Repost - The Queen's Sword: 7 keys to unlock the Tarot de Marseille

Excellent advice from Paul Richard on learning how to read the Tarot de Marseille, which could be applied with equal benefit to all types of cartomancy - 7 keys to unlock the Tarot de Marseille

WLA Kipper 101 Online Course

QUICK! 

I've just completed Toni Puhle's Kipper 101 course, and it was great! So helpful. The next session was supposed to be starting towards the end of November, so I thought I had a bit of time to draw it your attention. But, probably due to popular demand, she's brought it forward to Monday 31 October. Yes, Halloween. 🎃

Here's the link. Or you can message Toni directly on Facebook.

If you want to learn how to read Kippers the way German readers read them, I highly recommend you take this course. And let me know if you do. We can compare notes. 😃

I didn't fall, I jumped

I was going to say I fell off the 28 Days of Thoth wagon, but that's not true. I clung on desperately, but I wasn't enjoying the ride.













Nothing to do with the Thoth. I like it. Admittedly, it's a challenge to work with for one so used to RWS imagery, but it's refreshing.


No, the problem was the restriction. A lot of the time I just didn't want to work with Thoth, I didn't want to struggle through a 15-Card Spread, or try to comprehend the subtleties of elemental dignities.

But I'd told myself, and you dear Reader, that I wasn't going to use another tarot for the duration. I'd made a commitment. So I distracted myself with other things and simply avoided the deck. Because I intended to use the 28 questions from moonlit.tarot's June Instagram challenge as my "finishing line", I told myself it would just mean that I'd be working with the deck until I got through all the questions, however long it took.

So, I barely read with Thoth, I wasn't "allowed" to work with other tarots, and even my use of oracles was somehow tainted by the feeling that I "ought" to be using the Thoth instead.

I pretty much ended up not reading at all.

I wanted to quit, and I agonised over this. I really did. I actually journaled about my lack of motivation. Should I give in to it? Shouldn't I? What potential gains would I be throwing away? Was I being self-indulgent? Was I just plain lazy and undisciplined?











But then I thought about how I'd worked with the Tarot Balbi, not for the two weeks I'd originally, and with some trepidation, committed to, but in the end for well over a month. Not just to the exclusion of other tarots, but all my other cards. And I thoroughly enjoyed it and really bonded with the deck.

Maybe now was just not the time for me to bond with Thoth. If it was keeping me from reading, I wasn't benefitting from the attempt.

So, I jumped.

I felt immediate relief. I pulled out a few favourite decks and mucked about with them just because I could.   I've started posting daily draws on Instagram to put my "release" to good use. And I'm excitedly using a new and unusual deck I bought recently (I'll probably post about it soon).

I am still working my way through the questions, but the pressure is off. Will I ever master the 15-Card Spread and elemental dignities? I don't know. But for now, I can just enjoy reading again.

Elemental Correspondences - some thoughts

Carla of Rowan Tarot has posted an excellent (as always) article about her recent paradigm shift regarding elemental correspondences in tarot, i.e. which of the four classical Western elements, earth air fire and water, relates to which tarot suit and why.

This subject particularly caught my attention at this time because of my recent acquisition of a Thoth Tarot. I intend to learn the classic 15-Card Spread associated with it, which incorporates Elemental Dignities.

Here would be a good point at which to publicly declare my intention to use only the Thoth for the next 28 days at least. I did this with the Tarot Balbi a while back and it really helped in forging a strong connection with the deck. Maybe a bit too strong.

On to my perspective on the elements. I'm comfortable with the common suit/element combos as assigned by A. E. Waite to his tarot, the Rider-Waite Tarot (or Rider-Waite-Smith as I prefer to call it; there would be no deck without the art of Pamela Colman Smith), and all its subsequent offspring, eg.:

Wands - Fire

Coins (Pentacles) - Earth

Cups - Water

Swords - Air

This is certainly because my first deck was a RWS. This is how I learned it and it stuck. But there are other schools of thought on this. Luckily for me, Aleister Crowley, who roughly 30 years later designed his Thoth Tarot (images painted by Lady Frieda Harris), also stuck with these correspondences.

Carla's post generated a fair bit of discussion in the Tarot de Marseille in English group on Facebook, which brought up other types of correspondences, such as humours, seasons, compass directions, etc. Many differing alignments are proffered by various sources and I've spent quite a bit of time agonising over what my take is on the relationships. For the moment (and let's be honest, I may well discover yet another model which will make me reappraise my choices) I've settled on:

Wands - Fire - Spring - East - Sun

Coins - Earth - Summer - South - Earth

Cups - Water - Autumn - West - Moon

Swords - Air - Winter - North - Sky

As I come across additional quartets I expect I'll endeavour to slot them into this list as well.

But to what end? Do any of these extra correspondences really matter? Do we need to "know" which card mean winter, which card means east?

Well, if we want to know when something is likely to happen or where something is hiding, then yes, they can add practical details. But if you’re not into the “fortune-telling” aspects of tarot then it probably isn’t going to enhance your readings.

But perhaps you practice the type of magickal spell working that makes precise use of elemental correspondences. Then you would need to be able to identify your "ingredients". Personally, I tend to work with the cards' "energies" rather than the classical elements. But then I suppose my understanding of their energies is derived in great part from what I've internalised regarding their commonly designated correspondences.

At the end of the day, though, whether you make use of these correspondences or not, it's still interesting, and fun, to consider your own personal interrelationships. It just makes ya think! And that's always a good thing.

LenorMarch

Kelly, of The Truth in Story, has instigated a month of Lenormand study, based on YouTube but including an invitation to her private Facebook group for those interested in further study and discussion.

I like Kelly's take on Lenormand - her understanding of how the cards "work". She explains it very clearly in her Day 1 video.



If you're new to Lenormand, or even if you're not, I think you'll get a lot of benefit from Kelly's videos. I really wish I'd had her as a mentor when I was starting out.

My LenorMarch contributions will be here.