Page of Quills (swords), Knight of Ink (wands) and the High Priestess
Page of Quills in this deck is taken from Sense and Sensibility and represents wit, charm, chatter, and skillful wordplay.
Knight of Ink in this deck is taken from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and talks about making your own way, going against the grain, and being reckless at times (reversed meaning).
The High Priestess is taken from King Lear and represents calm, inner knowledge and expression of divine feminine understanding.
For me all of these cards have more than one figure, engaged in some kind of action involving communication with each other. There is a sense of movement, of pairings, of testing and asking. In each set of cards, there’s a sort of parry back and forth between two figures- exchange both positive, negative and supportive.
In terms of meaning, there’s a lot of interconnectedness with knowledge and communication- sometimes rash and not well planned, but still. These cards are also court and major arcana cards, or what I think of as ‘people’ cards, because of their figures.
Together, I’d read them all as ‘Be careful who you start shooting your mouth off to, especially if it’s a female in a power position because that’s probably not going to go how you’d like it to.’
What do you think? How would you read these cards?
The Literary Tarot started as a Kickstarter campaign (as many indie tarot decks do). It promised to blend classic stories with tarot imagery, and it was being run by a nonprofit, so there was a promise to fund educational programs in underserved areas. All sounds good!
The campaign ended up taking 2 or slightly more years to fulfill, and instead of having something that backers were under the impression would be backer-exclusive, you were able to purchase it at a major book retailer here in Canada, and for a brief moment in time, you were able to purchase it for much less than what backers who had waited 2 years and needed to pay shipping costs that seemed inflated, had paid for it. I ended up snagging it this way- it was on super discount at Chapters/Indigo, and I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I had also wanted to back initially, but I think I missed the window for pledges.
Now the box for this deck is pretty though slightly oversized. The cards are standard tarot card-sized. The gilding is a little too bright on some cards, or maybe some cards are too dark, so it looks a bit garish. The gilding on the side comes off on your hands when you shuffle, though it doesn’t seem to be a large amount lost.
The cards are overly rigid-too thick- and difficult to shuffle with. The gilding also had some of them stuck together, so I had to be careful not to damage them by prying them apart. The link to stories and the help you can find in the guidebook is lovely, the illustrations are, for the most part, beautiful. I’m curious as to how this deck is going to work for me, so stay tuned for the challenge to see what we get!
Now is the time, this is the hour, show me what this spell will empower. Card: 10 of cups Rx: Helping to heal family rifts, issues with home and parental strife. This spell will help to make family connections stronger.
I just picked up this bad boy after checking out a favourite discount book website I like to use. This is a Canadian website that sells discounted books, often acquired from other retailers who have failed to sell all their copies. It’s kind of like a second hand store or Winners, in that they have the stock they have at that moment and when it’s gone, it’s gone. They often don’t refill or restock items, so it’s limited quantities at very low prices. There is also usually some damage to the book or item you purchase, but it’s usually nothing too extreme. I’ll show you what I mean. The website is called bookoutlet.ca and I believe there’s one for the US too.
The damage mentioned-just the barcode with a mark
This deck drew me in with its pretty colours and Hallowe’en/Day of the Dead theme- I don’t really have a seasonal deck for Hallowe’en, though I do have a Kickstarter with one that I’ve backed- it’s nowhere near shipping and production yet, so when I saw this at the low low price of 15 bucks, I grabbed it.
This deck is pretty big (bigger than your standard tarot cards, but not too big for my little hands), and the corners are sharp. The paper quality is ok- pretty standard for mass-market decks. It’s not great, but it should hold up. The cards aren’t very flexible but they’re also not too thick and rigid that you can’t shuffle it well. I did find the cards seem to stick together a bit but the more I use it, I think the easier this will become.
In terms of imagery, it sticks pretty closely to the standard RWS, with the addition of more saturated candy colours and sugar skulls everywhere (I mean it is called the sugar skull tarot so..). There are a few cards that I would say are different enough to make note of.
There is a lot of cowboy/wild west type cards throughout, which I find quite interesting because they help me to mentally make connections to the meanings of the cards that I haven’t seen before. I find this particularly true of the court cards. Compare these two Kings of Cups.
We have much more for me to draw on at first glance- a distinguished gentleman and also a doctor, surrounded by tonics and tinctures to help him in his craft. Emotionally strong and independent, he is able to care for his community in many different ways. I can read much more into this King of Cups than I can in the more traditional Morgan Greer version.
Overall, it’s a nice deck, and at this price point I’m very happy I picked it up. If you’re into brightly coloured decks with a kind of settlers, Mexican theme, then I would go for it. I don’t know how culturally appropriate it is, or if it’s just shilling out Latin imagery to make a quick buck. The illustrator is from Mexico City, so that’s something in its favour 🙂
If you have this deck, how do you like it? If you don’t have this deck, would you want to purchase it?
My total attention, my focus, and to be attended to 100%. Or my pain is looking for the reversed side of this card, which is to be let got and released. I’m not sure.
I’m sorry I’m so snotty. Every possible tree is in bloom and my nose is kicking off- it started on my walk this morning and it seems to have just gotten worse as the day has progressed. LAWD.
Dandelion/Healing/Perseverance: How can I use my inner strength to help me in healing old wounds?
Card: King of Cups: I can weild my emotions and my sense of emotional strength- I think of this as the boundaries I’ve learned to create and hold- I can use these to help me heal the parts of me that still hurt.
Bees/Community/Hard Work: Where could I put in more effort to help my community?
Card: Ace of Cups Reversed: I can help to ease arguments, create a middle ground or a go between for people who need it. I can provide a safe spce for those who feel sadness.
Garnet/Self Empowerment: What do I need in order to foster a greater sense of self empowerment?
Card:Page of Rods: New fire, new energy, new actions that are maybe not always completely thought out, but the passion is there- maybe a bonk on the head too.
Swallow/Love/Loyalty: Where do I need to more openly display my love and loyalty to others?
Card: Queen of Pentacles Reversed: I can show my family that I care about them by taking care of my side of the chores and ground myself in my home- this is something that’s lacking, and something I can do in my parents home and in my own, moving forwards.
Malachite/Abundance: How can I better use intention to bolster the abundance in my life moving forward?
Card: 10 of Pentacles: I can be happy with what I’ve achieved and look back on my thoughts and intentions with thanks and gratitude. If I am thankful for what I have already, more will come my way. I can learn to be grateful.
Goat/Overcoming Obstacles: How can I best overcome obstacles before me at this time?
Card: The Magician: I can do it myself! The way to overcome them is within myself 🙂 Nice.
Primrose/Young Love: How can I add more of the exuberance of young love into my life?
Card: Queen of Cups: I can bring that emotion, or rather the emotionally matured sense of love, nuring, and good hearted kindness to myself and to others wherever I can.
What I’m going to show you is an activity that takes place monthly on a really awesome Tarot Discord Server, that I would highly recommend tarot readers of all levels and ages check out. It’s a very warm and welcoming space, with tonnes of resources and people who at various stages and levels of tarot knowledge. It’s alphabet mafia friendly, and you have the opportunity to virtually interact with lots of cool folks. It’s called Tarotholics and can be found easily in the search for server function.
Once a month, a card is chosen and you’re encouraged to find different representations of that card in the decks you own, and compare the imagery. What this does (quite nicely) is show you, the reader, how the images vary from deck to deck and how that can impact the nuances you can find in the meaning of each card.
As the fool was the card discussed this week, I’ll show you my thoughts on some Fools of my own! But first, let’s look at the traditional RWS depiction and some more traditional meanings.
The Fool traditionally shows a young person, walking with a small animal (usually a dog) about to wander off a cliff, happily and heedlessly. Often it looks something like this:
Upright this card usually represents new beginnings, new journeys, a free-spirited person or the concept of being a free spirit, and taking risks. Reversed this card can represent being not ready to take a big step or a big leap of faith, taking too many needless and senseless risks (like walking off a cliff), or holding back from achieving a new beginning. (For more information, check out the link at the beginning of this description).
Here are a few different Fool cards from a few decks I own. I’ve also included some of my thoughts on the images of each and how they could theoretically impact a reading. I’d love to hear your thoughts on my interpretations and how The Fool in your deck(s) may be different from mine!
Walking Mediation Tarot: Freshly fallen snow, the silence of the woods in the middle of winter. There is a sense of new paths carved in the snow, but a warning not to act without thinking things through. No one wants to be alone in the woods in the winter- lost with no idea where you are or where the nearest warm safe space is. I can see innocence and the search for a new path. I would read this more as a stronger warning to look before beginning something new.
Tarot for All Ages: Strong RWS imagry here, but I like the new growing white rose wrapped around the staff of the fool to reinforce that sense of newness, first growth, uncertainity. I would read this one as more about heedless exploration- go and explore but be careful where you may end up!
Transient Light Tarot: A figure freefalling into space, with growth and perhaps beauty in the eye of the beholder. A key hangs just outside of your grasp, but it’s there for you- you can grab it if you find your way back on a safer path. I read this one as slower, less speed and less urgency. Things fall slowly in space, not like off a cliff. I can see nods to beauty (the flower in the eye) here. I think I read this one as more like the power is within you and you know it, but you can’t quite see it the way you should. There’s something blocking your logic, so be careful but you’ll get there in the end.
Now what about you? What does the Fool look like in your deck? I’d love to see it! Feel free to tell me about it in the comments!
Madame Starbeam's Tarot Journey 