A Reading with Tarot of Marseilles

I actually had a successful reading for my husband the other night. Well, technically the question was "What do I need to know about P's. school career?"  He was on the phone at the time leaving a message to schedule testing before the fall semester starts.  I was watching Stargate SG1 and just shuffling my mini Marseilles deck.  The show was paused so he could handle his business on the phone and out of boredom I asked the question and laid out a Celtic Cross.  For a spread I don't like, I sure do use it a lot.

I didn't try to 'read' these cards differently because they aren't a RWS or Thoth clone.  And I didn't just overlay the images of decks I know better, either.  (Except with the outcome card, I didn't do it on purpose - it just happened.) Mostly I just looked up the meanings to see if they matched what I felt the card was saying.

Kurt Cobain & Bohemian Gothic Tarot

It would be way to hard to recount this dream in its entirety. This small part of it is not even the weirdest. 

From my dream journal December 2010:

I have Kurt Cobain and an old boyfriend of mind in a tin can. I am carrying them around an indoor mountain hiking & climbing theme park.  As I hike up the trail I go around a bend to a part that is open air, no ceiling.

Several queues have formed for the mountain climbing part at the end of the trail.  I can see others being helped up an almost 90 degree mountain wall.  There are park employees attached along the wall to make sure everyone gets to the top.  At the top are more employee-helpers pulling people up over the ledge. 

Everyone climbing on the wall-mountain is strapped to one of several long red ropes hanging securely from the top.  This is a safe and easily managed climb, even for someone like me who is terrified of heights.

I can’t carry the guys beyond this point.  I’ll need both hands to climb the wall and even the queue paths are so steep that people are holding on to a metal rail.  I shake the can and tell them they’re going to have to go on their own two feet from here on out.  They don’t seem to want to come out because I’ve really got to shake the can and pound on the bottom to get them to fall out.  I drop a couple drops of water on each of them so they can get back to their full size.

Notes from:

Some key cards from my month with Bohemian Gothic Tarot December 2010

Asking about Kurt Cobain – what did he symbolize in my dream?

IX The Hermit

[like the other random reading notes I didn't write any meanings down at the time. The following meanings are from the companion book to the deck.]

Darker, shadow or more hidden meanings: "Being rejected and isolated by society - Calling someone to the dark side - Being too isolated from others, this could affect your psychological well-being."  

I couldn't help but notice the whole vertical mountain Hermit connection even though the hermit from this deck isn't pictured that way.

From Led Zeppelin IV

Just as an aside: I was more of an Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam fan, myself.  I'd never seen Nirvana live or listen to a whole CD.  Just whatever was played on the radio and TV. When it comes to dead rock stars Jerry Garcia has shown up in my dreams more than once. I wouldn't be surprised to see Janis, Jim Morrison or Jimi Hendrix, but Kurt Cobain??? Yeah, I had to pull a card for that.

Dreams & The Boheiman Gothic

“T” was my best friend turned nemesis back in high school.  If we were to cross paths in real life I think we’d both pretend not to see the other. It would be awkward if we had to speak to each other.

Frankly she was always kind of a stuck up B, and whenever she would show up in a dream she was true to her real life character.  However, around the time of the following reading, I’d been having clusters of dreams where T, (and other random jerkwads from my past) were nice, kindhearted people and wonderful to me in my dreams.

These weren’t just “nice” dreams, but dreams that left me waking up with a euphoric sense of peace. They also had me scratching my head going “WTF?”  So I pulled some cards. These are the notes, pretty much, as I found them.

Some key cards from my month with Bohemian Gothic Tarot December 2010:

Asking what help/usefulness T. was as a symbol in my dreams?  (How is it helpful to me?)

XVIII The Moon – Six of Swords – XVI The Tower 

[I didn't make any interpretive notes at the time.  I'm taking these meanings from the book as I write this post:]

Mental disturbance, confusion; A shift in perspective, a change in the way you see things; Dramatic change

Asking what does T. symbolize in my dreams?

Page of Pentacles

[I didn't write any meanings at the time & I wouldn't know what to put now either.  If I had to guess I'd pick the following from the darker, shadow or more hidden meanings from the companion book]:

Retreating over-much into fantasy

Nothing about this dream was fantastical except how friendly and happy it was.  Maybe I have deep-seeded wishes to be liked by everyone! :)

Notes on Random Readings

I mentioned in a previous post that I’d come across some old notes about tarot and my dreams while getting myself organized.  They were all together in the same place, but I’ll post them separately.  That way I can give a short background explanation and then just post the notes as I wrote them, bad English and all!

I can’t remember if this first one was dream related or not, but it was with the others. At the time I wrote this my deck of the month was Robert Place’s Vampire Tarot and I was also working with the Mystical Lenormand deck.  I wanted to experiment to see how the cards of both decks might work together.

11/11/10 3:23 pm

Q: "Are there any ancestors or other spirits that want to work with me?”

1 Card draw – Vampire Tarot (Robert Place) & Mystical Lenormand

Six of Knives (Swords)

Dracula sails in the Demeter “…going with the flow or being driven by a situation that is beyond one’s control.”

Six of Swords is Mercury in Aquarius

 

Mercury = #1 Rider (9 of Hearts)

Aquarius = #16 Star (6 of Hearts)

Rider + Star = Work done/performed at night MdV [Mario dos Ventos; The Game of Destiny]

Star + Rider = Receiving messages from the spirit world (not directly but via other people). MdV

MdV Macumba meaning: Mystical & Spiritual Card Combinations:

The Rider + The Star = Astral Travel

-         Could also mean a nice pleasant and charming young man wants to speak with me at night! {from the spirit world or in the spirit not a motel! Ha!}

My Tarot Card for the Week - Four of Cups

Four of Cups

Boredom - Overindulgence - Ennui

So we meet again...

From the very first entries of my journal.
From my journal: 3/12/11
Saturday 5:41 pm (at home with the boys)
"I am not having a good evening. P & I both think writing will help with my boredom issues.  But since I'm alone with the boys I'm not just bored, but frustrated and agitated too.  Don't want to fill this book with bitching & whining. So I pulled a card hoping it would give me something constructive to write about." (It did, it was an oracle card, but that's another post.)

Second entry from my journal: 3/14/11 Monday 3:06 pm (Sitting in the preschool parking lot waiting to pick up A.) "This weeks Housewives card is more than fitting. 4 of Cups...so fitting it is scary.
'An intoxicated housewife stumbles back from a foolish binge.  Another glass is offered to her, but she wisely refuses it.  the Four of Cups warns of overindulgence...'

Change,  not escape is the answer.' 

"I've chosen not to write about my almost perpetual boredom or the daytime drinking I've been doing (out of sheer boredom not stress) because I want this journal to be ...*Next day- ran out of time, what I'd wanted to write was that I would focus on the "Change" aspect - wish I could've written it yesterday"

The oracle card I pull on 3/15 was Oya - Change, from the Goddess Oracle!!

Back to the Four of Cups.  I had just asked P to pick me up a pint of Blue Skyy. Then I pulled this damn card. Phooey!  Well, I got the Blue Skyy anyway. :) Pulling this card & reading my old journal entries was a good reminder of how much better writing, this blog, my cards, etc., is at fighting off the boredom than vodka is.  Its fun, but offers a diminishing return.

Psychic Tarot Excersie: Light & Shadow Reading with the Celtic Tarot

(Some how this post got removed, after I'd posted it. I had to edit it before or I'd never have gotten it posted.  I like sharing my readings, but not always my interpretations of them.  They're either too personal or too-long winded.)

I pulled these cards on 4/23/11

I was scratching my head over this one when I first laid out the cards.  The Light & Shadow Reading (chapter 4, page 31 of the book Psychic Tarot) has you draw 2 cards randomly from each suit.  One card represents where I am "strong, highly developed, and natural." The other represents where I "need more nourishment, awareness, or growth."

Strengths:                     Needs:

8 of Swords                   4 of Swords
5 of Cups                       Ace of Cups
7 of Wands                    Ace of Wands
2 of Coins                      Ace of Coins

Okay, this is weird, right?  Seems like the columns should be switched.  What's with all the Aces in the needs column???

Eight of Swords: As an area of strength.An ability to filter superfuous information, and choose where to direct my thoughts?  This feels right to me as a meaing for this card in this postion in general - but I would not have said this was one of my strengths.  I have to work really hard to do that.  I also sometimes take this card as one of self-restrictions; like quitting smoking or other compulsive behaviors.  Such as buying too many tarot and oracle decks! Again not something I, or anyone who knows me, would really consider as a strength of mine.

Four of Swords: As an area in need.
It could be that I need to nurture my ability to recuperate.  I'm pretty good at sitting on my butt and vegging out on the TV & reading bad pulp horror and fantasy fiction, but that's not the kind of regenerative rest the 4 of swords speaks of.  There is no healing in the retreats I take.  Only numbing.  From the book: "Quiet pastimes such as reading or meditation."  I guess I need to nurture those habits more (maybe the pulp fiction isn't so bad after all?).  Definitely taking time to clear my mind after troubles so that I can better handle future difficulties in is an area where I use a lot of growth!

It gets pretty personal from here on, so I’ll just post general keywords for the cards from now on.

Here’s a note I wrote in the margin of my journal, “Feels more like psychotherapy than psychic tarot.”  I looked up psychotherapy on wikipedia when I first wrote this post. Words like interpersonal relationship, dialogue, communication, caught my eye before I’d even read the text.  Those words sound to me like what I want to have with Tarot.  Maybe psychicthearpy is a better word for what I’m doing with this book.  Either way, I’m enjoying it!

5 of Cups: strong, highly developed, & natural
Grief; loss, bereft, regret

Ace of Cups: needing more nourishment, awareness or growth
Emotional force; intuition, intimacy, love

7 of Wands: strong, highly developed, & natural
Valor; strength, aggressive, defiant, convicton

Ace of Wands: needing more nourishment, awareness or growth
Material force; prospering, being practical, proceeding with trust




You can see how this reading would spark a lot of journaling and self reflection!  Here's another note from my journal, "I know I'm not supposed to use the book meanings, but frankly I'm lost without them right now.  I feel that I'm getting a lot personally from the exercises in this book and very quickly developing a working relationship with this deck."

So yeah, I'm cheating.  I'm also not using the type of deck the author recommends either.  My plan was to use Celtic Tarot to start learning how to read other non-scenic pip decks.  Now I'm seeing that this deck was designed to be read more like a RWS.  I'm alright with that.  I think this deck is beautiful.

SPRING EQUINOX - REBIRTH

I pulled this one this morning, right before posting here.  Although the time of year is right, it feels more like I'm coming out of a very energetic and productive phase, not moving into one.  My energy level has been really down.  I haven't been feeling emotionally down, just less motivated.   Before, I was staying up until the wee hours of the morning and still going the next day and last night I fell asleep on the couch at 8:30pm!  I'm drinking 3 or 4 cups of coffee to get through the day and still I just want to sit and watch Stargate Atlantis.  I'd rather read a book, (or listen to an audio book) than try to write.  So I don't know...maybe as the week progresses this card will have more meaning to me.

Weekly Tarot Card - Queen of Swords

Sharp-Tongued – Stern – Mournful

 

I don’t see much of myself in the Queen of Swords from this deck. I’m not ‘tough as nails’, I don’t have a ‘cast-iron will’ or ‘razor-sharp wit’.  And I do tend to cry, not in the face of adversity, but certainly behind it’s back! Unfortunately, I can be a total bitch.

I’m sure my boys see the sharp-tongued and stern Queen of Swords in me, especially lately. With the older one off-track from school, the little guy is really not getting why he has to go to school and big brother gets to stay home with mommy.  You’d think I was dragging him off to boot camp instead of a few hours of pre-school!

I do need to check myself though.  I’ve been pretty short with them this week.  With all these ideas floating around, I’ve been trying (quite successfully!) to get my thoughts organized and written down.

It’s one thing to be physically moving around doing stuff or running errands with kids.  They certainly don’t make it easy.  But to sit still for a while and try to think? OMG! It’s like that episode of Family Guy where Stewie just keeps going “Mom, mom, mummy, mummy, ma…ma…ma…”, and the moment he gets Lois’s attention – he’s got nothing to say.

Right now I’ve got so much going on in my head it’s almost manic. I had to write a list so I could go to bed last night (3am!) and not feel like I had to do it all right away or I’d forget.  And still after a lite doze I woke up at 5:58am, lit a candle and wrote some notes for my tarot journal that I’d been mulling over regarding a tarot-tribe podcast I’d listened to earlier.

Some of the different ideas I started thinking about last week are now in the detailed planning and preparation stage. So I’ve been cleaning out old notebooks and day-timers to use.

I came across some good stuff to post about a couple of dreams and trying to use tarot to help me make sense of them.  Just the act of getting my ideas together has given me more ideas. It feels great despite the fact that, I can’t get to most of the on my list.  I know when the time is right, the ideas won’t be lost.

6-12-6 Spread with The Fairy Tale Tarot

I'm breaking all my own rules, and it's fun!  I'm posting a reading I did three days ago from the deck I wasn't supposed to start using until today.

I used a three card spread that I started using to get familiar with an oracle deck, The Shaman Wisdom Cards. 

I wanted to get a general impression for each card in the deck before I started asking questions.  I would pull out cards that had been drawn until I went through the whole deck.

It began as a standard daily Morning-Afternoon-Evening spread, where I'd find time during that part of the day to study or just spend a few moments reflecting on the card.  This was so therapeutic for me I decided to keep using it after I'd gone through the whole deck. 

It evolved to being a more specific time for each card.  At night in bed, I would draw three cards for the next day.  Two of the cards are for 6 hours of the day and one is for 12 hours. 

Card 1: 6am-12pm

Card 2: 12pm to 6pm

Card 3: 6pm to 6am. 

This spread motivates me to take a Tarot/Oracle Time Out.  If I hadn't done it spontaneously, I'd make a point of it when I noticed the time.  This spread also helps me get out of or avoid altogether a 9 of Swords type situation.  Its like I’m using the card the way a woman would use a focus object during labor.  It doesn't stop my nasty midnight thought-loops completely, but it does help me ride them out and break the self-perpetuating cycle that makes it so much worse.

That's the reason I named this blog Midnight Tarot. Often I find myself awake in the middle of the night for various reasons.  Instead of counting sheep, I play tarot games in my head.

Since I didn't buy Lisa Hunt's Fairy Tale Tarot deck for doing predictive readings I thought it would work well for this spread.  This is a beautiful deck and I'm fascinated with fairy tales and enjoy reading ones from different cultures.  That's what this deck is all about. During the day I would stop and read the story from the book out loud to the kids.  At times they would sit and listen, mostly they'd quietly play or draw while I read.

Here are the cards I pulled:

Card1: 2 of Swords

Story: Snow Daughter & Fire Son

Culture: Russian

Keywords: Opposing Forces, Stalemate

 Lesson I picked up from the story: over-reaction to energy or ideas that conflict with mine (i.e. kids that want to run around and shout before I've had my morning coffee) will cause a complete breakdown in communication and nobody wins.  For now a temporary truce is best.

Card 2: 10 of Cups

Story: The Girl Fish

Culture: Spanish

Keywords: Dreams fulfilled, Peace

Lesson I picked up from the story: Take the afternoon to enjoy my life and the people in it.  Sharing the things I take pleasure in with loved ones.  And doing things they enjoy with them.

Card3: Queen of Cups
Story: Sealskin
Culture: Irish
Keywords: Loving, Intuitive
Lesson I picked up from the story:  Take some time tonight for myself, writing in my journal or playing with my cards.  I don’t want to become cut off from my true nature. Being compassionate and loving to my inner self will “strengthen my love and compassion for others.”