• Tarot de Marseille

    Tarot Explorations of Neruda’s Book of Questions I

    Recently, I stumbled across a children’s picture book of Pablo Neruda’s Book of Questions.  It’s a beautifully illustrated book of intriguing, poetic questions, and I bought it, because I thought, this lovely thing can’t just be for children. I didn’t know much about Neruda beyond his love poems, and I certainly didn’t know anything about his Book of Questions, a collection of 74 poems, comprised of 314 unanswerable questions, questions that remind you of a child tugging at your sleeve, “what’s that” “why is” “what for” “how come” “why does”, to which when we apply our adult experiences maybe we can answer, maybe we can’t. When I read the questions posed in the…

  • Tarot de Marseille

    Cranky McCranky Pants, or the People of the Tarot de Marseille

    The other day, I threw some cards and asked if blogging was a good idea.  I didn’t exactly get the answer I wanted, but that’s ok, I never listen to anyone anyway, one of my issues I suppose.  But I enjoyed the process, and I particularly enjoyed using my Tarot de Marseille deck, Tarot de Marseille Jean Dodal 1701 restored by Jean-Claude Flornoy.  Today, I thought I’d talk about the parameters of what I mean when I say “Tarot de Marseille” versus Marseille style tarot versus modern pip decks so there’s no confusion going forward. The oldest known Tarot de Marseille deck, the Jean Noblet of 1659 (ok, so there’s talk of an…