New Tarot Cards!

I went on a tarot shopping spree yesterday.

I was going to apply for the JLPT exam and since Powerbooks was on sale, I decided to take advantage of that and got me some pretty decks. I visited every bookstore I knew that carried New Age stuff: Powerbooks at Trinoma and Greenbelt, Fully Booked at SM North, and National at Glorietta. I even took advantage of the Customer Service Counter and had them phone other branches so I'd know what Tarot cards they're carrying. Sadly, the other branches carried almost the same decks, so in the end I ended up buying the Tarot of Mermaids at Trinoma. I was disappointed that none of the decks in my list were sold in any of the stores, but I made sure to pay a visit to Netopia to see for myself if any of the decks were worthy of purchase. The only 2 that caught my eye was the Mona Lisa tarot and the Mermaids one, but I opted for Mermaids because the Mona Lisa tarot is darker.

I don't regret the purchase. The watercolor paintings of the mermaids are absolutely breathtaking, even though I'm not big into mermaids. However, I have a few quibbles with Lo Scarabeo: I don't like much the font they used, The dark blue borders and dark blue at the back of the cards totally ruin the effect, and the digital droplet-like background on the horrible blue border is totally cheesy and unimaginative. What's more, why did they stick to the regular "Wands, Cups, Swords, Pentacles" when the LWB and the illustrations themselves show "Oars, Shells, Tritons, and Pearls"? Looking into amazon reviews, I think I may have found the reason for the horrible dark blue frame: it was originally teal/dark green-blue (which would've suited the paintings much better) but maybe Lo Scarabeo was playing cheapskate and/or their printers and color mixers were stupid! Grrr...

On my way to the MRT station, I passed by Natio Glorietta and to my surprise, I found a Beginners' Tarot Kit in the New Age section! And National never stocks up on Tarot cards (except those horrible Marseilles-type ones). It comes with a book, an organza bag and the Universal Tarot, which made it irresistable (all for 895) for me so I shelled out the money (even though I could get it on discount if I bought it 2 days later. Classic impulse buy, LOL. My perfect R-W-S tarot is still the Universal Waite, but the Universal Tarot is a good alternative. It copies RWS very closely but has softer, better watercolors and better outfits. My quibbles with it though, are the muscular and heavy set and angular male faces (woe the Pages! - they're not innocent kids anymore) and the 7 of Pentacles with a man showing obvious dissatisfaction, when the original was more of bored/neutral.

I wasn't sure how reading with my two new decks would be like (would they connect to me?) but I took them on a test drive and to my surprise, BOTH were very readable. Though looking at individual cards of the Universal Tarot disappoints me somewhat, they look really good spread out. And since they're basically R-W-S clones, very highly readable. The Mermaid Tarot, too, were kindly and gave me good advice, telling me to open up my heart, have confidence, and study them diligently - they will tell their secrets to me :) After that, the horrible dark blue border didn't bother me so much anymore.

Another good thing: I found the Osho Zen book at Fully Booked! It was totally unexpected and it was the last copy, so I had to grab it. I was tempted to get the runes, too, but thank goodness I didn't. I'll devote myself to Tarot first, and if ever I dabble with the runes, I'll make sure I make them by myself. It's a PROMISE!!!

All in all, a very satisfying shopping day. My New Age collection is getting bigger and better :)

My decks:

1. Robin Wood Tarot
2. Osho Zen Tarot
3. Tarot of Mermaids
4. Universal Tarot

5. Faeries' Oracle

I'm still glad that I had Robin Wood for my first deck, because I still think it's the best of what I currently have, and very friendly to the beginner. Though technically Faeries' Oracle was my first deck - I need to study it!

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Activity 2:1 Card Description

1) My card is card 0, The Fool.

The Fool is playing a flute.
He is walking on his toes.
The dog is standing up on his hind legs while looking at The Fool.
The Fool looks cheerful and relaxed.
He has a backpack slung over his shoulder.
On his backpack are 5 ribbons with different colors.
He has a crown of white roses and a feather on his hair.
The pattern on his leg pants are different for each leg.
He is about to fall off a cliff.
There are 3 butterflies surrounding him.
There is a pine tree below him, beyond the cliff.
On the background are green mountains and farther away are snow-covered mountains.
The sky is a clear blue.
The dog is white.
There is a river in the distance.

2)

I am playing my flute.
I am walking on my toes.
The dog beside me is standing up on his hind legs while looking at me.
I look cheerful and relaxed.
I have a backpack slung over my shoulder.
On my backpack are 5 ribbons with different colors.
I have a crown of white roses and a feather on my hair.
The pattern on my leg pants are different for each leg.
I am about to fall off a cliff.
There are 3 butterflies surrounding me.
There is a pine tree below me, beyond the cliff.
My surroundings are are green mountains and farther away are snow-covered mountains.
The sky above me is a clear blue.
The dog following me is white.
I can see a river in the distance.

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Tarot Journey Beginnings

I made this blog today to journal my study of the Tarot. I've just finished reading all the major and minor Arcana meanings of the cards in Joan Bunning's book "Tarot for Beginners." It's a book I bought way back in 2004 before I went to Japan but I didn't have the time (and attention span!) to devote myself on studying it until now. It's a good book, straightforward and very informative to the last detail. I like the thoroughness of the author and the school reviewer approach (I feel as though I was studying something for school as I read the book). But to complement that, I bought Mary K. Greer's "21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card" which I believe focuses more on the intuitive aspects of reading.

The story of how I got the book is interesting. I was looking at Amazon for a good Tarot book to buy and I saw that Mary Greer's book had good reviews. I wrote it down in my little notebook planning to buy it if I see it in the bookstore. (Unfortunately, here in the Philippines, it's hard to find the specific books you want). So a few days ago I was at SM Clark National Bookstore and looking throught the New Age section. Thankfully, there were a few Tarot books but none were on my list. The only decent-looking one that interested me was about Tarot Spreads and it was 700+. I decided it wasn't worth it and was about to go away when I noticed that on the next shelf at the top was the book "21 Ways to Read a Tarot Card"! It was out of place among the religion and spirituality books. Needless to say, I was very happy and though the 800+ price tag was heavy, I didn't want to pass up my chance. So I went to the cashier who "zapped" the barcode on the book and to my surprise, 201.25 came out instead of the 800+ written on the price tag! The cashier punched in the numbers manually and the result was the same - 201.25. I was absolutely ecstatic with delight and thought that this must be a sign that this book was meant to be mine. It may have wanted me to buy it, haha.

The excercises in "21 Ways.." book are the incentive for me to make this Tarot Journal. I hope to keep track of my insights and progress with this blog. Hopefully, I can look back and think to myself that it was all worth it.

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