Daily draw: Golden Tarot

Kat Black's Golden Tarot

What an auspicious card to draw for today! The 10 of Cups is called 'Lord of Perfected Success', and denotes happiness and good fortune. Even in a reversed position, the card is seen to bode well. So it's rainbows and smooth sailing for me today! I don't see any trouble ahead. 

I quite like Kat Black's Golden Tarot, although the super-laminated and extra slippy card stock leaves a bit to be desired. The images, collages made up of paintings from the middle ages, are all really quite good. 

Right, 10 of Cups. Domestic bliss it is, then!

ETA: Well, the day is done and it was entirely uneventful, save for some really lovely compliments from the hubby and a stroll to Lidl after work--holding hands! LOL Ta dah!

Sample Reading: Celtic Tarot

What am I not focusing on in my life now
 that I really should be paying more attention to?

Celtic Tarot, Davis 1990

Two aspects of the self need to be released from their captivity, two aspects of hidden or long-suppressed desire. The figures in both the flanking cards orient themselves toward the middle card, Judgement. The Page of Cups points his arms and holds his harp toward Judgement, while the Knight of Wands charges his horse toward it. Both figures are yearning to rise up. Rebirth is what both of these aspects of self really long for. 

Lammas is coming: First Fruits of the Harvest

Druidcraft Tarot, Connections 2005

from Rigs o' Barley by Robert Burns 

IT was upon a Lammas night,

  When corn rigs are bonie,

Beneath the moon’s unclouded light,

  I held awa to Annie;

The time flew by, wi’ tentless heed,
        
  Till, ’tween the late and early,

Wi’ sma’ persuasion she agreed

  To see me thro’ the barley.


Corn rigs, an’ barley rigs,

  An’ corn rigs are bonie:
      
I’ll ne’er forget that happy night,

  Amang the rigs wi’ Annie.


The sky was blue, the wind was still,

  The moon was shining clearly;

I set her down, wi’ right good will,
        
  Amang the rigs o’ barley:

I ken’t her heart was a’ my ain;

  I lov’d her most sincerely;

I kiss’d her owre and owre again,

  Amang the rigs o’ barley.
        
    

Current challenges, Future outcome spread

Ancient Italian Tarot, 7-card spread from 'Tarot Bible' by Sarah Bartlett 

Cards are numbered 1-7 starting with the bottom row, left side.
1. Personal challenge right now
2. Relationship challenge right now
3. What holds me back?
4. What motivates me?
5. Where will I get support?
6. What decision do I need to make based on 1-5?
7. The outcome

The draw suggests that my current challenges are higher profile in my life than I might have expected. Four out of seven cards are majors, and there's an ace. This would seem, then, to be a time when I could make some important changes in my life, if I choose to.

Wort Moon Reading -- Haindl Tarot

Haindl Celtic Cross (pardon my toe)

Wort Moon Reading using Haindl Tarot: Celtic Cross (Rachel Pollack's version from Haindl Tarot: Minor Arcana, 248-250). 

Haindl Tarot: What's it all about?

'If suffering can have a creative meaning, Hermann Haindl's life and work were formed by it.'   ~ Erika Haindl

In my last post I mentioned I dislike Rachel Pollack's books about this deck. I should clarify by saying that in the past I've found them a bit frustrating, or did when I read them a few years ago upon buying my first Haindl Tarot deck. They seem as stream-of-consciousness as Haindl's paintings themselves, and that can be frustrating when you have come to a guidebook to make order of such complexity, only to find the explanations as abstract-random as the cards themselves. For me part of the problem is that each chapter starts with the Hebrew letters, runes, astrology, and/or I-Ching, and you have to skim past all this to get to the actual card images. For me this is a problem, as I do not like adding separate systems to tarot, and for me these are all unnecessary add-ons that get in my way! I have been dipping into them for the last couple of days and can say I still find them a little rambly--and think they could be offputting indeed to dewy-eyed tarot newbies--they are useful for gleaning insights into the artist's mindset and some of the curious elements of the cards.

If you're willing to plow through the detail and continuously remind yourself that these are Rachel Pollack's personal thoughts about these cards (sometimes with input from Haindl himself, but often just her own responses), the book can help with some of the more mysterious or curious elements on the cards, particularly with the majors. The books are not essential, though. When all is said and done, as deeply personal a tarot as this is, it is still a tarot, and if you bring to it Thoth/Golden Dawn interpretations (which can differ from contemporary RWS ones), it doesn't matter if you can interpret every single 'cosmic bubble' or cryptic reference to Wagner. It doesn't matter if you know Aleph from Tau, or what a tallis is.  You can still read with this deck.

And that's the important thing, because as Rachel Pollack points out in the introduction, the Haindl Tarot is not an occult deck, not in the sense of the Thoth et al. It is, as she points out, 'a sacred tarot, one which reaches back to ancient spiritual traditions and cultures...leading us to see the world as a vessel filled with spiritual power and truth' (Haindl Tarot: Major Arcana, New Page Books, 12).

Haindl Tarot -- We're so tiny but we're all heading in the same direction

I've been playing around with loads of decks in the last few months (and not blogging about it, sorry!). Today for some reason, I decided to get out the Haindl Tarot. 

I have a complicated relationship with the Haindl. I guess a lot of us do. I really admire the deck, but I find I can't work with it much because for me the imagery is just so poignant. The cards are just throat-achingly rife with an emotion that I find hard to name. There is so much there. Decay, regret, the sense of an ending...but also beauty, a feeling of the eternal, and even glimmers of hope. But just glimmers.

I guess the thing that gets to me in this deck is the deep sense of how temporary humanity is, how fragile. How delicate we are in our emotions, our spirituality and our bodies. This is represented through the four suits and the court cards. Haindl uses Egyptian mythology in the suit of Swords, Native American in the suit of Stones (Coins), Western Europe in the suit of Cups, and Hindu gods and goddesses in the Wands. So in the courts, I see reflected the attempts of humanity to make sense of ourselves and our place in the universe and in relation to each other and our world.