Hello and thank you!

Hello and welcome to my little corner of the internet!  This isn’t my first clean, well lighted place on the web.  I’ve blogged about knitting, about crafting, about life in general, but now I want to blog about my current passion, tarot.  Right now, in particular, I’m fixated on Tarot de Marseille, and I was originally going to call this blog, Marseille All Day.

The rhythm, the colors, the language, the images, the wordplay, the rhymes, the poetry – that’s where my head is right  now, with the language of the birds, and Tarot de Marseille, Marseille style tarot, historic tarots and modern pip decks.  But is that where my head and heart will be tomorrow?  Maybe not.  So, that’s why I decided to stick with blogging about tarot generally.  So, here we are – all things tarot.

So what are my big plans?  Because go big or go home, right?  I’ll be posting tarot readings based on whatever thoughts are going through my head on any given day, new deck reviews, perhaps I’ll do blog replies to youtube hashtags.  I’m not a hundred percent sure where it’s all going, but I do know that it’s all going to be a learning experience, and a celebration of all things cartomancy.  I invite you to come along on this journey with  me, and I hope you stop by often, leave your thoughts and even your own readings in the comments.

So let’s begin.  I couldn’t start a project like this and not throw some cards, starting a tarot blog?  Is it a good idea?

How crushing is it when you think have the greatest idea ever and someone comes and poops on it?  I’m going to blog about tarot, and it’s going to be fantastic, and everyone will flock to it, and it will become a great community, and it’s just the best idea ever – and then the Devil appears.  At first, I looked at this, and just fixated on the Devil, because obviously right?  It’s the goddamn Devil.  And I thought, ok, fine, I’m willing to be a slave this project, it’s all good.  F’ off Devil.  But then, I expanded my view – the Devil is at the end of the string, not the beginning.  So, there’s the Queen of Coins, the first card down.  Yep, that’s me, staring in the mirror, not too happy with what I see.  But, it’s a daily habit, looking in the mirror, primping as best I can, a habit I don’t particular like.  So, why do it? Why look in the mirror every day? So that I don’t leave the house looking like the cranky pants, menopausal gal that I am.  This habit and the Devil = vanity.  And that King in the middle, his back turned to the Queen, oh boy, there she goes again, with something no one wants to read but her.  He doesn’t want to look her in the eye, tell her the truth, that this is a vanity project, that probably no one will ever read, but when it is, it will be subject to judgment and scrutiny.   Is that what you want to do?

And that really did get me thinking.  Why do I need to blog?  Why does this exploration have to be on social media?  Why can’t I just scribble in a journal? Why does something have to be public to be legitimate?  If hell is other people, and their opinions, why invite them in?

So, here we are – with everything I love about tarot.  Expressive characters in conversation, or in this case, avoiding conversation, the Devil lording over it all.  And look at the rhyming – the coin becomes the baton, the Queen and the King both become equals at the foot of the Devil. And instead of yes or no, more questions.  More conversation.  The Queen values that coin, there’s no question.  Vanity and pride are intertwined here.  And the King, while he thinks it’s all vanity, he has his own stick he’s not about to part with, and like the Queen, he also ends up at the Devil’s feet, both of them chained to others’ opinion.  She sees the reflection of this; he, on the other hand, is a bit of hypocrite, denying his own reliance on the opinions of others.

But, if you look in the mirror every day, what can you learn from a reflection?  If you just parrot yourself, what do you learn?  Pride and vanity really only pan out if someone says, you look nice today.  Or perhaps they say, you don’t look so hot, maybe you need a rest.  It’s only when you invite an audience in, and subject yourself to scrutiny that vanity and pride perhaps pay off.

But, the question on the table was – is this a  good idea?  To subject your vanity project to the whim of others, the the cancel culture of social media?  Probably not, but eh, here we are.  Who really listens to their tarot reader when they don’t say what the want to hear anyway?  But, at least I’ve been warned.

Any thoughts?  You are always welcome to leave your interpretations in the comment, whether you use traditional meanings, or listen to the language of the birds – it’s all welcome here.