Three of Wands

The Three of Wands--a card of vision and foresight and planning. A man stands facing the sea beyond the magical mountainous formations, two wands in his hands and one driven into the ground, eyeing the unexplored island in view. His presence is certain and commanding; he hungers for the unknown, to explore and discover and expand his horizons.

I have included two cats also, as these animals (usually lions and tigers) are frequently associated with fire, the element of the wands suit. The plant in the foreground is Centaurea maculosa, a pioneer species, hardy creatures that are the first on the scene to colonize broken ecosystems. These species pave the way for others and help create new and more stable ecosystems. There are several seeds of Centaurea wafting through the air, and maybe just one will make the difficult journey to that island or other islands beyond. As such, this card reminds us that there are other opportunities outside our known and familiar environments, and we must be bold and open-minded in order to find them.

I have also drawn a spider web, indicative of hard and strategic work. Fruit adorns the boughs of the tree, signifying the rewards of persistence.

Queen of Swords

She is the Queen of Swords--calm, cool, and utterly collected. Don't stare too long into her eyes, unless you want them to pierce right through the pith of you, for this queen is perceptive and very intelligent. Even if she does take your measure, her understanding of what she sees is unbiased and intellectual, and you can expect her to be honest.

I have included in my design many creatures of the air, the element of the swords suit, including the snowy owl. The owl is a well-known symbol of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom who popped right out of Zeus's head fully grown and armed. The snowy owl in particular hunts using what is called the "sit-and-wait" method, relying on its own patience and astuteness to catch its meal.

I have also drawn a number of nests with eggs in order to indicate the latent power that is inherent in all queens. Like Joan Bunning says, queens express the qualities of their suits from the inside. In a sense, the eggs within the nests symbolize the birthing of ideas.

The flowers at the queen's feet are anemones, or windflowers. Anemone is Greek for "daughter of the wind," which is very fitting in the case of the Queen of Swords.

Page of Cups

The youthful Page of Cups. She's a mermaid, in her element--water, holding a beautiful goblet and staring at it for all the possibility it represents! According to Joan Bunning, she is emotional, intuitive, intimate, and loving, and I couldn't think of a better creature of the water to emphasize these qualities and the child-like character of the page than the sea otter ( I was going to add a dolphin because of their social nature and constitution for communication, but they will figure into other cups cards). Sea otters are always ready for play, and when they are ready for sleep, they wrap themselves in kelp and hold hands to keep from drifting away from the group.

Sea otters are also an example of a keystone species: they prey on sea urchins and keep the numbers of those echinoderms in check, determining the well-being of the whole ecosystem. Areas without sea otters are often deserts of urchins without any kelp forests, which support an extremely high number of species. The sea otters also keep mussels in check by removing them from rocks, allowing for greater biodiversity in those habitats as well. So, one can view these creatures as messengers of a sort, with their presence indicative of the health of the ecosystem on the whole.

XIX--The Sun

I loved drawing this card; I really felt the energy of it as I was working through the design. In my version, the sun bursts forth from a lush bloom, enlightening everything beneath it. There really is no hiding in the stark light of day--all is apparent and the truth of the whole is laid bare. I have included the naked child that is in the original RWS design; in my drawing, he has an aureole around his head and is basking in the sun's rays--he represents the happiness and joy that we feel when we are in-tuned with ourselves at all levels of being and consciousness.

I have also included the four sunflowers of the RWS design, and they are flourishing and beaming under the sun. Some cultivars of sunflowers average 12-16 feet, while the tallest on record is an astonishing 28 feet! Humans domesticated the wild flower and have bred them with their stunning and glorious influorescences and height in mind. When they bloom in my garden in late summer and early autumn, they truly are the stars of the show--they are what everyone notices, especially the bees! I love watching their heads turn with the movement of the sun throughout the day...

Five of Pentacles

This card was easy for me to interpret just by looking at it (in the original RWS deck), so that when it came up, I could integrate its meaning into my spreads fairly easily. I also knew how I wanted to change and add to the original design.

Like in the original, there are two figures who look like they've fallen on pretty hard times; they're cold, poor, probably sick, exposed to the elements without any place to go. In a word, they are suffering. They also are within the limits of civilization, but alas, no one is reaching their hand out to these unfortunates--perhaps they are being rejected for one reason or another. Any one of those things may be manifested in your life if this card comes up.

Even so, there is hope. In the heart of winter, when nothing grows, snowdrop flowers (Galanthus genus) poke through snow mounds with their seemingly delicate flower heads, reminding us that spring is coming--an end to the despair and sorrow is nearing. And even in the bitter cold of wintertide, there is beauty--in the singular shapes of snowflakes, each completely unique, the only one of its kind that will ever be.

I've also drawn some dead leaves around the snowdrops. At first sight, the brown desiccated things look quite sad and dreary, but it is what they become and come to provide that is beautiful and integral. Leaves decompose to become leaf mold, which can be used as a moisture-containing mulch for plants and as a soil conditioner. Eventually, leaf mold turns into humus after all the worms and microorganisms have had their fill. As a gardener, I add other organic material to my dead leaves in order to make compost--black gold :)

Ace of Pentacles

I could imagine what I wanted to draw for this card right away, probably because its meaning is so grounded in the practical concerns of everyday life. That, and I really love drawing rioting foliage and earth deities and animals, which work quite well in the pentacles suit.

Instead of a hand holding a pentacle coin emerging from a cloud in the sky, I have depicted a wood nymph coaxing a pentacle coin from a blooming chrysanthemum. The dryad is an earth deity, earth being the element of the pentacles suit. She stems from her tree form to tend to the blossom, grape vines entangled in her branches and shaping a canopy overhead. The chrysanthemum symbolizes the joy and optimism that come with this card. The abundance in the scene--of the radiant flower and the clutches of juicy fruit, to the precious crystals rising from the rent in the tree trunk--is meant to indicate an overall feeling of material wealth and prosperity.

The deer that is sheltered beneath the flower represents the ideas of trust and security; the little creature knows that she is safe from harm under the protective cover of petals. The connection with the earth that all of the beings in this scene embody remind us to act with a firm grasp on reality, to stay grounded. Good things will follow.

XIII--Death

I really wanted to draw this card because I wanted an excuse to draw a magnificent horse and to draw a skeleton in the style of Hans Holbein--I love his Dance of Death series of woodcut prints. I also wanted to pay tribute to Albrecht Durer's etching of the Abduction of Proserpine (death is abducting spring).

Death is an ending, of course. A great change. The eventuality that every living thing must experience. And even if you have a hard time believing in fate, you can be sure that it's in your cards. 

In the picture, a human skeleton representing Death rides animated atop a beautiful unicorn, a phoenix seeming to emerge from the ripples of the mane. The skeleton shows what the body looks like at the end of the life cycle--no flesh, no breath. Even so, it was always there within from the time of birth. It is now time to return to the earth to start the cycle anew. It rides triumphantly, brandishing the black flag with the white rose, as if his arrival and victory were inevitable. Indeed, the triumphal arch atop the mount underscores the supremacy of death. As Heraclitus believed, everything is in constant flux, nothing remains the same. You can never step into the same river twice.

Grass sways in the wind over the reared haunches of the great beast, and there is a pond with a lone polliwog and a frog sitting on a stone. In Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself," there is a passage: 

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he... 

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves...

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,

And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.

The calla lilies behind the horse are curious flowers that thrive in bogs and that are extremely poisonous. They are frequently used in weddings and also in funerals--a very apt flower to signify Death, a card of beginnings and endings.

The scarab on the horse emphasizes this role that Death plays in natural cycles; many beetles are detritivores, feeding on carrion, dung (certain scarab beetles are coprophagous), and fungi. When they eat living remains, beetles recycle nutrients back into the soil, thus making the soil more fertile.

The frog and the tadpole reiterate the theme of natural order: the metamorphosis from frogspawn to actual frog is a very recognizable example of transformation. Also, I think the tadpole looks like a sperm, thus signifying a beginning.

Eight of Swords

As I started using my Tarot cards more and more, this card frequently reared its head. I'd ask what to do about my flagging self-motivation and finishing a project, and *ta-daaaaaah*, there it would be. And the Eight of Swords reflects how I feel about my seeming inability to finish anything--it really is all in my head.

The woman in the picture is all tied up in briar, trapped and confined, and added to that, she's blindfolded. She cannot see what options are open to her in order to get out of this unfortunate situation. She cannot see that there is a sword at her fingertips, if only she would let go of the fear, unclench those fists, and extend her fingers. Alas, she feels helpless, a victim of circumstance unable to do anything about it, and so she feels the best thing to do is wait to be rescued.

But while the sweetbriar is spiky and prickly, it is also sweet, giving off a fragrance reminiscent of apples and is quite beautiful in bloom. There is a promise in the single rose blossom. I've also drawn a raven perched on one of the swords. A raven is a creature of the air, the element of the swords suit, and I like this page on raven symbolism. These birds normally bring to mind death, but they are also known for their intelligence and in many traditions symbolize knowledge and wisdom and can even be taught to speak. As Avia Venefica says, they can often be heard croaking out sounds like cras, cras, which in Latin means "tomorrow." I like to think of that when I look at this card: the bird is telling the woman that this period of helplessness and sorrow will not last forever. This, too, shall pass.

XII--The Hanged Man

When deciding which cards to begin drawing, I was immediately pulled in by the Hanged Man. I think it's safe to say that I saw myself in that figure. I started reading about the symbolism behind it and was even more convinced that this was indeed "my" card.

Suspension was one of the first ideas that popped into my head--yeah, really original, I know. But when something is suspended, there is the implication that it will not always be so, that it will move again, or that perhaps it will complete a transformation. He is waiting for the right moment, though, taking time to reflect on his journey so far. In his suspension, the man is also reversed-- he is seeing the world from a completely new and different perspective. He is also amazingly serene in this unorthodox position, indicating that he's okay with relinquishing control, with accepting things as they are, and putting his own interests to the side.

I've drawn asters and an aster aureole around the head of the Hanged Man. Asters are symbolic of patience, and I've limned his head in one to signify his self-sacrificing act. The flowers are late-bloomers, blossoming in early and mid-autumn when all other blooms have passed their prime--starworts--as they're called--like to wait to put on a spectacular show. And the bees love them, which is why I've drawn one. Bees are another symbol of self-sacrifice, as they are known for being social insects that work for the good of the colony.

Another symbol of self-sacrifice is the mourning dove caring for her (or his) eggs. Both parents incubate the eggs, with the male doing the morning to afternoon shift and the female taking over for the rest of day and into the night. The nest is rarely left unattended, and if a predator threatens, one of the parents may actually "deceive" the unwanted guest by flailing on the ground in pretense of a broken wing.

The idea of suspension as a stage in transformation is illustrated by the chrysalis hanging next to the man and the cicada buried in the ground. Some cicada species have extremely long life cycles; some species of the Magicicada genus will spend 13 or 17 years underground feeding on the juices of plant roots before they emerge from the soil as adults.

XVIII--The Moon

When I created this card, the word that most often came to mind was illusion. By the light of the moon, things do not appear as they do in the full shine of the sun; sometimes, they take on a sinister aspect, and other times, it's as if you've walked into a dream. This uncertainty in regards to what you're seeing can instigate fear and anxiety, or perhaps trigger something in your subconscious. Connecting with your subliminal self can lead to a kindling of the imagination and visionary experiences. Even so, you have to be mindful of lingering in the land of forever-eventide and fantasy, for it may cause you to lose your way in confusion.

I've drawn the moon cupped in a poppy flower, as the poppy is a symbol of the Greek god of dreams--Morpheus. Opium derives from poppies, and the latex harvested from the seed pods contains morphine and codeine, alkaloids known for their sedative and hallucinogenic properties.

I've also drawn the traditional wolf and dog, crustacean, and monoliths; but to the monoliths, I've added some stylized Ipomoea or Moon Flowers, which bloom only at night. I find it amazing and a little comforting to know that there are living things out there that actually need the dark to grow and that they have complements to help them flourish (like nighttime pollinators--moths and bats).

I've also put in a naked young woman with milky white skin, hair sprouting leaflets and half-formed poppies, wearing a mask made from a Luna Moth. "Luna" is Latin for "moon," and like all members of Saturniidae, they have no mouths and do not eat as adults--they emerge from the cocoon solely to mate, to create.