Tarot Thrones | The Court Card Blog

Tag: tarot court cards

  • Lunar Eclipse Spread

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    Alexander’s site

    Tomorrow night is a lunar eclipse (28 November) – the last one until April 2013 – and it’s a wonderful event to witness.  What makes it very special, for me, is that hardly anyone looks up at the skies these days – perhaps lovers, foxes and those of us who have to travel by ferry 🙂  People are trudging home from the pub or work, usually looking at the ground….and I’m sitting in the garden hugging a mug of tea for warmth, staring at the sky.

    During a lunar eclipse, the Earth’s shadow falls across the face of the moon, turning her cool white face into a warm, earthy blush.  The red moon is magnificent to see!

    It’s a humbling, awe-inspiring event, guaranteed to remind you that you are but a tiny speck on a big ball spinning in space!

    Here’s a fun spread to do during the eclipse.

    Apologies to readers who are also members of the Glasgow Tarot Meet Up Group because they are already familiar with this 🙂

    It’s very easy:

    1  Shuffle your cards whilst contemplating the thought: ‘what energies are being eclipsed in my life?’
    2  Complete your shuffle.
    3  Turn your deck over so that the images are now facing you.
    4  Flick through the cards until you find your World (or equivalent) card.
    5  The card BEHIND the World is what you currently hold in shadow.

    You can also expand upon it by adding in a Solar Eclipse element to the spread.  As you search for your World card, also keep an eye open for The High Priestess card at the same time and locate the card directly behind her too.

    Why the High Priestess?  Well, The High Priestess is the card who represents the Moon, if you work with Astrology in your Tarot practice.  So with THIS adjunct to the spread, we can find out what a Solar eclipse hides from us too.

    You can further expand upon the spread by bringing in more cards – how can I bring this energy out of darkness? How will this energy benefit me? and so on.

    *** Edit: info added:  If the card you are seeking is right on the bottom of the pack, with nothing behind it, refer to the FIRST card on the top of the pile, as if they had been laid out in a circle.

    I’ll be working a Court Card variation of this spread tomorrow and posting on Thursday.

    If you try the spread, I’d love to know how you get along with it 🙂

  • Meet the Courts | Alexander Daniloff Tarot

    Come on in to the wonderful Italianate, medieval-inspired world of Alexander Daniloff! *throws open the door*.  This glorious Tarot is still very new to me, but I wanted to share his Court Cards with you so that you can see why I am so enamoured of this man’s work!

    There is no accompanying book with this deck, but I don’t think that this detracts from the cards as a working deck at all. It’s very RWS-based in its imagery.

    Without further ado, TADAAAAH! Here they are!

    The Swords Courts

    As you can see, the common colour to the Swords Courts is black – quite in tune with the suits associations with grief and loss.  But black is powerful, threatening… also, makes you look slimmer 🙂  There are lovely pops of colour in these cards too – and love the raven perched above the queen! I already spoke to Alexander Daniloff about the Page, with is artfully hidden HEWGE sword here.

    They’re all looking the same way, to our left.  They have the sort of dark expressions that one might associate with the suit – although the Queen looks downright sneaky lol!

    The Cups Courts

    Check out the delightful aqua and blue hues of the Cups, less obvious in the King perhaps.  Unlike the Swords, this family all face to the right.  I adore the big clumsy-looking Knight and love how the Queen of Cups slides her gaze to him!

    The common colour for the Wands is green – reflecting the liveliness of the living Wand.  The Wands Knight looks like a character from The Far Pavilions (not read it? read it. I luffed it.) The Wands look predominantly out to the left other, like the Swords.  Apart from the pesky Page who looks to the right! Look at the sad-looking lion skin belonging to the King of Wands.  He’s skinned the Cowardly Lion from the Wizard of Oz.  And the Queen – with her golden ripe harvest and fiery ram’s fleece……. The Wands are scrumptious!

    The Pentacles Courts

    I think that this might be my favourite family in this deck because, if you look closely, the Pentacle in each card is different.  The Page has a game, the Knight has a coin, the Queen has a globe-like sphere and the King’s Pentacle is part of the trappings of his wealth, his robes.  I love the Elephant and Castle on the escutcheon that makes up the King’s torso.  This is where the lack of a LWB can be a little maddening lol! Mind you, I’ve seen fairly significant symbols go unmentioned in lots of LWBs, so there’s no guarantee that I would be any the wiser if Alexander had included one.

    From a bit of an internet trawl, the elephant is associated with strength.  And castles with defence – so strength and defence might be their motto?  And yes, I’m also aware that it’s the name of a significant junction in London 😀
    All the Pages are depicted as youths with banners representing their suits, standing on boards.  They have a small area of influence.
    The Knights are depicted behind helmets and shields (in the Germanic style).
    The Queens are depicted in a similar shield shape and have playing card suit references
    The Kings have their coat of arms as their torso.
    Each card has its associated astrological symbol prominently placed to the foot of the card, which makes these cards lovely to use as Significators based on astrological references. The poor Pages have, of course, no astral real-estate and so have no astrological symbols. Don’t blame Alexander, blame the Golden Dawn 😉
    Knights, who are traditionally mutable, have frilly moveable fronds around them
    The Queens who are cardinal are in a human-heart shaped vignette and are before a swagged entrance.  Cardinal signs are the entrance signs (first signs) encountered when looking at astrology of Courts 🙂  Look, I’m trying to help pin the associations here lol!
    The Kings are fixed, as denoted by the cityscapes in their thrones.
    Oh there is so much else that I want to add about these characters, but I shall save it for another day!
    So what do you think of them? Love them? Loathe them?!
    *whispers* it had better be love or you and I may have to break off our engagement 😀

  • Hors de Combat | The Queen of Pentacles

    I have been under the weather with the Noro Virus and it has been ghastly.  I freely admit to being a bit of a drama queen, but honestly I hate not knowing which end of my body to drape pathetically over the loo.

    It is on the way OUT – if you catch my meaningful drift – so I thought I would take a look at a suitable Tarot Court to help get me back on track.

    Because it’s a health issue, I’m choosing from the Pentacles family.

    I’m going to go for the Queen of Pentacles because I am feeling pretty sorry for myself and want to some ideas about how best to look after myself.  The Queens are all about nurturing, so the Queen of Pents should be the very gal to help me out.

    I’m using the Queen of Pents from my new Tarot from Alexander Daniloff.  Which I am luffing to DEATH.

    Here she is:

    All the Queens are presented in this ‘gallery’ format.  I hope to be able to show you the Court Cards very soon so that you too can marvel at their sheer AWESOMENESS 🙂

    Anyway, let’s take a better look at her.  I am loving her earthy colours and her bountiful fruit – pears and grapes, two of my favourites.  She looks relaxed and comfortable in her environment, with her hand lightly placed upon her Pentacle (which looks like a globe here), so she rules her world with a light and tender touch.  She has luxurious clothes on too…. that appeals to the Leo in me like you wouldn’t believe!

    So how can she help me with my health?

    Why not try upping my fruit intake?
    Relax a little more?
    Treat my ‘world’ (in this case my body) with a light and tender touch – massage?
    Get out of my slobby ‘sick clothes’ and into nicer stuff.

    Would adding an Oracle card or two bring any further information that I could use?

    Delving into my Dreaming in Colour deck by Mindy Somers (my favourite for this kind of exercise), I drew the Power card.  I like how the colours are sympathetic to the Queen of Pentacles shades.

    Maybe I could try some orange/bronze shades to make myself look a bit less corpse-like?

    And of course POWER.  I am loving the whirling spiral as it rises from the bottom of the card to the top.  This is exactly what I need to do –  I really need to be getting out and about again as I’ve hardly crossed the threshold since Saturday night.  I also acknowledge that if I was a bit more active, maybe I wouldn’t be so laid low with this?  In my house I am notoriously sedentary.  My son did a portrait of me and it was basically the back of my head, sitting at the computer. I know.  Scary.

    I don’t want you to get sick of seeing the same sorts of cards on here, so let’s expand our horizon and end with a different Oracle card.  This one is from the Celtic Animal Oracle by Anna Franklin.

    He’s BADGER!  I love badgers and the keywords for this card are Tenacity, Strength and Defence – which are appropriate!

    Badger urges me to look after my home, my world, to be strong ….. and to infect cattle with TB 😀

    What do you think of these cards? Do you have a spread or a card that you refer to when you’re feeling below par?

  • Court Cards | Masks for Protection

    Well, it had to happen.  I promised you a posting today on Masks for Protection and then the fabulously entertaining exercises that had been pinging around in my head for days promptly flew out of my ears and left naught behind but a whistling wind.  I could not remember what I was going to say to you.

    My thought process then went like this:

    ‘I promised my lovely reader a blog post on Masks for Protection and now I’ve completely forgotten what I was going to write.  I’m such a TWAT.  Now EVERYBODY will see how clueless I am.  Why can’t I remember it? It must have been rubbish in the first place.  That’s it, the game Will Be Up and I shall be run out of Blogger as a FRAUD and a TERRIBLE person.  I may as well just QUIT.’

    I then laid my head gently on the cold surface of my desk and wished I smoked cheroots.

    This process of transformation from confident blogger to deranged harpy takes about 2 heart beats.

    But this is, I suddenly realise, just a Protective Mask in itself……

    ….and thus, I remember what it was I planned to write.  Isn’t life weird?

    So, back to masks for protection:

    These masks pop up all the time:  trying on clothes? Think you look more like Michael Crawford than Cindy?  It’s because you’re fat, you’ve got no will-power and you don’t deserve nice clothes (The Queen of Pentacles has been perverted).  Hear someone saying something unkind about you as you walk past an open office door? Well how DARE tbey? And the Reversed Knight of Wands or Swords works yourself up into a state of High Dudgeon as you endlessly churn over Possible Conversations/Fights that you will have with these people. I usually rehearse these fights ad infinitum in the shower of a morning.  I will give myself a heart attack.  I don’t, of course, EVER actually have the fight.

    I like the mask of Confident Blogger. I’m less keen on the mask of Unhinged Babbling Nutcase. Yet, they’re both me. And I believe that the unhinged babbling nutcase is a mask that I put on to protect myself.  And to protect YOU. From ME.

    For me, the mask was trying to protect me from getting hurt or rejected or something ‘they’ll reject you, so you might as well quit now’.

    It was also protecting YOU from me – the fraudulent, terrible person that this mask pops up to hide.

    *pauses*  am I sounding like a complete lunatic here?

    Somewhere along the line, a perfectly sensible defence mechanism mutated and I ended up with all these masks.

    If I can recognise that this mask is just a shield, then perhaps I can stop using it to defend myself (or you) and hang it on the wall as a trophy.

    Here’s a Tarot exercise to help you work with those masks in particular.

    Take out all your Tarot Courts.  Say hello, because EVERY one of them is YOU.  Mostly they are helpful guises, but sometimes they are defensive masks that can really hold you back.  So….

    First, find the court card that you think best suits the character of the troublesome mask.  Sticking with the example above, I decide that my critical, false-logic WRECK of a mask is a Queen of Swords reversed.

    I’m taking her out and having a good look at her.  Rightsides up I really like the Queen of Swords. Reversed, she holds me in a self-restricting critical pattern that is really tiresome to experience.  She is Water of  Air.

    1  What are the best things about this character ? list all the card’s great qualities and include those elemental attributes too – water and air can really be productive.  Use astrological references …. use whatever you danged well like.

    2  What are the unhelpful things about this personna? List those too.  I’ve found that this turns into a list of all the horrible stuff that runs through your head when this mask is being worn.

    If you get stuck, it can be very beneficial to meditate on the card and journey within it.  Speak to every aspect of the card, not just the main character.

    3 Once you’ve excavated all the good and ‘bad’ about this card (the bad being the negative chat that the mask allows you to indulge in) it’s time to address it.

    Take the Tarot court and regard it fondly.
    Hold it with love in your heart – all it has been trying to do is protect you.
    Talk to it and explain how you appreciate everything that it’s trying to do, but that the method that it’s using isn’t helpful.
    Reassure it that it’s not being banished, but that you need it to change.
    Tell it all the things that you love about it.
    And how you’re now letting all that negative stuff go* …….
    Listen to its reply.

    And then see what happens the next time the mask thinks about popping up.

    BTW – I must point out that I’m not a therapist or psychologist, but that these techniques work for me.  I hope they work for you.

    Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a world to conquer 😉

    * You’ll probably have your own rituals for letting things go, but I tend to write things down and then burn them 😉

    **** SOOOORREEEEE!!! this was supposed to post on Friday while I was getting my James Bond fix …. and it failed to post at the scheduled time!  *****  And NO mask popped up.  Just a lot of sweary thoughts aimed at Blogger 😀

  • Samhain Blog Hop | Behind The Mask

    Welcome to the Samhain/Hallowe’en blog hop and to my Court Card blog.  Many thanks to my next-door neighbours for this blog hop, Kerry and Ania, for linking through to me.  If you haven’t read their blogs for this hop, visit their sites via the links on my page and have fun hopping on to the other blogs taking part.

    This time we are blogging about our MASKS.

    When I was growing up here in Scotland, the most exciting part of Hallowe’en was getting your False Face.

    These masks bore no resemblance to the stunning Tarot mask pictured here (it’s $300 btw!), but these ones were purchased from toy shops and newsagents and were made of pre-pressed cardboard or plastic with a slender elastic thread to hold it in place.  There were eye holes, nose holes and sometimes a mouth hole.

    The mouth hole was a killer in the plastic masks though because the edges were wickedly sharp and most of us tried sticking our tongues through the mouth hole – accidentally adding a touch of bloodied realism to the overall look!

    Back then, I wore a mask to pretend I was someone else.  Now that I am grown, I wear masks for other reasons: to disguise myself and to protect myself.

    And yes, sometimes to pretend I’m a pirate 🙂

    I think that we all still wear masks to pretend to be other people.  Not SPECIFIC other people. Not signing cheques as Marilyn Monroe. That would be bat-shit crazy. And result in some kind of restraining order.

    But sometimes I disguise myself as someone else in order to empower myself in some situations – and here’s a Tarot spread, utilising……. Court Cards!

    This is a bastardised, Tarot version of those ‘What Would Jesus Madonna Amanda Palmer Do?’ bracelets!  Today I’m using the Fey Tarot (published by Lo Scarabeo).

    MASKS FOR DISGUISE
    WHAT WOULD THE QUEEN OF WANDS DO?

    You may recognise that you revert to a sulky Knight of Swords in the face of your mother’s martyred Queen of Cups ploy to get her own way?  You just can’t seem to stop yourself.  Or is that just me?!

    This exercise helps me focus on my perception of the problem and also helps me harness the energies that I desire to embody.

    Find a Court card that represents You (representing the mask you currently wear with your mother on the issue in hand).   This one represents me – combative,  moody and (frankly) immature!

    Then pick out the Court Card that you would like to be – perhaps the self-confidence of the Queen of Wands might be useful to you?  Or the practicality or gravitas of the King of Pentacles?  Or perhaps you’ll opt to choose your ‘masks’ using the elements – who would be a good foil for the Water of Water that is the Queen of Cups…. perhaps Earth of Earth – the Page of Pentacles?

    Lay them out side by side, but with space between them.  You can now pick two random cards from the rest of your deck to lay between your two courts.  These will help you move from your current mask (on the left of your spread) to your desired mask (on the right of your spread).  You can give them positional values if that helps with the interpretation of them:  I tend to use variations of ‘Helpful Energy’ and ‘Unhelpful Energy’.
    Ah look, the Tarot is playing tricks on me today!  The two cards that are supposed to help me move from the Knight of Swords to the Queen of Wands are these.  How can two Swords help me get away from the Knight of Swords nonsense?!

    When I look at the 9 Swords, I see a whole load of self-obsessed angst.  This is the Unhelpful energy. I could do with shedding that, for sure.  My mother’s opinion of me ought not to be like the Sword of Damocles.  Sure, it would be NICE to have her approval, but why should I get myself in knots (or on my knees as the Fey is here) just because she disapproves.  Get over it and get on with it.  Look at those stars and the stairway that lie just in front of you! 
    The 7 of Swords shows a fey in the act of disguise – she is transparent, almost invisible.  The card is telling me that making my usual Knight of Swords belligerence (and yes, I’ll admit that much lol!) invisible will be helpful in harnessing that Queen of Wands self confidence.
    Even by being consciously AWARE of the masks at play, just by completing this exercise, things might be different the next time I butt heads with my mother!
    I hope that you’ll give this exercise an outing the next time you feel that you need a change of mask.  I’d love to know how it works out for you!
    Tarot Thrones - visit the blog post before me…..and if you want to know about Masks for Protection, well, why don’t you book-mark my blog and give it a visit at the end of the week? That’s what my next blog post will be allllll about!

  • John Matthews | Camelot Oracle

    In the first part of this two-hander, I spoke with Camelot artist, Will Worthington, with the focus on the portraiture and artwork of the new deck.  Today it’s the deck’s author, John Matthews who chats about Camelot.



    You are exceptionally prolific as an author!  It seems only a
    few weeks ago I was talking to you about the Tarot of Nostradamus and
    here we are again, talking about another new publication – The
    Camelot Oracle.  Do you ever sleep?

    Sleep?
    What’s that? I’m just a workhorse; I work all the time. Can’t
    remember the last time I had a holiday. No, wait, I     did
    go
    on holiday to the Orkneys two years ago with some very dear friends.
    I remember I spent the first week trying to get used to not doing
    anything, then I did a bit of work on a children’s novel I was
    writing; then it was time to go home! 

    I work late into the night
    most days, sometime as late a 2 am, then sleep a bit longer in the
    morning, then start again…..In fact, there are three new projects
    just about to come out.     The
    Lost Tarot of Nostradamus,
    which you mentioned, was finished last year, but got held up,

    and it’s only just released. Then there’s the     Camelot
    Oracle,
    which is due any day; then there’s a third deck:     The
    Steampunk Tarot: Gods of the Machine    ,
    which is something I’m sure we’ll be talking about some other
    time. That’s due out in November. But really this is not because
    I’ve written and completed three big jobs in one year (though in
    fact I did do two other things as well as working on a documentary
    film I’m making for my own production company), but because there
    were various problems with the printing, so they all ended up coming
    out of the same time.
    You
    already have the Arthurian Tarot under your belt and many other
    Arthurian-inspired publications – including the Ladies of the Lake –
    what prompted the creation of the Camelot Oracle?
    I’ve
    been using The Camelot Oracle as a teaching device for several years.
    I used to draw a map on a flipchart, and put in the places and what
    was found there; then I’d tell people about the characters – little
    summaries of their lives – and invite participants to select one of
    these characters to journey with. It worked so well, that I started
    thinking: wouldn’t it be great if I could have a permanent map and
    information about the characters that anyone could work with.      That
    was the beginning. I put it together in such a way that we had cards
    with the characters on, and the map of the Lands Adventurous, which
    is where all the magical things from the Arthurian legend take place,
    in a huge forest. The publishers loved the idea, and it didn’t take
    much persuading to get Will Worthington involved, because this is the
    theme and subject that brought us together in the first place. He and
    I have always loved the Arthurian legends, and when I suggested to
    him that we do this project he jumped at the opportunity. The
    results, as you’ll see, are amazing. He’s given us 40 portraits
    of the most familiar and extraordinary characters from the Arthurian
    legend. It’s not hard to think how one great it would be to select
    one of these to be a champion – someone to go along with you on an
    adventure.
    My
    blog is about Court Cards, do the characters in the Camelot Oracle
    operate like Court Cards?  If so, are there any direct
    correlations between the citizens of Camelot and the citizens of the
    Tarot?
    The
    Camelot
    Oracle
    isn’t really a tarot in any sense of the word. The idea is that you
    take one of the archetypes as a champion, a companion on the quest.
    Then you take another one to be your challenger. Then you set out on
    your journey; your champion goes with you, your challenger awaits
    your coming, and has a question for you, a challenge. You answer to
    that, and the direction the path you take, and where it leads to,
    generates the Oracle. So the characters in the Camelot Oracle are a
    little bit like the courtiers in tarot in that they can be interacted
    with, and can help you find answers to issues.

    Can the cards be used as, say, a card of the day…. Or other quick spread (eg whose energies help/hinder me today)?


    Yes you can do that – most assuredly. One of the ideas is that you can take any one of the characters as a companion. Each entry includes a meditational sketch for this. And of course you can extend the reading experience by following several paths with several characters.


    Tell
    me about the Path cards?  
    The
    Path cards are intended to act as either randomly chosen or selected
    pathways to a particular place. So you might take one path leading to
    the castle of the Grail, or another to Lancelot’s Castle of joyous
    guard, and in each case this represents a different reality and helps
    you find an answer to your question.
    What
    does the Camelot Oracle bring to the divinatory table that other
    decks do not?  
    I
    think what makes     The
    Camelot Oracle
    original is the opportunity gives all those who use it to actually
    interact directly with extraordinary archetypal characters from the
    Arthurian legend. Who can imagine not wanting to go with Arthur
    himself, or Guinevere, or Galahad, or Boars – or any of them, on an
    adventure. Not just any adventure, but one that will actually help
    you discover truths you did not know, answers to issues that may be
    troubling you, actual advice from the great heroes and heroines of
    the Arthurian world?

    Which
    is your favorite illustration?

    JM:
    Really
    I love them all. I think inevitably my favorites have to be Arthur
    and Guinevere; but I also have a special affection for Palomides, the
    Saracen knight – there’s something about that amazing face, the
    hawk on his wrist, his costume, that really inspires me. Plus of
    course he’s a great character anyway, though not so well known are
    some of them.
    Who
    is your favorite character in the deck and why?
    Again
    I have to say really it’s all of them. But if I answered the
    question in a different way by saying who my favorite character is in
    the Arthurian legend, then I would have to say Merlin. He just has
    everything. He’s a magician, a seer, a poet, and a warrior. What’s
    not to like?
    What
    are you currently working on and what is your next publication?
    I’m
    afraid the list is quite long! Partly this is again because of delays
    between books getting finished and actually getting into print. Right
    now I have just finished working on the     Oracle
    of Dr John Dee    ,
    which has amazing art by Will Kinghan, who did the Steampunk Tarot
    and a couple of other decks that I’ve created. This is going to be
    again quite different from a tarot, but involves all of the many
    disciplines that the amazing Dr Dee practiced. Then I have a couple
    of children’s novels, featuring a character called Henry Hunter,
    who’s a kind of young Sherlock Holmes crossed with the Young
    Indiana Jones. He solves mysteries using his intelligence and
    knowledge of books! It’s a departure for me, but I’m looking
    forward to seeing how they go, because if they go well I have a whole
    series worked out. I’m also just working on a short book about the
    history of shamanism. And if I survive all of those, there are a
    whole bunch of other projects in the wind – including a couple more
    with the amazing Mark Ryan. So plenty to look out for.

  • Will Worthington | The Camelot Oracle

    OK, I hold my hands up – technically this is nothing to do with Court Cards REALLY, but ooooh the gorgeousness of the characters in these paintings simply BEGS me to tell you about them!

    The other thing that I want to point out is that I do some work for Will Worthington and John Matthews on an ongoing basis, but neither of them has asked me to blog about this – but I think you can see from the images just why I HAD to tell you about them!

    I put some questions to the artist, Will Worthington:

    You’ve worked with John Matthews before – are you given free license to create the image that you want or are you given a brief?


    “I’m given a short brief explaining what John’s idea of the character is.

    “As both of us have been very imersed in the Arthuriad for most of our lives we seemed to have the same vision as to the appearance of each character.

    ‘There were some characters that I hadn’t heard of so I just did my interpretation from John’s brief.”

    I know that some of these faces in the Camelot Oracle are portraits – are you willing to divulge which portraits belong to whom?!

    “The first one was Gawain…we had a photo of [Will’s wife] Wendy’s son Paul looking grumpy and it struck me that he would be perfect.  Once I’d done that I felt that I should do my own son Nolan as well, so he turned out to be Gareth. As they worked well I then did Wendy’s daughter Jenny as Igraine.”

    What about the other faces – do you just make them up or do you have source material that you refer to?


    “As with all my previous decks I just make up the faces, just drawing and drawing until I get something that I feel connects.”

    Which portrait in this deck are you most pleased with?

    “That’s a toughie!…discounting the three portraits of our children, I’m particularly fond of Merlin….I’ve not seen any representation of him in any medium that I feel is right to the archetype so that’s my version.

    “I’m also quite happy with Elaine, but I have to say I was disapointed it wasn’t the other Elaine…the lily maid of Astolat…who died of love for Lancelot and whose body was barged down to Camelot and was painted numerous times by many victorian artists. The publishers felt it unwise to have a dead character in the deck! However I put in the barge in the background as a hint.”


    Which overall image are you most pleased with?

    “I guess it must be Arthur…John reckons it’s the best picture of him ever, and coming from him that’s one hell of a compliment.”

    [Dear Reader, you’ll be able to see Arthur on Friday’s post with John Matthews! – Ali]

    How long did it take you to complete all the paintings?

    “I was given six months to the deadline by the publisher which was tight, but I managed to finish before time.”

    Will there be prints available at some stage?

    “Hopefully…if enough people buy Wildwood ones* then I can afford the large cost of printing them.”

    What are you working on now?


    “I’m just starting on a Lenormand deck for Chloe McCracken which is very exciting and a pleasure to work with such a lovely gentle person.

    “Previous to that I was half-way through a painting of Edgar Alan Poe with his Raven….but that’s on hold for six months or so!’

    * Will has 10 fine art prints of the 7 most popular Wildwood Tarot Majors available to purchase via his own website and the Wildwood Tarot website.

    You can follow Will’s facebook page (not run by Will) here

    -o0o-
    Here’s a slideshow of all the images in the Camelot Oracle – I hope you enjoy looking at it as much as I did making it.  Part 2 of this session, where John Matthews helps us understand the Camelot deck’s uses as an Oracle will be up on Friday.  Hope you enjoy!

  • King of Swords | Olympus Tarot | Lo Scarabeo

    It seems only a few days ago that I posted my Queen of Pentacles card. I blame the school holidays – days either drag their heels or fly out of the window, depending on how busy my son is!

    I really enjoyed my Queen of Pentacles moment – I busied myself with my son, travelling to Stirling and Glasgow, enjoying each other’s company rather than me just nagging him to wash dishes/tidy his shoes away etc.

    I’ll miss her….

    But now that the school holidays are ending and my small boy has to face up to the fact that school is looming large on his horizon again, I guess that it’s appropriate that I’ve got the King of Swords.

    This is the King from the Olympus Tarot by Lo Scarabeo, illustrated by Luca Raimondo.  Meet Hercules, son of Zeus, complete with the skin of the Nemean Lion.  The skin of this lion was impervious to damage – to the extent that even when Hercules killed the beast (one of his many Labours of Hercules) it could only be skinned using one of its own claws.

    This is a much more active and dynamic King of Swords than we are usually presented with.  Famed for completing his 12 Labours, set for him by the Gods, Hercules is revered more for his great strength than his brain power.

    Yet this is who is to suffuse me with his energies over the coming weeks.

    Perhaps his DETERMINATION will be of use when Sonshine returns to school next week and homework rears its ugly Hydra head?

    Perhaps I too shall use my connections (he was ably assisted by various Gods – to whom he was related – throughout his Trials) or am I to beseech the deities themselves?  I can see quite a lot of Gods’ names being taken in vain as I try to cope with Sonshine, work, marking homework for TABI and cleaning the house for the imminent return of my own domestic demi-god from 6 weeks at sea.

    Perhaps the blend of brains and physicality are key.  I do a lot of sitting around *gestures to self sitting at keyboard* and I really should be more active.  I *know* this, but I don’t do it.

    Time for a change, methinks!

    What does Hercules as the King of Swords mean for you?

  • Page of Swords | Gratitude Tarot | Teresa Deek

    The Page of Awareness
    AKA Page of Swords

    Now here’s something a little bit different for you to peruse – the Page of Awareness from Teresa Deek’s Gratitude Tarot.

    I first came across Teresa’s deck in the Tarot Blog Hop and thought that it was a lovely idea, well-executed.

    The macro photo of pollen-dusted stamen of a lily represents this Page – tiny, upright and potent – it feels quite Wandsy to me because I associate the creative/fiery/summer with the hot Wands with cool Swords being more airy and Springlike.

    Teresa’s web page for this card features the following poem (I’ve retained the original formatting):





    Page of Awareness

    children we are
    if we let ourselves be
    declaring ourselves

    bright stars arisen

    pushed up from our smoldering essence
    will you dance with me
    on the head of this pin?

    will you set your troubles adrift

    out to sea
    to see
    their lessons melt
    into our bounteous river
    the meaning to one
    becoming

    the meaning for all

    in the wake of their expulsion
    the grand widening of space

    radiates joy

    into the hearts of soul-family
    flowing as one through our connections

    Well,  that’s a bit different from the norm, isn’t it?  

    Teresa’s site then goes on to provide an interpretation of the card: ‘Youthful passion explodes into your life. See how vital your individual nature is. Rise up in your own fire.’ I say! That sounds positively WANDSY!

    Time to ask some questions about this lovely deck!

    I read from your website that you were inspired to blend the tradition of the Tarot with the elements of gratitude to come up with this beautiful hybrid!

    “Yes!”

    Do you associate any elements/colours/seasons etc with the suits as you have reimagined them, Teresa?

    “I’ve not yet put a lot of thought into that, although my discovery of the elements happened in the order of Thankfulness then Awareness then Community then Kindness. which I could see may follow the seasons from spring through summer to fall and winter.”

    Since we will be talking about the Page of Awareness – what element to you associate with that suit?

    “Awareness is that time in the journey when I began to see that there is Beauty in everything, that the light of the Mystery lights every moment, every item, whether it seems beautiful at first or not.”

    In trad decks – Swords = the element of Air, does that also apply to your deck or is it a set of associations that aren’t applicable for the Gratitude Tarot?

    “Though I don’t focus on the elements a lot when I work with my cards, I’m happy for others to! And so, yes, air would apply to Swords.

    “Pages feel like they are all about movement, action, newness….”

    So the fiery bit for the Page of Swords is not related to any kind of elemental association? It’s just an expression of his movmennt, action and newness?

    “I love that interpretation, yes!  Though I seem to have used more fire imagery in my Awareness (Swords) since I let my heart guide its creation, it is kind of hard to describe the reasons behind my choices and word.”

    The Gratitude meanings to the cards are quite different to what someone might be used to working with in a Tarot. How did you decide which meaning to ascribe to which card?

    “I did work with keywords at the beginning, nudges towards the traditional meanings. Once I got into the detail of writing the short meanings and then the poems, I let intuition take over.”

    So would you recommend that people who use your deck let their intuition guide them or are they best to stick with what you intend for the cards?

    “I always feel it’s best that people let their intuition guide them when working with a deck! We really are tapping into a deeper knowing within ourselves and whichever meanings come up when we use the cards is the one we are meant to see.”

    The images are very beautiful – did you take the pix yourself?

    “Yes – thank you – all of the photos are taken by me, and none of them are photoshopped (except in order to fit them to the card and add the border and title).


    “Photography has been the central part of my journey to Gratitude. It is through taking my photos that I discovered the four elements, and it was my desire to share the enlightening experience of taking the photos, of touching Gratitude so closely, that led me to want to share them as a Tarot deck.”


    Tell me allllll about your Page of Awareness – why you chose that image, how you decided that THIS was the message you wanted him to convey

    “Goodness! It was like the image asked to be included, as so many of them did, tapping my heart as if to say “I have what it takes”. And in the image I saw a reaching forward, upward, into the unknown. I saw the energy of youth, stars rising through the air. This card seeks, longs to be higher…

    …. and thank you for asking about my deck.”

    You can find our more about Teresa’s deck at her website: http://handsongratitude.com/buy-gratitude-tarot/

  • Welcome | The Queen of Pentacles

    This post is a little bit late, but I wanted to include it even though the full moon was last weekend.  I got caught up in posting the Lenny Oracle stuff and the gorgeous Page of Swords from Alexander Daniloff’s Tarot.

    Anyway, here’s the post:

    It was a glorious full moon here at the weekend and I felt EXACTLY in the right frame of mind for my regular draw to see whose energies will assist me towards the dark moon in a couple of weeks time.

    I used the Rider Waite Smith deck (because, let’s face it – it’s a great Comfy Slippers deck!)  and welcomed the Queen of Pentacles to my life.  At least for the next little while.

    While I like the practical nature of this Queen, it’s more about appreciating it in other people rather than myself.  I am so NOT the Queen of Pentacles.  She’s organised and nurturing.  I’ll tell you how nurturing *I* am.  I abandoned my tomato plants a fortnight ago.  Just abandoned them.  Shut up the polytunnel and forgot about them because they were 12″ tall, devoid of tomatoes and USELESS.  A bit like Kim Kardashian.

    Y’see? I’m not the Queen of Pentacles.

    The Queen of Pentacles would cook a really good meal every night.  I do buy cookery books and fantasise about cooking the food within the glossy pages, but in real life?  In real life, I tend to open packets of filled pasta and boil them to death for 5 minutes before dishing up to my very own Page of Cups.  This immediately turns him into the Page of Swords.

    The Queen looks caring.  She holds her Pentacle gently and with love, as if it was precious and fragile. Which, of course, life is.  She sees life.  She sees life in the manner of the big blue princess in Avatar tells the small damaged human in her arms ‘I see you.’

    I have no recollection of this song in the film at all, do you remember it?!

    But how often to we really SEE something?  We LOOK at plenty of stuff.  Often on facebook.  But we don’t actually SEE it for what it is.  In real life.

    ‘I see you’ is a Native American greeting.  I read that somewhere. To see another is to honour their existence.

    I know.  I am being deep.

    Namaste carries the same sort of meaning.  I found this quote at wisdom quotes 

    “Namaste. I honour the place in your where the entire universe resides… a place of light, of love, of truth, of peace, of wisdom. I honour the place in you where when you are in that place and I am in that place there is only one of us.”
    Mohandas K. Gandhi
    Isn’t that beautiful?

    So let the Queen of Pentacles inform your relationship with the Other:  see it, honour it, attend to it fully.  And THEN go on to facebook 🙂

    Let me know how she materialises in your life over the next week or so 🙂