Death

This gravestone is usually missed by most Haworth tourists who don’t leave the path! If they did, they’d notice this poignant memorial to 6 siblings; the story is that their father was the stonemason who carved the stone and it is certainly unique amongst the other headstones in Haworth’s overcrowded cemetary.

Death was the card I drew today. The Mary El deck makes it very personal; this isn’t some metaphor or sombre Angel – this is an OLD woman, just as I might very well be. She’s inevitable and I am still no closer to knowing what may or may not happen after Death.

I do have an inkling of an idea what it might be like before Death. It might be similar to that feeling on the last day of a holiday, especially when you don’t feel it was time well spent. It seems way too optimistic to think it might feel like the final hour of Friday afternoon, but of course its possible that will be a more appropriate analogy.

Before my bones petrify, I took  the opportuity to sit out in the sun, enjoying the scent of flowers & birdsong. Memento Mori and Carpe Diem, as they say.

7 of Cups and 7 of Wands

The 7 of Wands was my ‘card of the day’, but I thought I can’t look at one without the other…especially as I have been so involved with the Chariot lately (just because I haven’t been keeping an on-line journal, doesn’t been I haven’t been scribbling away in black notebooks in the Real World)……it’s a good exercise though, to see cards together rather than as seperate entities all the time. I wish I knew Norse mythology better, because I want to call this wolfish pair Loki and Thor…but I am almost certainly incorrect in drawing these parallels!

old stuff #2 (March 2012 – January 2013)

Things I’d put on Aeclectic Tarot.

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/

“I was  worried that I might find this astonishingly gorgeous deck too personal to the
Creatrix to be of much relevance to me…..until I did my first shuffle &
cut & discovered it references Rammstein! so, for fun, I asked the deck if
it was a Rammstein fan & pulled…10 of wands…a man on fire!…..”

“…….I think we are going to have a good relationship, Miss Mary-El & I!I’ve used it – in a manner of speaking -almost every single day since it arrived. I feel as if I’ve barely scratched the surface. I love it and am frustrated by it in equal measure. At times I think
its too much the artist’s vision, but then the most astonishing synchronicities happen between her symbols, images, words and my life and dreams.”

“The book…it reminds me of how I felt when I first read ‘The Book of
Thoth’…puzzled yet reluctant to be left alone with the Thoth pack without a
guide. I always preferred the LWB, with Frieda’s words. I’m somewhat overwhelmed
by the Mary-El book, but as its as close a conversation I’ll ever get with Marie
White, I need it, but I also love the feeling I have to puzzle things out
myself.”

“I’d been watching its development over the years, loved & unsettled by the art. I wasn’t sure if it would be a deck I could relate to. But the day it arrived, an owl flew over my head and the Full Moon was in Virgo (my sun sign)…I drew a card that was relevant & in
the book was partially explained with Rammstein lyrics. I love Rammstein &
had seen them perform a couple of days earlier. I asked the deck if it was a
Rammstein fan & drew the 10 of Wands, a man on fire!
Since then, it has communicated with me through numerous synchronicities, both in the art & the book. I’ve been keeping a notebook & will continue to do so
indefinately, whilst I familiarise myself with it.”

“Marie White’s explanations can be vague, but I don’t mind this at all as I can draw my own conclusions and work out my own path, my own associations. I appreciate the
book, because it doesn’t spoon feed. Sometimes it seems as incomprehensible as
Cocteau Twins lyrics, but sometimes it seems immediate.
I think that if you are comfortable with art, dreams, poetry then you will be delighted with this deck.”

“Since my Mary-el deck arrived at the Spring Equinox, we have developed an
intriguing, productive and promising relationship…however…I am reluctant to
use them for any one else (I have done so, once, in that first week – excellent
results but it was with a close friend & we consulted the book as
well)….I’m not sure they will ‘translate’ well into readings for others…..it
doesn’t matter, of course I have other decks, it just got me to thinking…is
any one else using it to read for clients? for other people? The nudity
isn’t an issue for me, it’s the idiosyncratic relationship between myself &
the images…I have an idea that I’d just be reading my own cards every time I
laid them out! Its so much easier to detach with my other decks.”

old stuff

Crows are so clever yet so maligned.
When I was growing up in rural
Northumberland, my uncle wasn’t the only one to nail dead ones to fences, but
despite this association I always loved them & found them amusing. We call
them ‘corbies’ in the North & it took me years to drop the habit!

I used to watch them perform as I sat at my desk when I should have been
concentrating upon the lesson & the teacher.
I love the sound of their
cries.

Crows & witches are linked inextricably in my mind – I
invented a curse when I was little involving piercing an image of my enemy with
a crow’s feather.

Crows can travel between our world and most of the
Other ones. They notice everything & don’t forget.

After much deliberation

I have decided to keep an on-line journal again. The intention is that it serve as a source for any one who might be interested in my thoughts about the Mary-El Tarot.

It’s a bit presumptious isn’t it?

Anyway, here’s a link to the Mary El motherlode.

http://tarotsmyth.wordpress.com/

(the wooden box where my Mary-El deck lives, on my altar)

I’ve been loving the Tarot for decades.

My first deck, my first love, my oldest and dearest friend was and is the Rider-Waite- Smith and then a couple of years later I encountered the Thoth. This relationship is more tempestuous, challenging, frightening, fascinating. Sometimes months, years almost pass and we’d avoid each other. Then a chance encounter and the intense relationship fires up again!

(I do tend to anthromorphosise these things).

I’ve acquired over a hundred decks since then; most I’ve given away or they lie in a drawer. A few become friends (the Aquarian, Sacred Rose, Intuitive, Klimt, Greenwood, Bohemian Gothic) and when I read professionally my ‘work colleagues’ are the Marseilles and Madonni.

When I discovered the Mary-El tarot (found images on line whilst it was still a work in progress) I was immediately interested in the story around its creation (reading the artist’s own journal) and loved the art.

I bought the deck as soon as it became available and immediately realised that this was to be the beginning of another significant Tarot relationship. I had not felt the same rush of recognition & bewilderment since I held my first Thoth.

And then synchronicities began as my life reflected the images in the cards back & forth…that was partially why I decided to begin a blog, except it became too personal, too wierd and I was too lazy, too distracted.

Nonetheless, I’ll start again.

the day before