My Queen of Swords for the Cult of Tarot Community Tarot Deck

Thank you, Cerulean, for telling me about the Cult of Tarot Community Tarot deck. I’ve participated in a collaboration deck before, the Tarot Pink, where I contributed the Two of Wands. For the CoT Community Tarot deck, I chose the Queen of Swords.

I ended up drawing two versions and hope you’ll help me out by voting on which one you prefer. I’m torn between the two because they go in pretty different directions, not just in the art, but especially in terms of interpreting the Queen of Swords. You’ll see what I mean.

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Do-It-Yourself SKT Pocket Notebooks

This is a 2.75″ x 4.25″ saddle-stitch notebook you can easily make yourself from 3 sheets of loose print paper, 1 sheet of adhesive sticker paper for printable labels (these are typically free from UPS or FedEx), scissors, a stapler, and a corner rounder is optional.

I like this DIY pocket notebook because it’s easy to make at home, doesn’t require any specialty tools or expensive materials, and most important of all, fits in the back pocket of your jeans or easily with a pen in your jacket pocket. That makes it really convenient to travel with.

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Golden Venetian Lenormand

The Golden Venetian Lenormand is a sister deck to Eugene Vinitski’s Venetian Tarot, which I’ve reviewed before here. Vinitski has teamed up with author, philologist, and art historian Elsa Khapatnukovski to produce a masterpiece of a Grand Jeu Lenormand, which consists of 54 cards (rather than the popularized Petit Lenormand or Petit Jeu Lenormand, which consists of only 36).

However, you can also select out the 35 Petit Lenormand cards and work with this deck as a Petit Lenormand. So in essence, you’re getting two decks in one. You’ll definitely want to purchase your copy of the Golden Venetian Lenormand via Vinitski’s Etsy shop here.

Like Vinitski’s Venetian Tarot, the Golden Venetian Lenormand is crafted in a High Renaissance style with a design focus on classical humanism.

The Lenormand oracle is a predictive fortune-telling system from the late 18th century based on the Game of Hope by Johann Kasper Hechtel, an illustrated edifying card game steeped in Christian allegories. In the 19th century, 16 more cards were taken from other well-known European cartomancy systems of the time and the 36-card Petit Lenormand was expanded into a 52-card fortune-telling deck, plus the additional 2 jokers.

By the way I love the little details of insight from Khapatnukovski. For example, the Fox card, No. 14, Khapatnukovski acknowledges that you’re not likely to come by a fox in Venice, but because it’s common symbolism in the Lenormand system, here it is. This particular fox is running over a canal holding a seagull in its mouth. The seagull, symbolic of freedom and a desire to dream, locked in the jaws of a fox, show the anguish of mind of a trapped individual.

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Ancestral Path Tarot by Julie Cuccia-Watts

The Ancestral Path Tarot by Julie Cuccia-Watts first came out in 1996, published by U.S. Games. At the time it was a bordered deck and had a different card back design. This year the deck has been re-released, now borderless and with a beautiful new card back.

There is both a 90s throwback vibe to this deck and a timeless quality. Ancestral Path reminds me of the way multiculturalism was celebrated in the 90s. You’ve got original works of art done by hand, with minimal digital retouching, not like the majority of decks we get today, which involve heavy-handed amounts of digital work. One isn’t better or worse than the other; it’s just iconic of different times.

Note here that Key 8 is Justice (and Key 11 is Strength). Ancestral Path is a fusion of different deck systems, which will become a bit more apparent when we get to the Minors. Here, though, I love the emphasis on priestess energy in the Hierophant card. Yes, it’s still a true Hierophant card, but I love how Cuccia-Watts has reinterpreted it with more feminine energy.

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The Fours: Tarot Card Meanings

New to this video lecture series?

Start Here

The above-linked Introduction page will give you an overview of what this series is about and provide a course contents listing.

The Fours is the sixth of seventeen videos in this series, “Tarot Card Meanings with Benebell.”

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Tarot Fortune-Telling, Divination, and Life Coaching (Part I)

Whether fortune-telling with the tarot is okay or not okay is this weird hill that people are hell-bent on dying on. At the end of the day, whether a tarot reading is fortune-telling, divination, psychology-based, or some form of life coaching is just a difference in style, I think. We’re all doing the same thing. We just prefer different terminology because we’re trying to craft a particular image of ourselves.

Recently in online tarot social media, the topic of fortune-telling and whether this is something we want to encourage or discourage came up in discussion. It reminded me of a recent personal event.

Back in July I was visiting my parents in upstate New York. Mom, Dad, me, and the Hubby walked into a Chinese restaurant where my parents are friends with the owner. The owner came over to chat and asked us how we’ve been, and in particular, what I’ve been up to. They’re all speaking Mandarin Chinese.

Mom said to the owner, “My daughter is a fortune-teller.” (For those who speak Mandarin, she said, Ta hui bang ni suan ming. And yeah, I get it, my pin yin is probably all wrong there.)

I’m sure my face scrunched up into a grimace. “Ma, no, that is not what I do,” I replied in English.

“All right. Fine. Then you tell Auntie what it is that you do,” said Mom.

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SKT Tarot Readings Diary (Free Download)

This is the tarot readings diary keyed specifically to the Spirit Keeper’s Tarot deck that I promised back when I shared the downloads for the tarot journal collab with Scarlet, linked here.

SKT Tarot Readings Diary

This is a Tarot Readings Diary keyed specifically to the SKT. That means the “Classes & Workshops Log of Notes” is a note-taking section for all video courses outlined in the Free Esoteric Tarot Online Course for the Spirit Keeper’s Tarot, linked here.

The short form card meanings compiled from both the First Edition LWB and the Vitruvian Edition LWB are provided in the back of the Tarot Readings Diary for your convenience of reference.

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Tarot Card Meanings with Benebell (Study Journal Free Download)

This is the tarot study journal keyed with the SKT that I promised back when I shared the downloads for the tarot journal collab with Scarlet, linked here.

Tarot Study Journal

The Tarot Study Journal is for you to record all your card meanings and correspondences reference material. The structure of this journal is the same as the one previously shared for the tarot journal collab, except this one includes the Spirit Keeper’s Tarot deck. In other words, it’s a study journal for the Tarot de Marseilles, Rider-Waite-Smith, Thoth, and the SKT.

For those who have been following along the Tarot Card Meanings with Benebell video lecture series, this Tarot Study Journal is basically keyed to that video lecture series. So you can print out a copy of this journal and take all your notes from the lecture series in these pages.

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SKT 3″ x 5″ Tarot Stickers (Template Download)

These are free downloads of SKT tarot sticker templates. Each sheet consists of a three-card reading that’s a form of energetic intention setting. You can print these out in color (sepia tones) or grayscale (if your printer only has black ink).

The following templates are formatted to print on the 3″ x 5″ blank rectangle labels by Avery, Label No. 94213. You can order the blank rectangle label stickers directly from Avery here. Direct from Avery, 10 sheets (that’s 30 tarot stickers in total) go for $8.00 plus $3 flat rate shipping, so $11 for 30 tarot stickers. That’s not too bad. It’s not great price-wise, but not too bad. Also, the more sheets you order, the more economical the price.

After you print out one of the selected sheets of tarot stickers (each sheet consists of three cards), start with the left-most card. Place the fingertips from your dominant hand on the tarot image. Close your eyes, relax your breathing, and focus your thoughts on the specific goal you want to achieve or what it is you want to manifest. Visualize that goal coming to fruition.

Then transform that visualization into light. Intuit what color light such a goal, outcome, achievement, or manifestation would be if it was in the form of light energy. Send that beam of colored light from your head, down through your arm, out the fingers of your dominant hand and send it into the tarot image, feeling yourself press that energy into the card.

Repeat for the center card. Repeat again for the third to the right. Take your time. Do not rush the process. Remain calm, confident, and self-assured from beginning to end.

I like to affix these stickers onto the glass of three white pillar candles. Set these three candles out somewhere meaningful to you. Every time the candles are burning, the powers and beneficent forces of the selected cards are activated and sending those energies into your space, enriching your environment.

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SKT Vitruvian Mini: Do-It-Yourself Printables

Bonus Offering with the 2020 Metaphysician’s Day Planner

This blog post will showcase the do-it-yourself printables for a Vitruvian Mini tarot deck. These digital files are a bonus offering that comes with the 2020 Metaphysician’s Day Planner, so if you want these printables, then you’ll want to order the 2020 Day Planner!

Assembling the deck box with craft glue.

It started with having to configure the template for the box design of Spirit Keeper’s Tarot Vitruvian Edition. To make sure everything fit as it’s supposed to, I printed out the box design template, cut it out, folded, and assembled it into an actual box to make sure the designs were aligned as intended.

Of course my initial thought was to print the mock-up and assemble at actual size. However, in the moment, I didn’t have the means to, and could only print it smaller, to scale, on a standard 8.5″ x 11″ piece of paper. So I did.

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