Today's Card: Questions & Comments

[Joan Marie]

AlcheMystic Woodcut Tarot
by D. W. Prudence

I'm really enjoying this thread. Our exertions with the TdM feel like pulling teeth in comparison. What an amazing looking deck. I read a very thorough review of it here on a fascinating website:

https://benebellwen.com/2018/04/17/alch ... -prudence/

Interested to see that her only criticism was the production of the deck by the publisher Schiffer, who also did a bit of a hatchet job on chiscotheque's phenomenal Charles Dickens Tarot. Though they certainly have good taste and an eye for thoughtful decks that are a cut above. His original self-produced version is infinitely more satisfying. Some of their editorial decisions were quite bad, but I suppose production costs were a factor. They turn out a nice glossy product that catches the eye, but...However, it feels churlish to quibble. Schiffer are one of the more interesting companies making tarot decks.

This deck, AlcheMystic Woodcut Tarot, was the unnanmed subject of my post, Shipping costs are cray in which I described trying to buy a deck for $31 USD but the shipping was $48.

A publisher as big as Schiffer should be able to do better than that for the author and for the buyers.

This deck is amazing except for the border, which I removed for the post. here is what the card actually looks like compared to without the border:

alchemystic-woodcut-no border.jpg (32.65 KiB) Viewed 6651 times

I think that border is supposed to look like wood, (hence the name of the deck?) but instead it just looks cheap and really takes away from the artwork. A lot. My plan if I could have bought it was to trim off that border.

ps- I moved your post to the "Questions & Comments about Today's card" topic.

[dodalisque]

A publisher as big as Schiffer should be able to do better than that for the author and for the buyers.

This deck is amazing except for the border, which I removed for the post. here is what the card actually looks like compared to without the border:

Jeepers, that border is terrible. I'm glad I didn't rush to my credit card to order it. When I did some extra research I decided in any case that the deck needed too much work on my part to make it readable. We're never satisfied, are we. Most decks are too dumb and this one is too clever. It seems to be a cosmic principle that there is always something it every deck that makes it "not quite right", but Schiffer goes the extra "green mile". (BTW sorry, I didn't notice there was a separate section for Comments.)

[Thelder]

My plan if I could have bought it was to trim off that border.

I have noticed that many of Schiffer's decks seem to find their way onto Amazon. If you are still seeking to purchase this deck, you may wish to investigate Amazon Global. I just purchased an oracle deck from them, and they offered free shipping from Krefeld, Germany to the United States. I am still amazed that Amazon can offer free shipping when companies like Schiffer are charging so much. The imagery in the AlcheMystic Woodcut Tarot is amazing. I just wish they had used a different color palette. That was the main reason I passed on buying it. The huge borders were also a negative. I would be afraid to trim them for fear of doing it poorly. @Joan Marie

[Joan Marie]

You were so correct @Thelder

I just bought the deck off my local (Germany) Amazon for €34 (about $38USD) with free shipping.

I still plan to trim the deck. I did that years ago to my Haindl Tarot and it really turned out pretty good. It was kind of a nice meditation to do it, like knitting or something. But my hand did hurt at some point.

[Joan Marie]

This deck, Alchemystic Woodcut, arrived on Saturday. that was fast.
@dodalisque

It comes in this kind of a cigar-box, with a large (cigar-box size) format book. It's really a nice deck, except I still dislike the frame around the cards.
On the plus side, the cards are oversized so trimming the borders off will be a double-improvement for me. The finished cards will be about the same size as my Madenie TdM deck once they are trimmed.

On the possible downside, is the cards appear to be laminated and I'm a bit worried that trimming them will cause the laminate to peel which would really ruin the deck. I may do a little test cut first, wrecking only one card potentially.

I really wish this deck had been printed on a nice matte cardstock. It would be so perfect. I'm not a fan of shiny, sticky laminate. I will never understand why people choose that finish for a deck of cards. It's so impractical for use and does not favour the artwork.

Despite that, the images are beautuful. I'm really getting into them and its been a while since I so enjoyed a new deck. The book is interesting and I can already feel some understanding of alchemy starting to creep through to my brain. Using this deck is like coming at the subject of alchemy from yet another direction. I needed this.

[Joan Marie]

What an amazing looking deck. I read a very thorough review of it here on a fascinating website:

https://benebellwen.com/2018/04/17/alch ... -prudence/

I just finally read this review from Benebell Wen about this deck. It really is good and she points out a lot of really interesting aspects about the deck that might be, at least initially, over most people's heads. She really seems to adore this deck and the book but apparently agrees with me about how it was published, She wrote:

I would not have gone for glossy coating. I would have taken pains to find a matte, woven canvas cardstock. The vertical margins/borders of the cards also puts the design off balance. I would have opted for finishes and paper stock that better evoke a medieval setting.

I speculate that The AlcheMystic Tarot might have been better served being self-published, where great personal pains can be taken to ensure each detail matches the deck’s aesthetic point of view. I felt like there was some cognitive dissonance between the deck creator and the deck publisher here. Like…the vision of the deck creator could have been much better realized.

People in her comments also agreed. This really is an outstanding deck in so many ways, such a pity it wasn't published with the love that went into creating it. Still glad I bought it though. What's good about it is great enough to overcome what isn't.

[dodalisque]

Alchemystic Tarot. What an amazing looking deck. I read a very thorough review of it here on a fascinating website:

https://benebellwen.com/2018/04/17/alch ... -prudence/

This really is an outstanding deck in so many ways, such a pity it wasn't published with the love that went into creating it. Still glad I bought it though. What's good about it is great enough to overcome what isn't.

Yeah, I know, I already ordered it. Despite all our complaining I couldn't resist it. You're costing me a fortune, JM. I got the Banksy Tarot on your recommendation too and I'm loving it. I find it hard to do readings with because of the deck's dark cynical tone, but it's very well thought out and it's fun to study to see the way the deck creator matches the images to the Golden Dawn system.

[Joan Marie]

I got the Banksy Tarot on your recommendation too and I'm loving it. I find it hard to do readings with because of the deck's dark cynical tone, but it's very well thought out and it's fun to study to see the way the deck creator matches the images to the Golden Dawn system.

I love the Banksy deck but I really only use it when I need to kick myself in the ass, when I really need a truth-bomb. It never fails.

You know the deck creator didn't only match the images to the system, she also matched a Banksy quote to each card. It really is amazingly well thought out.

I'm really getting some great readings from this new Alchemystic deck. Just getting warmed up with it but it is very compelling.

[dodalisque]

I'm really getting some great readings from this new Alchemystic deck. Just getting warmed up with it but it is very compelling.

I feel like I want to write something analytical about The Banksy Tarot for somewhere on CoT so that I can get a better grasp of the deck. It would be a good way to learn it. With the Alchemystic I'm a little scared the learning curve is going to be too steep. There seems to be an awful lot of arcane occult lore crammed into the book. Are the card meanings clear enough that you can consult the book and read with the deck? A review I saw on youtube said that it was a self-contained system and I'm worried my RWS knowledge isn't going to be much help. I don't know about you but whenever I confront cards from a new deck I always briefly visualise the corresponding RWS card to find my bearings.

[Joan Marie]

With the Alchemystic I'm a little scared the learning curve is going to be too steep. There seems to be an awful lot of arcane occult lore crammed into the book. Are the card meanings clear enough that you can consult the book and read with the deck? A review I saw on youtube said that it was a self-contained system and I'm worried my RWS knowledge isn't going to be much help. I don't know about you but whenever I confront cards from a new deck I always briefly visualise the corresponding RWS card to find my bearings.

I have to admit my approach to learning anything is (usually) basically childlike. I just jump in feet first and see what happens. On things I get nervous about or try too hard, like learning a language, I usually fail miserably because I'm not able to bring that sense of fun or naïveté to it. My brain doesn't work well when I overcomplicate things or focus on results.

I actually just then, writing that sentence, figured that out about myself.

Obviously this approach, even when "successful" has its limitations, so I'm not trying to recommend it or anything. But I will share the best life advice I ever got, which was from my mother. Whenever I was faced with something new or difficult and felt unsure, she'd say, "Look at all the stupid people who could do it. You'll be fine."
This advice got me through many a life challenge from getting a driver's license, figuring out the London Tube, replacing the hard drive in my computer, learning to sew, learning various software programs, and a lot of other things.

To answer your question, the book is very helpful. And if you want to dig deeper, he provides the source for every image used so you can google away on that. As far as a "system" goes, I am not a great one to ask about that. I have trouble with systems. This is one of my limitations. It's why I am so bad at math and languages.

One thing about the book is there are a lot of religious images used and corresponding explanations. I am not religious although I am familiar with everything he writes about. There is a lot of religion in Alchemy and its interesting to interpret it through that lens. I think a lot of religions would consider alchemy too mystical to be acceptable in their belief systems. I'm pretty sure Sister Mary Holy Water would have hauled me out for a real talking-to had I ever brought up the stages of the Great Work in her presence, despite the fact that it is in perfect alignment with religious teachings. I think it is anyway.

I have explored alchemy from many different directions and I'm still waiting for that penny to drop. This deck seems to me yet another very interesting direction to approach it from. I'm pretty sure I'm not "doing it right" but the fact I've not just given up on the topic and keep exploring it tells me something.

I'm sure this response has been utterly unhelpful, as is my way at times!

[Thelder]

I am sure you are most likely familiar with the following source of information on alchemy, but in the event that you are not, I have posted the following link for you or anyone else who wants to take a deep dive into the subject: @Joan Marie

https://www.alchemywebsite.com/home.html

[dodalisque]

I usually fail miserably because I'm not able to bring that sense of fun or naïveté to it. My brain doesn't work well when I overcomplicate things or focus on results.

I actually just then, writing that sentence, figured that out about myself.

Maybe this is one of the things we have in common. I took part in a lot of competitive sports growing up and approached studies at school in the same way, so the idea of doing things for fun is still alien to me. Just "playing", even as a little kid, always seemed a bit aimless and futile. I guess I missed out. As for your mom's advice - "Look at all the stupid people who could do it. You'll be fine." - just this morning I heard a Stephen Wright joke: "Never forget that just over half the people in the world are below average."

Perhaps you are already engaged in Alchemy. This site is something that you are slowly turning from lead into gold. It is transforming you as you are transforming it. The Prima Materia is your own soul, or the first time the idea came into your head to start this project. As for Sister Mary Holy Water, I've never been able to understand what is left in religion that's worth keeping after you take the mysticism out of it. It's just crowd control, isn't it?

[dodalisque]

Tarot Pierre Cheminade 1742
from EDITIONS YVES REYNAUD
The Sun (XIX)

I think that's one of the nicest Sun cards I've seen. The Sun looks particularly pitiless and the two children especially loving. To me it's emphasising the fact that in harsh universe we need to love one another and ourselves. This card is sometimes thought to represent the Garden of Eden:
Middle English: from Old French paradis, via ecclesiastical Latin from Greek paradeisos ‘royal (enclosed) park’, from Avestan pairidaēza ‘enclosure, park’. And if that's the case, I wonder if the image doesn't show the scene outside the garden rather than inside! This must be showing the moment after the Expulsion from Eden. I'd never considered that before but it seems obvious when I look at this particular card. There is no vegetation. It must all be on the other side of the wall. And it's such a low wall - we could step over it whenever we wanted to with a little effort. The Sun does look very annoyed with the two of them for eating of the Tree of Knowledge.

As for the blindness that we usually notice with one of the children, I wonder if it has something to do with this bit of the story in Genesis 3: 6-7:

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. (Genesis 3:6–7)

I haven't figured it out but there does seem to be some kind of inversion of the usual biblical interpretation of nakedness and blindness - our sexuality is something to celebrate rather than be ashamed of. I've also always wondered why their undergarments are rolled up around their waist. Well, of course, their naughty bits - or the "sticky bits" as my mother insisted on calling them - are in full view now. The proverbial fig leaf has been removed and they seem perfectly unashamed. Perhaps the blind child that we see in some versions is in the process of gaining their sight and discarding shame.

[Joan Marie]

The proverbial fig leaf has been removed and they seem perfectly unashamed. Perhaps the blind child that we see in some versions is in the process of gaining their sight and discarding shame.

Just the other day I was reading something about how to get Putin to back off Ukraine, what it might take and the writer wrote something about "offering him a fig leaf," a way to leave and still save face somehow and I immediately thought somebody got their metaphors mixed up.
I said, "I think the writer meant an olive branch, not a fig leaf."

My husband thought about it for a bit and said, "no, I think they meant fig leaf. Give Putin some way to cover his balls and hide his shame to allow him to leave quietly."

I read it again and I think that is what it meant. Interesting use of the fig leaf symbol/metaphor.

[dodalisque]

Just the other day I was reading something about how to get Putin to back off Ukraine, what it might take and the writer wrote something about "offering him a fig leaf," a way to leave and still save face somehow and I immediately thought somebody got their metaphors mixed up.
I said, "I think the writer meant an olive branch, not a fig leaf."

My husband thought about it for a bit and said, "no, I think they meant fig leaf. Give Putin some way to cover his balls and hide his shame to allow him to leave quietly."

I read it again and I think that is what it meant. Interesting use of the fig leaf symbol/metaphor.

Yes, I think the difference between the two expresses a lot about how you interpret Putin's actions. If you think Putin is waging war just because he's an egotistical maniac determined to show what a butch strong man he is, then "fig leaf" fits. If you think his actions are a brutal though logical attempt to get American-driven NATO forces to back out of the Ukraine, then "olive branch". People forget that during the so-called Revolution of Dignity - our name for it - while the Winter Olympics in 2014 were taking place in Russia, the US financed a coup in Ukraine to replace the Russian friendly President and Prime Minister with their own guys. Putin reacted quickly in the Crimea, where much of the Russian fleet is based and crucial oil pipelines are situated. If the West had been able to consolidate in the eastern part of the Ukraine then Russia would have been strategically and economically doomed. It looked like the Ukraine would split along the same lines as North and South Korea or Vietnam but NATO have been continuing to slowly build up a military presence in western Ukraine. Putin's invasion is a way of letting NATO know that in future they need to think twice about "playing silly buggers". A few thousand Ukrainians will die and hundred of thousands will be displaced, but that apparently is what it takes to temper US aggression. Is it any different to the way Israel deals with Palestine. They go in there and kill a few hundred people every now and then to "mow the lawn" as it's known over there.

I was listening to Noam Chomsky's take on the situation. He pointed out that part of the West's deal with Gorbachev that brought about the unification of Germany was that Western forces would not encroach any further into eastern territories included within the Russian sphere of influence. But the US, who tell the EU countries in their military alliance within NATO what to do, have not stuck to their part of the bargain. How would the US like it if communist countries invaded Mexico or Canada and set up a nuclear arsenal along their borders with the US? We can imagine how the US, whether lead by Democrats or Republicans would react to that! That's essentially what NATO are trying to do in the Ukraine. Chomsky seems to think that the US master strategy in all this is to weaken the EU by dragging it into a conflict with Russia. The US Republican funding of the ridiculous Brexit campaign in the UK seems part of the same strategy. Chomsky thinks the EU would be wise to get out of NATO and make their own policy decisions without US interference. He seems to regard Europe as the last bastion of hope for the survival of compassionate democratic values.

And we mustn't forget that "plucky little Ukraine" are hardly spotless innocents in all this. The country boasts an impressive history of human rights abuses and there are strong fascist elements within the country. Would the EU even want to consider them as prospective members of their trading block? Or Hungary, etc? I'm sure there are many powerful people in Ukraine who are delighted at the prospect of billions of dollars of US aid flowing through their hands.

But who knows what the hell is going on? Probably not even the people who are running the whole thing. We are so far from the centres of power we can't even make a sensible guess at what is happening. The media is less than worthless - just an echo chamber for absurd statements designed to mislead us. All we know for certain is that our leaders are not very evolved human beings and that their values are not human values. I loved that detail in Lynch's Twin Peaks 3 - the part he plays as the deaf FBI Chief Gordon Cole - facing the desk in his office is a large portrait of Franz Kafka and behind it a huge photograph of a nuclear mushroom cloud. What the heck is going to happen when Trump wins the next election?! It's going to be a electoral landslide, you know. Frank Sinatra kept making comebacks, Muhammad Ali, Tiger Woods, Elvis, Jesus. The US public loves that kind of thing. They want to see it. That sort of thing carries more weight in elections than political considerations - which no-one has a clue about anyway. Maybe Democracy was never going to work. But the alternatives are so horrible I can't even think about it.

On a more serious note, you might not be following developments in the Tarot Haiku world, but I did a few recently with the Weimar deck. One of them is pretty good, if I say so myself. I'm sure you'll spot the one I mean. I'm loving the TdM Haiku and will concentrate on those for a while - I think I may have found my medium. A hideously cramped little micro-medium but it's the best I can do. But one a week max is as many as I can manage. I wish I could say it's getting easier but the opposite is true. Each time I select the 3 cards I scream with boredom and frustration, but as I keep staring at them and the days pass, if I'm patient enough, I can sometimes push my currently held ideas about the images - my conditioned responses - into the background and one or two peculiar new features will peek out from the depressingly predictable murk. Often I'll fiddle for days with the right wording and then when I finally give up in despair and go to post it online a completely new idea will sweep in and the whole thing is done is 10 seconds. I wish I didn't have to go through so much torture each time. Maybe it's always torture like this for creative people and I'm just not used to the feeling. After it's done I look back on the ghastly process each time with nostalgia and affection. I suppose it's no different from climbing a mountain - it's nice to HAVE done it. I get the same buzz from climbing a molehill.

[dodalisque]

From March 4th's card.
Tarocchi Incontro

What's this?! One of your secret side projects?

[Joan Marie]

From March 4th's card.
Tarocchi Incontro

What's this?! One of your secret side projects?

Nope. This deck is a creation of the Museo dei Tarocchi located near Bologna Italy.
It is a collaboration deck.
http://www.arnellart.com/museodeitarocchi/msdks.htm

They have a selection of some really interesting decks. Books too.

Incontro is an Italian verb, from the infinitive, incontrare meaning to meet. It is also what a football (soccer) match or meet is called. So it is a word you see a lot at train stations and airports there, (Incontro Point) and in the sports page. And now on a tarot deck. Yeah, when I saw it I had to buy it.

[Thelder]

I did that years ago to my Haindl Tarot and it really turned out pretty good.

@Joan Marie I have noticed that I always feel a little disoriented when I look at certain of the Haindl cards, but I have never been quite sure why until now. I noticed that I had the same reaction when I looked at the Pazzol Tarot Devil that you posted yesterday, and I think I have narrowed the reaction down to the fact that on the Pazzol Devil card (and some of the Haindl cards) there are eyes placed in odd locations. Perhaps, my brain is trying to make sense of why there are eyes where they are not normally located. I'd be interested to know if you have a similar reaction when looking at any of your Haindl cards.

By the way, thank you for posting that Pazzol card as yesterday's Devil. Somehow, the Pazzol deck slipped by me unnoticed when it was on Kickstarter, but after researching it just now, I found that the first edition is still available for about the same price as when it was on KS. I just ordered it from the creator at his Big Cartel Store. The entire deck is amazing...the court cards particularly so. Thanks again!

[Joan Marie]

I'd be interested to know if you have a similar reaction when looking at any of your Haindl cards.

I haven't looked at that deck in a long time. I'd have to have a look at it again to refresh my memory.

So glad you found that Pazzol deck!