Cards I Have Known

Well, the Blue Owl has been very reliable for me lately, so I decided to do my daily draw with them.  I’m using the 5-card no layout layout from Sylvie Steinbach.  Here’s what I drew:

in case the images get lost, it’s d0g+whip+woman+mice+bouquet.  Hmm.

First, I’d say that the dog represents a friend or someone I know; whips often represent arguments.  The whip lies between me and the dog, so I’d better watch what I say today to avoid having an argument with a friend, significant other, family member, etc.  I do sometimes get the impression that the whips represent sexuality as in the French tradition, but I don’t feel that here.  This is a definite warning to avoid arguments today – or just to accept it if they happen anyway.

I shall note, however, that I’m not feeling particularly well today.  My throat’s a little scratchy and I have that “I have a cold and I want to stay in bed” tiredness.  Appropriately, both the Dog and the Whip can refer to the throat or, as Chanah says, “anything that impairs linguistic ability.”  I get the impression the cards are referring both to the external situations I’ll face today and my own health.

Now to the mice.  I always have such trouble with this card…here, it could be referring to my feeling sick – perhaps this is a cold or other “infectious illness.”  It could refer to the blue funk that’s been “eating away” at me for days.  However, it could also mean a loss.

To its right is the Bouquet, which can mean a happy social situation with a friend, or a visit, a (good!) surprise, and all sorts of pleasant things.  It can also refer to recovering quickly from an illness.  I believe the way the Mice card works with respect to loss is that you lose whatever is to its right, which is the bouquet in this case.  I suspect that, again, both the external and the health meanings apply here.  I need to watch my words (dog+whip+woman) to avoid losing a nice visit, pleasantness, or amicable relations (bouquet) – or even the loss of a friend (dog+whip).  Also, the bouquet implies a quick recovery from illness, but the Mice suggests that if I’m not feeling better by Monday I’d better go to a Doc-in-the-Box and get checked.

Whew!  I’m still a babe in the woods with Lenormand cards, but they have a lovely “personality.”  As someone noted on a forum I frequent, they seem more practical than Tarot.  I suspect that is because when I began learning to read Tarot, I got lost in a tangle of well-meaning but vacuous fluffy-bunny love-and-light books.  Now that I’m reading Doris Chase Doane’s 1960s book on Tarot, I am getting much more of a real-world set of meanings.  Oops…I digressed again.

But you know me.

Well, I’ve gotta go.  The BF and I have a big night tonight at his show…I need to rest up and be pleasant, energetic, and as charming as this old broad can be.

-30-

As you may know from my earlier post, my Dad’s in the hospital and I did a draw to see the likely prognosis. I used Blue Owl Petit Lenormand cards. Here is what I drew:

key+ring+man+crossroads+tower

I used Sylvie Steinbach’s 5-card no-layout layout with #28, charged as Dad’s significator, so I don’t interpret the Gentleman card. I take my Lenormand meanings primarily from Confessions of a Freaky Fortune Teller, which is one of the best cartomantic blogs that exist. Anyway…
here’s how I am trying to interpret it:

Key would be related to vitamin deficiency issues, and it also usually means a successful outcome – and the card that follows it is sure to happen.

Ring would relate (when reading for health) chronic health conditions. Thus, I take it that his lung-fluid problem may recur, and he may need to be checked for vitamin deficiency.

Crossroads – even before I looked at my list of meanings, I flashed on the idea that it could go one of two ways – that he may get better or things may take a turn for the worse…but I see here that it could also be related to veins and circulation, the lymphatic system (at 88 and in the hospital there is likely more than one thing wrong with him). The crossroads also suggests I should consider a second opinion if my sis and are not satisfied. She’s already switched doctors once and the new meds this new doc gave him are helping, so maybe this is a reflection of what JUST happened.

The tower, first and foremost to me, indicates the hospital building. It’s a big, tall one. It can augur loneliness and a feeling of isolation, and as much as I’ve been in the hospital, I can tell you that’s the truth. I gather from this that I should perhaps ask for additional bloodwork to ferret out any infections, and my dad’s true condition – the main thing that is causing all of these symptoms may be hard to diagnose. However, as Kapherus on The Art of Cartomancy forum said when he evaluated my interpretation, key+ring augurs the likelihood of a correct diagnosis.

Anyway, I am so close emotionally that I was afraid I’d be wrong in my interpretations. My more expert cartomantic compatriots seem to think I’m on the right track. I surely hope so because I love dear old Dad. You can see a picture of him at age 46, carrying me (at 4) on his shoulders – look in the Six of Cups post. He’s a handsome devil, isn’t he?

Let me apologize up front for the tone of this entry.  I shall probably talk much about myself and my family, but  it’s just the mechanism by which I demonstrate how I read the cards.  Usually, I’m both the reader and the querent, so a lot of my examples will be recollections.  Thus, I am sorry if it seems self-absorbed.

Anyway, Dad’s in the hospital with fluid on his lungs, and while he’s improving greatly – he has the nurses bringing him strawberries and other “verboten” goodies – he’s 88 and I am deeply worried about him. When we’re young, our parents seem omnipotent, omniscient. In my case, my parents were of the “Great Generation,” the one that survived the Great Depression and won World War II. Truly we stand on the shoulders of giants (I forget who said that).

All of this brought to mind with a sudden, sharp immediacy the warm feelings engendered by the RWS’ and compatibles’ versions of the Six of Cups. One can almost feel herself a kid again, safe and surrounded by folks who care for our needs, leaving us to run and to play, making our castles and forts out of drying sheets.

However, the Six of Cups can also bring other memories with pangs of their own. I guess it’s just a “National Maudlin Introspection Day” celebration, but my thoughts while contemplating the Six of Cups went something like this:

I haven’t been at this blogging business for long, but already I can tell this blog isn’t going to be like the other cartomantic/tarot blogs I’ve read. I’m far from experienced; I lack the erudition and the intuition that others command. For me, looking at the cards sometimes – just sometimes – takes me to someplace else. Somewhere, somewhen else. I can’t explain it any better than that. It’s a very personal, and oftentimes emotional thing for me. Images come to mind in response to what I see and I follow them…within the intellectual framework of the meanings I’ve learned by rote, though sometimes I vary from them. Anyway, I guess this blog is going to be more of an exploration of one would-be cartomancer’s encounters with these mysterious cards. Perhaps my musings will serve, if no other purpose, to illustrate how one particular person reads the cards.

And now for today’s card, the Six of Cups.

This is the Albano-Waite version.

And it hits me between the eyes in a very personal way. This card is at one and the same time both a comforting embrace and a mocking revenant of a past that never was. It haunts me. It’s as the poet said:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost (1874–1963). Mountain Interval. 1920.
The Road Not Taken

You see, it is ages and ages hence, and I am telling you with a sigh: I took the other road. The safe one. The road for sleepwalkers who coast through their lives never really living them. My waking came far too late, for, as Evelyn Couch (Kathy Bates) said in Fried Green Tomatoes: “I’m too young to be old, and I’m too old to be young.” I went from 21 to 60 and stayed there until I was 42, and let me tell you, in the South, 42-year-old women are supposed to be faded grandmothers, who live vicariously through their young and sport “W” stickers on their gas-hogging minivans. I’m still wanting to stay out until the dawn breaks, being careless and a bit tipsy, having all night talks with friends the likes of which one can’t make when old. We grow so careful with our “selves” even as we realize we don’t know what those are, and as Descartes and Locke would say, the self isn’t contiguous but sequential with each one a little different from the last. So gone are the late night talks about everything and nothing, gone is telling “our BFF” secrets we wouldn’t ever want to come to light. No more soul-baring. But that’s that.

Now as for the Six of Cups….
The standard definition of this card is “nostalgia” or something from the past coming back to one in the present. When reversed, it can indicate the Miss Havisham personality type, someone sitting in the closet with her dusty, dry maiden’s wedding gown and her moldy cake, waiting for a bridegroom who never came and now never will. Whew. That hits a little too close to home.

When looking at the picture (always a wise course of action when we’ve drawn a pictorial card) we see also that this appears to be the giving of a gift. Is the masculine figure a boy or a little person? Two souls as yet unsullied by the realities of life, enjoying a moment of pure joy…is this card designed to cause us to associate one of our own memories from our own innocent memories?

Now take a look at the Six of Cups from the Tarot of the Old Path:

Tarot of the Old Path Six of Cups

Here, it looks almost as if the guy is trying to flirt with the woman, and she’s giving him the “brush off.” In a case such as this, when the traditional meanings are steeped in my head but the image doesn’t match it, I confess…I resort to the dreaded LWB. The OP Tarot authors say: innocent and undemanding love, nostalgia, memories. I just don’t “get” that impression visually from this card, so I stay with what my subconscious mind “knows”…even though the picture doesn’t match.

Now, let’s look at the Barbara Walker Tarot’s Six of Cups:

Here, I get the negative side of that “parents as omnipotent” feeling we have as kids. To the tiny figure crouched on the floor, “Mother” is a Goddess. It reminds me of parts of Pink Floyd’s The Wall, where Pink’s smothering mother (like Eddie Kasprack’s overprotective mother from Stephen King’s It) is A Force To Be Reckoned With or some such. Ms. Walker describes this card as representing deep memory, looking to the past for help in the present, a search for Mother-Wisdom, and a return to childhood. I normally don’t like LWBs but I always keep them in case the imagery doesn’t fit with what I know…provided, that is, that the LWB’s author gives an interpretation that makes sense with the picture. Ms. Walker has done that here.

And now to the Noblet TdM:

When read in the context of suit and number, the six of cups relates to harmony, reward, balance, and peace, all at the emotional level. It’s also the number of Tiphareth. This could include healthy nostalgic moments, too, I suppose. Sedillot defines the card as meaning: easy communication, harmonious emotinonal rapport, creative impulse, or a new friendship. Negatively, she describes it as sadness, bad dialogue or lack of dialogue, or bad company. Tiphareth connotes spirituality, harmony, beauty and compassion. For Christians or those of other religions who admire Jesus, Tiphereth is the sphere of “Christ-Consciousness.” Amazing how rich in meaning the non-pictorial minors are, no?

Yet for me, even when I’m reading the TdM, I often find myself experiencing that stab of things from the past…it may be different from yours. However, whatever your warm, hot cocoa recollection is, that’s the healthy side of the six of cups.

It’s just that sometimes that card hits you right between the eyes, speaking Ray Batty’s words to you with some mockery and vehemence:

“All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.”

And so they are.

Signing off, a little low today. Sorry.

-30-

Well, it’s another lovely day in the Southeastern United States, and it’s been the first day without rain (so far) since I can recall.

With that in mind, I decided to show you guys some of the things I am working on and exploring – things that will show up in future blogs. I don’t own all of these books or cards, but I have trusting friends who’ve loaned them to me. Ain’t friendship great?

Here are some of the books I’m exploring. I guess I’d better go ahead and get this out of the way: My name is Barbarella, and I’m a book and card addict. I’ve been reading voraciously since I was 2 years old and I haven’t stopped since. (Don’t get me wrong: I was and am no genius. I just had this weird quirk of being able to read at an adult level – hell, I couldn’t even tie my shoelaces or ride a bicycle or even walk without braces. Nor could I add properly. Math was a mystery. I could do two things well in life: read and spell.

The books are:

Fortune Telling by Nerys Dee

Secrets of the Tarot by Barbara Walker

How to Read Tarot Cards by Doris Chase Doane

The Book of Doors companion book

and

The Tarot Shows the Path by Rolla Nordic.

I am a terrible book slut so oftentimes I’ll keep six or seven going at once, never “cleaving unto” one book monogamously; instead, I’ll read a chapter here, then a chapter there…it’s weird. However, I promise to give you the best reviews I can once I finish.

Cards

Here are the cards I’m bonding with at the moment:

They are, from top left:

The Barbara Walker Tarot

The Brotherhood of Light Tarot

Tarot of the Old Path

36-card Zigeuner Wahrsagcarten

The Picture Book of Ana Cortez (a/k/a The Playing Card Oracles)

and

Mystiches Lenormand

I’ll get back to you when I have more info.  Please feel free to suggest any cards or books that you’ve found useful and delightful in your own cartomantic careers.

Barb

-30-

Ewww….

First, a note. Even though I’m drawing Lenormand cards, I’m using Ana Cortez’s 4-position spread (head, throat, torso, and feet). I find it good for a daily drawing.

Head – overall situation, what’s going on inside one’s “noggin’”

26 – The Book

Here, I’d say that I had a lovely long weekend with my sweetie, but the one thing I didn’t get to to was to spend much time with my beloved books and cards, so I see the Book here as representing my thirst to read and learn more about the cards.

Throat – what I say, what I think (as opposed to thought that haven’t yet taken form, as in the Head position)

21 – Mountain

Ick. Here I believe that the Mountain indicates that it may be one of those days when I feel I can’t speak my mind, or that I keep things to myself that others just wouldn’t appreciate, understand, or like. I often feel blocked like that – I won’t even answer my phone if I don’t recognize the number! I have drawn this card many times when I’m around folks whose politics lean 180 degrees from mine and a major political event happens.

it gets yuckier…

Torso – my gut feelings, my emotions

7 – Snake (gosh, these Mystical Lenormand cards are hard to read when you’re old and need glasses)

Here, I’ve almost always taken the snake to mean just that – a snake in the grass, someone who can’t be trusted, usually a woman – but that is so close to the fox! Does this mean I need to be wily today? Keeping in mind that it refers to feelings in this position, do I need to watch out for fooling myself, for unfounded emotions and suspicions, or is a female friend of mine going to do something that leaves me feeling betrayed?

Feet – the practical matters such as housing, food, getting to the bus stop on time, etc.

12 – The Birds

To me, this card represents four things: a flurry of activity (a la the 8 of wands), worries, gossip, and communications of all sorts other than written communication. Perhaps I’ll hear something that will cause me to have worries about some practical matter. Or it could simply be that I’ll be worried about finances or something like that all day. I hope it’s not a “collection call” because I’m pretty sure I paid all of my bills.

After looking at this, all I can say is, ick, folks. (Well, I could say some other things, but they’d be what you call “bad words.”) Any suggestions? As I’ve said, I don’t have a good rapport with Lenormand cards yet.

-30-

…he licked the one, he picked the other

he went in circles ’til he dropped dead.

-Devo, Freedom of Choice.

OK, folks, it’s time for a rant…and I’m the subject of same. Most of us remember from our childhood reading stories of giant dragons (like Smaug) who sat upon their mounds of unused rubies, diamonds, emeralds, sapphires, and gold…not using a one, but simply hoarding them greedily.

In cartomancy, it’s all too easy to become either the dog or the dragon – know what I mean? If you’re like me, the beauty of the different card sets, the intriguing notion that just maybe this book will have the definitive set of divinatory meanings we’ve sought for son long…all of these can conspire (ok, that’s the pathetic fallacy, but forgive me a few grammatical boo-boos, all right?) to make one buy, and buy, and buy, card set after card set, book after book…and we end up learning a weak hodgepodge of meanings and associations that don’t really give us a solid foundation on which to practice our craft.

I’m that way. I’m very much that way, and trying to fight that is harder than it was for me to quit smoking ciggies.

In life, I have always…no, let’s make that bold and italic…always found that when I have only one or two tools or resources at my hand, I’ll use them and learn them until they become a part of me- “baraka” to use Ana Cortez’s phrase.

Ladies and Gents, I’m trying really hard to do that. The only thing that keeps me safe is my limited budget…yet that siren song is always there, singing its deadly, seductive song.

Maybe that’s just me. I dunno.

-30-

In cartomancy, how do we derive meanings from the cards we draw? Is it the images with their symbolic language that speaks to our subconscious mind? Is it a function of number, color, and suit? Do we rely on the author’s provided meanings (if based on reasonable factors, such as deviations from the norm and the reasons therefor)? If we do include the images presented to us in deriving a meaning for that particular act of divination, how do we consult those images? To illustrate, I’d like to analyze two separate versions of the Five of Pentacles, one of my favorite cards.

To start, here’s the Barbara Walker Five of Pentacles:

Now, here’s the same image from my favorite Tarot de Marseilles, the Flornoy restoration of the Jean Noblet:

How would I go about reading these cards (individually)?

In the case of the Barbara Walker card, Ms. Walker uses a keyword system, many of which I find helpful, especially when she deviates from the norm. Her keyword is hardship. But let’s look at the picture she presents:

Here, I have to admit that I’ve always considered the (pictorial) Five of Pentacles to be my “Little Match Girl” card. To me, this is the card you draw when it seems every door is closed to you. Typical situations are ones such as losing your job, having a foreclosure hanging over your head, having a physical injury but no insurance or money to pay for treatment, falling “through the cracks” of the system – the very system for which we cede some of our freedoms in return for certain basic, humane services. It has also meant more than that in my drawings. For me, this is the card you draw when it seems you have nowhere to turn; your friends (or those you thought were your friends) have turned their backs form you and excluded you. It has often showed up in readings in which a person has been involved in a clique of friends and suddenly has been rejected by them. It can also show up in readings in which a person feels excluded, but may not be – especially when coupled with The Moon or the Eight of Swords.

In any event, here, the figures stand (or lie prostrate) in a bleak, snowy landscape, lit only by the rich golden light from a warm, ornate church – the same church that is supposed to provide succor for the poor. Didn’t Jesus say something to the effect of “remember the poor – they will always be with you?” That the church is lit means that there are people inside, listening to the endless homilies and recitations of the Golden Rule – while they all miss a chance to put their money where their mouths are and actually do something. They remind me very much of “the Little Match Girl,” who stood hungry in the cold in rags outside a lovely restaurant.

In the case of the Flornoy/Noblet tarot, I would follow the method I learned to read TdM cards, which is to combine the characteristics of the suit with the characteristics of its number (for the pips). Thus, I would start with the suit qualities: Coins deal with the element of earth, materiality, money, property, practicality, and concrete manifestation. I would then combine that with the meanings for the number five: five brings change , expansion, erratic movement. (There are dozens of numerological systems; I took my meaning for “five” from a combination of the Tarot-Authentique and Tarot Teachings sites). If on e wishes to look at this number in a Qabalistic framework, all fives reside in Geburah, on the Pillar of Severity.  One author (I can’t recall his/her name right now) described one of Geburah’s functions as catabolism, and I think that worthy of further study.

Given the number and suit meanings here, I would start with the assumption that the card refers to some practical matter, or something you’re trying to manifest, that has had a fresh influx of change and creativity. Change can be either good or bad, and creativity is a broad canvas indeed. I would need context to be able to interpret the card in this way. Say, for example, that a man has come to see me because he has been looking for ideasato increase his income. He’s felt stuck lately and has come to me for advice. Here, I’d say that his impasse will soon be broken, and he can progresss, thanks to an influx of creativity that helps him implement strategies to help his monetary situation.

However, several authors beginning with Marteau, I believe, also incorporated the shapes of the florets and the designs of the pips into their divinatory result. I won’t get into that here as my French is pretty poor. Sedillot’s interpretation of the Five of Coins might be useful here: Upright, an amelioration of his financial situation, a prosperous collaberation. As you can see, Sedillot’s meaning is pretty close to what we can obtain by combining suit and number. The drawback to this method (if you’re not using Jodorowsky, Sedillot or Morel for assistance) is that you must have context to apply the number/suit meanings.

Well, this was a pretty short and superficial look at this card, but I hope to do more in-depth looks as time permits. Thanks for reading along with me!

Barbarella