It’s quite simple as a matter of fact. As long as you keep it pure. Picking cards and looking at them and interpreting them is nothing more than chatting with yourself.

The cards depict agreed upon symbols and meanings of which you will have on top your own associations. It is as if I’d say “green” and what does come to your mind spontaneously? Someone would say grass and tranquility and freedom but another will think of bile and greed.

You, you are tremendously able. You might not remember HOW MUCH so, but nevertheless, you are. So much that you even “know” which cards you select before seeing them. It’s a little game of hide and seek and oh I found the answer playing you do with yourself.

The more you trust yourself and this truth, the easier it gets and the less disturbances of other influences to muddy the waters.

For this reason alone I would never want somebody else to handle my cards or to select them for me, even THEIR interpretation is risky! It might be that she is well trained to pick up on you but most often their own schooling or viewpoints or problems will flow into a reading.

Also, don’t go along and ask the cards about your future! How dumb to limit that with some restricted cards! Use them as creative items, a fun tool to chat with yourself about current or past stuff.

Remember, it is YOU who is cause but then also the effect of your own cause.

I am not too happy about the fact that there are no color pictures on the Kindle, but it does not seem to be something that this book sports in the first place. What fascinated me mostly about this book is what it suggests: use the cards as inspiration to write a story and don’t take them too literal. Now this is right up my alley!

Can’t say too much about the rest of the book as I have not read it - it deals with interpretation of the card meanings, but those first 39% of the book are definitely worth while exploring if you are into writing and sometimes experience writers block. Reading in the Kindle on the iPhone has been a pleasure so far, but I am a bit less impressed with the Mac version: even though it is great to have the option to read on the larger screen, it seems a bit more awkward and rather rises the longing to hold a real book in hands than wanting to finish the book on screen.

With other words, usually you will pick up a horoscope or a set of tarot cards because you are looking for something.

How inclined do you think will you be to find the answer in whatever tool you are using?

Let’s assume you had a nice 90 minutes of scribbling, sketching and drawing while building ideas of what grand masterwork you want to do next. Cuddled in this feeling of comfort and lulled happiness, you feel giddy and throw a bunch of cards, just to see what they have to say to this outburst of creation and inner peace.

First task is to give thought which deck could reflect the inner feelings and mood the best. Let us say, the VISION QUEST tarot deck, just because this one is so beautifully emotional. Next is the decision which spread to go with. The Star seems appropriate.

1. The Past Three of Air - Doubt
2. The Present Two of Air - Inner Peace
3. The Future Daughter of Fire
4. The Positive Nine of Fire - Inner Strenght
5. The Negative Seven of Water - Excess
6. The Unpredictable Medicine Man - [Major Arcana: I]
7. The Synthesis (Result) Eight of Fire - Insight

There is barely to say something to the chosen cards, the lineup is self-evident in their communication and mirror my current feelings completely clean cut. Remember that AIR has a lot to do with the mind and thoughts, whereas FIRE deals with raw energy and creativity, while WATER represents emotions. Most poignant is the fact that the only Major Arcana card chosen is the one to represent The Unpredictable and the card chosen is the beginning of it all, the Medicine Man (The Magigian) with all powers of all 4 elements at his finger tips; the power of the beginning of creation and truly unpredictable.

This outcome once more pushes home my point regarding what Tarot cards are: a mirror of your feelings, a way and means to talk to yourself, to visualize your feelings and vague thoughts. These cards were randomly chosen, not picked to match my mood. Furthermore, I was writing along while choosing the deck and spread, thus when I wrote paragraph 4 I did not know yet the outcome of the cards and how much they’d reflect what I was pointing out just a few minutes earlier.

From my experience, the only thing it takes to get such clear results is to be comfortable enough with the cards to understand the symbolism in it and to trust yourself while fully understanding that it is not some mysterious outer force that choses the cards for you, but that you are doing it yourself. Yup, you are talking with yourself. Have fun with it!

Mother of Earth was my pick today from this set, a card that also is known in other Tarot sets as the Queen of Coins.

She is being portrayed sitting in the soothing shadows of a tree with a child sitting on her knee, protecting it by her arms and a blanket pulled around both of them, a large earthen pot and some corn cobs at her feet.

As often, this card can best be understood when looked at in conjunction to the other 3 mothers: Mother of Fire (Queen of Wands), Mother of Air (Queen of Swords) and Mother of Water (Queen of Cups) and what this element represents versus the others. The mother of all being the Grand Mother (The Empress).

Please pay also some attention to the fact that COINS often are associated with wealth but EARTH on the other hand injects the thoughts of continuity and solid foundation. Both symbols have in common the idea of cyclic and the final, manifested result.

Note down for yourself what motherhood implies to you, what are the responsibilities and duties of this position, what are powers this brings and what joys?

Investigating into the symbolism of being a Scorpio there was one moment in time which truly was one of the moments in life when things suddenly fall into place. That was the time when I found out that Scorpio is the only Zodiac Sign traditionally associated with more than one symbolic image: the Scorpion - the Eagle - the Phoenix and what these other, associated symbols meant and implied.

Even though I am a strong believer of the fact that you create your own cage - depending on how much you agree or not with the esoteric signs and symbols and their meanings - finding these other sides of me voiced in writing was quite impressive.

Interaction with Tarot peaks when the mind is light and swift and ideas are bouncing off each other, when thoughts are fine as a wisp. Seriousness and effort far away, exhilaration of life and a playful curiousness - these are the salt and pepper to a fun game and exchange.

Wishing you a tasty result!

Today I stumbled over a cool iPhone application: iNitiator. Very nicely, elegantly even, styled in black, white and gray:

This application is not meant to be an encyclopedia about esoteric topics. Descriptions of single items are meant to be an introduction. Further studies are required to appreciate the full breath of this wide topic. There are diverse esoteric traditions out there, and therefore there are diverse interpretations of some items. Unfortunately there is no possibility to implement all of them. The app does not intend to contain any preferential treatment about a particular school of thought or discriminate against another one. This piece of software can only be an introduction to the complex and manifoldy area of esoteric subjects. I am very happy about every feedback.

Though i am not a follower of some of the tarot card name assignments (namely VIII / XI / XIV and so on) - they are not ‘wrong’ and a good flash card type of approach.

That this is the main purpose of this application is made clear by the creator of it - but of course, I’d love to see this application expanded with more in-depth information (e.g. including the Minor Arcana).

Overall it is really a nice application and you can purchase it for from the iTunes store.

Seriousness truly is the death of any game. Effort and solidity kills anything playful or fun. The best communication and flow of ideas with cards - or anything that you use for its symbolic language - seem to happen when a certain lightness is present.

If you are reading cards for yourself this points to a needed distance to yourself as to be able to laugh about yourself. Even though you are the most important thing to you, if you are able to not take yourself that serious, life is going to be so much more fun.

The (once again) astonishing thing was that this exact attitude gave me the most interesting cards to look at and to chew on. Plus, the result was a great reflection of how I see myself currently with just enough oomph to not get too giddy and with this surfaced again this tiny complacency thought of, “see, maybe, just maybe, all these nay sayers that insist we can impossibly know and thus tarot is only a play of coincidences might just maybe be wrong after all!”

Often I feel that all these various tarot decks which exist, rather get into your way than support working with the card meanings, most often due to the fact that they are personal interpretation of something which can stop your free association and even guide you into a wrong direction whereas the classic cards have the tendency of leaving all rivers open.

There are cards I feel are beautifully crafted and at some point in the past I thought I could not continue if I would not own these specific cards. But once I had them I would find rather quicker than later that it was nothing but a stumbling block and pushing me very obviously into one specifically path and I don’t like boundaries like that. Thus all these beautiful packs will gather some dust but pulled out when the need for some change is around and if I want to trigger some new ideas.

I don’t know if the same thing will happen once the gorgeous Mary-el Tarot will be released for purchase, but there is something unique about this set which touches me and which I think truly inspiring.

She seems to have moved her blog to an WordPress installation at TarotsMyth where you can follow her journey of creating her tarot set.

Since the last time when I had checked in she has moved far ahead, there are only a couple of 8’s and the 9’s of the Minor Arcana left and then a huge journey seems to be coming to an end. It is also fascinating to see that her daughter before Kindergarden completed her own, full set of Tarot cards - to keep at it for 100 cards at that age is very impressive.

Maybe only another artist can understand the amount of work that goes into each and every card, I do not know. But as I have worked on 3 interpretations of a single minor card myself, I do know how challenging it can be to condense down into some visuals the tremendous depth any such card can hold as a concept.

Next to the huge amount of commitment it takes to create a fully painted Tarot set, her art is stunningly beautiful. It wakes memories of Klimt and Art Nouveau and Art Deco but also Wicca’s and Mystery.

Even though I do not know if I’ll ever want to work “Tarot” with these cards, they are exquisite and high standard cards with a lot of symbolism to discover and to treasure - an aesthetic world I am looking forward to being able to buy.

What does it mean?
Question, question, question.

How about turning things around and putting meaning into something?
Answer, answer, answer.

Exactly, this is the next mostly done thing, reading signs and assigning it meaning.

So, now who would better know what it means to YOU if a crying owl doesn’t give you the shivers but gives you the blues instead? Do you really want to give some external force like another person the power to tell you what you anyhow know best?

“Well yes”, you might say, “this gives the shivers and the awe and the tingling of mystery and ‘not know’ of what is”.

Having a game with it and fun with it is perfectly alright.

But if you hit rock bottom and try to get absolution from the cards, in such a situation I suggest you play another game, like taking a stroll outside or turn your house upside-down and clean the devil out of it.

You are the one who decides. You put meaning into it. You are it.

Splurge on it!