Star Light, Star Bright
I think my favorite Major Arcana card is the Star. Most of the decks I’ve seen have lovely Star cards. My all-time favorite might be the Star from the Hudes deck. (I say ‘might’ because my favorite ‘anything’ changes according to my mood and experience.)
This card strongly evokes a recurring dream of mine. When I see this card I get a very strong memory of that dream – the way it feels… the sounds, the colors, the sensations… almost as if I’m having the dream again. Tarot cards and dreams have always had a close relationship in my life, but this one is as close to any one dream as a card can get – at least so far.
This has affected the way I read the Star when I see it. I know many people see the Moon as representing dreams and the unconcious, but for me the Moon has more to do with instinct and heeding your inner voice. The Star has grown to mean dreams to me, especially ones that are more like memories than fantasy. The ones that mean something and connect to something difficult to access in waking life.
Bright Futures
Last night I read the Tarot for some younger people. These were kids who had just finished their Junior Year at high school. The library where I work was having a registration drive for the summer teen reading program, and they asked me to do free readings for about an hour as part of the activities.
There were game tables, raffles, snack bags for sale and then there was Tarot Readings by Miss Lisa in the magazine corner. I had brought my Gummy Bear Tarot, Fey Tarot and Mystical Lenormand. Everybody chose the Fey Tarot. This was no surprise to me, as the artwork is very like the anime graphic novels that are so popular with teens at the library right now. Plus I think the kids identify with the bright colors and high energy featured by this deck. The fey in the pictures are very like teenagers in spirit.
I had to keep the readings fast and light. They all seemed shy, but once the first card was drawn they were eager to draw more. I let them draw cards till they felt finished and we simply discussed how the images may have related to their lives. It went quite well and a couple of them seemed reluctant to finish.
The surprise was an eleven-year-old young lady who was there with her older brother. She was adamant about having her cards read and ended up drawing about twenty of them. I didn’t do a reading so much as simply tell her what story each card was telling, and let her tell me what she thought of the images. She wanted to see the deck, so I handed it over. As she looked at each of the cards she told me about how she wants to work with animals and be a vet and work with animal rescue groups.
So while the readings may not have been as deep or insightful as my usual work, I was able to meet some very nice, very smart young people with bright futures. I did at least see that in the cards for them. I wonder if it was because they were the kind of kids who show up at the library to partake in reading programs, or because all young folk have bright futures at that age. It’s what they make of their themselves at this time of their lives that determines whether their futures will be as bright as the potential shown in their Tarot cards.
Mystical Lenormand
This is the Mystical Lenormand Oracle Deck. The images were painted by Urban Trosch using the egg tempera technique. The interpretations in the Little White Book are by Regula Elizabeth Fiechter. I googled both their names, and came up empty as far as biographies. Maybe someone reading this can supply some information about them.
The interesting thing about this deck is that it is said to be the deck used by the Sybil of Paris, Marie Anne Adelaide Lenormand. She was a fortune teller who was very famous during the 19th century and read cards for many of Europe’s most influential people, most notably Napoleon and Josephine. Allegedly there was a scandal when Josephine (or maybe it was Napoleon) didn’t like one of her predictions and had her imprisoned for a while. There was also something about an affair. She apparently had quite a few adventures in her lifetime.
The images are lovely and many of them resonate strongly for me. They are familiar to me but in the same way that the archetypes of the Major Arcana in many Tarot decks are familiar. They reach some level of the unconscious that responds with feelings and intuitions that make card reading possible, at least for me.
I think the colors are refreshing and soothing. They make me relax, and thus help me tap into my intuition. Some decks, like certain passages of music, are like fresh breezes or cool clear water. The colors of this deck ‘feel’ like a refreshing dip in a mountain stream in summer.
I have seen other versions of this deck that have been available for some time. But this one is a fairly recent interpretation of the images in the original deck used by Mademoiselle Lenormand.
It’s a small, slim deck of 36 cards that measure approximately 3×3.5 inches. It slips easily into a pocket if you want to take your deck to the park to sit under a tree and do a bit of contemplating.
And now you know one of my favorite activities.
