Life as Tarot

Living the cards

Turns out that solo parenting while my husband Michael teaches a week-long retreat as well as writing a guest spot for

Transmutations

last week took up a bit more time than I had hoped and last week’s writing didn’t quite materialize. All good. These things happen. Hilariously this all maps directly onto the three tarot cards I was working on and completed during this time as well: the 5, 6, 7 of Sticks, Strife, Victory and Valour respectively.

But that is how it goes when you are working on a deck. You live each card as you are making them. I have heard this from both Tarot and Lenormand deck creators and I can only assume it’s the same with most oracle cards. This is partly why I decided to do the Minors by splitting them up into their decans rather than doing an entire suite from 1 to 10 at a time - I would definitely not want to be caught in the Feathers (Swords) for that long!

The decans are roughly 10-degree subdivisions of each astrological sign. Because the Golden Dawn mapped the tarot onto astrological correspondences, the Major cards each with their Sign, Planet and Element significations and the Minor cards with a Sign and Planet correspondence, the tarot then can also be mapped onto the astrological decan wheel.

And here’s a slightly fuzzy image but you can see how the court cards and Aces map onto this crazy thing as well….

But as a creator, it is actually very helpful. Because I am making a Thoth Tarot themed deck for the most part, I am ascribing to the Golden Dawn schema of Sign and Planet correspondences (if I was creating a Marseille style Tarot, this wouldn’t be applicable since this deck predates those significations). So when I am about to tackle my next decan, I get out the Sign and then the three Planet cards that live within its purview. For this, that would be Leo: The Lust card, Saturn: The World, Jupiter: Wheel of Fortune and Mars: The Tower. Each of my Major cards, besides featuring a specific parrot, have a plant correspondence that shows up on the cards that they in turn influence as well.

Here on the 5 of Sticks, a rather agitated Red-lored Amazon is perched in a similar circular Art Nouveau pattern as the Lust card. The Lust card has sunflowers featured as the Leonine flower. You can see the sunflower motif in all three of these cards. The Saturn/World flower is a patchouli plant which has a delicate stalk of tiny purple flowers. You can see those in the circle as well.

You can see the two corresponding Majors next to the 6 of Sticks, featuring the gorgeous Green Winged Macaw. The Lust card with its sunflowers and the Wheel of Fortune has grapes and grapevines as its corresponding plant. I chose each of these plants and flowers because they are literally ruled by the planets and signs they are with. Medieval and Renaissance plant and herb catalogues always listed the planetary rulers as part of their healing or harmful properties.

Then finally, the 7 of Sticks has the She-Oak of the Tower card zoomed in to feature the tree’s delicate flowers and pine cones. The sunflowers are not cohesive anymore as this is the last decan of the Sign and is in transition to the following energies.

As you can see, the Minors *belong* to their respective Majors visually. Each one has very specific and recognizable elements that help flesh out more meaning when you are using them to do a reading. It’s one thing to create a deck with images and then slap the name of the card on there and expect people who actually read with Tarot to sort it out. This method (and everyone who has Tarot decks has a deck like this) relies on the fact that you have each of the meanings memorized and it kinda doesn’t matter what the picture is and the otter floating in kelp is somehow the 6 of Cups. I mean it is, or it can be, but I have to know what the 6 of Cups is to infer why an otter means that. My hope is that my images could work both with those people who already have the meanings deep in their psyches as well as with those who read what’s actually on the cards, as in, the images they see before them. That’s a tall order but I am giving it my all. Creating a deck that is magically operant and alive is the goal no matter what.

I hope you have enjoyed this romp in Tarot Land. I am busy starting a couple of new paintings and I can’t wait to share more on those soon.

Wishing you all a calm, cool, and collected few days leading up to Christmas if you celebrate and a generally stress-free holiday season, if that’s even possible. <3