Tag: Tarot Blog Hop

  • Tarot & Finance | Pentacles Financial Advisers | Spring Blog Hop

    Welcome to the Tarot Thrones contribution to the Spring Tarot Blog! Our wrangler for this hop is Ania Marczyk.  As we the end of the Financial Year is bearing down upon us at a rate of knots, Ania wants us to talk about Tarot and Finance.

    Since the Tarot Thrones blog is all about the Court Cards of the Tarot, I have opted to seek advice from the family that knows most about money, the Pentacles.
    After a short confab, the Pentacles family from The Morgan Greer Tarot have come up with these little nuggets of advice …

    Words in bold are associated with their rank 🙂

    Page of Pentacles

    Look at your money in a new way

    Start
    saving – even small amounts

    Learn
    about money (without your eyes glazing over) Financial literacy is too important to leave to other people to handle for you.

    Start
    a financial diary!
    The Knight of Pentacles

    Financial risk-taking should err on the side of caution
    Explore your financial options
    What can you do re your telecoms, can you make savings?  (prompted by all that Airy communication energy!)
    The Queen of Pentacles
    Nurture your money – check your interest rates and change where possible.
    Get on top of your household budget
    Be a good guardian for your money – be alert to identity theft. You may not be actually out of pocket, but your credit rating can be adversely affected if someone gets access to your identity.
    Teach other people what you have learned about making your cash grow – your other half? Your kids? 
    The Queens have watery energy – Might you may be better off on a water meter rather than pay via rates?  Before you change, check to see whether you are permitted to change back if it turns out to be more spendy.
    The King of Pentacles

    He didn’t get to where he is today by being frivolous, no matter that those grapes make you think! 
    Pay off old debt – whenever you have cash materialising put it towards reducing your existing debts – mortgage, credit card, store cards etc.
    Get an expert advisor/adviser 
    (‘Parently -er is five times more commonly used than -or)  I’m hedging my bets – very Pentacly 🙂
    The Kings display Fire energy, so here,  The King asks you to take command of your fuel bills – can you change your supplier? We did it this month and are going to halve our monthly energy spend.
    The Fire energy also suggests that maybe you could quit smoking to save some cash AND care for that other, most vital of possessions – your health!
    And just before you go ….. M’new book 😀  Yes! It’s by ME!!!!
    Click to visit Amazon UK
    also for sale in other Amazon outlets 😀 

  • Tarot Blog Hop | Spring Equinox | The Troll

    Welcome to Tarot Thones Towers, where the great, the good and the mind-meltingly bored at work come along to read about my take on the Tarot’s Court Cards.  Whether you are here because you have hopped here from either Olivia’s or Chloe’s blogs or just stumbled upon me in the dark, you are most welcome *offers plate of warm buttered scones and bids you sit in the BEST comfy chair*



    Our Wrangler, Ania, set us a challenge to write about what grumbles we have with the composition of the Tarot – who has outlived their use? Who needs a style overhaul or even a spot of plastic surgery? Who’s missing?

    I must admit that I was stumped.

    I write about court cards and, while no-one these days talks about sending their Smallum off to become a Page as the first step on their career ladder, I think his role in the Tarot is clear – regardless of his name.

    Likewise the Knight.  Most contemporary Knights are to be found corpulently propping up the bar in the House of Lords, rather than embracing their teen-spirit adventurer.  Yet we’re all quite clear about what the Knight’s questing drive is about.  So I don’t want to change him either…. no, I’m keeping the Courts as they are, thank you 🙂

    Even those cards with strange titles (Hierophant, I’m looking at you) all serve a valuable purpose in the Tarot deck.  If they didn’t, they would have been cast OUT in the cold, like those two bare-foot beggars in the 5 of Pentacles.

    Instead I decided to look at what was truly missing from the deck and I came up with one 21st century character that none of the Majors seems to adequately fit:

    The Troll….

    A face you could never get fed-up punching 🙂

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    He is both contemporary in nature and ancient in lineage.

    He is the fairy-tale fearsome creature who skulks beneath the bridge as the billy-goats gruff trip trap their way over… and the very real and heartless individual who revels in their anonymity, behaving abominably and hurtfully on line, just because they can.

    I fancy that the Troll card image would feature some innocuous-looking person sitting at a desk typing away at a computer.  However, in the mirror on the wall behind the computer would be their reflection – and it would not be purty.

    The Troll card would arise in a reading for people who were either indulging in bad behaviour (on-line or off-line) or for people who are being subjected to trolling behaviour.

    What is trolling behaviour?  Here are a couple of examples:

    Got a memorial page to a deceased child? The Troll will pop some utterly uncalled for and emotionally incendiary comment …. just because they can.

    A celebrity looking a little portlier than they did when they were 20 years old? Trolls will gloat and berate you …. just because they can.

    Have the temerity to suggest that a woman should go onto a bank note? Get death threats from trolls.

    Be an older lady on TV and yes, they’ll even raise their ugly heads to snigger at yours.

    In real life Trolls are inadequate, cowardly, pathetically infantile, thoughtless, c*ntfuttocks (MAN, that felt good to write!) who create a malevolent self to exert the power that they do not possess in their real lives.

    Like perverted superheroes they indulge in their superpower – to wound and inflict pain – simply because they can.

    In the Tarot deck, I think he would lie between The Hierophant and The Lovers – aware of what stepping out of societies cultural traces can do, but not yet enabled relationship-wise (possibly NEVER enabled relationship-wise). Trumped by the Chariot’s willpower and kicked into touch by the all-seeing eyes of Justice.

    Yes, my addition to the Tarot deck is the Troll.

    Before you hop off to the next blog, if there were a Troll card in the deck, what would it mean to you?

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  • Yule Blog Hop | The Joy of Gifting

    Welcome to the Yule Tarot Blog hop!  Before we go any further, this is your navigation link to the blogs that flank me for this hop *waves to Mary and Stella*



    Our blog wrangler is the lovely Arwen Lynch and she set us the following questions which we are to answer through a Tarot spread:

    • Card 1:  What gift would you give the world if you could?
    • Card 2: What gift would you want from the world?
    • Card 3: What gift have you gotten that has brought you joy?
    • Card 4: What gift have you given that has brought you joy?
    • Card 5: What is one last thing you would like to share about this season?

    Because Tarot-thones.com is all about the court cards, I decided that my answers would have to come from the Court Cards.
    Since I have not managed to sneak in another blog post using Alexander Daniloff’s amazing Tarot for aaaaaages, let me take this last blog hop of 2014 to use them one final time!
    I have removed the 16 Court Cards from the deck and will now shuffle the Courts only, asking each question and drawing a card as an answer to that question.
    No fancy layout required for this one!
    Card 1:  What gift would you give the world if you could?

    The King of Swords

    As a blend of Fire and Air, this guy’s actions and thoughts must be consistent in order for him to be healthy.  He likes to know everything about what he’s involved in so that there are no nasty surprises.  Clarity and honesty are watchwords with him.

    This King will organise everything, from the multi-million pound company take-over strategy right down to the family picnic, to the finest detail. All this thinking (he’s a person of lists – pros and cons) can slowly paralyse him and that’s when the King of Swords starts to become unhealthy.

    He also has high personal standards and expects other people to live up to them. When people fall short, he can be scathing in his criticism. However he is equally tough on himself when he too fails to live up to his own standards.  And since none of us are perfect, he often makes himself unnecessarily miserable.

    But in a week where we have experienced the horror of the school massacre in Pakistan and the Sydney Lindt Cafe seige, the gift that I would give the world, if I possibly could, is the discernment and wisdom of the King of Swords.


    Card 2: What gift would you want from the world?


    The Page of Pentacles

    This is the first of THREE of the four Pages in my spread! The Page of Pentacles is Earth of Earth.  This Page begins new experiences.  This could be in health, in wealth or in the home.


    What would I like him to bring me healthwise? I’m too heavy for my height and a nice gift would be to start taking better care of my health.


    Wealthwise? I could do with bringing in more money in 2015 and am hoping that my Year in The Wildwood Tarot e-book will still be able to go ahead, despite the changes to tax on digital products in Europe.


    Homewise? Perhaps I could do with being more present at home, rather than living most of my life virtually?  I could start focussing more on the modelling that I’m doing for my son (stuck in front of a computer, messy desk, lack of interest in keeping home nice.  I am not overly keen on house-work, what can I say?)

    Card 3:  What gift have you gotten that has brought you joy?


    Page of Wands

    Ah this can only be my own little Page of Wands!  Fourteen years old and obsessed with Minecraft and Kerbal Space Program (don’t ask) he is a ray of sunshine in my life.  He is sunny-natured, always walks with a bounce in his step (as a child he skipped everywhere!), developing a nicely warped sense of humour, creative (you should see the space ships in Kerbal and the palaces in Minecraft!) and keen as mustard to grow up!

    Please don’t be sick, but the gift that the world has given me that has brought me the greatest joy is my son 🙂

    Card 4:  What gift have you given that has brought you joy?


    The King of Pentacles

    I try to give people practical gifts and (typical Leo) I am prone to spending too much money!  Money and generosity – King of Pentacles!

    For example, this year, my mum is getting a water floss (like a toothbrush, but for flossing).  Hubby is getting a cover for his Kindle…. and, no doubt, brake pads or a suspension-enhancing kit for the car.  Not mentioning anything about my son.  Just in case he reads this…

    The gift that I have given that has brought me greatest joy, ever?  The actual wrapped-up-you-shouldn’t-have pressie? I honestly can’t think of anything specific.

    But, want the schmaltzy answer? Giving my old racing greyhound a home and the gift of life to Sonshine were pretty unbeatable as far as bringing myself joy!

    Card 5:  What is one last thing you would share about this season?

    Page of Cups

    Gentle and affectionate, the Page of Cups comes up to show us the last thing that I would share about the season.  He is as open-hearted as his Cup.

    This Page, whose tender feelings and flights of imagination are so easily bruised and battered by cynicism, ridicule and downright cruelty deserves to be the standard bearer for the season, just as much as his suit.

    Ignore the Scrooges, says the Page of Cups!  Wear your Christmas sweater with pride!  Kiss beneath the mistletoe! Call out ‘Merry Christmas’ to strangers in the rain!

    His message is the title of the biography of one of my favourite comics, Bill Hicks:  Love all the people.

    Have a lovely time!

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  • 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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  • Tarot Blog Hop | Beltane

    You say Tomato, I say Tomato
    You spell it Judgment, I spell it Judgement
    Does it matter?! 🙂

    Welcome, welcome, welcome!

    If you’re here because you have hopped upon the Tarot Blog Hop and alighted here from either Stella or Cher’s place – I’m really pleased to see you!  If you are a regular reader and are wondering about this Tarot Blog Hop thing,  here’s the facebook details so that YOU can take part in the next one! And, of course, I’m really pleased to see YOU here again too!

    The question set to us by the Beltane Tarot blog wrangler, Arwen Lynch, is:  What traditions are important to you in how you read Tarot?

    Initially, I just stared at the question blankly:  I didn’t have any traditions, did I?  But, of course, I DO have traditions

    Here are some of mine:

    1  Rider Waite Smith tradition – yes, I like to use decks based on the iconography of the RWS.  I much prefer my Strength to be Major VIII and my Justice to be up there as Major XI.

    2  Golden Dawn attributes – everything from astrological associations, right through to the Opening Of The Key Spread, this is a whole smorgasbord of traditions that I adore dipping into with the same delight as I might  raid your jewellery box.  Or your biscuit barrel.

    3  Tarot bags and reading cloths – I like to keep my decks in bags and I like to use a reading cloth.  There’s maybe a bit of the gypsy fortune-teller in me after all – or maybe even a novice Golden Dawner – they liked a bit of shwbiz with their Tarot.  Well, what do you expect from a group comprising of theatre designers, poets and playwrights?!

    4  Getting in the Zone – I do this lots of different ways.  Maybe with a scented candle or incense.  Maybe with some unobtrusive music playing gently in the background…..ritual washing, ritual clothing. I even have ritual SOAP!  I don’t do this ALL the time, you understand, but whenever I need to bring my head away from Facebook and Syria and Bombings and Budget Cuts, I like to go through some of these little routines to get into the Zone for reading.

    And they don’t do any harm, do they?

    Or do they?

    Maybe they encourage me to become set in my ways?

    I have now pulled out some decks where Strength is in her original setting of Major XI and Justice sits at VIII and I promise *gives girl guide salute* to use these until I am comfortable with either card in either position.

    Do I really need to stick to the Golden Dawn’s impositions on the Tarot? Will the world fall down if I start to use an older deck, one that doesn’t easily fit the constraints of the GD’s systems?

    What happens if I start thinking of Wands as Air, not Fire?

    Or Knights as Fire and not Air?!

    *looks around – the world still spins on its axis!*

    Let’s challenge ourselves and our beliefs – welcome the new and embrace it if it is a truth to YOU.    There is no one ‘right’ way to work with the Tarot – so you use it for fortune-telling, someone else uses it as a writer’s prompt, yet another uses it as a tool for self-development, someone else uses it to build fabulous card towers!

    Tarot is a mongrel puppy – hailing from Europe and North Africa. At every turn it has been modified and changed – let’s not ruin that fluidity of growth by letting our traditions solidify into dogma.

    Of course, the whole shebang needs to end with a spot of theatre……. altogether now! ‘Traaaaaadition!!!!!!’

    Now, shoulder-shimmmy your way to the next blog and, if you’ve a mind to do a bit of work with the Court Cards, come back and see us here!

    Previous blog – Stella  at US Games Ltd 
    Next blog – Cher at Tarot by Cher

    Broken links?  Here’s the master list

  • Imbolc Tarot Blog Hop | Fire in the belly

    Tarot Thrones blog:  The Queen of Wands (Thoth Tarot)
    My inspiration!

     The theme for Imbolc’s Tarot bog hop is ‘what is in your belly’.

    If this is your first time to my blog, you are very welcome indeed.  This Game of Thrones (AKA Tarot Thrones) focuses on the Tarot court cards and aims to make them fun and accessible.  Come in and sit down *dusts down a comfy armchair and offers it*

    You may have hopped here from Chloe’s Celtic Lenormand or from Donna’s blog.

    So, what’s in my Tarot belly for 2013?

    So much!  Too much maybe!  Which Tarot Court has a lot of fire in her belly? The Queen of Wands!

    The Queen of Wands says:  It’s not enough to simply have fire in your belly, you must birth it too!  Set yourself – and the world! – on fire with your passions! She urges you to ignite, light and heat the world around you.  Will you do that?

    Here’s how I plan to!

    1  The Tarot Thrones blog!
    I started this blog in 2012 and really enjoy writing it – although writing solely about the Tarot Courts can be taxing! If you know anyone who would like a little help with how to use tarot cards (courts especially!), I’d love it if you could point them in my direction.  Also, if you have any questions that you would like me to tackle, just drop me a message and I’m happy to write something especially for you!

    2  The Glasgow Tarot Meet Up Group!
    I took over as Administrator for this group over a year ago and we have gone from an initial meeting of three people to 20+ regularly meeting up monthly to explore the wonderful world of Tarot.  I deliver all the 2 hour sessions at the moment, but it is part of the fire in my belly for 2013 to organise a whole weekend of Tarot for the membership – speakers, authors, the whole nine yards!   Now that we have found a spiritual home with the Glasgow Theosophical Society, I really feel that we can get something off the ground!  Is that something that you would like to be involved in? If so, I’d love to hear from you.

    3  Tarot website work
    I am very lucky to work with some wonderful Tarot authors and artists, running their websites and assisting with their on-line presence.  It would really stoke the creative fire in my belly to have some more Tarot or art orientated clients in 2013 as I love supporting their work and, of course, as a Tarotist I’m already in the zone as to what your requirements might be.

    4  Tarot work!
    I was the Chairman of the Tarot Association of The British Isles for over four years *twitches involuntarily* 🙂  Only joking, I loved it, of course, and always gave 110% effort – putting TABI’s needs above my own, as far as Tarot work (and heck, yes, even my family in some instances!).  In 2013 it’s time for me to focus on my own career.  Getting everything off the ground again isn’t easy, but the Queen of Wands is a useful woman for prodding me!

    I’m also booked to provide a session on Court Cards at Kim Arnold’s UK Tarot Conference in October – which will be very exciting! I’ve lectured in Business Studies at college before and run a few conferences for TABI, but never been asked to speak at Tarot Conference before – so I’m really looking forward to that!  Maybe even see you there?!

    5  Tarot e-books!
    Gone are the days when you had to have a publisher agree to take on your work – nowadays it’s all about e-commerce and self-publishing.  I’ve got lots of ideas for useful Tarot e-books, so that’s a fire in my belly for 2013 too!

    5  My own Oracle deck!
    This last point is what fires me up the most about 2013.  The greatest fire in my belly is to create my own Oracle deck.  I’ve been in the Tarot world for 10 years now – a great many of them have involved reviewing and writing about Tarot books and decks.  I’ve got pretty clear ideas about what makes a good working deck.  And so I’m creating my own.

    The research and writing part of the development is mostly done and I’m already blessed with an artist who is keen to be involved in the project – providing he can fit it in to his busy schedule! At the moment, the illustrations for the cards are just my own sketches, but a good artist will make it look a whole lot better!

    So, that’s the fire in my belly for Imbolc – what’s the fire in YOUR belly, this Spring?  Will you be able to do as the Queen of Wands commands?!

    Hop to the other blogs in the chain!

    Got lost? Here’s the master list: http://tarotwitchery.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/tarot-blog-hop-master-list.html

  • Celebrate your Solstice!

    Welcome to This Game of Thrones, my blog about the Court Cards of the Tarot.  Chances are you have alighted here as a stop on the Tarot Blog Hop from either Donna Faber’s blog or Priestess Tarot’s blog.  Heck, perhaps you wafted in here from Twitter or Facebook links and haven’t a clue what the Tarot Blog Hop might be!

    The Tarot Blog hop is where a whole load of Tarotists (what is the collective name for a bunch of Tarotists anyway? a Fool of Tarotists? A World of Tarotists?!) blog on the same topic, relating it to Tarot or Oracles in whichever way the Muse moves them.  We all post at the same time (that’s the theory and the challenge lol!) and link together like a daisy chain. Today our subject is: Celebrate The Sunrise.

    Today, the Summer Solstice, is the longest day, and along with the Winter Solstice, these two tend to be the dawns that we consider significant amongst the other 363.  But surely EVERY dawn is worth celebrating?

    ‘Every day you waken up, you’re winning’ is a quote, from goodness knows where, which I hold very dear.

    So, my question today was, how can we best celebrate our sunrise, not just today, but every day?

    I selected a court card at random from the Gaian Tarot by Joanna Powell Colbert.  The card drawn was the charming Child of Earth. Standing in his verdant green woolly sweater beneath a great apple tree, the little fella is completely engrossed in the scarlet apple in his hands. 

    In this deck, the Child cards (equating to the traditional Page) all ask us to approach life with ‘Beginner’s Mind’.

    I like that, for me there is no better way to look at a sunrise as an opportunity to start afresh; for us to look at life with new and curious eyes. We can choose to drop our baggage of experience and refuse to let our previous encounters taint our enjoyment of the new day.

    And of course this works on other levels.

    We all have our own particular sunrises, those things that light up our lives with hope.  The could be our families, our faith, our career, our hobbies – the thing that makes your life worthwhile!  The Child looks at that apple as if he’s never seen it before, appreciating it for the miracle that it is.  And he urges us to do the same.

    Be honest, we tend not to do that.  Just think – I wrote this on a little box in Scotland and you are reading it on your own box somewhere else in the world.  We are linked together by cables, plugs and, frankly, magic!  We have SO much magic in our lives that we no longer see because we have grown complacent to it and accept it as ‘normal’.  We can fly like birds to every part of the world! We can switch on a box in the corner of the room and watch a football match being played live on another continent (obviously there is WAY too much Euro 2012 footie on the telly!)! We eat fresh vegetables from distant counties (and countries!)…. our lives are filled with the most amazing and wondrous things.  And we tend not to bother about them 🙂

    One of the things that lights up my life is my recently-found pleasure in learning to playing the keyboard.  Beethoven I’m not, but I really enjoy plinking away at Killing Me Softly or Danny Boy.  Mind you, I’m not sure whether my family enjoys it QUITE as much as me.  The Child of Earth prompts me to appreciate how far I’ve come, how much fun I have with it, and to take delight in the noise that I make!

    The Child card urges us to keep that personal sunrise fresh, unjaded, curious and fun. Approach your own sunrise as a miracle for your day, just as the sun rising over the horizon is a miracle to ALL our days!

    The Child’s companion animal, the rabbit, is often found at dawn and dusk ‘when it is easiest to slip between this world and the Otherworld,’ Joanna reminds us. 

    Most of the time we don’t give much thought to sunrise or sunset – we sleep through the former and the latter passes in a blur of TV shows. But dawn and dusk are very special times of the day, thresholds between this world and the Otherworld, as Joanna says.  We should honour them all, don’t you think?

    As far as our own personal sunrises are concerned, when you are doing something that you love, you tend to zone out or enter Flow – isn’t that a perfect way to experience the Otherworld?

    Through the Child of Earth, we can celebrate our sunrise (in whichever form we recognise it) by allowing ourselves to be delighted and amazed by its existence in our lives.  On a daily basis we can give thanks for all those things that light up our day.

    Can we look at an apple and see it for the first time?

    I hope that you have enjoyed your time here on This Game of Thrones and maybe you’ll come back and visit me again.  You might like to sign up for my Court Card newsletter so that we can keep in touch? 

    Next stop on the tarot blog hop trail…..

    Feel free to hop backwards though the list to the lovely Louise at Priestess Tarot too!


    And if any of the links are broken, please visit the Blog-Wrangler’s master list!