How many tarot card decks do you own? How many tarot decks are there?

I was with some friends last night – women friends who like art and poetry and like to talk about things like, “what is spirituality?” and “how can we support the women who testified in the Ghomeshi trial?”

One of them confessed to only owning one tarot deck – The Goddess Tarot Deck – and she asked how many the others of us had. I said five, but I’ve owned more and given some away. One had two. One had six but she said rather self-righteously, I gave one away lately.

I know someone who has dozens. Actually I know two people like that.

So I’m not sure why we who own single-digit numbers of tarot cards should feel guilty.

I said, “If someone makes a labyrinth deck, I might need to buy it.”

I turned to the one-tarot-deck friend and said, “It might be time for us to take a trip to Banyen Books to choose your second deck.”

So I googled “labyrinth tarot cards” and I found Aeclectic Tarot. http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/

Kate Hill (also known as Solandia) says she’s “a Tarot reader, deck collector, and lifelong student of the beauty and diversity of Tarot cards. I created Aeclectic in 1996 to share my passion for Tarot with the world, and I’ve added 1500 decks over the years.”

Some of the decks are noted as “rare, unpublished or out of stock.”

How many do Banyen Books have? Dozens at least, I’d say.

I did a workshop recently on making collages inspired by a tarot card.

One of the participants recalled having a tarot reading where everything came true… unfortunately. And, no, she didn’t want to talk further about it.

That was many years ago, and at some point she asked tentatively, “Is this something that ordinary people do?”

“I don’t know,” I replied, “My friends think of it as normal.” Because although she was careful not to ask if people who use tarot cards are normal, that’s what I heard.

Here’s one of my favorite decks.

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/tarot-four-elements/

This is The Fool. Isn’t he adventurous looking?

And, of course, I have the Rider-Waite-Coleman deck and a new book called The Ultimate Tarot which includes full-colour images of all the cards. (I’ve started adding Pamela Coleman’s name to the more usual just Rider-Waite name of the deck. She did the illustrations.

This is a favorite card. I love when I pull the Queen of Wands. Affirmation of my creativity.

 

 

Kate and Inga – my new artist friends

A friend showed me the lovely art book Fire and Shadow on “spirituality in contemporary Australian art.” I particularly liked Inga Hunter and Kate Brison reminded me of Louise Bunn’s art.  Then, I noticed the publication date was 1996 and so rather hesitantly googled the names. Are they still on the planet, let alone still in Australia?

Answer: yes, and so I’m enjoying “meeting” them online and seeing what the past 20 years has meant for them.

http://www.ingahunter.com.au/

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