4 cards for the last 3 days (by mistake).. from the Lars-Kristian Holmsen Tarot
and the Queen of Pentacles and the Magician are the same 2 cards i drew for the previous 2 days..! sometimes the tarot is adamant in keeping the mirror in front of the querent.. and utterly personal..!
so, as the Devil and the Magician are, actually, two cards for one day, i ask myself can the Magician hide the Devil? am i the devil-magician or am i under the subjugating spell of a powerful enchantment?
and, as a new week is beginning, the 10 of Pentacles is here to tell me that i should get back to work!.. and back to reality.
The Queen of Pentacles (i think) and The Magician from this idiosyncratic deck by Italian artist Oreste Zavola.
This queen (the third in these 24 days) is about material care for one (or for many).
Some people feel a need to care for others. Some people are really good at being cared for.
juggling between the two, caring and allowing to be cared for.. giving up being pampered to become the pamperer.. this is the true art of The Magician in every relationship.
Last 2 days’ draw.. also from The Intuitive Tarot.
And, counting the day before, it’s three threes.. 3 of Wands on the 20th, 3 of Swords on the 21st and 3 of Cups on the 22nd.
I was kind of waiting to see if the 2 of Swords would come up again for the 3rd week in a row, on the 22nd, but alas, this is interesting enough as it is.
In classic tarot numerology, 3 is the end of a preparatory phase and the beginning of something.. a celebration is in order.. like when a child takes his or her first steps.. or when the pain begins to be felt, a sense that we are moving away from denial and beginning our journey into grief.
Day 20 and it is the 3 of Wands (Rods) from my very favourite The Intuitive Tarot by Cilla Conway.
What is a virus..? It is a sphere surrounding a (sometimes double, sometimes single) strand of genetic information. Can we think of something else looking at this image during this time of ever spreading viral disease? We certainly cannot look away from it, cannot think of anything else. We are obsessed with it.
The author of this tarot asks us to read into this image the creative potential of a philosopher’s stone.. the egg of creation.
So i take the time to imagine the creative possibilities that this viral Easter egg could generate.. the realisation of our living in nature, the fragility of life, humbleness, the joy of being close and the freedom of travel.. oh, the wonderful things i shall do, when life will be safe again!
3 cards for the last 3 days.. this time from the majors only ‘The future is unwritten’ tarot (and what a fitting name for these times)!
XIII – The Sun (XIX) – The Wheel of Fortune (X)
and the element that strikes me the most is a progression of the circle.. from the round disk of the pendulum clock, to the round face of the sun, to the round wheel that reveals that even pretty girls have a skeleton underneath their prettiness.
it goes round and round
time.. in the sun.. and then we die
this, too.. shall pass
what was shall return
like time
like the sun
like the fortunes of men.
very nice to see card 19 sitting front and center on this April 19!
also, i took this photo at 11.20 (just checked in the photo details on my tablet).. which so happens to be the hour shown on the clock in the first card!
3 cards for 3 days.. again from the Mesquite tarot.
the emperor.. the 2 of swords.. and the 2 of pentacles.
it’s the 3rd time that the 2 of swords comes up (and the 2nd time for the Emperor).. in 16 days.. out of 78 cards.
The 2nd 2 of Swords came 1 week after the first and this one came exactly 1 week after the second. Coincidence? Surely!
there seems to be a change of color and a change of mood as we are moving from the 2 of swords to the 2 of pentacles.. the dark turns into light and the closed position of the one who defends himself turns into the fluidity of movement.. a movement still closed, but at least there is a line.. a possibility to create a shape.
In and Out.. sickness and health.. darkness and light.. power and helplessness.. richness and poverty.. the Covid Emperor has us all divided and split. We desperately need bridges!
Today’s card comes from La Corte Dei Tarocchi, another cratfy deck from Italy.. We probably owe the Italians the existence of tarot as an object of art and its iconic quality (the French mass produced it, cut it down to simple blocks of colour, but in the process made it mystical)… Italian art and French mysticism (to which the British added accessibility by turning it cartoonish)… then, finally, Americans gave us ebay and etsy.
The artist Ana Maria D’Onofrio made the cards long and slim, printed them by hand on porous, thick paper, the colours as if smudged by time passing.. the characters descending from early Christian frescoes and old books about the deeds of Charlemagne. A Handful of Beautiful.
And it’s Swords again.. The King of Swords, no less..depicted here, in a rather unorthodox manner, with a sword and a knife.. for big cuts and for small cuts (respectively).. he looks at us, almost as if asking..
is there something in your life that needs to be cut off or to cut yourself from..?
Or maybe he is the one who cut us off from our old lives.. isolated us inside our small apartments.. his job almost complete.. the cutting clean and severe.
And what should be worse (and what is preferable?)… to be the one who cuts or to be the one who is cut away from?
Since yesterday was a break day, i am now turning two cards from the ever whimsical, but oftentimes uncanny Tarot of the White Cats from LoScarabeo.
4 of Wands and the Ace of Wands.
If there is a card to signify having fun indoors, than 4 of wands is it. We have a white cat and a black cat exchanging grapes.. Now i do not believe cats have much to do with grapes, but it did happen that i was expressly asked for and bought for the first time in i don’t remember when a bottle of Fanta Grapes.. Coincidence? I don’t think so! 🙂 Besides, I think it’s called fanta madness!
And how about that Ace, also of wands..? New work beginning? A cat scratching its claws on an old, broken trunk.. but this is hardly new, even for a cat.
Work.. we may think it’s new, but we’ve been doing it since almost forever.. There is always new work ahead. You just get up and do the work! Even if you had grapes the day before. It’s the way things are. We work so that our claws don’t grow too big.
Day 10 of this project and we see a card from the very cute Spiritsong Tarot by Paulina Cassidy. The 8 of Crystals (Pentacles).
Didn’t know what to make of this one.. so out of place in this time of sitting around, doing nothing.. was tempted to pull another one.. and i did (felt like cheating).. the 8 of Wands came out, which has pretty much the same symbolism.. about hard work and doing stuff against the clock.. which is exactly what happened yesterday, when we managed to push through a project application in the last 5 minutes before deadline.
Carantine and hard work.. probably the only way to move forward in any meaningful, healthy way. Thank you, Mr. Buffalo!
