Tarot Thrones | The Court Card Blog

Tag: Tarot

  • Making your 2020 Court Card work for You Part 2

    Making your 2020 Court Card work for You Part 2

    I find that one of the trickiest things in working with a card of the day, month, year etc is that I often forget all about it. Maybe it’s my age. I went into the fridge to look for tea bags the other day…

    The best way to remember things that I’ve found are visual reminders that prompt me every time I see them.

    First of all, study your court card and find something in it that you can recognise as a symbol of it: For example, crescent moon, rearing horse, black cat.

    Nothing in your card that springs out?

    Have a think about the keywords that you chose the other day, to help you manifest that card’s energies in everything that you do… what springs to mind as a symbol for that?

    Still nothing coming to mind?

    No problem! Pick a symbol that you really enjoy and perform a ritual to create an association between the symbol and your court card. Although that symbol might not be present, a strong ritual will forge that link between the card and the

    Here are 3 ways to employ prompts to help with your 2020 court card:

    Tarot Court Cards on Your Gadgets: We all seem to be welded to our phones these days – use the image of your Court Card as your phone or tablet lock screen, or your screensaver or background on your laptop or desktop.

    Court Cards on Your Keys: Whether you live in rented or owned accommodation, you’ve got house keys. You might even have car keys. How about splashing out on a personaliseable (My God, is that even a word?!) key ring? You can get this kind of thing from Amazon for £3.50

    Snap in a print-out of your court card and you’re off! Even better, check out the Tarot’s creator site and see what they have created to go along with their deck – you might find they have key rings etc already made!

    Tarot Court Cards on Your handbag: For most of my life, I existed without owning a handbag. I used plastic bags from supermarkets or simply stuffed everything I needed into my pockets. A few months into my first job, my appalled colleague pulled me aside and gifted me one of her hand bags. And thus started my downfall dependence on a handbag.

    If you use one every day, why not look for some kind of charm that you associate with the card or your chosen symbol that you can clip to a zip on your hand bag.

    Other ideas:

    Jewellery – google is your friend and your worst nightmare for this one!
    Bookmark – you read, right? Think … pendants? bracelet charms?
    Mug – you’ve got to drink your coffee, right?
    Bag – makeup bag, pencil case etc
    Framed Print (sounds grand – but could be £2.00 IKEA print and image from magazine!)

    None of them appeal? Go to Google and type in some of those keywords that you created the other day to associate with your card’s energies. Then hit ‘images’ and see what wildness pops up. You might find something outrageous and magical that will be a delight to use every day! Also – might net some results that are NSFW!

    … and get ready for next year – see who your card is for 2021 and keep your eyes open in 2020 for marvellous visual triggers!

  • The Guardians of the Autumn Equinox

    The Guardians of the Autumn Equinox

    Today is the Autumn Equinox and the ringing of this celestial alarm clock that tells us that the sun is heading south across the equator and that our nights will, once again, be drawing in.

    Interestingly, the period where the hours of almost equal light and darkness takes place (for me here in Scotland, anyway) on the 25th of September, but hey, what’s a couple of days between friends?

    At the end of July, I presented at TABI’s Tarot Conference in Birmingham, on working with court cards. Today I want to share with you a snippet of the work that we worked through at Conference: using the 16 courts as Guardians to the festivals on the Wheel of the Year.

    The Guardians of the Autumn Equinox are The Queen of Cups and the Knight of Cups. This abundance of watery energy means that this is a wonderful time of year for focussing on our relationships – with others and with ourselves. It is also a perfect time to pay attention to our dreams and our drive to create – art, books, music, children.

    The Queen of Cups offers us the gift of empathy, love (all aspects of it), and letting your emotional core influence all aspects of your life in a way that you might be reticent to do at other times of the year.

    Her challenge to us is to recognise when we turn that emotional connection with others into something that is selfish or manipulative.

    She asks:

    Where can you improve your relationships with family, friends and colleagues
    Consider your self-care – are you investing sufficient time and resources?
    Are you aware of areas where you may be pushing emotional buttons to get your own way?

    The Knight offers us a slightly different focus for the relationships in our orbit. His knightly nature is associated with the element of air, so he brings in a more cerebral note to his Guardianship and it can be used to support the Queen – if her emotionally orientated approach is not improving the connection with someone that you hope for, try flavouring your approach by adding a dash of Knightly logic, common sense or even double-check that you’re successfully communicating exactly what you mean!

    The Knight’s challenge to us is different from his Queen’s: The Knight cares about his journey sincerely and with his whole heart. He’s not some fly-by-night to take-off in a fit of pique or hubris. The Knight’s challenge to us is to ensure that our questing and challenging nature pursues a worthwhile goal. When he is an active card, we should not be pushed out of our adventure by our need to maintain strong relationships with people. For example, you are going off to college (your worthwhile goal, right?) and your excitement is overshadowed by concerns about relationships that will be strained by your new adventure. A little sadness is healthy, but deciding not to go or amending your choices because you don’t want to upset your boyfriend is not.

    He asks:

    Are you willing to introduce adventure to your relationships?
    Where are others proving challenging?
    How well are you communicating with those around you?

    If this kind of approach to working with the courts sounds like fun, why not sign up for my newsletter and get first notifications on when my court card e-book is going to be available? In it we look at the elemental DNA of the cards and how that helps us find other information that can be useful in interpreting court cards!

  • Feminism | The Tarot Queens

    For the past ten days or so, I have been feeling as though I am living through the looking glass – and it’s not good, with cake that says ‘Eat Me’. I’m not even an American.  What a challenge it is to be a liberally-minded American at the moment, because:

    YES, Trump wants to build an actual wall.

    YES, Trump shuts out Syrian refugees from America (allegedly for only a set period of time. We’ll see)  Dear America, what happened to ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore’?

    How sad that it should come to this. (more…)

  • Deck Review | Pagan Otherworlds Tarot

    Sometimes I sign up for Kickstarter Tarot campaigns and forget all about them until a little package plops onto the doormat many months later. No such casual forgetfulness with the Pagan Otherworlds Tarot by Uusi in the US.

    TABI backed this particular deck and I thought that it was worth a personal punt too, so my deck arrived and gosh – is it love at first sight or what?!

    The tuck box is beautiful, using the same pattern that is found on the rear of the cards.  Whereas the box has subtle glinting gold highlights, the card back is glint-free.  That’s probably a cost thing and anyway, who really looks at the back of cards when the front is so pretty?

    This is not a 78-card deck, we have ADDITIONAL cards, namely a Seeker card and five phases of the moon.  Since the deck doesn’t come with a LWB, one can put whatever emphasis you like on the use of these cards!

    Waxing lyrical

    The Seeker card makes a natural significator card – sparing you the dilemma of whether to filch a court card out and thereby taking it out of circulation for the reading.

    The moon phase cards DO have slightly glittery highlights which adds to their specialness.  These cards could be removed for general 78-card deck work and included when some sort of time element was required? Or perhaps to add clarification as to what phase the client’s situation might be:

    new moon = just beginning
    waxing moon = gathering strength
    full moon = at its strongest
    waning moon = losing strength
    dark moon = completed

    Suits are Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles and the courts are Page, Knight, Queen and King – as you can see in the video below.

    There is no particular colour associated with any suit and the overall palette is warm in tone and muted in shade, with all the characters presented against a barely-there blue sky.

    There are animals associated with some of the suits – lions for Wands for example.  I do query why the King of Pentacles wears a ram head-dress when he’s associated with Taurus, whilst the Queen wears her Capricorn horns a-ok …. and doesn’t the Knight of Pentacles look like a painting of Napoleon?!

    It is a really lovely set of Minor Arcana cards.  There are no human figures in any of the Minors, but that is not to suggest that this is a set of ‘Marseille’ unillustrated pips!  Here we have elements of the Rider Waite Smith crafted into the card along with the requisite number of suit symbols.  It’s a kind of hybrid and I think that it works beautifully.

    My scanner is not managing to capture the creamy off-white tones of the card stock, I’m afraid.

    As far as the Majors go, everything is titled as you would expect and has Justice at XI and Strength at VIII.

    The card stock is beautifully slippy with a linen finish and it’s a joy to use.

    Is it perfect? Almost!  The only thing that I have a quibble with are the one or two of the heads and faces.  I find there is an occasional awkwardness about one or two of them – for example, the Page of Cups (see video).

    I’ve been using them the past week for my daily draws on the Tarot Thrones facebook page.  You’re not ‘liking’ me there yet?! Come on over and see what’s there!

    That said, it does not detract from my enjoyment of the Pagan Otherworlds Tarot one jot.  I adore the classical otherworldly illustrations. Are they medieval-inspired? Renaissance inspired?  It doesn’t matter, get yourself a copy and get ready to join the fan club.

    To buy your own copy:  Visit Uusi
    Follow them on Facebook

  • The World In Play | Catalogue Review

    The World In Play – catalogue cover

    The exhibition, ‘The World in Play – luxury cards 1430-1540’, has now finished its run at The Met. Did you get along there to see the playing cards?  Me neither, but I have procured the next best thing … the exhibition catalogue.

    It’s a nice size – nearly 24cm x 21 cm – and 136 pages long.  The book gives us a front row seat into the courtly and common pleasures of European life in the Middle Ages.  The glorious of the hunt to the life of the peasant, all depicted in playing cards.

    Author Timothy B Husband, curator in The Met’s department of Medieval Art and The Cloisters, leads us on an interesting and scholarly tour of the cards – many replicated in gorgeous full-page, full colour in the catalogue while others are featured as intriguing details.

    After a brief, but enlightening, journey into the history of playing cards, the book moves on to explore the hunting motifs and practices of the Stuttgart Cards which date from the 1430s.

    Next to be shown is the Courtly Hunt deck once owned by Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria, but which actually dates back to the 1400s.  The suit of herons is particularly charming, I think:

    Engraved cards (less expensive than the hand-painted Courtly Hunt or Stuttgard cards) are then explored.  Those created by the unknown geniuses The Master of Playing Cards and the Master ES have suits named after flowers, birds, animals – even helmets!

    The Archduke must have had a thing about collecting playing cards because he also owned the Courtly Household cards – my favourite of these luxury cards!  These show all manner of people that would have been familiar at court – a Fool, a Potter (a woman), a Master of the Household etc – and we can glimpse their lives though the cards – their clothing, their surroundings etc.  Here the suits represent countries – Germany, France, Bohemia and Hungary.

    Then – joy of joy – we move south, to Italy and onto Tarot cards, namely the Visconti Sforza. As an aside –  I was delighted to see, in Andrea Aste’s new deck, The Book of Shadows Tarot, the reference to the Visconti’s ‘Love’ card in the rendition of his own Lovers card.

    Husband then whisks us north again to the Cloisters Playing cards, oval-shaped gems from the Netherlands, dating from about 1475.

    Things then change focus and instead of looking at the luxury of the court and princely families, the cards look at peasants – primarily as the wealthy land-owners would see them – in the Nuremberg deck and that by Peter Flotner.  The status quo is wobbling, a burgeoning merchant class is earning cart-loads of money. The changing social situation is reflected in the cards – we see peasants shown largely as bawdy and stupid, indulging in foolish behaviour – there is farting, pooping and all manner of shenanigans.  You couldn’t play cards with your mother, using these decks:

    That bull looks FURIOUS

    Yes.  A man having a poop!

    If you are a UK-based card buff would like to procure yourself a copy of the catalogue, you can do so via Amazon.  Fans in the US can also buy direct from The Met.

    And if you like the decks …. please check out Guinivere’s Games for her historic reproductions of three of the decks mentioned in the catalogue. They’re ‘spendy, but gorgeous!

  • The Pages | Handling Your Anger

    I know that you will probably disagree, but honestly, the Tarot’s court cards can be your friends, if you let them!

    I thought I’d take a look at the Deadly Sins (surprisingly, none of them is Facebook – although it should be!) and today WRATH seemed most suitable.

    Mostly I’m a peaceable sort of creature, but every now and again I can become splenetic with rage and for anyone in the vicinity (whether they are involved in the scenario or not) I am ashamed to say that I can be utterly unreasonable.

    Sometimes it’s not a sudden venting … sometimes it’s a low simmer that one must feed; endlessly stoking the angry fires, as Robert Burns so memorably describes the sulky, sullen Kate in his epic poem Tam O’Shanter “nursing her wrath to keep it warm.”

     Letting it all erupt like Vesuvius isn’t good, but neither is bottling it up – that’s a heart-attack waiting to happen! But I think that there are constructive ways to experience and handle anger … and so I asked the four Pages what they had to say about it all.

    So, Pages can represent beginnings and messages … here we go!

    Page of Swords

    Page of Swords | US Games LtdBegin to communicate and articulate your anger.  Start to name your emotions.  It’s not enough to throw plates and have a screaming match. What’s REALLY behind your anger – has your ego been pricked? Are you frightened? Are you jealous? Are you embarrassed or ashamed?

    Let your anger serve its purpose.  It’s a message that something deeper, such as hurt or fear, needs to be addressed.

    Page of Wands

    Page of Wands | US Games Ltd | Tarot Thrones

    Begin to exercise and be active.  Furious with facebook? Fling on your running shoes or walking boots and go for a brisk half an hour outside. Get creative with it: want to batter your husband with a frying pan? *looks guilty*  Pull on your boxing gloves and give that punch-bag a blinkin’ good thumping! Exercise has been shown to reduce stress levels.

    I truly believe that women do not have enough opportunities to be SAFELY aggressive – boxing, martial arts, rugby, football … we can benefit from being really physical through play.  If in doubt, thump a pillow into submission 🙂

    Page of Pentacles

    Page of Pentacles | US Games Ltd | Tarot Thrones

    Be aware of what’s going on in your body.  Is your pulse up? Is your stomach in a knot? Are your shoulders so tense that they are up around your ears?!  What happens first? Can you catch your early anger signs and take control?

    Getting yourself some breathing space before you respond to triggers is also helpful. The Page of Pentacles would also suggest, I think, learning to meditate, becoming mindful of the processes that you are experiencing.
    Page of Cups 

    Page of Cups | US Games Systems Ltd | Tarot Thrones

    Begin to forgive.  Begin to be loving.

    Yes, I know, how very BLEEDING HEART liberal of me 😀

    Of course, it’s not always appropriate to forgive – nothing can make you feel worse than some pious ninny telling you that you need to forgive someone when the only place you really want to bury the hatchet is IN THE BACK OF THEIR HEAD.

    Byron Katie | Loving What Is | Tarot Thrones book amazon link
    Amazon link!

    If you can’t quite stretch to forgiveness, that’s fine! Begin to think about what is making you angry in a way that does not send your blood-pressure spiralling.  I cannot recommend step-by-step query process from Loving What Is by Byron Katie highly enough >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>look >>>>>


    Cups are the suit of relationship and this includes your relationship with yourself.  If you can recognise that you are struggling to find ways to control your anger, and it’s at such a level that you are damaging your relationships or your health, it’s perfectly OK,  actually advisable, to get help from outside sources.

    So there you have it – just four court cards and the most minor ones at that.  Imagine what all 16 might be able to suggest!

    Do you get angry? What works for you?  *I need all the help I can get*

  • Tarot | Scottish Opera

    Just thought I’d share some images that Scottish Opera had printed to promote their season. I cannot tell a lie, this post was scheduled to post a looooong time ago, and failed.  So am popping it out now, because it’s good to share!

    No, they are not proper Tarot cards, nor are they my raison d’etre court cards, but I am sharing them here to remind you to keep your eyes open for Tarot-inspired artworks everywhere.

    These items of ephemera are worth seeking out and procuring to add to your collection.  One day they might be worth something to a collector. But in the meantime, they look excellent in little clip frames on the wall!

  • The Visconti Sforza Tarot

    Academia Carrara, Bergamo

    Milan was just as shimmeringly hot and magnificent as it was when we arrived a fortnight earlier.  My God, how had two weeks passed so quickly?! We rendez-voused (is that even a word?!) together outside the jaw-droppingly OUTSTANDING Cathedral (these Italians, they never knowingly-under statue anything).

    It was time for our close encounter with the Visconti Sforza!

    Just to the right of the Cathedral, in the former palace that is the Palazzo Reale, an exhibition detailing the life and times of the Lombardy Viscontis and Sforzas was running – and deep within the bowels of this exhibition were the Visconti Sforza cards!

    We paid our money – E12.00.

    Reader, I would like to tell you that I spent a relaxed and happy couple of hours in the exhibition, but I strode straight through the exhibit halls – the portraits, the madonnas, the landscapes, the precious artefacts, the jewellery and went STRAIGHT to the dimly lit case that held the Visconti Sforza cards.

    I gingerly brought out my camera and popped the buttons so that the flash would not discharge.  Out of nowhere a young man with a very hip beard materialised: ‘NO CAMERAS!!!” he said, sternly.

    “Not even with the flash off?” I wheedled, giving my best ‘FOR GOD’S SAKES, I’M ONLY A TOURIST’ expression.

    He looked at me with his ‘I see your Only A Tourist Expression and I raise you my Just Try Switching On Your Camera Again’ expression.

    I admitted defeat and simply stood with my nose pressed against the glass, desperately trying to burn the images and their glory onto my retinas.

    There weren’t too many cards – 12 I think.  They were utterly glorious, and a lot bigger than I had anticipated.  The paintings were set off beautifully by their gold (for Majors and Courts) and silver backgrounds (for the Minors).  I could have wept at not being permitted to photograph them.

    Another tour member arrived and she too brought out her camera. Moustache Man sprung out and waggled his finger “NO CAMERAS” She too rested her head against the glass and whined in frustration.

    One of our number DID manage to take some snaps on her ipad, but I figured that since I’d been expressly forbidden to take a photo, deliberately countermanding his warning and taking photos regardless might result in me being banished from Lombardy.  And who wants that?!

    Then we hit the gift shop and I bought ‘Il segreto dei segreti’ about the Sola Busca Exhbition of 2012 and ANOTHER copy of the Visconti Sfoza Tarot (I already HAVE a copy!), but neither of them do justice to the glowing golden backgrounds.  But hey, you can’t have everything in life…

    …or can you?!

    Il Meneghello has JUST (actually, for our final evening of the Tour!) produced a version of the Visconti Sforza deck that is, by all accounts, very beautiful – you can explore it here, if you fancy a copy!)  The deck is 67 cards and is based on the Modrone (aka Cary Yale Visconti)

    But for those of us who couldn’t afford the divine Meneghello deck, all was not lost!  For we had one more trip out of the city to take – back to beautiful Bergamo to the newly refurbished Academia Carrara and THEIR collection of Visconti Sforza tarot cards!

    The Academia had been closed for refurb for eight long years and had only opened at the beginning of that week.  We hopped off the coach and joined the end of the very long queue.

    Actually, it wasn’t too long before we were at the front of the queue – having 30+ people to chat with makes time fairly whizz by.  Also, the delightful Juliette Sharman Burke went exploring to a bakery and brought me back a little snackeral.  Which also makes life better 🙂

    We made our way, respectfully, but hurridly, through the magnificent treasures of the Academia and found ourselves, once again, standing before the cards of the Visconti Sforza.

    “Erm, can we…. take pictures.” we asked gingerly.

    “Yes, but no flash.” smiled the guide.  Oh I could have kissed that lady! Hollywood red-carpet goddesses could not have been snapped any harder than we papped those cards!

    Sadly, my battery gave up the ghost after a couple of shots.  Yeah, bloody sod’s law, isn’t it.  But here are a couple of images, taken by some of my merry band of travellers.  I would love to credit them for their photos, so if these are YOURS, sing out!!

    Feast your eyes on the gorgeousness and WEEP!

    The Emperor
    The Moon
    Knight of Swords

    Page of Swords – attitude and a MASSIVE hat

    So, in the end we DID manage to photograph the Visconti Sforza.

    And with that accomplished ….. it was just about time to go home 🙂

    What do you think of the cards? And if they are your photos, let me know so that I can add your details!

  • King of Pentacles | Google’s mobile friendly algorithm change

    King of Pentacles | Rider Waite Smith Tarot | US Games Systems

    I’ve heard from a couple of colleagues now that Google is changing their algorithm to weight in favour of mobile friendly sites.  That clearly also affects Tarot sites, so, with both my web-design hat and my Tarot hats perched precariously on my head, I am impersonating the King of Pentacles.

    Here are a couple of things you might want to take a look at before you pay your webmaster any more money:

    First, run all urls for your website through google’s own mobile-friendly checker:

    https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

    If computer says ‘yes’ then you are good to go!

    If your site is hosted on blogger or wordpress, it is easy to get a mobile version.  I’m on Blogger and all you have to do is go to ‘template’ and there you will find an option to create a mobile-friendly version.  If you’ve customised your blogger site a bit, then pick ‘customise’ version and you will at least get your header.

    If computer says ‘no’ then there are some components that your site is failing on.

    Check out this guide: https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/mobile-seo/common-mistakes/

    Google is NOT stopping listing non-mobile-friendly sites, but those who ARE mobile-friendly will score higher on their algorithm.

    require([“mojo/signup-forms/Loader”], function(L) { L.start({“baseUrl”:”mc.us2.list-manage.com”,”uuid”:”a1532eabd65d034238367b6cc”,”lid”:”d3826d02b7″}) })

    Normal Tarot service will be resumed directly  🙂

  • Deck Review | Le Tarot Noir | Ternel & Hackiere

    So, someone waved this deck in front of me on Facebook and, of course, I had to buy it.  I must learn some restraint.  But not right now …


    I quickly sent Matthieu an e-mail and we organised a sale to the UK.  It arrived promptly and well wrapped (in fact, it took me a knife and a pair of scissors to prise my way into the package!).

    The box is – unsurprisingly – black.  Also sturdy, which makes a nice change from the wobbly cardboard that I usually flatten out and squirrel away at the back of a drawer.

    The cards are MASSIVE (10.5cm wide by 14cm tall) and have a stylised flower on the card-back (not reversible) bounded in a golden square and oval.

    Le Tarot Noir – bigger than your average card…

    I was very keen to get my paws on the accompanying book for this deck and for some INEXPLICABLE reason I was surprised that it was in French.  I mean I only bought the French-named deck from a French man, on his French website…what was I thinking?!

    Anyway, turns out that the book isn’t hugely important from a divinatory point of view becuase it contains no divinatory information about the cards.  This was designed as a proper deck of playing cards.

    As you can tell from the main image – we have unillustrated pips in this deck, but to describe them as ‘unillustrated’ is not to do justice to the beautiful workmanship of the Minor Arcana.

    The colours throughout the deck are muted and sophisticated.  There is no suit/colour identification – which ties in perfectly with pre-Golden Dawn Tarot deck ethos.  The deck is edged in gold which looks beautiful against the black of the rest of the cards.  Black does, however, show up greasy fingerprints – so sorry about the smears on the various card images!

    Gold Edging.  It IS there, I promise you!

    The expressions on everyone’s face are somewhat lugubrious and gives the deck a puff of Deputy Dawg charm that offsets the strange pale and slanted eyes of many of the creatures in the cards (see the Knights in the video)

    There are interesting touches to some of the Majors – the Hierophant card has initiates who have the head of sheep (a reference to being led like sheep? Or the Pope as the leader of a flock?) and the horses of the Chariot have sleek white skull-like heads which I find somewhat unnerving!

    The courts are, as you can see, traditional representations of the usual Valet, Knight, Queen and King.  Neither the Kings of Cups nor Pentacles hold weapons – their power is, according to my dodgy French translations – in commerce (Pentacles) and the threat of the Hereafter (Cups).

    Now, a word about the book.  I am ULTRA careful with books and was even taught how to open new books properly by Mr Scobbie, my old English Teacher.  This one still cracked and began to fall apart within a couple of days.  BUT don’t let that put you off.  I solved the problem by going into my local printer and having him cut off the spine and replace it with a plastic comb.   All for the princely sum of £3.00.

    And now my book is safe from further damage AND lies flat when I am hovering over it with my school French dictionary…

    So, what’s the verdict?  It’s big and it’s beautiful.  Will I be using it for readings? Not until I am more proficient at reading with unillustrated pips.   Do I like the artwork? Yes, I do – it’s traditional and contemporary all at the same time!

    Am I selling it on? Not on your Nelly!