Cult of Tarot Forum

This is an invitation to work with one card deck for one week in a group reading.

You can pick any deck: tarot, Lenormand, Kipper, oracle or playing cards. From this deck, you'll draw one card per day - i.e., seven Daily Cards from your Deck of the Week that allow you to get to know the deck better, to hone your reading skills and get new insights about your life.

In a Planetary Week reading, we don't only draw a card per day but also give it a topic. We focus on motifs, topics, patterns in our lives, inspired by the planetary ruler of every weekday (for background information, look here).

On Saturdays, ruled by Saturn: Obstacles and Blockades,
on Sundays, ruled by the Sun: Inspiration and Goals,
on Mondays, ruled by the Moon: Dreams and Fears,
on Tuesdays, ruled by Mars: Conflicts and Challenges,
on Wednesdays, ruled by Mercury: Interactions and Change,
on Thursdays, ruled by Jupiter: Power and Influences, and
on Fridays, ruled by Venus: Love and Attraction.


The focus words I chose for each planet/day are not binding. Please don't limit yourself to the two short words if you feel other aspects of the planet are relevant to your reading.



There are different ways to perform a Planetary Week reading.

Traditional: draw a card per day and use the prism of the planetary influence to connect the card to your day and life.

Selective: select a card that suits the topic of each weekday and use it as affirmation and empowerment to improve your life.

Day-by-day: draw or pick your daily card one by one through the week.

Summarily: draw or pick all cards together before the week starts and treat them as a complete reading.


And what about those who just want to have a Deck of the Week, Card of the Day reading? They can just jump in and leave the planetary lore away.


Share pictures if you can or want to.

No matter how we do it - by reminding ourselves of the planetary regents and their influence, we re-connect to the sevenfold cycle of time that our ancestors established, with their eyes to the sky.



Participants:
Nemia - Housewives Tarot
CharlotteK - Tarot Decoratif
Charlie Brown - Tinkers Damn Tarot

For my next planetary week, I chose the Housewives Tarot. I like this deck; whenever I read with it, it gave me sharp, insightful readings. No sugarcoating, lots of snark

I'm very curious how it's going to work.

I *think* I might play with my new Tinker's Damn. Don't hold me to that, though.

I'm working with Tarot Decoratif this week.

Saturday - ruled by Saturn: Obstacles and Blockades

I drew Two of Batons.



Here we have a fork in the path and two possible ways to go. Both ways have potential but at this juncture it equires a pause before making the decision about which way to go as this will have big implications. Obstacles and blockages suggest a conflict about which path to take or being blocked from taking the path I want to take.

I'm not entirely sure what this means today other than some sacrifices had to be made about where I spent my time today and it wasn't necessarily on the things I really wanted to do.

Saturday: Courier of Air
Sunday : Mayoress of Earth
Monday: Nine of Water
Tuesday: Three of Earth
Wednesday: Ace of Water
Thursday: Fate (Arcanum X)
Friday: Mayor of Air


Global Observations:

• No real fire in the reading, unless you count Fate, which I pretty much don't. This may be a challenge
• The progression from Courier/Page to Mayor/King via the Mayoress suggests that this week is about stepping up.
• The absence of the soldier/knight (that is, the figure of service) suggests that this stepping up is self-centered and not about stepping up for others.
• Taking the middle as a hinge card, developing my (intellectual, swords-energy) works and/or worldview is central for the Courier to Mayor progression I need to effect.
• Cards 2 - 5 form an alternating Earth-Water sequence that commences with the so-called Water of Earth. is this significant? My initial impression is that this means that my feelings about my material situations will be an important step. The downward progression from Mayoress to Ace may signify the need for simplification and renewal.

Daily Interpretations
Saturday: Obstacles and Blockades

• As an obstacle, the Courier of Air suggests that I'm having trouble communicating my ideas in the ways that I want to. Or, perhaps, that I'm not learning something that I need to know.

Sunday: Inspiration and Goals

• I said above that my feelings about my material situation will be important for the Airy transformation that I need to effect. Finding inspiration in The Mayoress of Earth means finding inspiration in my home and family. My wife is central to my Earth world and, to be honest, we've been a little strained lately, although nothing really bad. After this past week, there are some logistical challenges that are firmly in the past, which makes it an excellent time to turn my perspective around.

Monday: Dreams and Fears

• The Nine of Cups is a card that is both happy and solitary—a very apt description of my dreams on the one side and my fears on the other. My sun and my Jupiter live in opposition. What I'm driven to do and what makes me happy are often at odds. I believe that the swords transformation in this reading refers to my intellectual and creative work. That work can often be isolating. That tendency to isolate would also suggest that, per the Mayoress, that it's a good idea to get things in a good spot with my wife.

Tuesday: Conflicts and Challenges

• As I already said, I think this Three of Earth is about my ideas and my creations. There are powerful discrepancies between the world I see and the world that is. This is why I need to become the king.

Wednesday: Interactions and Change

• Get some new water in my cup, get some new blood pumping through this card's bloody heart. Feel renewed and energized. Also, fwiw, I do have an engagement scheduled on Wednesday with a newish friend.

Thursday: Power and Influences

• Jupiter's trump appears on his day. For all my talk about being the king, etc. etc. the ultimate power has little or nothing to do with me. Nevertheless, "fortune favors the prepared mind."

Friday: Love and Attraction

• To quote Walt Whitman:
  I celebrate myself and sing mysef
  And what I assume you shall assume
  For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
  
  I loafe and invite my sould,
  I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
  My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil, this air,
  Born here of parents born her from parents the same, and their parents the same,
  I now...begin.
• It's good to be king.

Sunday ruled by the Sun: Inspiration and Goals

Today is Le Mat.


So basically my goals today are to have no goals Aside from the gym this morning we have no plans and Im going to keep it that way and go with the flow. As a 'busy busy'person with endless jobs to do this is hard but today the wise fool is saying take a break, do what comes naturally.

Why did I pick the Housewives? Because in the past, it has helped me when we had tensions in the family. Charlotte remembers my family tensions well, thank you for that! There's an update... but more about that later.

In my wider family, a lot of bad feeling has accumulated over the years and nobody has the balls to do something about it. We've been through such upheavals, none of us wants to rock the boat (and I don't think rocking the boat would help anyway; life is simply difficult, people change, and some things can't be "made good" again). I wanted to know how to find my way through it and do the best I can to make people feel better. That's why I picked the Houswives.

In my core family, the problems with my daughter were horrible, became noticeably better after I took a reading to heart that CharlotteK did for me - the Ace of Cups became my motto, and whenever I wanted to follow advice like "show her who the masters of the house are" or "respect young lady" - I thought of the overflowing love and remained relaxed and loving. That worked well for a while.

But in the last three days, she became so horrible to me that I cried after she left. That's when I decided that the time for the Housewives has come.

She phoned me this morning to tell me that she knows she was disgusting to us and asked our forgiveness. She had a lot of trouble with her boyfriend, and last night, they decided to break up. She apologized for taking out on her old parents the troubles from a relationship. I think she regrets now not asking us for advice earlier but it probably wouldn't have helped.

That's my backstory. Yesterday was a difficult day, a Saturn-Day of leaden feelings and sadness and melanchloy. I really felt that all the love, attention and care that I invested in my children, all my efforts to give them the happiest, most secure childhood ever, all our sacrifices (gladly done) were in vain. Total maternal self pity.



And that's my card for that day. The Empress. Being the Mother - the great role of my life, the great obstacle to other things, the one thing that is more important than anything else. So there are days when I have the maternal backlash and naively think I have to get anything back. But actually the Empress knows that everything she gave will land somewhere else. I also think back to my mother and all she gave us - I never returned anything, it all went to my children. That's normal. Isn't it weird that at my advanced age I still have to grapple with these feelings? still have to re-discover what it really means to be the Empress of the family? A very encouraging card that neutralizes the bitter Saturn-Day feelings.

And today?


Hard to believe how precise this deck is, hm? The Tower. With the breakdown of little daughter's relationship, a lot of things change for us, it's a catastrophe for her, sad for us, and it pretty much shakes up life as she and we have got used to it. They were about to move in together - now we're back again with an unhappy young woman who needs us more than ever. She keeps phoning us to hear our voices. Does anyone have a recipe against a broken heart?

The Tower on a Sunday - I think that means that I have to find the positive signs even in a Tower event. And they're obvious. In the long run, it will be better for her to be without a relationship that doesn't thrive. And the deterioration in her relationship with us started when this guy came into her life. I'm sure she will tell us sooner or later what was the reason for that.

In short, I'm shocked like always how elegantly and coolly this deck puts its well-manicured fingers on the painful issues. Motherhood - sudden violent changes - all these emotional bundles of explosives we handle every day....

Sorry to burst out with all this stuff but ... the planets made me do it


I LOVE the decks in this thread, the Tinkers Damn is a wonder and I didn't know the Decoratif - very beautiful!



ETA: When I looked at this card again, the Empress, I had to laugh. Before she went out last night, my daughter (who had been horrible to me before) asked me whether I can make Mama's Famous Cheese Cake for her when she comes back. And I said yes, of course. And I will make the best cake ever for my girl. It's what the Empress would do. And she has already everything she needs

my tarot for this week is the william blake.
saturday, saturn, obstacles and blockades
triumph no XII, reversal
what a beautiful card, and what a wonderful imagining of the hanged man..... he is not suspended but it looks like he is voluntarily making a very elegant handstand..... he reminds me a little of the man/men getting thrown out of the tower, struck by lightning, falling down head first, hands outstretched, a feature in many tower cards. (yesterday, friday, i drew the tower) this one seems to have landed all right, so the shake up hasn’t exactly phased him or put him at a disadvantage.... or so it seems.
from ed buryn’s book i take it he represents the reversal of old views, the guy is doing something radical, performing a handstand of the soul.....
“his pose is physically static, but his sense of contained energy is wonderfully dynamic”. i quite like that!
it resonates with the way i have learned to deal with life’s obstacles, blockades and upheavals: if you get thrown out of the tower, it’s no use trying to cling to the walls or floors that are being thrown out and destroyed along with you, better to let yourself be swept away by the winds of change, and creatively think up a way to land safely, so put out your hands and use them as feet to land on..... why not? i know the loss of my sweetheart, almost 3 years ago now, was an upheaval i thought i wouldn’t survive, but look at me now...... i have indeed landed safely on my hands. kudos to me!

sunday, sun day, inspiration and goals. it’s the angel of music. and look! it is yesterday’s card turned upside down...... wow!
in blake’s tarot the suit of music stands for the RWS suit of cups, but it is not associated with water but with fire, and the associated color is red (for love) and not blue. the angel is the first of the court cards and corresponds with the page.
i love this second reversal. it is not a complete reversal of yesterday’s card, the angel has her arms outstretched, holding two trumpets, but she is not rising up, she is descending and she is going to land on her right (spiritual) foot. interesting.....
from the guidebook:
the angel is a radiant one, a seraph, called fame. she is heralding divine forgiveness for the evils of society and brings the blessing of aesthetic sensibility (hence the two trumpets)
i think this angel,is confirming the praise for my way of dealing with upheaval, gotten from yesterday’s card, while at the same time forgiving me for the mistakes i made and the people i have hurt along the way, as well as helping me forgive the people that have hurt me. something i have already been working on over the past few weeks......

Monday - ruled by the Moon: Dreams and Fears

Today's card is Two of Cups.

I have a strong feeling this relates to some anxiety I have about friendship. I don't make friends easily and it's fair to say I don't have many friends. I'm quite introverted and keep most things to myself. I'm happy in my own company and I find small talk and chat bafflingly pointless and exhausting. I don't think I have a lot to offer frankly and am unsurprised when friends drift away as I feel I must be terribly boring. I think I should perhaps open up more to people, but to what end? In the past there are times when I made myself vulnerable and it has backfired badly. I don't see any benefit in putting myself at risk of ridicule again. I see this card with two people looking at each other square in the eyes. The only person I can do this with is my husband but even he doesn't know everything. I've been thinking about my friendships lately and feeling a little despondent that I'm not much good at them.

So, I have an update...

À la the Courier of Air, I am indeed having a difficulty with my ability to communicate and à la the 3 of Earth, it has to do with my so-called great works.

I had to update my production software and now a no-longer-supported plug-in that I've relied on for quite some time is no longer even recognized in the new version of the host software. That means that I'll have no way of sharing large portions of my older work. I'm going to have to go through all of my files in the old version, bounce everything out through this plug-in and then re-import it in the new software as something that's fixed-format rather than continually re-generated and therefore editable.

CharlotteK, I hear you on the matter of friendships. It's difficult for me to keep friendships alive when my life is filled with husband, children, work, tarot and I don't know how others do it who still keep up a huge social circle. I'm full of admiration for people who can do that.



Wow, this deck. Yesterday was a Five of Wands day. And I look only at the picture now. I tackled some jobs at home that I had put off for a long time. I must have looked quite similar to the gung-ho housewife on the card. The catastrophe in my daughter's life that kept me on the telephone, listening and comforting nearly all day long, set free some energies and I was highly motivated to do more than just the routine upkeep of the household. I'm very happy with my projects even though nobody but a crazy housewife would notice them. I must say this deck is funny and in the confrontation between housewife and disorder, the housewife rode to victory


And for today, the Nine of Cups. Today, my daughter is coming home for a short break, I'm making a cake and preparing some lovely surprises for her. I know that makes me look like Mrs Jennings in Sense and Sensibility who wants to heal Marianne's heartbreak after Willoughby's betrayal by feeding her well and making her feel comfortable.

The harmony of this card is beautiful and indeed the relationship with my husband is going from strength to strength. Instead of getting tired of each other after 30 years together, we're totally in love and focused on each other. The Empty Nest Effect seems to be setting in strongly by now. It took nine months for me to regain my inner balance after the last chick left the nest but now we're in a second honeymoon (we never had a first honeymoon!) and life is wonderful with him.


These cards are so descriptive of my life that the planetary influence is on the backburner for me. Maybe because the deck itself doesn't speak Astrologese.... no. The Monday introvert and the Tuesday extrovert energy are indeed reflected simply by what I do and where I am. Monday I'm at home all day long, Tuesday I go out and teach. The cards are the illustrations.

monday moon day - dreams and fears.
repose - the 4 of science (= swords)
the suit of science is the only suit that Blake associates with the same element as the ‘traditional’ tarot: air
for Blake it represents the intellectual use of divine imagination.
from the guidebook:
“To Blake, the star-crossed intellect is the contrary of the sunny imagination, and unless the intellect is emotionally joined to the imagination ..... it inevitably leads to self-cruelty and defeat.”
the 4 of science shows a man deeply immersed in water, interestingly enough in the same pose as the hanged man (upside down) and the angel in earlier cards this week.... his face turned upwards and his arms outstretched. to me he represents a badly needed respite from the over-thinking i tend to do, my efforts to literally think myself out of a dilemma or impasse. As the guidebook puts it: a mental truce that allows ideas to settle and consolidate themselves into a natural harmonization of elements.
very well put. i followed the card’s guidance and spent the day in the Hague’s big international foodmarket....without a thought about any of my ‘problems’.

tuesday, ruled by mars, conflicts and challenges...
the angel of science. my second angel this week. this card does not have a figure at all, instead it shows a cloudy sky with a radiant temple rising up out of it. the angel is represented by the circle of light around the classical structure with its pillars. the angel (and the meaning of the card) is so abstracted that it has no human features. In the Blake tarot, the Angels are associated with the element air, so here we have air of air, like the knight of swords. this card is about overglorified intellectuality. quite a leap from yesterday’s card where a repose was recommended to prevent overthinking. that is clearly what has happened here....
and it is quite appropriate. back from my day out i collapsed yesterday evening (it was far too hot outside, we’re in the middle of a long lasting heatwave) and now i am forced to sit and lie very still and be idle. which gives ample space to the overthinking that i just had a time-out from.....

interactions and change on wednesday. well, there is not much change today, i am still sick, and forced to stay idle by the unrelenting heat.....
nothing is going to happen today.......
i draw the man of poetry and have no idea what to do with him.
from the guidebook
“the man of poetry clears away darkness so that others may see and bring hidden issues to light.”
“he is... heroically facing intellectual darkness, right foot forward in spiritual quest”
“his gaze penetrates into invisiblevrealms of inner truth”

so what’s this guy doing in my planetary week? what is he trying to tell me, where is he guiding me?
i draw an extra card because i feel totally nonplussed. it is the eternity card, an extra card on top of the traditional 78. what the.....?
from the guidebook
“Its dual numeration (double zero or infinity) indicates that it transcends numbers.”
“ Eternity represents mankind’s hopes for divine spiritual consciousness and for living in a world of shining imagination and everlasting truth”
“this is always an auspicious card, because eternity is irreversibly divine.”

well, that doesn’t really help, does it?
i let both cards percolate for a while, and later that day i can suddenly see the connection between the man of poetry facing intellectual darkness (instead of, or after the glorified overthinking of yesterday’s card) and eternity’s longing for universal spiritual consciousness. together they guide me away from dry intellectualism, toward a more humane and ‘wet’ (as in emotional/ soul oriented) spirituality.
i decide it is time to meditate......

thursday - power and influences
it’s card number XV, titled Error.... (the devil)
very relevant. this guy has been trying to manifest a lot lately, whispering in my ear, pretending to show me the errors of my ways.....
he is very adept at casting doubt on all things spiritual, especially when i am starting to open up to its possibilities....
he keeps telling me there is no higher self, no collective consciousness, no salvage for the soul.....
from the guidebook:
Error introduces.... what is traditionally called the ‘dark night of the soul’.
It is at this point of the journey, just when the soul is finally releasing itself from its old beliefs, that error reasserts itself in primal ferocity.

oh yes, don’t i know it! i call it my saboteur, he always appears whenever i think i have found my true path......
time to re-read Thomas Moore’s ‘Dark Night of the Soul’, or even better: choose a word from David Whyte’s ‘Consolations’....
i am picking Courage. i think i am in need of it, when facing this devil.

and at friday, the end of the week, we have love and attraction
the 9 of science.....really? not a very happy picture..... nine of swords seldom is. and the title is Despair.....
from the guidebook:
Consciousness is in dread sleep within the bodily cave that confines us, trying to avoid the pain of mortality that kills the joy of life. Nightmares of the intellect shrivel us into a ball of self-inflicted despair.
Wow. very well put but not exactly light reading material.....
But here comes the link with the planet Venus: the woman and child floating above the curled up skeleton:
the woman..... is the earthy green spirit of love and forgiveness; the child... is the skeleton’s pure soul.
the possibility of regeneration comes when we forgive not only ourselves but also those who have hurt us.
Good point. So now i take out David Whyte’s Consolations again, and open it at Forgiveness.....

my planetary week with William Blake
i found the deck quite ‘heavy’, its messages very deep and dark, and although they were incredibly relevant and enlightening, i think i will look for a softer and lighter deck to use next week.
i am sure i will use this deck again, but only when i feel up to it, because it asks a lot of courage and willingness to face inconvenient truths....

I love your "scrabble bench" for the cards, it looks wonderful.

My week was up and down like an avalanche... and I didn't have much time, but let's see what I missed.


Wednesday, Mercury, Two of Cups. Always a lovely card, and nicely done here. We're having such a good time together, my husband and I - this card is right for every day. And Mercury fits, too - it's communication, communication, communication. Let the other be part of your life, be interested in everything the other one does, ask questions, listen - that's the best advice ever, and I had it from my mum when I married. We can talk and shut up, we're happy every day.



The day before yesterday, Thursday, Jupiter, Seven of Swords. Wow, what a literal card. Power relations - and the gossip card. I keep out but there is a corner in my life where a lot, a lot of gossip is going on. And on Thursday, I was confronted with it but simply kept out. Didn't want to hear and didn't tell anything. My husband always says gossip is like a coin - if you want to get "information", you have to give, and if you don't gossip, others will stop gossiping with you. And that's what I'm trying to do. NO influence, NO stream of information, just cutting myself out - doing a reverse Jupiter in a way.



Yesterday, Friday, Venus, Seven of Pentacles.


Now this is really funny. My poor neglected garden! It's so hot here right now and the garden looks terrible. I only watered and didn't do anything else for quite some time. Now my cousin sent me Thursday night lovely pictures from her garden. And since then, I have spent every day some 30 to 50 minutes in the garden, in the morning, before the great heat, and I'm doing baby steps. And very very happy doing so. I know it will take ages until we see the difference but we will.

And that's my Venus because I love beauty around me. For many years, I kept the gardens wherever we lived in quite a good condition but in the last few years, health problems and the heat exhausted me. I'll continue to do each day a bit.



I confess, I totally love this deck. It's literal, it didn't go snarky on me, just a little bit, and it put its fingers deftly on what's going on in the house, family and garden. That's the specialy of this deck, and it does the job beautifully.