This is the second in a series of "storyboard" studies of the Minor Arcana cards of the Waite-Smith deck, this time examining the Wands. The quote in the title originated in Roman times, although modern readers will connect it more readily to the story of rapacious corporate greed portrayed in the book and movie of … Continue reading The “Barbarians at the Gate” RWS Storyboard
Tarot Techniques
“A Minute Passed” – The Problem of Prediction
There is an old comedy sketch by Monty Python's Eric Idle that neatly lampoons the slippery art of predicting future circumstances and events. Although the subject of Idle's monologue is anticipatory sexual tension and not divination, the notion of waiting in vain for something to happen is all too familiar. "A minute passed. Then another. Then, another … Continue reading “A Minute Passed” – The Problem of Prediction
The “Boy-Meets-Girl” RWS Storyboard
The "boy-meets-girl" fairy-tale is one of the oldest (and perhaps now most irrelevant) cliches in the annals of romantic storytelling. It struck me that the RWS suit of Cups offers an almost pitch-perfect "storyboard" for the ups-and-downs often associated with these narratives, with a few added wrinkles to make it interesting. In this essay I … Continue reading The “Boy-Meets-Girl” RWS Storyboard
The RWS Tarot as Storyboard
From Wikipedia: "A storyboard is a graphic organizer in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence." I think this definition is a workable analogy for envisioning the "movie" of a querent's life as it unfolds into the future … Continue reading The RWS Tarot as Storyboard
The “Needs Fulfillment” Relationship Spread
I don't know how this one escaped my initial push to post all of my spreads here. I created it back in 2016, but it has since been eclipsed by shorter, simpler spreads. Still, in going back over the guidance text, I find that it has value in more complicated situations, not all of which … Continue reading The “Needs Fulfillment” Relationship Spread
Tarot de Marseille: Built for Comfort, Not for Speed
"Some folk rip and roar, some folk b'lieve in signs But if you want me, you got to take your time Because I'm built for comfort, I ain't built for speed" Built for Comfort (Willie Dixon/Howling Wolf) There is something (well, actually 40 "somethings") about the Tarot de Marseill that eludes a facile approach to … Continue reading Tarot de Marseille: Built for Comfort, Not for Speed
The Nasties
When I returned to professional reading at a local New Age shop a couple of years ago, the proprietress gave me a piece of good advice: the tarot contains a few trump cards that really throw sitters for a loop if they pop up unheralded as the "outcome" in a reading, especially if those clients … Continue reading The Nasties
A Maxwell Primer
I frequently speak of British-born French tarot writer Joseph Maxwell in admiring terms, mainly for his numerological exploration of the Minor Arcana (despite the fact that my forum friends in France assure me that Ivor Powell's translation of Maxwell's book, The Tarot, is an inadequate one and the book is a difficult read even in … Continue reading A Maxwell Primer
Natura Abhorret Vacuum: The Fool and the Aces
This post started out as a riff on the postulate "horror vacui" attributed to Aristotle and later restated by Francois Rabelais as "Nature abhors a vacuum," and was going to be a cautionary tale about filling blog space with miscellaneous "stuff" when nothing new presents itself to the blogger's scrutiny (in this case, me and … Continue reading Natura Abhorret Vacuum: The Fool and the Aces
Human Conflict: The Tarotscopic View
Human conflict is one of my favorite areas to explore with the tarot because it is such a target-rich environment. I don't do much with multi-party conflicts because they are much rarer than the one-on-one face-off, but here is the latest example of my current approach. Tarot is an excellent microscope through which to scrutinize … Continue reading Human Conflict: The Tarotscopic View
