Tarot Of The Day June 28 2018 - Day 10: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - Strength

Tarot Of The Day June 28 2018 - Day 10: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - Strength

I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the tenth session follows.


In the Rider-Waite deck, Strength is portrayed by a woman, a maiden in white, with her hands on a lion’s muzzle. She is wearing flower garlands in her hair and around her waist, and is crowned by an infinity symbol.

The Rider -Waite keywords for the Strength card are as follows: power, energy, action, courage, magnanimity (upright,) abuse of power, despotism, weakness, and discord (reversed.)
To me, the strength card is about the strength that comes with a calm demeanor. The strength we possess when we are prepared, understanding, and informed. The reverse is like the power that comes with anger and heated passions, uncontrollable and dangerous.

The Raven’s Prophecy deck brings back the hand of the mage for the Strength card, but now the hand is a fist, the symbols of the tools of the mage clenched under the fingers. It reminds me of propaganda style artwork, like the fist of the Black Power movement, or ironically the Aryan fist of the white power movements. It is also used in the Resist movement today. Long before all of those meanings, though, the raised fist was imply a symbol of triumph and solidarity.

Maggie Stiefvater writes about the Strength card:

“I have heard Strength interpreted in many different ways, many of them unsatisfyingly thin. I think the reason why it’s a difficult card to interpret is because it can seem a little redundant. So much of the tarot deck is about internal strength that it feels like this card is meaningless when it appears. Be strong? Of course! What else would you want to be?

But I think this card begins to make more sense if you read it as fortitude in the long haul and if you replace the word strength with patience.When this card shows up, you have been being strong, but this card says that you're not done yet. Whatever burden you've been throwing yourself against is not going away any time soon, and you're going to have to dredge up all of your patience and self-belief to get past it. This card asks you to be resilient, a far more difficult task than mere strength.”

Maggie’s keywords for Strength are patience, control, and self-belief.


Tomorrow - The Hermit

All of the lessons will be cross posted to my blog at http://ouroborostarot.blogspot.com, and at my Ouroboros Tarot Page here on Facebook.

***TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be 89 days long, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that I will walk you through the steps of interpretation for. After the first 89 day session ends, we will start over with a one day break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round. ***

Tarot Of The Day June 27 2018 - Day 9: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Chariot

Tarot Of The Day June 27 2018 - Day 9: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Chariot

I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the ninth session follows.

In the Rider-Waite deck, the Chariot is quite literally a chariot, drawn by two sphinx, one black, one white, carrying man in armor, a warrior, bearing a scepter and crown. They appear to be moving away from a city, and behind then is the thread of water that we have been following through the deck. (If I didn’t mention the water in the Lovers card, look between Adam and Eve on the ground - many tiny black tributaries coalesce in a stream there, far in the distance.)

To me, the Chariot is about moving forward, focused on your goals, changing if needed, making progress without stopping. It’s about getting an opportunity and running with it. It is also about Physical movement, travel. Always about movement, ever forward, and sometimes without concern for those who might fall off your chariot along the way.

In the Rider-Waite booklet, the keywords for the Chariot are as follows: succor, providence, also war, triumph, presumption, vengeance, trouble (upright,) riot, quarrel, dispute, litigation, and defeat (reversed.)

Maggie Stiefvater’s Chariot is a not-quite double ouroboros od two dragons, one red and one white.  She writes:

“The duality that the Lovers card mutters about becomes a proper problem by the time the Chariot shows up in a reading. There are two sides to you, seemingly opposite, and you keep being thrown from one to the other. In many decks, this card depicts two beasts of different colors pulling a chariot; when they agree on a direction, the chariot moves forward swiftly. When they disagree, the chariot grinds to a halt.”

Maggie’s keywords for the Chariot are balance, self control, duality, and Id.

Tomorrow - Strength

***TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be 89 days long, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that I will walk you through the steps of interpretation for. After the first 89 day session ends, we will start over with a one day break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round. ***

Tarot Of The Day June 26 2018 - Day 8: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Lovers

Tarot Of The Day June 26 2018 - Day 8: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Lovers

I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the eighth session follows.

Ah, the lovers. It is probably the most desired card in a reading - not by the reader, mind you , but the readee! We have all seen or heard the trope of the mystic lady telling  someone over a crystal ball or tarot cards, “I see dark, handsome man in your future…” And that Lovers card symbolizes the desires of the average person asking for their cards to be read. Does he love me? Will she say yes? Will I ever not be lonely? Questions of romance and issues of the heart top the list when you give readings to others.

However,like a couple of the other cards in the deck, The Lovers doesn’t always indicate romance or a relationship...unless it does.

In the Rider-Waite deck, the Lovers card is clearly a depiction of Adam and Eve, with a burning bush and the Tree of Knowledge behind them, respectively - the tree of Knowledge complete with the snake of temptation, just in case you don’t get the symbolism of the fruited tree on its own. They, Adam and Eve, stand nude, arms spread, as a red winged angel with flaming hair appears above them, with the sun shining stridently over the entire scene. It is yet another nod to the non-mystical origins of the tarot. They are the original lovers, and so stand as archetype for the card.

In the Rider-Waite booklet, the keywords for the Lovers are as follows: attraction, love, beauty, trials overcome (upright,) failure, and foolish designs (reversed.)

In Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven’s Prophecy deck, she depicts the Lovers as two stags, one white, one black, with their horns locked and their heads together, not unlike a yin yang symbol. She writes,

“Nine times out of ten when this card appears in a reading, the person I’m reading for blushes and blusters. “I have no love life!” insists the embarrassed recipient. And often, they’re right. This card can represent actual lovers, and when uit does, the love pictured is epic - the pairing of two souls so complementary that it seems obvious that some greater power has designed them for each other. But it can also represent a duality inside you, and the complementary pairing it refers to is your inner self and your outer self. Just like in a great love affair, everything is perfect when both sides of you are working in harmony. And just like in a great love affair, the world crumbles when you war with yourself. ...The card speaks to the power of wholeness and knowing yourself. It also represents a pair of lovers who are greater together than they are individually.”

They keywords she gave for the Lovers card are love, pairing, duality, and values.


Tomorrow - The Chariot


***TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be 89 days long, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that I will walk you through the steps of interpretation for. After the first 89 day session ends, we will start over with a one day break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round. ***

Tarot Of The Day June 25 2018 - Day 7: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Hierophant

Tarot Of The Day June 25 2018 - Day 7: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Hierophant

I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the seventh session follows.

The Hierophant  in the Rider-Waite deck is another enthroned man, and visually looks very much like the previous card, the Emperor. He sits in a stone throne, flanked by two pillars, but this time is inside a building - probably a Church - and not out in nature. Before him, as he holds his scepter, and raises two fingers above his head, two followers with bald pates appear to kneel. One of them wears a robe embellishes with roses, the other with lilies., and between them are two crossed keys.  If this looks familiar, know that the Hierophant card was once known as The Pope card!

The Rider Waite booklet listes the following keywords for the Hierophant: marriage alliance, captivity, servitude, mercy and goodness, inspiration, the man to whom the querent has recourse (upright,) society, good understanding, concord, over-kindness, and weakness (reversed.)

Maggie Stiefvater depicts the Hierophant as a lit lantern with 7 lights surrounding it in the darkness. Before I look at her description, I feel that perhaps the reason she chose a lantern to depict  the Hierophant is because the Hierophant, once the Pope, is the guiding light, morally and spiritually.

Let’s see what she said:

“It seems strange that religion - structure, rules, tradition - is the external manifestation of something as nebulous as spirituality, but perhaps that’s the only way we humans can cope with the possibility of something too big and too other to contain inside ourselves. The Hierophant is the external form of the High Priestess, and so, as expected, often represents religion or a person positioned as a religious authority. He is all about upholding the conventional establishment. Not just upholding, but growing it. The art on the card shows the spiritual glow of the soul safely contained in a lantern, safely contained in a way that makes it easier to pass from hand to hand. “

Maggie’s keywords for the Hierophant are teacher, religion, and conformity.

Tomorrow - The Lovers

***TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be 89 days long, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that I will walk you through the steps of interpretation for. After the first 89 day session ends, we will start over with a one day break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round. ***

Tarot Of The Day June 24 2018 - Day 6: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Emperor

Tarot Of The Day June 24 2018 - Day 6: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Emperor

I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the sixth session follows.

The Emperor card as seen in the Rider-Waite deck shows a bearded man with white hair, seated at the center of the card on a large stone throne, wearing armor, with red robes covering most of the armor, holding a scepter in his right hand, and an orb in his left, wearing a crown.  Behind the throne, mountains can be seen, and at the foot of the mountains a river runs. This is the same water as seen in the previous cards starting with the High Priestess. The throne is decorated with ram’s heads, as does the red robe around his shoulders.

The Rider-Waite booklet offers the following keywords for the Emperor: stability, power, aid, protection, a great person, conviction, reason (upright,) benevolence, compassion, credit, confusion to enemies, obstruction, and immaturity (reversed.)

In the Raven’s Prophecy deck, the Emperor card is depicted as a sword in a stone, with a crown transfigured by the sword. It immediately evokes the story of the king who got his throne by being the one worthy enough to draw the sword from the stone.

Maggie Stiefvater writes about the Emperor: “This is a very kingly card. All of the starry-eyed stereotypes that we apply to say, King Arthur, are present in the Emperor. He’s fair, just , stern, structured. He lives by the book...because he wrote the book. Just as the Empress has used her fruitful nature to create a world of living things, the Emperor has created a world for himself, too, and it’s a world of rules and regulations, a world where everything goes right because there are dire consequences for when things go wrong….The Emperor’s kingdom is a safe and efficient one if you’re willing to play by his rules, and most people are, because the rules are always there for a reason. Although the Emperor is not afraid to punish wrongdoers, he doesn’t believe in being arbitrarily punitive. “

Maggie’s keywords for the Emperor are kingship, structure, authority, and traditional.

I like to describe the Emperor card for my classes as a character not unlike, ‘Judge Dredd’ from the comics and movies. “I AM the law.” he states, leaning heavily on being right because the law says he is, whereas the Hierophant, our next card, is right because his moral code says he is.The Emperor is not without flaws, but he is strong and considers the law before making a decision - even if the law doesn't agree with his personal moral set.

Tomorrow - The Hierophant

***TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be 89 days long, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that I will walk you through the steps of interpretation for. After the first 89 day session ends, we will start over with a one day break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round. ***

What happened to Tarot of the Day Day 5?

What happened to Tarot of the Day, Day 5?


Yeahh, Day 5 was a practicum day, and I shared my blog post from March 11 last year, so no need to put it here. Onwards to Day 6, which SHOULD have posted yesterday, but I was so busy it didn't happen. there will be two full lessons posted today to catch us up.

Tarot Of The Day June 22 2018 - Day 4: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Empress

Tarot Of The Day June 22 2018 - Day 4: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Empress

I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the fourth session follows.

At first glance, the Empress card is quite similar to the High Priestess in the Rider-Waite deck; a woman seated is the main focus of the card. However, where the High Priestess card is blue, white, black and grey, the Empress card is full of warm color. She is seated slightly to the left of the card, and although she is facing the viewer, her body is pointed away a bit. Her seat is made up of a pile of cushions resting on a stone block, on a stone platform in a field of wheat, with a forest in the distance behind her the stream that was at the feet of the High Priestess appears coming out of the treeline, cascading toward the Empress. She wears a crown bearing 12 stars, and her robes are white with a print that echoes the pomegranates of the tapestry behind the High Priestess. She carries a golden scepter, and at her side is a stone heart with the symbol of Venus carved in to it.

The Rider-Waite booklet provides the following keywords for The Empress: fruitfulness, initiative, action, long days, clandestine, the unknown, difficulty, doubt, ignorance (upright) and light, truth, the unraveling of involved matters, public rejoice, and vacillation (reversed.)

In some decks, the Empress is portrayed as pregnant, and there some discussion on whether the Rider-Waite empress is pregnant - her robes are loose. 

I often read the Empress as a mother nature card, about fertility and the harvest, and all of the wisdom that goes along with motherhood. To me she represents the cycles of life, and in reverse, the disruption of all of that. Sterility, poverty, and destruction.

In Maggie Stiefvater’s Raven’s Prophecy deck, she provides the keywords Mother Nature, fruitfulness, creation, and sensuous, and depicts it as simply a forest. She writes: 

“I chose a forest for the art on the Empress card because the Empress is often depicted as the Earth Mother. Indeed, she is the perfect mother archetype. She is loving, caring, and fruitful. It is not that everything she touches becomes fertile; it is that her fertility has created everything. The Empress is firmly fixed in this world, unlike the airy, moonlit High Priestess, and she adores everything good this world has to offer. Beauty, love, plenty, touch, sight - she is in love with all physical things.”



***TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be 89 days long, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that I will walk you through the steps of interpretation for. After the first 89 day session ends, we will start over with a one day break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round. ***

TOMORROW: The Emperor
I LOVE audience/student/ peer reader participation! Please feel free to follow along, comment with your perspectives and questions!

TOTD June 21 2018 - Day 3: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The High Priestess

TOTD June 21 2018 - Day 3: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The High Priestess

I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the third session follows.

TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be 89 days long, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that I will walk you through the steps of interpretation for. After the first 89 day session ends, we will start over with a one day break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round.

Today, we will go over the High Priestess. With her, we enter a group of 4 cards that to some may seem to be almost duplicates of one another: The High priestess and  Empress, and the Emperor and Hierophant. You will want to look closely as we progress through these four cards and learn to make the distinction between the two ‘couples’.

The Rider-Waite deck shows the high priestess dressed in blue/white robes, sitting in the center of the card on a stone block, holding a scroll marked TORA in her hands (either the Jewish Torah or an anagram of TAROT where the final letter is left unseen, but more likely the Jewish Torah due to the connection between the tarot and the Kabbalah), a white solar cross at her breast, wearing a crown similar to the triple goddess symbol, but is the Moon Crown of Egyptian Goddess Isis. On either side of her are two lotus, topped pillars, the left one is black stone with a B carved in to it (B is for Boaz, signifying ‘negation’), and the right one is grey/white stone with a J carved into it (J is for Jachin, meaning ‘beginning’. Spread between the pillars and behind the Priestess is a tapestry showing a garden of pomegranates and other foliage, and behind it are the waters of enlightenment and knowledge. The priestesses’ robes become a stream at her feet, and a crescent moon rests in that stream. This card is simply loaded with some very heavy symbolism and opn references to a lot of stuff. We will address more of this later on.

The booklet offers these keywords for The High Priestess: secrets, mystery, the future as yet unrevealed, the woman who interests the querent if male, the querent if female, silence, tenacity, wisdom, science (upright,) and passion, moral or physical ardor, conceit, and surface knowledge (reversed.)

The High Priestess is often seen as the guardian or gatekeeper of knowledge, one who you must path along your path to reach enlightenment. When she turns up in a non-signifier role, I sometimes read her as indicative of something the person I’m reading for is seeking, or something that is being hidden from them.

In the Raven’s prophecy deck, Maggie Stiefvater drew a hand holding a looking glass. The background is either a night sky or a dark room lit with candles or magic, and in the looking glass is a cloudy sky. She writes:

“In many ways, the High Priestess represents the art of tarot to me. She is a mystical force - unknowable, unfathomable, spiritual, and mysterious. Her secrets are not secret because of deception but  rather because they are mystical, arcane, and hidden until you are wise enough to discover them inside yourself as well.    ..the mirror on the card reflects you, but what you glimpse inside the glass is far more than your physical form. You are ever so much more than your body or your mind.

When the High Priestess appears in your reading, it’s a sign that you need to step away from external concerns and look inside. Embrace your unconscious.”

The keywords Maggie provides for the High Priestess are spirituality, holiness, dreaming, and unconscious. She does not offer reverse meanings, writing, "Some tarot readers read cards with slightly different meanings (often negative) if they appear upside down when laid out in a reading. I'm not going to go over reversed card meanings in this book; I find the cards carry all the nuance they need without complicating it even more with additional definitions to memorize."

Maggie’s interpretation is appropriate to its traditional role in the tarot, however, as we will learn later on, removes most of the many layers of symbolism and meaning hidden within the Rider-Waite deck’s illustrations.

TOMORROW: The Empress
I LOVE audience/student/ peer reader participation! Please feel free to follow along, comment with your perspectives and questions!

TOTD June 20 2018 - Day 2: The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Magician

#TOTD June 20 2018 - Day 2

The Raven’s Prophecy Deck - The Magician

I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the second session follows.

Hello everyone! As I mentioned yesterday, TOTD will cover the entire 78 card Raven’s Prophecy Deck alongside the Rider-Waite deck for comparison. In order to not completely burn out, this course of lessons will be extended from 78 days to 89 days, so that every Saturday I can break the lessons up by doing a practicum lesson. Practicum lessons will take the form of a layout or spread that will walk through the steps of interpretation for. After the firs 89 day session ends, we will start over with a one day break for a poll to be done to see what deck everyone wants to see next round.

Now, on to today’s lesson! Today we are discussing the Magician. Although it is numbered 1, it is the second card in the traditional tarot deck, as the fool is numbered 0. In the Rider-Waite booklet, the Fool is listed AFTER the World card, but still numbered 0. As you explore the tarot, you will come across a few instances of difference in ordering the Major Arcana. Most decks place the Fool first in the deck and their booklets because the Majors are also often referred to as ‘The Fool’s Journey’, referencing his path from his tabula rasa state of innocence, to the The World card and reaching enlightenment. This also references the path of Kabbalah - but that is an entirely different lesson for much later on down the road for us.

Back to the Magician. As you can see in the photo below, the traditional imagery for the card depicts the mage at work, his wand in his hand, raised up to draw down power, the first finger of his other hand pointing down to direct the power. On the altar before himare the symbols of the four Houses of the Minor Arcana: Wand, Cup, Sword, and Coin (or Pentacle) - all representative of the elements (Wands = Fire, Cups = Water, Swords = Air, and Coins/Pentacles = Earth) and all also easily recognisable as the tools of the occult (Wand, Cup = cauldron, Sword = athame, Pentacle.) he is surrounded by roses and lilies, and above his head the infinity symbol floats to mark the infinite potential.

In the Rider-Waite booklet, the keywords listed for the magician are (upright) skill, diplomacy, address, sickness, pain, loss, disaster, self confidence, will, and (reversed) physician, magus, mental illness, disgrace, disquiet.

Although not listed in the booklet, this card is most commonly interpreted to indicate assertion, communication, focus, and strength of will.

Maggie Stiefvater’s illustration of the Magician distills the entire scene down to depict a right hand with the symbols of the Minor Arcana and the infinity symbol either carved or tattooed into it.. To me, I see the hand as the greatest tool given to humanity,other than the brain, and we use it to direct the flow of energy around us. By carving the symbols into the hand, it becomes the tools represented, cementing its infinite potential.

Maggie writes in Illuminating the Prophecy: “The Magician is no illusionist - he’s the real deal. I have always loved the magician card, as he is sort of an unsinkable ship; you can’t keep someone down if they are always capable of building themselves back up again. The art on the card depicts a hand tattooed with all of the symbols of the tarot deck, and this is because the magician has skill in all of the suits. The infinity symbol illustrates how his command over all of these suits comes from something outside him…”

Maggie’s keywords for the Magician are ability, versatility, control, and connections.She does not offer reverse meanings, writing, "Some tarot readers read cards with slightly different meanings (often negative) if they appear upside down when laid out in a reading. I'm not going to go over reversed card meanings in this book; I find the cards carry all the nuance they need without complicating it even more with additional definitions to memorize."

The Magician card is often representative of a male figure in your life, depending on where it appears in a layout, and more often than not seems to pop as the card representing the querent in a reading. When I see it outside of the signifier roles, it often is a reference for a need for communication or assertiveness in a situation - but of course every card must be read within the context of the layout, and in elation the cards that come before and after it.

TOMORROW: The High Priestess

I LOVE audience/student/ peer reader participation! Please feel free to follow along, comment with your perspectives and questions!

Tarot of the Day - Introduction to the Raven's Prophecy Deck and The Fool

I have begun the creation of an 89 day tarot course in a group I am a member of on Facebook ('A Kaleidoscope of Magical Perceptions' is the name of the group, please feel free to request membership - it is full of fun people and really great posts about all manner of topics) and I thought I would cross post the information here to this blog as well. Once the initial 89 days of the course have passed, it will start over using a different tarot deck. The text of the first session follows.

Tarot of the Day - Introduction to the Raven's Prophecy Deck and The Fool

Well, the poll closed and you all chose the Raven's Prophecy Tarot by Maggie Stiefvater! (If you are wondering about the poll, I did a poll in the group with a list of several of the decks I own that group members were allowed to vote for. The Raven's prophecy deck won! I'm happy because I have barely worked with it yet and it is my most recent deck acquisition, a gift from my son for my birthday!) We will be working our way through the deck, from the Majors all the way through the Four Houses. Since the symbolism and imagery used in the raven's prophecy is quite different from the Rider-Waite deck, commonly accepted as the 'standard' from which most decks are based, I am going to pair this deck with the Rider-Waite in order to compare and contrast, and help, I hope, develop a greater understanding of each card's meaning.

But first, an excerpt from the Raven's Prophecy companion book, 'Illuminating The Prophecy' by the artist and Author, Maggie Stiefvater:

"About the Author

Maggie Stiefvater's life decisions have revolved around her inability to be gainfully employed. Talking to yourself, staring in to space, and coming to work in your pajamas are frowned upon when you're a waitress, calligraphy instructor, or technical editor (all of which she's tried), but are highly prized traits in novelists and artists (she's made her living as one or the other since she was twenty-two). Maggie now lives a surprisingly eccentric life in the middle of nowhere, Virginia, with her charmingly straight-laced husband, two kids, and neurotic dog."

" Chapter 2: About the Theme

...I was writing a series that reveled in Welsh mythology and involved tarot, and what started as a gentle dabble in combining the two as a visual extra for readers exploded quite naturally in to me drawing the entire deck. I was shocked to discover that the challenge of illustrating tarot was not dissimilar to writing a novel. Each piece of art was an agreeable puzzle. An opportunity to illustrate a succinct metaphor, to create a visual shortcut for the meaning of the card. I also found that the imagery of Welsh mythology paired beautifully with traditional tarot visual. I borrowed the curious and cunning Welsh ravens to symbolize our logical, conscious minds and emphasized the traditional fire of the wands to represent creative force throughout the entire deck.

It took no time at all before it became a deck about being an artist.

I'm biased, of course. As a storyteller, a musician, and an artist, the push-pull relationship between logic and creativity has always fascinated me. So much of tarot is about balancing opposing forces in your life; it only took a bit of a nudge to make it about balancing our creative and logical selves."
I bought this deck because it spoke to me on a base level - the instantly recognizable texture of the chalk pastels, the raw energy and the simple images.

Together, we will walk along the paths of The Fool, The Wands, The Cups, the Swords and The Coins, and explore this deck, beginning with The Major Arcana and The Fool:

Pictured below, I have laid out both of the Fool cards from the Raven's Prophecy and the Rider-Waite decks.

The classical or traditional depiction of the Fool is a youth, male but androgynous. He appears to be walking towards a precipice, with his belongings over his shoulder, a rose in one hand, and his face turned up to the sky. A dog gambols beside him, and can be interpreted as either trying to warn him of the fall ahead, or to be dancing joyfully alongside him on his journey.

The R-W keywords for the Fool card are (in the upright position) folly, mania, extravagance, intoxication, delirium, frenzy, bewrayment, (and in the reversed position) negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, apathy, nullity, and vanity.

Typically, this card is about a person who is setting out on their adventure. They are a blank slate, journeying toward enlightenment (The World card.)

In the Raven's Prophecy deck, we see a feminine youth, back lit by the sun, arms outstretched, seemingly ready to face anything that comes at her. Maggie writes, " Childlike and optimistic, the fool ambles curiously toward whatever piques his or her interest, much like the pages you'll meet in the Minor Arcana later. the Fool's unburdened by anything weighty like experience or uncertainty, and the Fool will cheerfully amble into great adventure or off a cliff with precisely the dame naivete. Depending on where the card appears in the reading, sometimes it means that you're starting over again, and that you need to channel that youthful idealism, that fearless confidence that comes from having never been hurt. But it could also be a warning: open your eyes before you walk in to a fire pit; you know better!"

Maggie chose the keywords fearlessness, folly, innocence, and potential to describe the card, and offers no reversals; in fact she writes:

"Some tarot readers read cards with slightly different meanings (often negative) if they appear upside down when laid out in a reading. I'm not going to go over reversed card meanings in this book; i find the cards carry all the nuance they need without complicating it even more with additional definitions to memorize."

Personally, I do use reversed meanings when I do readings, but that has everything to do with how I learned the tarot. Every reader has their own personal rules for reading the tarot, but, as I often tell my students, there are no set in stone rules to tarot. there is a defined structure - 78 cards divided in to 22 Major and 56 Minor Arcanum - but when it comes to interpretation and use, there are no real rules.

I tend to see the Fool card as symbolic of the place a person may be on their personal journey or path, unless the card appears in a position that is designated as significant of a person, in which case it represents, to me, their current outlook or perspective towards life and their path.

TOMORROW: The Magician

I LOVE audience/student/ peer reader participation! Please feel free to follow along, and comment with your perspectives and questions!

Contextual Meaning of Tarot

So, I just got home from the tarot class/group I lead most Saturday mornings. and a small point I made as we were going through our readings today using the layout pictured below was about how we read/interpret the card positions themselves, not just how we interpret the cards. So I'm gonna go over one of the readings, the cards that were laid out and the positions the were in, and how there are a couple different ways to understand the card based on the context AND interpretation of the position it is in, in the layout. So - the layout was a 6 card spread, with the following contextual meanings for each position: 1. What I want. 2. What is motivating me. 3. What I need to release. 4. Universal guidance. 5. Universal goal. 6. Changes for success. Now, to most people using a layout, these contextual meanings are locked in at face value. And before you lay any cards out, they are, for the most part, right. These are the ‘rules’ for this particular game of cards. However, as soon as you lay out the cards and begin your interpretation of THEIR meanings within the context of the ‘rules’ of the layout, those contextual meaning can begin to not make any sense at all. For instance, in today’s group, one of the readers drew the following cards for this spread: 1. 10 of Wands (oppression, burden, trial, ruin, disruption, failure, limitations, restrictions, and holding back) 2. King of Cups, in Reverse (violence, scandal, injustice, and weakness) 3. The Mage (will, communication, inherent ability, memory, clarity of thought and feeling, organization, invention, and originality) 4. Knight of Swords, in Reverse (extravagance, braggadocio, and romance) 5. 9 of Coins (gain, prudence, benefit, balance, order, organization, and unification) 6. 2 of Wands (virtue, cooperation, partnership, integrity, consistency, and congruency) So, when reading those cards and their meanings within the context of the layout, it may not make sense; especially if you read the ‘rules’ very literally. A good example here is the 3rd rule, “What I need to release.” Nearly every person in my group today read that as “What I need to let go of/get rid of,”and to be quite honest when you see that the spread itself is titled “Doubts and Fears” it goes to reason that the 3rd card is meant to, most likely, represent the fears or doubts one is meant to let go of. But when you look at the cards laid out, it doesn't make sense to let go of what the Mage symbolizes. In fact, for this person in particular, these are things they need to express more fully. At roadblocks like these, it is good to revisit the ‘rule’ and read it less literally. Consider that ‘release’ might not mean ‘to let go of’, here, for this person, but actually ‘to let out’. When you read that card from the perspective that this person needs to express these things, to assert their will, to be more communicative, to use their inherent abilities, be more organized, more inventive, have better clarity of thought, feeling,and memory, then the reading as a whole becomes clear. All of the cards in a layout create a context of their own, and demand interpretation using that as well as the ‘rules’ context. We must not, when using spreads and layouts like these, become slave to the literal or more obvious meaning of the ‘rules’, or our readings can become disjointed quite quickly.

Below you'll find the Doubts and Fears Layout we used today, found on Pinterest, and credited to pennilesspagan.com.