Tarot Thrones | The Court Card Blog

Tag: Mary El

  • Crow Moon| March 2016 |

    The March full moon has a lovely selection of names that speak of the quickening of the soil and the spirit of Spring:

    Sap Moon
    Worm Moon
    Crow Moon
    Lenten Moon

    I have chosen the Crow Moon to celebrate the full moon of the 23rd because I am surrounded by the flappy black blighters.

    Lots of people hate them – frightening off the songbirds from the bird tables as they craftily work out how to burgle your squirrel-proof feeder.


    They are absolutely the noisiest neighbours in the history of Christendom.

    Many years ago, we were in a BBC Scotland gardening programme called The Beechgrove Garden.  When the producer turned up to ask me some preliminary questions, he was astounded by the amount of noise that the crows were making.  I was surprised- after half a dozen years, they failed to even register with me as being vocal!

    Now nearly 20 years later, I adore my great dark neighbours.  They’re clever, cruel and vastly entertaining to watch.

    I’ve hand-reared fallen chicks – wary-eyed feather dusters – with, erm, let’s say, VARYING degrees of success.

    I’ve rescued one who dangled by a claw from a bird feeder.

    I love their rhythms – wheeling noisily into the sky at dawn and then at dusk dropping into the treetops and settling in waves, like a black tide.

    At this time of year they toil through the skies clutching enormous twigs (usually the spring clippings from some garden border!) often so large that if one plummets from a distracted beak, you can get quite a startle as it clatters onto the pavement!

    The Crow Moon is, for me, a time when Spring arrives proper.  The ground is warming up, the sap is rising, the worms are working madly beneath the ground, pushing up their casts onto lawns all over the land.

    I choose The Queen of Swords from the Mary El to illustrate the Crow Moon.

    What is pulsing into life?

    The creative intellect of the Queen of Swords is what!

    As the year gathers power, so does our Swords energy – communication, brain stuff, book-learning, natural intelligence …. coupled with the Queen’s spirit – protective, nurturing and creative.

    Got a creative project lurking inside you? The Queen is telling you to Get. On. With. it.

  • Farewell to the King of Swords!

    Did you miss me?  I took myself (and family) off to Blackpool for a few days so that my son had a better memory of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee than just a day off school.

    Ever diligent, I took my laptop with me, but when your hotel overlooks Blackpool Pleasure Beach and this is the view from your bedroom window, blogging kinda goes OUT the window!

    You’re probably thinking ‘Jeez, what a shit view!’ but, dear reader, I REQUESTED a bedroom with a view over the rollercoasters because I LOVE listening to their thunder and rattle (and the excited screaming!).  I feel happy when I hear it.  Odd?

    I did take my Tarot stuff with me because, like I say, I’m trying to be diligent! And as we walked back to the hotel from the Pleasure Beach after the Queen’s Jubilee Party late on Monday night, I saw the full moon glowing above the deserted streets and remembered that I had to select a card to show the energies that will recede as the moon wanes to darkness.  So, who appeared from the deck for me this time?

    The card drawn was the Mary El King of Swords.

    With his fingers thrumming the string of his bow and his other hand holding a white feather (check out that inky black tip!), the King of Swords looks beyond us.  He has no sword to wield – but his weapons are ink-dipped quills and his thoughts. He looks oriental with that beard and his bald head (and with that huge dragon tattoo that consumes his back!)   The sky, clouds and feathers remind me that Swords are airy, cerebral, truth-valuers.

    Around the outline of his body snakes script, almost echoing the curved dragon – I cannot read the script and there is no mention of it in his description in the LWB *note to self: You need stronger specs*  I choose to interpret these words as acting like a protective shield around him – words are his weapon and his defence.

    I am very fond of the King of Swords in any deck and I am loathe to part with his good qualities….so I hope that his negative qualities are on the wane over the coming weeks.  This will mean that I will no longer let my (or other people’s!) thoughts, doubts or fears harm me nor hold me back.

    *sharpens quill and unscrews top from ink bottle*

    I’m ready.  Are you?  What does this King of Swords mean to you? Do you like him?!

    If you like this image, and want to see more, check out Marie White’s website: www.mary-el.com.  The deck is published by Schiffer.

  • Comparative Tarot | The Prince of Cups

    The first time I encountered the comparative method of looking at cards was via Valerie Sim’s deck, the Comparative Tarot.  The cards in this cleverly designed deck have not one image, but four different images of the same card.   It was one of the first decks that I bought and I still regard it fondly.

    Not familiar with the Comparative Method? Here’s the skinny:  You don’t just interpret ONE card, you interpret the others on the card too – each one adding depth and colour to the over all ‘character’. 

    So I thought we’d try it here with The Prince of Cups – just comparing three images – but you can do it with as many cards as takes your fancy.  Or you can fit onto your table top.  Or bedroom floor.

    I chose the Prince/Knight of Cups from the outrageously stunning Mary El deck by Marie White; the Prince of Cups from the Transformational Tarot by Arnell Ando and the Knight of Chalices from the Breugal Tarot by Guido Zibordi Marchesi.

    First of all, although one of these is a Prince, he DOES fill the Knight’s role in the deck.  He’s not a Thoth Knight

    click on image to enlarge.  I think.

    Arnell’s Prince (left hand card above) perfectly captures that romantic, self-absorbed feeling that comes with the Prince of Cups. It shows the youth Narcissus gazing ito his own reflection by the pool.  Poor old Narcissus was so wrapped up in himself that he drowned trying to embrace his own reflection.  I’ve had boyfriends like that.

    In the LWB Arnell explains that he represents the Artistic Idealist; someone who uses ‘creativity as a means to self-expression, but whose moods don’t always reflect his actions.’

    The Knight of the Mary El (central image) is also introspective, protectively clasping a grail that overflows with blood and from whose depths a lotus flower rises and blossoms.  This is the Grail Knight.  Marie White, creator of the Mary-El says: ‘Searching for matters of the heart; love, meaning in life. Compassion, experience and maturity is the key.’  If you don’t know the story of Percival, the Grail Knight here’s a 10 second summary:  In his naivity, Percival, a knight who is searching for the Holy Grail fails to recognise it the first time he encounters it and so he is compelled to set off on his quest again – older, wiser – and finds it.  And heals the Fisher King. The end.

    Our final Knight is the Breugal Knight (right hand image).  His horse steps confidently to the right of the card, but he is not looking in the same direction as his horse.  In fact, he looks as though he has a blindfold on.  Even with the blindfold, he is looking towards a distant village that lies beneath a fork of lightning.  He doesn’t hold a grail, but a tankard filled with flowers.

    Neither hand holds the horse’s reins. Either side of the horse we see a camp fire, crossed arrows and – bizzarely – an eye running to the left on a pair of little legs!

    We also have an eye in the armour of our Mary El Knight – in the centre of her chest.  And the Knight of the Transformational Tarot is gazing at his own reflection.  Sight is an important symbol of this card – one sees only himself, one sees only her Grail, one sees….nothing (with his eyes!)

    I think that the Breugal LWB perfectly encapsulates what’s going on here: ‘Where there is love, the eye follows’. 

    Using this Comparative Tarot method then, I would say that this Knight DOES have focus – but he doesn’t always focus it on what he SHOULD be focussed on, as far as the outside world is concerned.  As a result, he can seem dreamy and self-absorbed to other people and can display a level of cold-heartedness to that which is outwith his field of vision.

    For me he’s the guy who will spend weeks finely crafting you a love song, but never remembers to put the bins out at night.  Someone who will whisk you away for a romantic candle lit meal, but forget to organise his cash….or put fuel in the car 🙂

    What do YOU think of the Knight of Cups or the Comparative method?

  • Become who you choose to be…..

    Mary El

    Here’s an exercise that you can do, using only your court cards – or your court cards and the rest of your deck (but hold your court cards separately).

    We all want to improve some area of our lives – perhaps we want to improve something about ourselves such as break a habit, get a job, improve a relationship etc.

    While it’s not healthy to be unhappy with the EVERYTHING you actually are, a desire to improve in one or two areas is no bad thing.

    So here’s a little exercise

    1  Think of a single area of your life that you’d like to work on.

    2  Flick through your Court Cards until you find an image that best reflects how you are right now with regard to that area you’d like to develop or improve upon.  It might just be a symbol in the card, an expression on a face, a gesture… a certain confidence a Court exudes?

    3  Flick through the remaining Court Cards until you find an image that best reflects your future self; how you’d like to be, with regard to that area you’re going to work on.

    4  Now set them out with the Court representing where you are now on the left – a gap for two cards – and the Court that represents you in the future.

    You have deliberately chosen these two cards and they represent you now and in the future.

    5  Shuffle your remaining court cards while you think about both of the cards you have chosen.

    6  Select randomly one Court whose energies will HELP you make the transition.

    7 Select randomly one Court whose energies will HINDER you from making the transition

    Set them between your first two cards – what do you see?  Can you see things that will help you move forwards?

    BTW, if you want to use the rest of your deck for those last two cards, by all means do so.

    Have a think about it and tell me, how did you get on?

    night of Cups image from Mary-El Tarot 🙂