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Tarot Card Meanings: The Hierophant
In this post I am focusing on the Hierophant (typo-enemy of indie deck producers everywhere 😂). The Hierophant is the fifth card of the Major Arcana, representing tradition, spiritual teaching, community wisdom, and the bridge between the sacred and the everyday. Here I'll explore what the Hierophant means in Tarot readings, how the archetype has evolved, and how to work with both its light and shadow. Given The Hierophant can be accused of many of the same institutional sins of the patriarchy as the Emperor (authoritarian, fearful of change, stodgy, literal) - with an added dollop of organised religion thrown in for good measure - I expected to struggle with…
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Live Tarot Reading
I was reading at the Love Southsea Christmas Market at Portsmouth Historic Docks this past weekend, and was lucky enough to be interviewed by Lily, Jon, and Brendan at Express FM. You can listen to the interview – where I talk about my Tarot philosophy – followed by me doing a live reading for Lily here (I’m pleased to report no Tower was pulled, thank goodness ;-)). I’m on at 1:29, and then again at 1:44 (Urghhhhh, at one point I refer to the 9 of Pentacles as the Queen of Pentacles, because I’m an idiot – such an inopportune moment to make a slip of the tongue! – but…
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Regular Readings: Love Southsea Market, Portsmouth (UK)
I’ve been running a stall every other week at the Love Southsea market in Portsmouth for a couple of months now, and it’s been going very well! So just a quick announcement to say if you happen to be local and want an in-person Tarot reading, you can find me there each month! (If you ever want to check if I’m going to be at a particular market, you can always contact me at thetarotcake@gmail.com) . . .
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Deck Review: Figuratively Speaking Tarot
I’ve had the Figuratively Speaking Tarot by B. Miller for a while now, but Bee launching a Kickstarter campaign for her new deck, the Figuratively Speaking Mermaid Tarot, has prompted me to finally get round to doing a deep dive and a review! First things first: as is well documented on this blog, I have zero self-control when my weird little ADHD magpie brain decides it likes a deck and FIXATES <wallet releases muffled screams of pain in background>, so I bought LOADS of the booster packs for the Figuratively Speaking Tarot [FST], and then sorted out my ‘favourite 78’. So please don’t assume that every card I’ve selected below…
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Currently on Kickstarter: Figuratively Speaking Mermaid Tarot Deck
UPDATE: Since writing this post I’ve received my copy of the deck; you can read my review here. Backing this new deck was a no-brainer for me, as I love artist B. Miller’s Tarot and Tarot-esque paintings on Instagram (especially since she drew this Tarot card style Karlach from BG3, I would DIE for a hand painted BG3 Tarot deck, be still my beating heart), and I also already own their first (huge, sprawling!) Tarot deck, the Figuratively Speaking Tarot (which you can buy here). The Figuratively Speaking Mermaid Tarot is an absolute beaut, featuring all of Bee’s gorgeous watercolour artwork and more thematically consistent than its predecessor (I love…
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Deck Review: The Alleyway Tarot
I own Publishing Goblin‘s first Kickstarter Tarot deck, The Alleyman’s Tarot, and, while it’s a bit unwieldy to work with, I still love it for reflection purposes, and for thinking about the ways different artists interpret the traditional card meanings. The guidebook is also a cracking read, as opposed to the normal fairly generic guff. So I didn’t hesitate in backing this new deck, The Alleyway Tarot, that follows the same principles as its predecessor. Each card in the deck is designed by a different artist, and the concept is that this is a ‘found’ deck, cobbled together with individual cards that ‘The Alleyman’ has magpied into his life over…
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Deck Review: Austin Osman Spare Tarot
One for the collectors and the Tarot-history enthusiasts is the Austin Osman Spare Tarot, which you can currently order via the publisher’s (Strange Attractor) website for £35. Being a skinflint Trying to control my Tarot addiction in a sensible manner, I only forked out for the deck when I backed the project on Kickstarter, so I didn’t get the accompanying book, Lost Envoy: The Tarot Deck of Austin Osman Spare, or the AOS Tarot Sourcebooks (How to Tell Fortunes by The Cards*, by Rapoza (1906), a key source for Spare’s Minor Arcana attributions, and The Tarot, by S. L. MacGregor Mathers (1888) from which he assigned his Major Arcana meanings). This…
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Currently on Kickstarter: Tarot of Oxalia
EDIT: Since writing the post, I have received my copy – you can read my full review here. I started this blog as a way to scrapbook my own Tarot journey (as well as to have a platform for reading for others), but it’s been super rewarding that other people have engaged with it (no (wo)man is an island!) A further unexpected perk happened last week when Art of Play reached out to me to ask if I’d be interested in reviewing their forthcoming deck, the Tarot of Oxalia, in return for a free copy. Given the frankly terrifying amount of money I have thus far spent on my Tarot…
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Currently on Kickstarter: The Nigredo Tarot Deck
Since I wrote this post, I have received my KS copy and have reviewed it here. You can buy your own copy from the artist and creator’s Etsy site here. **** Many moons ago, when I received my much-anticipated copy of the Alleyman’s Tarot, I selected The Magician card by Roberto Papavero Crusca as one of my favourite cards. I liked it so much I did some sleuthing on the artist, and was disappointed to see that they had historically designed a Majors deck, but it didn’t meet its Kickstarter funding target. What felt like bad news at the time turned out to be good news for Future Lucy, as…
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Tarot Card Meanings: The Sun
The Sun is the nineteenth card of the Major Arcana, and represents joy, clarity, vitality, and childlike wonder. In this post, I explore The Sun Tarot meaning - from classical symbolism and Rider-Waite-Smith imagery to reflections on happiness, embodiment, and how to let yourself really feel the light. It's my belief that every card in the Tarot has both positive and negative connotations (and why I don't read reversals per se, rather I'm guided by both the spread and my querent as to whether a card's energy is light or shadow), but The Sun is BIG on the positivity and doesn't leave the shadow many spaces to hide. It's one…
