the 5 of Pentacles leans against the tree with her arms over her eyes whilst a hound chases down a hare.  The hound and hare are part of the legend of Ceridwen and never fear the dog doesn’t get the wabbit:-)

    What does this Barrier card mean?  I don’t want to look at the work involved! I don’t think that I can do it – like Ceridwen, I won’t be able to catch my ‘hare’. This card is traditionally associated with a sense of lack or loss and perhaps I feel that I can’t do it? That I’m not entitled to it?

    I look at the Court Card that represents me – he is alert and about to get up from his throne.  Although one foot points to the Barrier card, he inclined towards the solution.  This is good, right?!

    The way to remove this Barrier is to get on with the hunt! The dog and hare of the 5 of Pentacles have been replaced by hunters coming home after a successful outing.  At the beginning of the day, they didn’t know whether they would be arriving home triumphant, but they went anyway.  And so must I.  Time to get on with working towards my beloved. And next time you see me, I might be triumphant!

    Now, I wonder what happens when I replace ‘Tarot book’ with George Clooney…….. *mind wanders off to somewhere that you’d better not look*

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  • Lammas Blog Hop | From my table to the community

    Welcome to the Lammas blog, where the theme set by our Wrangler, Arwen, is: “What can I share from my table to enrich my community?”  If you’re hopping forward, you’ve come from the lovely Ania Marczyk’s blog and if you are hopping backwards (you TOTAL rebel, you!) you’ve come from the equally lovely Joanne Sprott’s blog. And if your cat has randomly strolled across your computer keyboard and the Tarot Thrones blog has popped up on your screen…. well, just be grateful that I’m not a porn site 😀

    So what can I share from my table to enrich the Tarot community?
    Since Tarot Thrones is a blog all about the Court Cards of the Tarot, I got into a huddle with my 16 courtly colleagues to thrash out a few ideas.  Reader, it got very heated.  The Queens wanted me to teach something, the Kings wanted me to DO something, the Knights wanted me to be daring and bold and the Pages? Well, the Pages just went outside to play.
    Then I had an idea.  I made my suggestion and the Kings and Queens murmured their agreement and happily headed off down the pub to give me peace and quiet to write.  So here’s my Lammas Blog Hop gift to you:
    When you are buying a new Tarot deck, how do you choose it?  Do you have a few favourite cards that you inspect? Do you run your hands expertly over The Star’s fetlocks to see if she shapes up to your perfect Star? Do you inspect the teeth of The Devil to make sure he’s someone that you can work with or do you take The Lovers for a quick canter around the paddock?
    Well, here’s a suggestion from ME to YOU:  Why not take a look at the Court Cards to see whether you can work with THEM?  After all, they tend to be the section of the Tarot that readers tend to frown  around – why not make sure that the Courts are guys that you are comfortable with?
    Radical, eh?
    So here are my Top 7 bits of advice for expertly checking out the Tarot Court in a new deck:

    1  The most important thing in the Courts, for me, is symbolism – what is there for you to work with? Plenty of symbols will give you plenty of pegs on which to pin your ideas about the Court Card and lots of things to talk about in your reading.  Check also for consistency – do all the Knights have some kind of steed, for example.  If not – why not? Can you see why the Knight of Pentacles might be left to labour along on foot….or does it show a lack of thought about what the Courts represent?  Are all the Queens wearing shoes, except one? Why might the Queen of Cups go barefoot and the Queen of Swords wear shoes that are tightly laced? Does it make sense to you?
    Tons of symbolism, nice setting, expressive character and suit colour-themed
    2  The next most important thing is Setting – are the Courts active in some kind of scene?  For me this is important because it helps with the story-telling aspect of your reading.  What direction are they heading? What are they DOING?  What are they looking at/turning their back on?

    It seems to me that people struggle with the courts because they seem to punch holes in the flow of your story-telling much more so than the Majors or Minors, so any setting that allows you to incorporate the Courts into your story is a Good Thing.

    3  Character – this covers a lot of ground – if the characters are expressive, clearly delineating a personality type by their expression or pose, then this helps you work with them.  Someone bent over and tired-looking has easily got a completely different message from a sprightly young Page. 
    4  Sex – is there an equal balance of male and female characters? Are they all women? All men? Are they animals/birds? Is that what you want?
    5  Rank – how are the Courts ranked?  Straightforward Page (Princess)/Knight/Queen/King ares traditional and, for me, easier to work with than an entirely new combination like Lightbringer/Demon/Sprite and Soul where it’s not clear which rank trumps the others and how progress is made – you have got some additional learning to do.  And does that learning conflict or support what you already know about Ranks in your other decks?

    A Princess to replace the Page, nice setting, symbolism, suit attributes 
    6  Colour – this could form part of symbolism – do the suits have colours? Are those colours pulled through into the Courts? If they are, it might make it easier for you to incorporate suit traits into your story?  Do those colours represent the elemental associations that you’d expect?  If not, will that affect your use of elements in this deck?
    7  Astrological information etc – some decks have information from other systems built in to their Courts which makes it a danged sight  easier to talk about, for example, astrological traits instead of having to memorise the associations!
    The black-clad Ninja with his sneaky expression and his heuuuuge hidden sword
    The other Courts have astrological associations clearly illustrated – result!
    Of course, this isn’t a complete list, and they don’t ALL have to be present in every deck’s court, but these are just some of the main prompts that will help you find easy to work with Courts.  
    Now, if you’ll excuse me,  I’m off to run my hands expertly over the haunches of the Knight of Wands ;-D

  • The Fool and The Queen of Pentacles

    So, many years ago I read an article about the fate of greyhounds once their racing days were over.  Some, the lucky ones, were found new homes, but many of them ended up dead and in a ditch, their ears removed to prevent their identification.

    Things have changed since I read that article and many charitable bodies help rehome the 30,000 dogs that annually retire from the sport and need loving homes.

    And for some reason it stuck with me:  One day I would give one of these dogs a good home.

    Wednesday was that very day!

    It’s one thing to talk about rehoming a dog, quite another to be confronted by 48 of them peering through their kennel doors, all hugely delighted to see you and barking their heads off.

    I was quite clear about what I wanted.  I wanted a blue bitch.  I’d even seen a couple on the rescue centre’s website so that I wouldn’t have to put myself through the torture of looking at every dog (and wanting every single one of them!)

    However, I hadn’t reckoned on the formidable presence of the lady who runs the rehoming centre.  Before we could suggest the names of the dogs that we wanted, ‘Flash’ was produced for us to take for a walk around the paddock.

    Flash was a huge black dog who wasn’t much interested in us.  And, to be brutally honest, we weren’t much interested in him.  He wasn’t a blue bitch.

    We returned to the kennels and the cacophony of excited barking that greeted us was quite overwhelming.

    ‘What did you think of him?’ she asked.

    ‘Well, he’s very nice and easy to walk on the lead,’ I said, ‘But we were really looking for a blue bitch.’

    The lady nodded.  ‘Oh yes, the unusually coloured dogs always go quickly.  But it’s not about how you LOOK, in life that counts, is it?  It’s about the nature of the dog,’ she said.  Turning to one of the many smiling volunteers who walk the dogs for her, she said’ Bring down Jojo.’

    Jojo wasn’t one of the dogs on my list.

    He came in and my heart sank.  He was a big black boy with a moulting coat, shaking legs and a severe dose of dandruff.

    She handed me his lead….

    …..And he leaned against my leg, gazing up at me with eyes darker than the devil’s waistcoat.

    …and, fool that I am, I took a deep breath and stepped off the cliff.

    Reader, when I set off from home that morning I was determined about one thing:  I didn’t want a Big Black Dog.

    So here he is:  My Big Black Dog.

    This is the first time that he laid down on his blanket, hence the nervous ‘skinned rabbit’ look about him.  He didn’t recognise his name, Jojo, so we changed it to Nero because he’s black and it’s regal looking, as is he.

    As I type he is spread out on the floor behind me, sleeping.

    And I luff him.

    Sooooooo what in the hell has this got to do with Tarot – or the Tarot court specifically – I hear you mutter.  Well, it’s this.

    The Queen of Pentacles often gets landed with the nurturing home-maker label which can make people think that she’s a bit of a soft touch.

    And the woman at the Rescue Centre clearly had that caring and nurturing Queen of Pentacles nature, but also, running through her was a steely core, like a bit of high-tensile cable! She possessed the resolve to make the very best efforts for her hardest to re-home animals – the big black boys.

    So the next time the Queen of Pentacles come up in a reading for you, remember the determination of Celia to do the best for her four-legged foster kids.

    Have you had any Fool or Queen of Pentacle moments recently?