April 23 Dewey’s readathon

Will be posting here for all the little games

Start-up poll:

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?

I am in northern Sweden and we have a cool but sunny day today.
2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

Right now it is Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand
3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

My home made earl grey coockies with a cup of tea. This yeah I didn’t go wild with candy but I do have some coockies and yoghurt and strawberries and my parents who live next house over is having some BBQ so I will sneak by and grab something from them.
4) Tell us a little something about yourself!

I live alone with 2 cats in a big apartment with a balcony and a garden. I love books and tarot. I am also bipolar which means I really need to watch myself when it comes to sleeping or it will have some dire consequenses.
5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today?

I have learnt how to listen to books since last time. It is actually a thing that takes practice but it will really be nice for tired eyes around hour 12 or so. 

Pin Point

Herons are cautious, they will rather flee then fight but if needed their sharp beak can do a lot of damage. As a bird they symbolises swords and air and just look at that sharp pointed beak. To the point. Exact.

The deck is the Hidden Realms by Julia Jeffrey and Barbara Moore. (the image I found online since my camera is dead)

This deck is very beautiful and emotional. At first glance it is just a bunch of portraits and pretty people, but they all convey emotions and carry a lot of meaning, at least for me. The Aces are the prettiest, they are all animals.

This week has been rough for me. I did go see a doctor on monday and I did get a diagnosis (BPD type 2) and will start the tests and check up for new meds soon, most likely after the holidays. After beeing like a zombie for months I am actually on the turning point now. Things look brigther, I got more energy which is nice for the x-mas. Sucks to be down and out for such a merry holiday.

Fire Serpent

This card made me first think of the word Kundalini, yes, I read about it but really it is not anything I am familiar with, for me it is just a phrase, a concept that has nothing to do with me. So I have to look deeper.

I see red, fire, flames, a wand that is a limb, a snake but it is not living, it is consumed, eaten up. The energy overwhelming, too hot to handle. Am I the snake/wand or am I the flames? I am Fire & Serpent.

I am also burnt out. I know that this depression is just the ‘resting phase’ and that in a few days I will stay awake for days and nights on end, being over active, baking, chatting, writing, cleaning, creating. But at this moment, this very minute, this is one fricking dead stick and a fire.

Deck is Night Sun

Night Sun- No Sun

Night Sun is published by LoScarabeo in 2014. It is a dark, lush, glowing and moody deck.

My card for today was 3 Swords. Reading the LWB the word that stood out for me was ‘Departure’ I always seen 3 of swords as a time to cut something off, in a good way, painful but needed. Like pulling out a bad tooth.

But what happens when the part you cut out is as big as the part left? Where do you go? I am left with just the knifes.

Tides

The Moon from Chrysalis tarot. Very pretty, but almost too overembelished at first sight. It annoys me that I can’t see the text written on the moon but then I check the LWB and she states that the moon is a message just to you. It is up to me to fill in the words here. And the human on the island, is she happy or desperate to get off it?

The tide is out, the water is low and the moon is not full. But it is changing right now. Someone will listen to me but only if I can hear myself first and be clear with what I need.

Last night I put out a plea on Facebook, more like a whine really, but friends and family gathered around and are eager to help me in a hands on way with the most practical things. Thank you!

Hanging in

Chrysalis tarot have these portals through which we can see the courts. Here in the upper corners is a flower and a dragonfly. Both oh so delicate and short-lived. Despite this, live they DO. Every spring sees new flowers and new dragonflies. It is a precarious life but they bring sweetness to ours.

The acrobat is a star and her companian, the monkey sets her off as one even more. For the monkey swinging high over the ground from limb to limb comes natural, for us, not so much. The acrobat needs a sharpness, a honed skill, a constant awake and flexible mind and body to do the same. She is not just going through the motions, it may not look like it, but she is hanging on for dear life but never letting it show.

Life is so fragile, yet so strong.

Bear with me

The spirals are my favorite suit in this deck (using the Chrysalis tarot this week, look for the link in yesterdays post)

During my more pagan years I went looking for my ‘totem’ animals and the bear is one of them. Now if I were to meet a big bear out in the woods I know that I will have to either play dead and still be a little chewed on, or hope there is a car or a house nearby. Bears are fierce protectors. This one here has the keyword Assertion as in ‘standing my ground’

For me the idea of personal space is vital to my well-being. I don’t like others being too close, my home is my castle and all that. Yet I often invite guests over. But I am also happy when they leave.  Perhaps sometimes my assertion of personal space is really holding me back. Could it be that this bear needs to open the door a little more as to not be all alone when winter comes.

Winter is here by the way. Plenty of snow outside and the days are dark now.

Chrysalis Tarot

I am going back to work with a new deck each week for the next year. I missed doing it and I miss ed connecting with the people I did it with over at AT forum.

Anyday now the kickstarter package will come with Tarot fundamentals books + 4 new decks. But until then I picked out a neglected deck I bought on a whim earlier this year.

Chrysalis tarot. It is colourful and pretty, like illustrations to a book of fairytales. It is also very much out of my style. A bit too sweet and cute. Some cards I really love, others feel silly. The LWB is quite ridiculus to be perfectly honest.

This was my card for today. The pilgrim is sure loaded with goods. For a while I even thought she carried the llama on her back. She makes me think of those old time traders, moving from town to town selling fabric, shoes, seeds or whatever else was in need. The scrolls are swords in this deck so perhaps what she is really trying to trade is information, she brings news from one town to the next. As miles and time adds up so the stories will transform like the butterfly. She does have a sturdy staff to lean on and a lantern to light her way when she needs it though.

Oh while I am here I want to mentioned this book I just read called ‘Some kind of fairytale’ by Graham Joyce. It is contemporary fantasy but more then that it is a novel about family, memory and what time does to us. Read it!

The Lovers

Being a grumpy old spinster I never felt a real affinity to The Lovers and I don’t really see it as a card of ‘Choices’. The Tarot is filled with cards about choices, you mean to tell me there are only 1 card about romance and it is not The Lovers? I don’t think so…
However Love can be a lot. As for choices, sometimes we make choices between who to love, how to love, how many to love, how long to love something and how hard.
I feel like I am standing outside of this card, like I am not letting it in. Sometimes I wish I had the butterflies, the passion, the connection, but I guess I made the choice to NOT be a Lover.

Some of my favorite Lovers cards are from the Mary-El and the Gill tarot

The Gill is rather traditional but the Mary-El is just shimmering! It is red and warm with passion, the background being a labia, almost obscene for the prude. Both cards picture what I feel is the important thing in the card, Love of the heart in all ways, fleshy as well as spiritual and regulated.
While I some days can miss one kind of love, I am just not the person for the other kind…

Well, hello there!

I just joined a swedish tarot group on Facebook Tarot Sverige: and got reminded that hey, I have a blog and people actually read it. I better update.
I been impatient with my crappy camera but really, that is just excuses, I could take photos with the mobile and post. This ain’t no photographical art site, no need to be so perfect all the time 😀

This month, heck, this year, has been all about Tarot de Marseille for me so I will post a little of what I learn here. Above is a picture of most of my collection of historical decks. So why do I love them so? Most people seem to think they are plain, boring or even ugly. Sure they may be a bit crude since they were originally cut out in a piece of wood. You try and cut out a face in wood and see how easy it is :-p
The pips are just that, a select number of the suits which means that the main difference between 2 och swords and 3 of swords are just that… one would think at least! But look closer and there are a lot of really subtle clues in the images. I sometimes get overwhelmed with the visual input in some decks, there is just too much to take in, I think I prefer to let my eyes and mind roam around a picture and find the little details.
Also is it not amazing that the Majors are still pretty much unchanged since the very first TdMs?
Anyway, more on that later. I decided to write this blog post today cause just this week I was re-reading the book Tarot face to face by Tali Goodwin and Marcus Katz, a friend of mine on Facebook. In this book he gives a really nice ‘spread’ only it is so much more. It is a way of finding the question based on the Tree of Life.

Separate the majors from the minors. Shuffle the majors and pick one card for the issue. Place it in the middle of the table. See where on the Tree of Life it sits. I picked The Lovers and that card connects the sephira 3 and 6. For each there is a question. Now shuffle the minors and pull out first one card, for the number 3 spot and place it above the major card, then pull out another for number 6 and place it below the major. Mine looks like this:

Now the issue for me is one of connectedness, tenderness and simply lack of touch. See how gentle the people in the Lovers touch eachother. I miss that in my life. The question for the card above in sephirot 3 is:
‘What is trying to be constructed?’
The valet de Spe (page of swords) speaks to me of daring yet holding back. Inexperience and self-doubt. He has the sheaf to the sword ready, any minute now he will withdraw and hide his intentions again. I see it as me building up courage and getting rid of my self-doubts. To do that I need to be clear in my intention and do a statement of what I want and be open with it.

The question for sephirot 6 is not really a question but a statement:
‘The beautiful point of harmony’
The 8 of wands look like a shield and the flowers reminded me of parachutes. Protection, gestation are words that came to my mind. 8 months of pregnancy, waiting… My own sweet spot of harmony will take some time to be perfected.

The deck used above is a quirky little deck called Lobardicher tarot Trieste.