More Decks Reviewed & Happy New Year

Hope you are having a safe, sane New Year’s. Tonight I’ll be available all night so that you may get your 2010 forecast. As you know, usually I shut down at 10 (all times Pacific) so that I can get some shuteye. I don’t turn in until 11, but I don’t like getting calls too close to my bedtime. On December 31st, the Scots celebrate Hogmanay. It is an ancient tradition dating back centuries, maybe even back to the time when the Scots were known as the Picts or “painted ones”, due to their penchant for painting or even tattooing themselves with woad, an herbal blue dye. They have a boar’s head, and gobs of other food. I went to a Hogmanay about 33 years ago, and did I have myself a time! If only I had the space, I’d love to have a Hogmanay for my Renaissance guild. We are, after all, Renaissance Scots.

The decks I’m discussing tonight are not all Tarot decks. The first one is what’s known as an oracle deck. It is the Enchanted Oracle, a deck of 36 cards with unabashedly Pagan pictures. Don’t worry, they’re all clothed, after a fashion. Basically, they’re faeries, members of the Elder Race. According to Stephen6580’s Irish grandmother, Beatrice. McCaully, they are the former Tuatha de Danaan, the Celtic Gods and Goddesses. Every culture and ethnic group on this planet has its own race of Little People or faeries. For some, they were always small of stature, such as among the Native Americans, or they were once our size, but the dearth of belief in them with the advance of the new religion (Christianity) caused them to be diminished in size. Included with the deck is a small 217 page paperback book with interpretations, charms, and spreads. I will be featuring it, along with the other two decks in this blog tomorrow night during my all night stint. The art by Jessica Galbreth is subtle, evocative, yet provocative in its own way.

The next deck I want to share with you today is the Mayan Tarot by Silvana Alasia. There is another Mayan Tarot deck called the Xultun Tarot. This is very different from that deck, but I’m certain that it comes from the same sources, because we only have a very limited amount of artistic source material about that mysterious people in Meso-America which carved a civilization out of the jungle, thrived for about 8 centuries before they left it, and it subsided back into jungle, where it has remained until relatively recently. At least we can’t blame it on the narrow minded fanatically Catholic Spanish. Nothing against the Spanish. My own Anglo-American ancestors did as badly towards the northern Native Americans, so you Hispanics out there, don’t think I’m singling you out. The main difference is that my ancestors were primarily Protestant, but they were just as narrow minded and provincial. There are subtle differences in the art between the Xultun deck and this one. The Xultun (pronounced shool-TOON) is more stylized, more like the original art in the Codex. This deck is more like the folk art of the modern Mayas. The Xultun deck has brighter colors, while these are more muted. But the art is still gorgeous, and I can hardly wait to read with them. Will YOU be the lucky guinea pig who gets the first reading?

Our third deck is another Tarot deck. The court cards are totem animals. The colors are the colors of nature, somewhat muted. The booklet that comes with it gives extremely terse interpretations for the cards. It is best to interpret the cards for yourself, using the short interpretations given in the cheat sheet only as mnemonic devices. You might want to page back to one of my prior blogs to review “Madame Tezra’s Minimalist Method of Reading Tarot.” for tips in reading the cards. The deck is one of those that use the Crowleyan custom of having Trump VIII be Justice and XI is Strength. Be on the watch for this if you should acquire this deck. Neither one of these decks is appropriate as a first Tarot deck, if you are just beginning learning the Tarot. As a second deck, perhaps or a third, etc. Get the boring Rider-Waite-Coleman-Smith Tarot, the more exciting Morgan-Greer, or the blatantly Pagan Robin Wood Tarot to learn on.

Remember, if you want a true clairvoyant, call Astro Wing 3323, and if you want a date when a given event will take place, tap Stephen 6580. Well, that’s all for now. Have a safe, sane, and happy New Year.

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