The Hermit and the Happy Squirrel

This sort of sums it up really… if you were to ask me what I’ve been up to over the past couple of months, this couldn’t describe my situation any more clearly! That’s me, loads of stuff to do, and I’m just hanging out, watching that squirrel collect nuts! (Hehe.)

Or does it mean I’m quietly going nuts??? (Haha.)

But seriously, things are really good! But I’m thinking I might spend a little time with another deck. Just have it sitting on my desk while I try to work and write during baby nap-time. Stay tuned!

International Icon Tarot
By Glow in the Dark Pictures
Copyright ©2003 GlowInTheDark
ISBN: 978-0972878815
(Bought from Glow In the Dark Pictures)

Emperor-like

I don’t get this card turning up very often for me. It’s too firey, too decisive. But lately I suppose I’ve had that hat on. I’ve started to get a bit ruthless with regard to tidying up, getting rid of a lot of my junk (and trimming back on excesses). This Emperor is very much in the here-and-now. He’s calm, confident, and in control. I suppose this is where I’m trying to get to with my own habits and activities. Not so all-over-the-place, like I can often be. How will this all play out? I’m not sure. There’s still so much to do around the place, now I’m looking at the house (and my study, especially) with fresh and critical eyes. The Emperor turning up now is a reassuring figure to me, not at all overbearing like I used to think of him. It gives me an easy, relaxed feeling. I know I’m on track and I can get control of my house and my life!

International Icon Tarot
By Glow in the Dark Pictures
Copyright ©2003 GlowInTheDark
ISBN: 978-0972878815
(Bought from Glow In the Dark Pictures)

Busy, busy!

It’s been a busy few weeks since Easter.  We took our first road trip up north, to visit both sets of grandparents (and aunt, and great aunt and uncle, and my godmother!). We got back, had a few days to decompress, and then Steve was hit by a nasty stomach bug that half the people he work with got. We think it was a norovirus, which means someone must have come in to work without washing their hands after going to the toilet (urgh), and then touched something communal like elevator buttons (urgh, urgh!), that everyone else then touched (triple urgh!).

Fortunately neither Leila or I caught it, though poor Steve was put into quarantine in the spare room. Then I was hit hard with allergies. Needless to say tarot has unfortunately taken a back seat to everything else that’s been going on.

But today, I find myself with a moment to sit down and think, and so I drew a card:

Typical, isn’t it? Everything going on, busy, busy, busy. The world’s got my attention these days.

International Icon Tarot
By Glow in the Dark Pictures
Copyright ©2003 GlowInTheDark
ISBN: 978-0972878815
(Bought from Glow In the Dark Pictures)

All a bit pleasant

Things are good at the moment. The sun is still shining, and the weather is good, though we’ve officially passed over into Autumn now. Great for us city-folk, though the entire North Island has been declared a drought zone, which is no good for farmers (though apparently New Zealand is going to have a bumper year for wine!).

I’ve been tarot-ing a fair bit still, including a couple of really cool exchanges on the AT forum. In one, we had to draw a card for a person, and perform a reading, first by analysing the colours in the card (and lack of colours), and then applying that to the figures and symbols. It was fascinating to see how much you could get out of just one card. Another was a TdM (Tarot de Marseille) exchange, which was done with a new spread I’d never used before, but went really well. There was also yet a third exchange, with a cool spread based on Saint Brigid, that I will have to share soon. There were no duds among them, and the people I was reading for said I’d given them some good food for thought. So it was a great success 🙂

I’m still really enjoying using the International Icon deck. The colours are fantastic, and despite the lack of detail I can really get a great deal out of these cards. I do wish the card stock was a bit sturdier; it’s just a bit thin for my liking. But it’s a relatively minor quibble really.

Here’re today’s cards:

7 of Cups – Queen of Swords – 9 of Pentacles

Stop and take time

Here’s an interesting reading, from this morning’s cards:

King of Swords – 2 of Cups – Queen of Swords

I can’t help but see this as Steve and I, although it’s quite odd to think of either of us as “swords” types. I suppose we both have assumed more of an analytic approach to things lately; working on a routine to go through with bubs every night, researching optimal sleeping conditions (swaddling, white noise, and the rest of it)… and more than likely not putting as much time and effort towards our relationship. You can see Steve is in problem-solving mode, looking straight ahead, and taking charge, while I am planning for the future, dreaming of things we will all do together, and the life our wee one will have.

This is what I really like about tarot: most of the time the cards don’t tell you anything new; they’re just very, very good at pointing out things that may have slipped your mind, or reminding you of another perspective on a situation. In this case, I totally agree that Steve and I need to take a little bit of time for each other. Find room for some tender moments together, among the diapering, feeding, and shushing to sleep of the new member of our family…

International Icon Tarot
By Glow in the Dark Pictures
Copyright ©2003 GlowInTheDark
ISBN: 978-0972878815
(Bought from Glow In the Dark Pictures)

Wanderlust

10 Pents – King Cups – 3Wands

Steve just drew a card this morning, and got the Queen of Pents. That’s often a card I think of as representing myself; it was interesting to see it showing up for him.

Anyway…10 Pents.

The One Deck Wonder

So I’ve decided to sign up for the One Deck Wonder “thing” going on at AT, using the International Icon Tarot for three months, and the Flornoy Dodal for three months. That means the Mountain Dream and Sacred Sites decks that I’ve been oogling lately have been put away for now.

You may well wonder, why would I do such a thing? Well, there are all sorts of reasons (some of which have been listed, and linked to, in the One Deck Wonder thread, above). For me, the appeal is:

• In limiting myself to one basic deck, I allow myself to go deeper into the images, and not be distracted by specific artwork or theme.
• I like the idea of spending time with just one deck, getting to know it intimately – the way I once did with the Connolly. Over time, as my excitement of acquiring new decks surpassed my enjoyment of using them, I lost touch with the wonderful feeling of having a battered old deck that you carry around everywhere, with cards you know intimately because you’ve experienced them in many situations, many times. I want to reconnect with that feeling again.
• I do have too many decks. My collection is not large by any stretch – at least, compared to a lot of people on the AT forums. But I’ve reached a point where it feels too much. But I’m hard-pressed to think of which decks I would want to keep and which I’d want to get rid of. I’m too close to them all. I need to cleanse my tarot palate for a while, and then come back to them all with new eyes. There are some decks, like the Mary-El, that people absolutely adore, but that I found too “outside” the framework I want to work in. I think in order to keep things clean, to keep them clear, I want to stay with pure tarot, not with something that requires extra knowledge or understanding in order to “get”.

In celebration of all these things, I knitted a new case for the International Icon:

The cards, all wrapped up safe and sound inside…

Whew!

It’s been a busy month!

I confess a lot of it has just swept by without me noticing even what day of the week it is (all those late night baby feeds will do that to you), but there has been a bit of tarot-related activity during that time:

• I took part in my second Trade Train on Aeclectic Tarot (a riotous, irreverent event where “players” put up lists of decks for trading). I traded away my Icelandic (in Icelandic), my Silicon Valley, and a spare copy of the Lasenic’s Tarot, in exchange for a Deviant Moon, Jane Austen, and Ancestral Path. Another ATer, Myrrha, also wound up gifting me (I paid the postage) a copy of The Secret Language of Birds tarot. All but the Ancestral Path have arrived in the post, and I’m well overdue to spend a couple of hours one afternoon (when bubs will let me!) to go through them all.
• I also received a copy of the Mountain Dream tarot (third edition), by Bea Nettles. I had drooled over this sixties photographic deck (a Rider-Waite clone that manages to somehow also keep a bit of its own personality) for ages, but copies of the first edition command exorbitant prices, while the second edition was out of print. Luckily, a third edition has recently become available: