I’m an I Ching aficionado and also a tarot aficionado, wrote chonky books on both subjects, so naturally I’ve thought long and hard about how the two systems reconcile. This page is a download of a tarot and I Ching correspondence table for your easy go-to referencing.
Continue reading “Tarot and I Ching Correspondences (Reference)”
Left or Right – Which one do you prefer? The left G-rated version that leans more into psychological pain? Or the right bloody version that leans more into the physical manifestation of our suffering?
The Ten of Swords in tarot has come to be associated with betrayal, treachery, backstabbing, the pain of being double-crossed, and the breach of trust. So how a deck creator illustrates the Ten of Swords reveals a lot about their unconscious processing of these themes.
It’s also the soul wound, a crisis of faith, where faith and reason are at war. It’s the mob mentality vs. individuality. Seeing an artist’s rendering of the Ten of Swords will reveal to you that artist’s relationship to the archetype of the ego-death.
At least that’s always been my impression.
Continue reading “The Ten of Swords. Ego-Death. Soul Wound. The Double-Cross.”
You’re probably quite familiar with the “For Dummies” learning series that were popularized in the 90s. The book series published by Wiley & Sons de-mystifies difficult subjects and is known for accessible, easy-to-understand, plainspoken writing. Wiley could not have chosen a better author for the task than my dear friend Charles Harrington.
Although the “For Dummies” series catches a kitschy rep, this is in all seriousness a legit, no-nonsense, superb beginner’s book on tarot and oracle decks — and I love the dual coverage this compact yet comprehensive book packs for you.
Continue reading ““Tarot and Oracle Card Reading” from the For Dummies Learning Series”
You may be familiar with the Playful Heart Tarot by Kitten Chops (Zaara), based on the RWS, whereas the latest creation from the KittenChops studios is a Marseille-based pip deck, the PipSpeak Tarot.
After completing the RWS-based Playful Heart Tarot, Zaara redefined her work with the tarot by unpacking her RWS framework and re-learning the tarot with the Marseille. The result is the PipSpeak Tarot, which became a liberating experience. Likewise, this might just be the very deck to get a seasoned RWS reader out of a rut.
“Fortune tellers and cunning folk have been reading with Marseille and playing card/pip decks for hundreds of years,” writes the artist. “Instead of esoteric intellectual prowess, these readers have been relying on their common sense, their understanding of human nature and key card reading wisdom passed down from generation to generation.”
Continue reading “PipSpeak Tarot by KittenChops & How To Read with a Marseille Pip Deck”
If you haven’t been watching the 2024 Marvel TV series Agatha All Along, it’s a spin-off from WandaVision focused on the character Agatha Harkness. And the episodes have been chock full of tarot (and witchy) goodness.
I love how the online tarot community is currently having fun with a fictional but bona fide tarot spread in the show, named the Safe Passages spread, a key feature in Episode 7 (“Death’s Hand in Mine”). It’s got Celtic Cross vibes in the formation of a pentagram.
(Ignore my graphic above; I squished all the card positions together, which is why you can’t really see the pentagram anymore. In the TV show, the pentagram shape is more pronounced.)
Just a head’s up: there may be spoilers in this blog post, but nothing too major; I’m focusing on the tarot parts.
Continue reading “Safe Passages Spread from “Agatha All Along””
Lord have mercy that the tarot card you were drawing on your birthday isn’t an omen of what’s to come for the year. Because I was “called” to work on the Five of Swords. Or I was “pulled” to, I dunno, I find all that New Agey jargon a bit fluffy but there it is. “I was called to” just means I don’t have a logical explanation for why I did what I did.
I’m struggling with swords placement in my Six of Swords wip. In fact, there’s a lot to this illustration composition that I’m struggling with. Maybe you’ll have some suggestions on what I can do.
I’ll start from the beginning. I knew I wanted to play with the religion and science dynamic in the Six of Swords, and my ambition was to do that in a way that isn’t too cliche.
Continue reading “Six of Swords WIP: Please halp with composition ideas…”
I previously posted my first complete drafts of the first seven Major Arcana cards in my reinterpretation of the Etteilla Tarot, here.
Instead of continuing on to the second septenary of Majors, in order, I realized that practically speaking, I had better try my hand on some of the pips early on, because the last thing I want to happen is to finish the artistic labor for all the Majors then start on the pips, only to realize I hated the direction I was going in and having to abandon the project altogether, after all that work had already been done.
So I thought, okay, let me see if I can even come up with a good approach to the pip cards first, before committing to this deck project.
But where do I start? I started at the tail end of the deck (but not Card 78 or Key 0 The Fool). I started with Card 77, the Ace of Coins, then worked backward to Card 76, the Two of Coins, Card 75, the Three Coins, and so on.
This blog post will showcase the first drafts of the seven Coins cards corresponding with the Sacred Seven (in the order of Sun, Mercury, Venus, Moon, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn).
Continue reading “Etteilla Tarot Reconstruction: Sacred Seven in the Coins”
This is Video 14 in an educational series on the tarot cards. Closed captioning is provided for all videos in this series. A written transcript is also provided as a free pdf download.
The transcript for every video lecture is provided. You can go to the Video Series Homepage, scroll down to “CONTENTS LISTING,” and download the PDF transcript notes for each installment.
I’m so close to completing the Minor Arcana for this series. =) Here we are on the Tens, then the Pages, and done. At least for the Minors. After that, the Majors.
But as of this moment, I’m anticipating that the Majors should go fairly quickly. I plan on doing a septenary per video, so that’s 7 of the Majors knocked out in each installment. I dunno. What do you prefer– long videos covering more cards? Or short videos with less cards covered in each?
The transcript for every video lecture is provided. You can go to the Video Series Homepage, scroll down to “CONTENTS LISTING,” and download the PDF transcript notes for each installment.
benebell wen 