Sample Super-Quick 3-Card Reading: Golden Tarot

A practice reading for an imaginary querent.

Golden Tarot, Kat Black 2003

Your frantic search for enlightenment, for answers, for happiness... has led to excess. It's rather urgent that you tone it down. Slow down. The key to true happiness is the 'middle way', and you are going to have to go in the opposite direction for a bit to achieve this, to balance things out. In other words, to achieve balance, you need to become extremely disciplined for a time and back off from the things you've been doing.


Look at the ways in which you are going overboard in your seeking. Step way back from those areas. Become downright circumspect. Teetotal. Party pooper. Stick in the mud. However you see being 'moderate' in the areas where you currently are overindulging. Be that! By doing this  you are quite likely to find your 'middle way' to the happiness you seek. 


(Practising to escape the habit of 'teaching' the cards in a reading.)

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!

So much potential!

Touchstone Tarot, Kat Black (Kunati 2009)

My draw today from Touchstone Tarot is so encouraging! I drew three cards with no positional meanings (most of my 3-card draws are done without positional meanings, and read either from left to right, or using Robert Place's 3-card method. I'll do a post on that soon!)

The 6 of Cups suggests approaching life with childlike wonder and openness, while the two aces speak to me of potential energy in the two areas that have been of major concern to me lately, the material and spiritual realms. I love that both figures in the ace cards have wings, but are not using them. Again, the potential is there, but just waiting for the first flappings to soar away!

In the Ace of Coins, there is a dog, which always symbolises faithfulness and humility to me, loyalty and even a kind of nobility. The lily behind the winged figure reminds me of purity. I believe this to be purity of intention. The Ace of Coins figure faces the 6 of Cups, even is pointing one finger at it! So surely the message here is that in order to move forward in the material realm, I must access my childlike openness and wonder. For my exercise, to rediscover the joy of movement. For my nutrition, to be willing to learn new things and even to be retaught things I once knew. For my livelihood, to trust that I will be provided for by a loving universe. Now, that's truly childlike trust!

The Ace of Wands figure also inclines her head toward the 6 of Cupse, but the shoulders and torso point away. This suggests to me that in the spiritual realm, I must keep an openness, but may need more emotional maturity to move in the direction that I wish to go in. This makes perfect sense, as I want to grow and mature in my spiritual practice. The figure holds a wand and seems to be nurturing a bowl of hot coals. These represent to me smouldering potential, and also call to mind the practice of burning ground herbs and resins on coals in a cauldron or other vessel. The castle in the background on the hill reminds me of the attainment that awaits with diligent practice, and the humble cottage below reminds me that the day-to-day living of the spiritual path involves very little glory. And of course, between the figure and the castle, there's a very tangled wood to be negotiated. What are her fingers pointing toward? They both point away from the Ace of Coins. Maybe a reminder that the answer doesn't lie in materialism--like buying new decks and books every other day? (Ouch!)

May I remember the messages of this draw as I move through the coming week: retain my wonder, enjoy my physical existence, and begin the trek through those tangled woods of the spiritual realm. Hello, meditation cushion!

Who is that guy?

Touchstone Tarot, 2009

Today's draw comes from Kat Black's beautiful Touchstone Tarot, published by Kunati, 2009. The deck comes with wide borders designed to look like wooden picture frames, because all (or most) of the cards in this deck are composed of Renaissance portraits. I trimmed the top and sides of my deck to make them easier to handle. To me, the overall look of the cards is greatly enhanced by this change.

Waite Smith 1909

The card I pulled from the deck today is The World. Our usual image of the World card includes a female nude at the centre of the card, with the four figures around the edges (human face, eagle, lion, bull) said to  represent the four elements (air, water, fire, earth).  But older decks contain a male figure, as does this deck. Both Paul Huson in his 'Mystical Origins of the Tarot' and Robert Place in 'Tarot: History, Symbolism and Divination' agree (as do many other writers) that the central figure originally represented Christ in glory, with the four figures surrounded him simultaneously representing the four evangelists (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John), the four beasts surrounding the throne of God in Revelation 4:7 ("And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle"), and the Holy Living creatures described in the book of Ezekiel, each having the face of an ox, eagle, lion and man. ("As for the likeness of their faces, they four had the face of a man, and the face of a lion, on the right side: and they four had the face of an ox on the left side; they four also had the face of an eagle." -- Ezekiel 1:10). The World card, then shows the ascended Christ after the Judgement of the world at the end of days, reigning supreme and being worshipped by all creatures. This card does fall in sequence directly after the Judgement card, and there is no doubt in my mind it originated to represent the second coming. So some tarot cards depict Christ in glory, while others, the ones with female figures, refer to the Anima Mundi, the Soul of the World, which is the bride of Christ, or the New Jerusalem. When you get into historical decks, or even decks based on historical decks, there's no getting around the Christian imagery. It is totally and completely there, and you can glaze over it with all the pagan stuff you like, but you can't get around that truth.

Anyway,in a reading, the World card represents achieved goals, complete fruition, absolute success, enlightenment, and so on. Well, I mean, can you get much higher than the glorified Christ, when it comes to symbols of success? I ask you!