Cult of Tarot Forum

Well, that’s a mouthful! This deck consists of 44 cards that are close-up photos of the insides of crystals. They are numbered but have no other designations on the cards. They also don’t seem to have a particular orientation. (The numbers are in the corners facing four different directions. Oh, wait, but the backs aren’t reversible!) There are interps in the booklet, but I’m going to stay away from them until I come up with my own readings. A few years back in a discussion on Aeclectic, we decided these cards are for “scrying on training wheels,” in other words, instead of trying to see things in a crystal or sphere, I could probably better see things in these more colorful, more featured pictures.

So that’s my goal for this week. Try to get something from each card cold. And then maybe check the booklet and see if I’m seeing what the creator saw. Or maybe not! Maybe my insights will be just as valid as anyone’s, including the creator of the deck.

This is really going out on a limb for me, but I feel like that’s one of the things My Deck of the Week is for! I don’t like when people say reading tarot is like inkblot tests because there is intended meaning there for your intuition to join with, but I think these cards are much closer to inkblot territory, just prettier!

One card, How will our work together go this week?



Number 28
First glance, I see tree bark. A tree in winter, no green on it yet. My intuition/scrying is still in hibernation, not yet sprung to new life.

I see a small face upper middle, like a mask with just eye holes, not nose or mouth. I’m looking and seeing but not yet interpreting. The mask covers the face of someone who really doesn’t understand.

Turning the pic now. When landscape, we’re back to trees, this time two horizontal branches, and now I see the yellow golden light shining behind. The warmth of the sun on a winter day. So maybe, even if I’m not at my best, there are glimpses of understanding coming.

Upside down, there’s different face right underneath the mask face. It looks like a bearded man shouting. Messages may be coming through more easily soon, but they might not all be pleasant.

Well, that’s it for today. We’ll see what tomorrow brings. Have a happy day!

Monday, Martin Luther King Day

This year, we’re much more focused on Inauguration Day on Wednesday, but what is the message of MLK Day for me this year?



Number 29
Landscape, it looks like a shield with a black lined design in the midst of a column of light. On either side are two young women standing and regarding, revering the shield. Equality and justice are embedded in the ideals of our country. It’s how we want to see ourselves. We are living in the protection that previous generations have worked and died for. Now a younger idealistic generation is taking over the struggle, looking up to the founders of it.

As banal as it is, there IS a white butterfly at the base of the column. Our ideals can be reborn. There is hope.



Reverse landscape: What at first glance is an angel at a closer look is a devil that thinks it’s an angel or wants us to believe it is one. Face with horns in its belly. It’s wings have holes in them, showing just how deceptive they are. Its feet spread wide, like it wants to span the world. Patches of grass under its feet show that this monster grew from the advantages we all (should) share as American citizens. And now it’s afraid and wants to take that away from some of us. Fire in distant corners. Can we stop the monster before the fire gets closer?

Back to the other direction. There is darkness in the background, but the center column, the foundation, is bright. In this direction, it is rising from the ashes of the fires. I need to reiterate there is hope, and much of it is coming from the younger generation.

Ok, I have to admit I had trouble talking around “dark/black is bad, light/white is good” in this interp. I went with my impressions, but at least I noticed it . . .

Happy Monday! See you all tomorrow with more adventures in scrying on training wheels!

Tuesday
Something I need to know.



Number 31
Here’s another “inkblot fold over” style picture. Which seem to work better landscape.

The Ace of Cups, or is that the Holy Grail?, is deep in a rainbow crystal cave sending out beams of light to guide in its seekers. I have to enter the beautiful but dark cave before I can be in the presence of the chalice. It looks like a Masonic square above. I don’t want to drink from it, or even touch it. I just want to be in its presence.

The message I need to know today is that beauty, emotion, and reverence are the keys to spirituality. I’m usually trying to figure out what is the best religion, based on not exactly what it can do for me, but more on how likely is it and how useful is it. I need to remember that numinosity and wonder need to be there too for a spiritual approach to really work. Otherwise it’s just unsupported philosophy. Ho hum.

Interesting message! I’ll have to think about it for a while. I hope you’re having a happy Tuesday!

Wednesday, Inauguration Day
Just a little hope, please



Number 41
The statue of liberty holding her torch aloft rises behind a large face with a very roman nose. The cult of personality is a lower level of devotion. We should be more devoted to an ideal than a person. Because a person can take your liberty away. But she’s still there, a little obscured now, but we just have to focus on her, not the people standing in the way between us and her.

Have a happy Wednesday!

Thursday
Card of the day



Number 35
Another foldover. It’s a lighthouse in a kind of human shape warning ships of the dangerous ice. And ironically it’s made out of ice. This is a cold but beautiful world. A world of danger and hope, only for the strong of body and mind. The light doesn’t block out the stars. The works of man are no match for the works of nature.

I don’t know what all this means for me today. I’m not someone who would abandon my home comforts and go to the Arctic. I guess it’s all more metaphorical, but of what?

Have a very happy day today.

Friday
Card of the day



Number 1
I’m calling this the middle way. A road runs straight (and very foreshortened!) between a dense forest and an a rocky wasteland. Or maybe it’s a canal from the sea into the interior. In any case, we have to go forward in life taking into account both the bounty and desolation we experience. Sometimes it seems like everything is so full of life it’s almost scary. Sometimes there’s nothing there but cold, dry sand with only boulders to interrupt it. These landscapes can be outer or inner, of our own making or of someone else’s. The important thing is how we live with them and react to them. Even if we take the straight and narrow path, we have to see and deal with what’s on every side of it.

Hmm. I think I’m going to go through the book tomorrow to see what the deck creator says for each of the cards I’ve drawn. I have a feeling we might have very different ideas!

Happy, happy Friday to you!

Saturday on Sunday

Yesterday turned out to be a much enjoyed no computer day, so here is my final entry for scrying of training wheels, with a meta question.

If I’ve done well with these cards, should I give a serious try to scrying with my spheres?



Number 32
A vertical foldover. I’m not looking at this image closely, bt going by the first impression and overall feel. This is a gold statue, like a trophy. The answer is no, I shouldn’t be concentrating on physical props right now. (Except cards, of course!) Dealing with items considered precious in themselves is inimical to my spiritual/esoteric development right now. This is the golden calf, a false trail to god/ess. I can even see hooves in the lower middle (but nothing else really looking bovine).

So this is a refinement of my previous reading: Beauty is an important part of spirituality, but beware of it taking a too physical form. Contemplate the beauty, not the beautiful thing.

Well, this is a revelation in itself. I thought I was over the whole Judeo-Christian Perennial Philosophy devaluation of the physical. Body/physical/earth bad; spirit/ethereal/heaven good. But this was a visceral reaction to this gold card. Maybe it applies for now, at this place in my development, related only to this question, not for everyone for all time. So I surely won’t be practicing to see things that aren’t there for a while yet.

Now I’ll check the booklet and see just how different my interps are from the creators’!

28. Me, winter tree with faces; Booklet, Friends & Family, shared experience, comfort and trust

29. Me, pillar and shield with acolytes; Booklet, Transmutation, courage, strength and flexibility

31. Me, grail in rainbow cave; Booklet, Spiritual Path, growth, direction and confirmation

41. Me, Mt. Rushmore face and Statue of Liberty; Booklet, Wisdom, understanding, insight and enlightenment

35. Me, ice lighthouse; Booklet, Transformation, crossroads, choice and faith

1. Me, The Middle Way; Booklet, Higher Self, divine connection, understanding and love

32. Me, The Golden Calf; Booklet, Emergence, transformation, action and understanding

Well, the booklet keywords kind of run together at this point, but I’d say I was on the same wavelength for more than half of them. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

Have a great week ahead! I’ll be back with a new deck for a new week!