Connie's Corner

I've been getting more acquainted

with my Tarot Cards today (a Rider Waite deck), reading the standard meaning of each card and the background of tarot. It sounds like tarot was originally a regular card game like gin rummy or poker. Our standard fifty-two card deck has a lot in common with the tarot deck. What in Tarot is called the Minor Arcana has four suits, ace through king with the jack card being two cards, the knight and page, making the Minor Arcana a total of fifty-six cards. Even the suits are similar, Wands are clubs, Cups are hearts, Pentacles are diamonds, and Swords are spades. The base meaning of each suit also makes a lot of sense...wands for creativity (think Harry Potter), cups for emotions (feeling with our heart), pentacles for material possessions (i.e. diamonds), and swords for nobility and military reasoning. The number cards, ace through ten, are sometimes called pips...maybe that's how we get the word "pipsqueak" meaning little or not as important.

Then there is the Major Arcana consisting of twenty-two cards, the ones I had heard about before, the Magician, the Hermit, the Tower, The Empress, Death, the Hanged Man..etc. ..with special meanings of their own. All the cards have symbols depicting vices, virtues, and forces of the elements. Standard meanings are given for all the cards, but the person using them will normally develop his own particular meanings. I found myself doing this as I studied them individually, sometimes agreeing with the stated meaning, sometimes not.

The instructions said to sleep with a new deck under your pillow for seven nights. I tried but I felt foolish and it was a little lumpy! I'm supposed to meditate on the cards as I practice my "skills". They are somewhat entrancing. My first problem came when I tried to shuffle...72 cards, stiff as a board. Several flew through the air landing underneath things. This agitated me to no end because now I'm thinking I've lost some. So I'm counting to make sure I still have seventy-two. The shuffling took longer than I expected. I wanted to make sure they were all mixed up and I hadn't inadvertently turned some upside down. When a card is laid upside down, the meaning is reversed. For example, The Hanged Man normally stands for widom, trials, circumspection, discernment, sacrifice, intuition, divination, prophecy (getting the picture?) but upside down it means selfishness, etc., or the antonyms of the rightside up meaning.

One think is clear. While handling the cards, they did have a personal effect on me, even before I read anything about the meanings....

until next time....c