Tarot Tradition

My dear, you have the Hound!

There is a convention that the tarot represents all things. That's quite something, and is connected to the identification of the tarot with the kabbalistic tree of life, itself a magical map of everything. The idea would therefore be that if you are stranded on a desert island with only a tarot deck, it could teach you everything. I don't have a reference to hand for this idea but it isn't original to me.

I have been thinking about the full implications of that desert island image. I was sceptical about it because I thought you would have to have other resources to connect stuff in the tarot to. However as we know, in magic things are not always what they seem, and objects' existence on different planes would mean that they are different things in different levels of existence. Such as a deck of cards being a magical portal to everything.

I have been thinking about this because of the way, when you work with a tarot deck for any length of time, you get a relationship with it and it starts talking to you. It gives you ideas for readings, reveals connections and conflict between different cards, and generally becomes a magical entity.

Because of this I have also been thinking about the traditions connected with tarot.

I do like the tradition of being given your first deck (although I think it is mostly put about by the owners of magical supply stores). In reality this can mean connecting to somebody else's magical current. Absolutely nothing wrong with that - it's how we know you are never alone as a witch. 

The other tradition is that of sleeping with the deck under your pillow. I would actually extend that to handling it frequently, just playing with the cards and letting them talk to you. 

I think there is a reality that like all magical tools, they find the witch rather than the other way round. It may also be that they arrive when the witch is ready. I bought my first deck (the ancient tarot of Lombardy) purely because I felt drawn to it, but at the time I couldn't read with it. I can now, and suspect I wasn't ready for it then. This is the same as when people look forward to getting a particular deck but don't click with it in any way.

I don't really have any other traditions that I've been thinking about. Incidentally I love the thing where people have gone through the Harry Potter books replacing the word wand with the word willy with hilarious results. I always thought it was the willy that found the wizard, but am horrified that Ron's willy is broken and fascinated that Harry's willy is the twin of Voldemort's willy. 😳

Ooh - I haven't forgotten that it's masturbation month, so have a picture of the gorgeous Mercury twins as I don't feel like doing a whole post about it!