Sherlock Holmes Tarot Week - The Sun

Here's my first draw from the newly arrived Sherlock Holmes Tarot by John Matthews and Wil Kingham (Connections, 2014). Great card for today, and not just because it's the one featured on the cover of the box. It's the Sun -- and the Sun seems to finally be coming back for me in my life, too.

I haven't posted in a week and for that I apologise, but I have been having considerable personal difficulties and really haven't felt like playing around with tarot cards or writing blog posts. My mind was on only one thing -- my problems.

BUT, I am feeling better, getting back to normal, and a new deck arrived today (which I pre-ordered at the beginning of March), and so it seems a great time to get back into my usual routine.

The Sun of course is a card of seeing clearly, enlightenment even, or can also indicate general good cheer or even radiant health. In the Sherlock Holmes Tarot, Holmes' magnifying glass has been chosen as a symbol for the Sun. I like that.

In this card, we see Sherlock Holmes himself, wearing the hat he is depicted in most often throughout the deck, the top hat which would have been worn by the typical established Victorian gentleman. (Holmes is never described as wearing a deerstalker hat in any of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories, though he may well have done when in the country. It was the films that popularised the deerstalker.) I'm struck by how young Holmes looks in these cards. A little online research reveals that Holmes is 27 years old when he moves into 221B Baker Street, serving as a detective for 23 years, with Watson as a companion for the first 17 of them. Watson himself is described at the time of their meeting as being three years out of medical school, and apparently age 25. They really were young men. The old movies have got it wrong. The new TV shows are closer in age, though even Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are possibly a bit on the elderly side to be portraying Holmes and Watson. Surprising!

Expect a lot of my personal explorations of Holmes trivia throughout the week.

I will give a review of my thoughts on this deck at some point this week -- but let me say that first reactions are positive, as far as it being a fun thing to have. Whether it is, for me, a 'reading deck', I don't know, but I am enough of a Holmes fan and I like the artwork enough to keep this deck. It's a lovely set.