New Deck Spread
I had wanted to study for the course on Psalm 119 and the tarot. It is a long time ago that I had the chance to work on it, and there are other courses as well that must be prepared, like the one on the Inner Child. I’m already looking forward to create spreads and exercises for that course (inspired by articles in the book Meeting the Shadow from Zweig and Abrams). But I am still feverish. My thoughts are not clear enough for preparing courses.
To do something totally different, I wanted to delve in the Victorian Romantic Tarot. I’ve pulled a card from this deck to get to know it, from a spread special for new decks that I found at the Aeclectic Tarot Forum.
The question is the first position in this spread: “point of connection - why this deck now?”
I have pulled Temperance as the point of connection, the reason why I use this deck now.
Seeing the image on the card, I mistakenly thought it was the Six of Swords card. Immediately came to my mind: “Yes, that is what I want, going to another less problematic place, over the river”, which is the meaning of the Six of Swords card. But then I looked a little closer and saw the title which is Temperance, and not the Six of Swords…
Annoying and comical as well, because confusion of cards was just what was irritating me in the Inner Child Cards. It was one of the reasons I wanted to stop reading with it for a while in my blog. I love the cards, with their wonderful colours but not right now here in my blog. They confuse me. Pages for example, are standing still in the RWS, whil all of the Knights ride on horses. The Child of Wands in the Inner Child Cards, representing the Page of Wands, is pictured riding on a butterfly, as if he is a Knight. That is confusing. On the Temperance card from the Victorian Romantic Tarot I encounter the same problem. The Temperance-card in this deck looks like the Six of Swords which is confusing. The confusion is one reason why I wanted to work with another deck. But why just this deck?
Karen Mahony addresses the similarities and differences of both the Six of Swords and Temperance in the essay on Temperance in her book. “Both cards are about moving quietly through life, although the Six of Swords refers more specifically to getting through a difficult period, whereas Temperance, as an archetypal Major, refers to the need for Temperance in general, in both your own life and in the world around you.”
I badly want to move to another restful place, the meaning of the Six of Swords. I find the effects of the homeopathic remedies hard to take (you peel of layers, complaints from the past come back, psychic and physical), although I know it will make me stronger in the end. I need the meaning the Temperance card as well, in the meaning of moving away from chaos and extreme anxieties, finding a balance. I love the restful blue on the card. And the angel seems to calm the sea with her hand. Lovely. Funny how I relate to Temperance and Six of Swords. Both are relevant. Thus, confusion can be useful!
To relate all this to my journal: lately I have drawn the decks to work with from a bag with deck-titles. I kept pulling the Inner Child Cards to work with, time after time. The Inner Child Cards deck is very strong and wilful deck. It is a deck with a mission. That is great, but tiring. I long for the calmness of the Temperance.
Summing up, this is why “this deck now”: less confusion of cards ..ah well… or making the most of the confusion; moving away from anxiety and from the mission-idea of the Inner Child Cards that I have worked so often with lately; finding balance, enjoy calmness.