New Years Eve spread

The Elements of Wellness Spread by Chloe McCracken

This spread works in pairs. How does something affect your wellness, for good and bad,  and what can you do about it? Line one - thoughts. Line two - physical reality, spiritual path, and motivation. Line three - emotions.

I decided to break out my beloved old first edition Anna K Tarot. So...without further ado...

How do my thoughts affect my wellness and what can I do about it? 
Queen of Cups - Knight of Cups

My thoughts help me master my emotions, but they can also rule me by leading me to overthink or overreact. I can allow myself to be more of a dreamer and less of a dweller on things, someone who wants to control myself and others. I can fix my thoughts on the experience of the rose itself rather than worrying about its cultivation or its thorns.


How does my physical reality affect my wellness and what can I do about it? 
Ace of Coins - Lovers

My physical reality remains strong and good, though at the moment a lot of this strength is waiting for development. I can make choices that are of a long term nature and have long term rewards, and that will lead to a happy old age.

How does my spiritual path affect my wellness and what can I do about it? 
Page of Cups - Wheel of Fortune

In fact I am still very much a seeker, a novice to the spiritual path. My spiritual path dabbles in the spring of living water, but I don't seem yet to have filled my bowl with it. I can take a tip from the Wheel of Fortune and ladle it up in huge bucketfuls.

How does my motivation affect my wellness and what can I do about it? 
Queen of Swords - 6 of Wands

I'm tough from past experience, but this also left me a cynical old bugger and that can certainly affect my wellness! What I can do about it is allow myself to feel good about the things I accomplish, no matter how big or small. 'Imagine what would happen if we obsessed about the things we love about ourselves,' says a meme I read today. Indeed.

How do my emotions affect my wellness and what can I do about it? 
Temperance - Queen of Coins

Being on an even keel is a very good thing, but you can also get on such an even keel it becomes a rut. Or like the lady in the picture, you so much want to avoid spilling the water you become afraid to step up onto the next step. What can I do about it? Reap a harvest and enjoy it. Forget balance and go for exhilaration. :)

How can I turn these into aphorisms for this year? Well...how about...

Enjoy the roseness of the rose.
If it will make you a happy old lady, carry on.
Drink deep from the living water.
Let yourself feel good.
Forget balance and go for exhilaration.

Off to write these in my journal. :)

Water Queen

Yesterday was 9 of Water, which advised me to 'flow like a flood' -- little did I know how emotional yesterday was going to be.

Today, though, I draw Water Queen. I'm the master of this flood. I will not be ruled by it. The water flows from me and through me. I can take it, I am the source of it, I am the master of it. I am one with it. The emotions came from my head -- my thoughts. I created the emotional reaction through my thoughts about the situation. I can control the emotion the same way.

'Breathe deeply and slowly,' the companion book advises, 'and say, "I am so calm and so strong."'

Flow like a flood

It's Thursday, it's back to work for me, and my draw for the day from Mystic Tarot (by Mystic Meg) is 9 of Water. We see nine water fountains and nothing else.

The little companion book to the deck says, 'Nine is the signal of sharing, security and strength in the knowledge that the future is truly exciting.' Well, maybe. In my way of thinking, nine is the signal of the end of a cycle and 'heralds change'...

But in all ways of thinking, that's a lot of water. And that reminds me of a word I've been pondering lately: flow. I want to learn more about this concept from psychology. This Ted talk by the man himself is a good place to start:





May I enjoy 'flow' today. And you, too. :)

Oriental Tarot

Okay, I know I didn't blog with the Mystic Tarot last week, but forget that. Look what I got! A gift from a friend, it's the Tarocchi orientali by Foudraz, 1845, also known as the Oriental Tarot by Giordano Berti. I received number 92 of 700, and included was a handwritten note from Giordano:

Dear Carla

I don't know if these beautiful tarot come to you unexpectedly. In any case, I'm sure that the 'exotic beauty' of the Oriental Tarot will fascinate you immediately and will guide you into a fantastic dimension where the Arcana will talk to you with a language different than the usual, showing to you some strange secrets.

I wish you all the best

Giordano Berti 

That's pretty cool, don't you think!

The cards, in my mind, are much like Tarot de Marseille, but with Chinese people and pagodas -- an 18th century vision of China, or 'chinoiserie'.  Of course you know that Chinese motifs were very popular amongst the wealthy in the 1700s. In 1845, a Turin lithographer called Claudio Foudraz created this deck. As Berti says in the LWB, 'Naturally, the Chinese characters ... are absolutely far from historical reality, rather, they reflect the conventional representations that were fashionable until a few decades earlier; in fact, we find them in the paintings of aristocratic and upper class mansions of the 18th century, as well as in furniture and porcelain decorations that continued to circulate through Europe well into the 19th century.'

Formerly known as Mystic Meg Tarot...

I bought a tarot last weekend. First one in a while. It was at The Works. Yeah, you know I bought a house. I thought the down payment was going to be the big investment. Well, okay, it was the 'BIG' investment, but I have to be honest and say I've done nothing but spend money since we moved here. Literally. I mean, that and eat my weight in mini marzipan stollen. I like the house and I don't miss the old flat at all. I like the new neighbourhood. Not so much the spending money every time I turn around. So my splurge on a £5 tarot deck felt kinda ritzy. No plumbing or estimates or tradesmen involved or anything!

I can't remember what this set is called because I threw the giant box away at once. I think it was called 'The Tarot Pack.' The book inside is called 'The Tarot Book' and is written by someone called Mystic Meg. I gather she was rather famous a while ago as a pyschic. Anyway, the artwork for this deck is by Caroline Smith. It was previously published as The Mystic Meg Tarot.  It's just a harmless bit of frippery, really.

As you'd expect it's on thin card stock and the pips are the emblem from the ace cards presented in multiples. The four suits are called by their elemental correspondence, so we have Fire, Water, Earth, Air rather than Wands, Cups, Coins and Swords. The courts are Princess, Prince, Queen, and King. Majors don't vary wildly from traditional, though four of them are softened through a name change: Fool becomes 'Beginning', Hanged Man is 'Self-Sacrifice', Death is 'Changing' and the Devil is 'Temptation'. The art work is pleasant enough. Majors have a sort of 'tribal' feel, and the court cards echo one another in posture. (All the princesses are in the same pose, all the princes are in the same pose, etc).

Source

You may also have noticed that courts and majors have elemental and astrological symbols included on the cards.


As to the book, it's 112 pages long and follows the traditional pattern of two pages per major and one page per court and pip card. There full colour illustrations of the cards. The introduction has the usual silliness about tarot coming from ancient Egypt and 'even older civilizations right across the world.' Selection of significator is based on age and star sign of the querent. For each card, we are given four bits of information: Love Reading, Life Reading, Luck Reading and Cosmic Counsel (aka, affirmation). The interpretations are highly idiosyncratic. The book is pretty much useless, though could make for amusing reading.

It's no TdM, but it's kinda cute. :) I will be drawing from it this week.