Real Life Tarot Town!

Posted on by
6

(Crossposted from my original post on tarot town)

Having heard Georgianna talk about her Toronto Grafitti Tarot on the Beyond Worlds tarot podcast (which if you are not listening to yet, go check it out!!), I’ve been keeping my eye out for tarot symbolism in my day to day journies.

So it really struck me when I saw these on a railing near a crossing:
leichhardt 003_10.jpgleichhardt 004_10.jpg

“Wait a moment”, thought I, “If that isn’t tarot, then I’m a piece of cheese!”

I decided to hunt around and see if I could find any more.   Now there are many things you  can say about the King of Wands, but you’d never describe him as subtle, even when attempting to hide behind a flowerpot!
leichhardt 011_10.jpg

Sure enough, further investigation led to finding a few more of the court:
leichhardt 001_10.jpgleichhardt 002_10.jpgleichhardt 005_10.jpgleichhardt 006_10.jpgleichhardt 007_10.jpgleichhardt 008_10.jpgleichhardt 009_10.jpg

I went to the local library to try and find out more,  and the librarian said that they thought they were from some ‘old Italian card game’, which caused a smile to play on my lips, I can tell you.

Apparently there used to be a few more of these, but they’ve been replaced with more modern railings.

Anyway, I thought I’d share my adventure in finding the tarot outside of my cards.

What’s sex got to do with it?

Posted on by
Reply

(Crossposted from my original post on tarot town)

I took delivery of the Manga Tarot yesterday.  As I started to look through the beautiful images, fresh from the box, it didn’t take me long to notice one of the striking features of this deck; the genders compared to the RWS are reversed.

This had the effect of making me think more deeply about each card as I viewed it.  Is the meaning the same, and if not, what, and why is there a difference?  I historically view the Tarot as a set of archetypal images which represent certain qualities, and didn’t really give the actually gender of the character on the card much thought, but it turns out I must have thought about it more than I realised, as having it flipped really stirred the thought pot.

The most dramatic example of this for me was the emperor empress combination:
empress&ror.jpg

Notice that the order is switched.  Or is it?  Despite the names, are they flipped in the qualities that they show?  You can probably see why I had a little think about those 2 cards and thier positions in the deck!

Have a quick look at some of these examples and see what you think:
man&woman.jpg

I think I’ll be pondering these cards for a while.

One thing I also found striking, was when I looked around at reviews of this deck, I saw a number that said, “this deck will appeal to women” or “this deck has a feminist twist”.  Which also made me think, does the standard RWS particularly appeal to men?  Would the Manga Tarot deck not ‘appeal to men’?

Oooh, what’s this can of wiggly creatures that seems to have suddenly popped open in front of me? ;)

Virtual tarot

Posted on by
Reply

(Crossposted from my original post on tarot town)

Is the power in the cards?

If you ask a handful of readers, we’ll probably all have a slightly different take on it. There are some people who believe you can only read with a deck that has been gifted to you and is wrapped in pure silk.  There are others who will grab a playing card deck off a poke table and give you a minors only reading.  There are other still that will fire up a computer program and peer at a pattern of light that looks like a card.

I find myself divided on the issue.  I remember once going to the website of the housewives tarot and getting a suprisingly apt automated reading, however I generally believe the real power is in the reader and how they percieve and weave the images they see into a meaningful message.  So that should mean that any way of showing you an image from the tarot should work?  Well I’m not quite sure on that.  I certainly know that the physical act of shuffling can be very medative and get you mind in the right space to allow intuition to flow, and you don’t get that in the same way with a single click.

I have been experimenting with various tarot iPhone apps so that I can ‘draw a card’ on the run, either when I don’t have cards with me (which is rare these days), or I’m in a situation where throughly shuffling is impractical or would get me all sorts of unwanted attention.  Currently I’m using ‘iTarot Classic‘ as I’ve found it to be a simple and good little free app for 1 or 2 card draws which I interperate myself, however it doesn’t  feel the same and I can’t quite put my finger on why.

So what do you think?  Can a computer select the ‘right’ cards, or is the ‘soul’ not in it?  I’m curious to hear your thoughts!

Waiting for a knight in shining armour

Posted on by
1

(Crossposted from my original post on tarot town)

In a reading I did today the Reversed Knight of Cups appeared:

Which revealed a knight sitting and waiting, waiting desperately for a knight in shining armour to come and rescue them!

How often we put the responsibility of our own feelings onto someone else, or, even if we realise that our emotions are our own concern, we desperately hope for someone else to come along and ‘make it alright’.

The reversed knight of cups can be a signal that you need to pull it together, and be your own heroic knight in shining armour, because nobody cares as much about your emotional state, as you do!

Looking closer at the cards

Posted on by
1

(Crossposted from my original post on tarot town)

Occasionally I find myself ‘stuck’ with a card; sometimes this can be when I am acquainting myself with a new deck, or I’m trying to go deeper in a much loved one.

I look at the card and maybe some keywords plop into my mind but the card feels very 2 dimensional, and I don’t really connect with it at all.

I might sit and try and get more understanding, but it’s almost like the card is coated in teflon, and my mind skids away and starts thinking about 100 different other things.

At times like this, I find it useful to step through a list of questions, which forces me to look at the card in different ways, and this can reveal some interesting things that previously went unnoticed.

Here’s a sample list and I hope you you find them useful:

* Colour

o What colour used the most in the card?
o What colour is least used?
o What do I associate these colours with?
o Are there any colours that missing from the card?
o Which colour attracts/repels me the most here?

* Beings

o Are there any beings in this card?
o Who is the biggest? – how do they feel?
o Who is the smallest? – how would they feel?
o What is the relationship between the beings if there is more than one?

* Plants

o Are there any plants?
o What condition are they in?
o What kind of plants are they?

* Objects/structures

o What objects/structures are in the card?
o What condition are they in?
o How do they fit in with the surroundings?

* Symmetry

o Is the image ‘balanced’?
o Where is the ‘weight’ of the card, left, right, top, or bottom?
o Who or What is most important in this card?
o Who or What is least important in this card?

* Time

o What time of day or night is depicted?
o What may have been going on an hour before the image you see now?
o What would happen an hour after this image?
o What season is depicted?

This is just the tip of the iceberg, and hopefully the list above will also get you thinking of your own questions.
As an example it’s questions like this revealed to me details like:

The guard walking away on the left in the 6 of cups:
RadCups6.jpg

The snail (who seems happy and free to me) in the bottom left of the 9 of pentacles:
72.jpg

The dark haired people on the other side of the water in Judgement:
judgement-353x600.jpg

And the varying shades of the clouds (fluffy to stormy) in these aces and how the landscape below varies from verdant to barren:
untitled21.JPG

I hope you find this useful and I’d love to hear of things that you’ve noticed that have surprised you in the cards.