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!
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!
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