Tarot - Articles - Zimbio

Lightning Strike

Wed, 24 Jul 2008 08:00:00 GMT

posted by kstopforth
XVI The Tower – Quantum foam

The concept of quantum foam evolved out of an attempt to reconcile Einstein’s theory of general relativity with quantum mechanics. The idea was to treat gravity as a field, linking space and time – the arena of general relativity – to quantum theory’s uncertainty principle. The result predicted was that at sub-microscopic levels (and we’re talking unbelievably tiny here) space-time would become unpredictable and chaotic. Hence quantum foam; a kind of cosmic bubble bath with black holes and wormholes forming and dissolving at alarming rates, a strange and frightening world strikingly at odds with the apparent stability of the material world.

Quantum foam gives us the perfect image for the Tower. In traditional tarot decks, a tower is shown struck by lightning and two figures fall, perhaps to their deaths. The Tower symbolises disruption and shock, a break in the continuity of life. The tower looks so safe and solid, but those falling people have been forcibly ejected from all that seems to promise security.

The Tower is a challenging card, but it is not negative and not to be feared. After the shock of being thrown out of our comfort zone we often realise how our old ways of thinking and being are restricting us, and we wake up to the positive side of the Tower’s message – freedom. The lightning strike is also the flash of illumination or inspiration, where we are filled with a sudden and unexpected understanding, an experience of total insight or even enlightenment.

Tower Questions: What comfort zone do you need to escape from? What shock have you suffered? What illumination have you gained? What “eureka moment” have you experienced?

Tower Things to Do: Brainstorm. Break a habit. Challenge your thinking (or get someone to do it for you!). Do something you’ve never done before, even (in fact especially) if you think you’ll hate it.

Tower Quotes: The lightning flashes through my skull; mine eyeballs ache and ache; my whole beaten brain seems as beheaded, and rolling on some stunning ground. Herman Melville, Moby Dick

This is a catastrophic universe, always; and subject to sudden reversals, upheavals, changes, cataclysms, with joy never anything but the song of substance under pressure forced into new forms and shapes. Doris Lessing

Chaos is a name for any order that produces confusion in our minds. George Santayana

When reason and unreason come into contact, an electrical shock occurs. This is called polemics. Friedrich Von Schlegel

Tower Movies: The Towering Inferno
Fight Club
Dr Strangelove
V for Vendetta

The Quantum Tarot will be published in September 2008 by Kunati. You can pre-order now from:
Amazon.com
Amazon UK
Amazon Canada
Chapters (Canada)
Amazon Japan
Amazon Germany
Amazon France

Tarot Card of the Week - July 14 - 20

Sun, 14 Jul 2008 13:56:00 GMT

posted by owlsdaughter
The Queen of Pentacles

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.
-- Henry David Thoreau

Another Pentacles card this week. In fact, glancing back at the previous weeks, we have certainly had our share of them. Of course, this is not very surprising as the dimming economic picture has overshadowed the politics of war (although few seem to consider that perhaps burning up $341.4 million per day in Iraq is not exactly helping our bottom line).

Pentacles, of course, are Earth energy, money, practical matters, and physicality. This time, we have a Court card - which can be challenging because the Courts can either be a real person we know, or else a kind of energy brought to bear. The Queens of the Tarot are, to me, Priestesses, Mothers, and Goddess energy. Rather than the worldly power over, of the Kings, they are the nurturing power from within.

The Queen of Pentacles is a woman who is materially secure, even wealthy. She has a great appreciation of beautiful objects, home, and creature comforts. She holds the Pentacle firmly in her hands, knowing that there is no dichotomy between the material and the spiritual, for to be fully alive is wealth beyond imagination.

Her throne is outdoors, surrounded with vines and flowers. Her lesson is that there is no such thing as lack to those who are open to the flow of magic that is the life force itself. Her gifts include robust health, vitality, and sexuality. She is a trusted guide for appreciating what is sacred in the "mundane." All of Nature is her treasure.

In what ways do you need to address matters of down-to-earth importance? Are you facing any sort of health issues or financial concerns? The Queen is a reassurance that you are meant to be happy, healthy and content. If you need to take care of things to bring this about, she offers her help.

She reminds us that magic is everywhere, and there can be plenty for all. The politics of lack, stinginess, and competition is an illusion, created by those who would attempt to hold all the power.

Let Nature shower you with blessings this week. Like the Queen, let your throne be, not in some dreary castle, but in the meadows and forests. Let the rich bounty of the Summer’s ripeness fill your heart, and it will fill your practical needs as well.?alt=rss

In Good Company

Sun, 21 Jul 2008 16:23:00 GMT

posted by kstopforth
The Quantum is due for publication on 1st September 2008 and has been steadily selling by pre-order on Amazon for the last few months.

We're proud to be in company with a batch of very diverse, interesting and inventive Autumn tarot releases. After (seemingly) endless seasons of pretty fairies, romanticised celts and airbrushed extras from Lord of the Rings, it's really good to see some truly original tarot design getting the recognition it deserves.

The innovative Transparent Tarot by Emily Carding will be released in October. This unique deck is a new concept in tarot. Using transparent slides instead of cards, a reading is created by layering cards, one on top of the other. Check out some examples here.

Just published by US Games is Patrick Valenza's much-anticipated Deviant Moon Tarot, a striking, surreal deck that has already caused quite a stir in the tarot world. Check out Quantum illustrator Chris Butler's interview with Patrick here.

I had the pleasure of witnessing the evolution of Heidi Darras's lovely Mystic Dreamer Tarot on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum and was very pleased, if not surprised, when well-known tarot publisher Llewellyn picked it up. It's released the same day as the Quantum - 1st September.

Congratulations to all these authors and artists. And to their publishers for finally showing some of vision!

The Quantum Tarot will be published by Kunati (who never seem to have a problem with the vision thing). You can pre-order now from:
Amazon.com
Amazon UK
Amazon Canada
Chapters (Canada)
Amazon Japan
Amazon GermanyAmazon France

Tarot Card of the Week - June 30 - July 6

Sun, 30 Jun 2008 15:44:00 GMT

posted by owlsdaughter
The Emperor
Contemplate thy powers, contemplate thy wants and thy connections; so shalt thou discover the duties of life, and be directed in all thy ways.
-- Akhentaton (1380-1362 BCE)

Now this is interesting! Here is one of the very few cards that has never yet come up since I began pulling our Card of the Week on New Year’s Day, 2005. The timing is notable, as this week, the United States celebrates its birthday, in an extremely important year of leadership change.

And only a few days ago, I had a very lively discussion with several women about this very card. They were disappointed to have learned that that the Emperor was their Soul Card. They did not much like the stiff-necked looking authority figure that appears in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.

In Pamela Colman Smith’s rendering of the Emperor, we see the rams’ heads of Aries carved on the throne and upon the shoulder of his robe. The marvelous Tarot scholar and artist, Robert Place, notes even more of the Emperor’s Aries/Mars energy, as evidenced by the red cloak he wears. His landscape is rocky, austere, and Robert calls him “the martial” Emperor, as his sits his stone throne in full armor.

He does not look particularly happy, does he? But is he really a tyrant? Yes, it’s true that the Emperor is a warrior. Emperors only get to be emperors by conquering (or at least dominating) kings.

But there is so much more to him! I experience him as more than the powerful conqueror, like Caesar or other modern-day warriors who thrive on domination and control. I also see him as an Arthurian archetype – the visionary leader who would unite the petty kings and warring factions in order to hold the peace and build prosperity for all. He is a “might for right” kind of guy – with all the weighty responsibility and worldly care that such a view brings.

The Emperor represents establishing, building and doing. He indicates the rules, forms and institutions of worldly power. And he represents father energy, both how we experienced our fathers, and how we share the qualities of fathering in the world – the protector, provider and disciplinarian for our families and for ourselves.

This week, we are offered, for the first time in this series, the Emperor’s gifts of power and authority. We are invited to build, choose, and make something powerful and important in the world. He teaches us leadership, discipline, logic and reason, inventiveness, and making responsible choices.

This week, you may have issues and reminders that come up regarding your own father, even if he is no longer living. You may also have an encounter of some kind with authority figures. Pay attention that you not turn bossy, or tyrannical. Instead use your power gently, with honesty and integrity. The wise Emperor knows exactly who he is, and the vast reach of his power, but rarely needs to “pull rank” in order to get the job done.

Finally, the Emperor is who motivates us to use our time on this earth to leave a lasting, valuable legacy. What will you do in the days ahead to leave your mark in the halls of time?

And don't forget - Today is the last day of the month, and so is sacred to the great Triple Goddess, Hecate. On this day, we honor the Her as Queen of the Night and the Goddess of Witches.

Hecate is a protector of women, mighty advocate for the disenfranchised, and She who guards the crossroads. It is She who teaches us the ancient Mysteries.?alt=rss

Learning to Read Tarot Cards

Tue, 25 Jun 2008 21:34:40 GMT

posted by jdonnovan

So I have decided this week that I would start learning to read tarot cards, for fun mostly. Its really an art form that has been around much longer than any of us, yet there is still a lot of people around the world that believe strongly in the power of tarot cards. I pulled together some information in case any of you are interested in learning yourselves.

The History of Tarot Cards

According to Wikipedia:

The tarot (also known as tarocchi, tarock or similar names) is a set of cards typically featuring twenty one trump cards, the fool, and an extra face card per suit, in addition to the usual suit (face and pip) cards found in ordinary playing cards. Tarot cards are used throughout much of Europe to play Tarot card games.^[1] In English-speaking countries, where the games are largely unknown, Tarot cards are utilized primarily for divinatory purposes^[1]^[2] with the trump cards plus the Fool card comprising the twenty two major arcana cards and the pip and four face cards the fifty six minor arcana.

Evidence shows that the first Tarot playing cards entered Europe between 1410 and 1430, though Tarot readers would argue that these cards were created much earlier. These new Tarot cards were originally called carte da trionfi or triumph cards. As of current, the oldest known surviving Tarot cards are fifteen hand-painted decks, created in the mid 15th Century for the Visconti-Sforza family, which at the time were the rulers of Milan.

No documented examples exist prior to the 18th century of the tarot being used for divination. However, divination using similar cards is in evidence as early as 1540; a book entitled The Oracles of Francesco Marcolino da Forli shows a simple method of divination using the coin suit of a regular playing card deck. Manuscripts from 1735 (The Square of Sevens) and 1750 (Pratesi Cartomancer) document rudimentary divinatory meanings for the cards of the tarot, as well as a system for laying out the cards. In 1765, Giacomo Casanova wrote in his diary that his Russian mistress frequently used a deck of playing cards for divination. -Source

Learning to Read Tarot Cards

You can find plenty of great books on the subject of learning to read tarot cards at your local bookstore, but I also found the video below very helpful to understand the meaning of each card and how they each play such a significant role in a tarot card reading.

Tarot card reading guide