Yay!! I got my Grail Tarot! Thank you, Mommy

OK, so I decide that tonight I finally want to go and see the new "Twilight" movie, "Breaking Dawn" part 1.  I get to the ticket kiosk, swap my Christmas gift movie voucher for the ticket (for the only show of the day, according to the web-site) and go off to CNA to put my other gift voucher to good use.  I got myself a set of Colleen art/colouring pencils.

That done and dusted I made my way to Dulcé's for some hot chocolate (cocoa fans, I suggest the Belgian Hot Chocolate!).  I still debated making eyes at the cute waiter, but didn't have the guts.  Anyway, I paid my hot chocolates, got up and started making my way to the cinema.  Thankfully I discovered right outside Dulcé's that the fekking ticket was missing.  I can't tell you how many times I checked my bag (where I so do NOT put same-day tickets anyway) and my pockets.  I want to cry.

Anyway, that's neither here nor there.  As I am wont to do when I have a table to myself, I did some research and came across mention of a novel called "Nova", originally written in the 1960's.  It's a science-fiction novel ("space opera") playing off around the year 3172.  It seems to be a very involved novel, and in fact got some good praise and was well-received, but the point of interest for me in this novel is its use of tarot as an accurate science.  one of the characters, The Mouse, is in fact made fun of for being sceptical of it (ironic, since the character is identified as a Gypsy).

Beyond that, I am actually surprised by how much tarot-related literature there is out there.  I don't mean only in terms of tutorials and psychological analyses, but poetry, fantasy, science fiction and "how to" books for the business aspect of the cards.  In this list, include "Fortune's Lover by Rachel Pollack (who has a whole collection of tarot-related literature to her name), "Tarot" by Piers Anthony, "Professional Tarot"  by Christine Jette, and any of the highly involved companion books to the Thoth Tarot, which (as far as I've seen) all deal not only with the psychology, but the Kabbala, symbolism and occult in this deck as well.  Phew, let's all take a deep breath here!

I actually just ordered the "Professional Tarot:  the Business of Reading, Consulting and Teaching".  The delivery date is marked at the 2nd of Jan, so let's see.  I'm curious to see what the author says about making the tarot a viable business.  I'll post on it as soon as I've read it.

OK, so back to the Grail Tarot.  I love it!  I've only just started reading the LWB, which starts off with a brief history of the Holy Grail and The Knights Templar.  The artwork is VERY 12th/13th Century (which makes sense, considering the time of the founding of the Templars) with a slight Rensaissance feel.  The artist is an Italian by the name of Giavanni Caselli, who seems to be a paleoanthropologist as well as an artist.  The actual author of the literature is John Matthews, who, with wife Caitlin, is known for over 90 books on Celtic mythology, alternative history for magic and Neoshamanism..  This is all Wikipedia speaking, by the way.

The names of the cards are also quite different from what we're used to, named Stones, Lances and Vessels; the Swords keep their name.  In the Majors, none of the original names have been kept (unless you count "Fortune's Wheel"), with such names as "Sheba" and "Solomon" for Keys 3 and 4; "Lucifer" for Key 15; "The Gnostic Christ" replaces Key 1; and finally, Key 21 is replaced by "The Grail Procession.  The entire major arcana are also renamed "The Seeker's Quest and can be laid out side by side to form a complete story (in most tarot this can't be accomplished fluidly).  Doesn't this remind one of the "Da Vinci Tarot"?

When it comes to the interpretations, they often have an extra, added little aspect, such as the 8 of Stones (Pentacles) still referring to work and details, but also bringing up honesty, prudence and discrimination.  The 7 of Stones, usually the representation for hard work rewarded, here stand for time-outs, getting lost, fear of failure and fruitless efforts.  Have any of my readers ever seen this card to represent such unhappy things?  And reversals don't count, hey?

Anyway, I'm off to bed (^_^)  Below are two images (sadly, not my own) of the Grail Tarot.  If any of you want to see them, let's arrange a visit, shall we?

Much love, friends and fandamily!!

I can get like a dog with a bone sometimes.

Especially when it comes to things I really like, like the tarot.

As it turns out, I'm making a U-turn back to the last blog I posted and digging up Pamela and her "Tarot Café" again, this time in the form of "The Tarot Café Novel" by Chandra Rooney.

Right off the bat you can see (obviously) that it wasn't the original author (Sang-Sun Park) who did the book.  She was the artist for the illustrations, but beyond that, it doesn't seem as though she had any real part in the story.

The plot follows Bryn McAllister, an actress recently appointed to the lead role in a fantasy series, and previously known for her portrayal of Queen Titania from Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream".  Her fiancé, Jack, is missing, and at first Bryn thinks him hard at work on a new series of paintings.  She then starts having dreams, both sleeping and waking, of Jack in the clutches of the Wild Hunt and their lead huntsman, Herne.  Bryn tries to see her usual tarot card reader, Cora (whom TC fans will remember as Divinator Cora from the manga, the female deuteragonist) to try and get a handle on what the dreams are trying to tell her..  However, Cora has moved, and instead Bryn finds her way to Pamela.  Through flashbacks we learn more about the relationship between Jack and Bryn and also really get into Bryn's emotional state.  We also experience the feelings and emotions of Bryn's choices at the end of the book.

The start of each chapter is illustrated in typical Sang-Sun Park style, i.e., an established and well-know tarot card is taken and the face of the main character in the chapter drawn in place of the cards' characters.  These cards are also the cards placed in the reading in each chapter, and the chapters revolve around these placements and their influences in Bryn's life.

The story itself is dark / gothic, drawing on the old feelings people used to get whenever the Wild Hunt was incvolved.  The goth-ness is also heightened by the fact that each of Bryn's dreams plays off at night, when the Wild Hunt typically rode out.

In all, I found the book worth the read and fans of the original "Tarot Café" manga series will be pleased with how close to the original style this novel was written.  There's also an original Sang-Sun Park surprise at the end of the book, so look out for that!

New tarot wish-list item in sight!!

And that tarot wish-list item iiiiisss....  THE HOLY GRAIL TAROT!!  Found a brand new, as yet unopened copy of the box at the second-hand book-shop down the road from us, at RATHER less than the normal shop price.  And would you have it, I don't have the cash available yet.  Let's hope it's still there when I go and collect it.

This is the first blog on doing on request, by the way.  I'm so happy for the request!  My thoughts have been doing the loopies for a while on what to put up here and being asked for something just seemed to help the loopies straighten out a little bit.  Whooppeeeee!!!

It's taken me up to now to figure out what a blog is in any case, and for the life of me, I wouldn't be able to explain it to anyone if I were asked to.  I always saw the advertisement on TV with this woman talking about how her kids are blogging about this and that (you know, the one where she's walking between the fridge and the work-counter and looking like her kitchen gets disinfected every time she steps outside).  Now I get it.  So, who else has a blog?

I have a rather interesting graphic novel (classed under "manga') called the "Tarot Café".  The artist is the Korean Sang-Sun Park and I have to say, her style is incredibly distinct from most manga art styles I've come across.  She likes bold lines and lots of detail and if you don't keep track of  how the story flows, you can get lost.  Her characters are also very modernly dressed and really easy to fall in love with.

Anyway, the main story focuses on Pamela and her quest to die by collecting the beads from Belial/Berial's necklace (as the story goes on, so the first L is replaced by an R).  Pamela is immortal and became so at eh death of her lover, the red dragon Ash, some 800 years ago.  It turns out she was hit on the forehead by the first drop of blood out of his heart as he died.

Pamela was born with the gift of Sight and uses this amazing gift to help the "after-midnight" customers that come through her door.  These customers range from a rare wish-granting cat named Butterfly to the human lover of a Welsh lake faery; a blinded vampire and and various other supernatural beings also count among her special clients.  During the day, she's just Pamela, the owner of the titular Tarot Café who happens to read tarot cards for her clients as well (think Tea & Tarot on the way to Muizenberg and Kalk Bay).

What particularly struck me when I initially looked at the "TC" manga was that Pamela used a rather obscure tarot deck called the Aquarian Tarot, done by the artist David Palladini.  The Aquarian Tarot is very close to my heart for the simple reason that I also own one; in fact, the AT is my primary and oldest deck (in terms of being in my possession).  It was a gift from my aunt when I turned fourteen and Goddess knows, it's stuck by me through thick and thin.  Especially the thin.

The AT is not the only tarot deck Pamela uses in her travels and readings, though.  From her mother she inherited a copy of the Visconti_Sforza Tarot (arguably the oldest known documented tarot deck), while travelling in Turkey a few hundred years later she uses an appropriately-themed deck to read the fortune of a sultan's ghost.  The title of each chapter is a card from various different tarot decks with the cards' faces replaced by the focus character's face for the chapter.  Make sense??  The deck each card is from is given, and the card's meaning is listed under the main image.  Among the most unusual (to me, at least) were images out of the Master Tarot and out of the Herbal Tarot.

Besides the chapter covers' meanings being listed, the cards used throughout the main story itself are also interpreted.  It's lovely to see how listed meanings for cards we all know and love differ slightly from author to author.

OK, enough BABBLING about the "Tarot Café".

I've been thinking of writing a good old-fashioned LETTER!!  But would you believe, very few people even have postal addresses nowadays.  With e-mail and SMS technology making up the bulk of our communication, the pen-and-paper letter has fallen by the wayside.  I mean, I remember getting a letter or a parcel in the post and tearing open the envelope or the wrapping to get to what was inside.  Why did we stop doing that?  The only letters we bother with anymore are the business or legal kind, or even, heaven forbid, advertising.  I challenge everyone who reads this to send me a letter in the post.  You'll have to get hold of me on Facebook for my address, though - definitely not leaving it on here for all sorts of weirdos to get hold of!!!

And for every letter I get, I'll write one back  (^_^)

I'm signing off now.  I do believe this may be my longest blog to date.  Please let me know what you think and don't forget to ask me for my address, heh?

Dee out!!

I need some excitement. And many more readings.

I haven't really been through anything to complain about in my life; in contrast, I've moved around so often one could say that that in itself is the adventure.

But I still want something more.  Problem:  I am a serious chicken when it comes to things.  And thanks to some influences in my life, I tend to be a bit of a miser with what little money I have lately.  I learnt a very interesting trick the other day, though, so if it works I'm so posting it on here.

I've been offered the opportunity to read my cards online on an esoteric website.  No, not online, telephonically. I register with the site, they load my profile, and I log in.  I get called on the extension the website's owners give me and I get paid per minute.  I'm thinking of accepting, but not always being here does make it so that I need to find out how that will work.  Does this count as exciting??  I hope so.

I was thinking (scary!) about something I said to someone a while ago:  I would put my cards before my partner if the choice is ever presented to me.  Is that wrong?  The way I see it, the cards and my reading them are enough a part of me that if you can't accept me reading the cards, you can't accept all of me.  Move along and make space for the next applicant, please!

Is this selfish?

I just proved my sister half-right

Ugh!  I just proved R half-right:  I said "goodnight" and all that twazz - and now I'm sitting on my PC.

Go figure.

As I mentioned on a Facebook status update about two or months ago, I'm a late bloomer when it comes to the good stuff (red wine, skinny jeans, tying cherry stems into knots with my tongue) and Tori Amos is no exception.  They featured her on Top Billing the other night and I have to say, she's a rather interesting woman.  Though, I was reading up on her since around the beginning of this year, all of it starting with something I read somewhere (have a flipping memory like a sieve, me), and I'm now finally starting to get into her music.  I'm not a huge fan of the piano, but she's one of two people who are more than allowed to go at it.  Naturally, I don't like all her stuff, but I'm making notes of what I do like and hoping like heck I manage to find a compilation or two along my life's journey.

I only just realised how LONG overdue my scooter is for her service - can anyone say "bad upkeep"?  Let's hope the dudey I take her to can bring her back up to scratch.  I don't suppose he has much choice, though, if he wants me to pay him anything.  In the same breath, he's been a blessing:  I met him once before through J and his brother, and would you believe, through looking for a motorcycle repairman, M found this dude for me - and it's J's brother's friend.  Small world, huh?

Speaking of which:  goodnight, world.  I can feel the Sandman approaching and I think I'll welcome him with open arms tonight.

Or eyes, as the case may be...

How things stand almost two months later

OK, so as of Sunday, I'm guessing it's been a month and a half (remember:  I'm guessing!) since I ended my formal relationship with J.  It's so strange:  I feel more comfortable around him now than I did before.  Does that make sense in any way?

Anyway.

I just finished JR Ward's "Lover Mine".  It's the eith book in her Black Dagger Brotherhood series and all I can say is OMFG!!  The characters are so in your face you have to laugh at them, while the sex scenes, depending on the characters "acting" them out, swing from pure vanilla to the sadistically raunchy - and no matter which you find yourself reading at the time, you'll be captivated!  Naturally, however, we now need to get book 9 ("Lover Unleashed") and when it's finally published next year, "Lover Reborn".  Here's a rundown of the books and the main romance in each one:

1. "Dark Lover":  Wrath, son of Wrath, and King of the Vampires, and Beth, half-vampire daughter of Darius and;
2. "Lover Eternal":  Rhage, cursed with a second form, and Mary, a human counsellor;
3. "Lover Awakened":  Zsadist, a former blood slave, and Bella, a vampire taken and tortured by the lessers in the previous novel;
4. "Lover Revealed":  Butch, former homicide detective, and the vampire Marissa, the "great beauty of the race";
5. "Lover Unbound":  Vishous, most brilliant of the Brothers, and Doc Jane, a trauma surgeon;
6. "Lover Enshrined":  Phury, sire to the next generation of Black Dagger Brothers, and Cormia, a Chosen for the Scribe Virgin who desires individuality;
7. "Lover Avenged":  Rehvenge, half-sympath druglord, and Ehlena, a nurse at the vampire clinic;
8. "Lover Mine":  John Matthew (a.k.a. Tehrror), the mute and previously unknown brother to Beth, the vampire queen, and Xhex, Rehv's half-sympath head of security until the previous novel;
9. "Lover Unleashed":  OK, I haven't read it yet, but apparently the story of Payne, the twin Vishous knew and only bred female warrior of the vampire race, and Dr. Manuel "Manny" Menallo, an ex-colleague of Doc Jane's;  and finally
10. "Lover Reborn":  (publishing date:  March 2012)  The story of Tohrment and his second chance at love.

All in all, I can't frikking WAIT to read 9 and 10!

I'll have to say quite honestly that I haven't been very cartomantically inclined recently.  Where before I would have the drive to read the cards whenever the urge hit, I haven't felt that need in a while.  I hope and pray this "dry spell" gets rained on VERY quickly.

In that vein:  here are three cards for the past month.  See if they make any sense to you.  (As an added exercise, I'm not going to give the interpretations beyond a keyword / keyphrase; I want you to tell me what you saw in the cards!)

1. Ace of Pentacles:  positive twist to finances;
2. Two of Pentacles:  it isn't as bad as it seems;  and
3. Seven of Cups:  stop daydreaming.
4. Suprise Card:  Key II, the High Priestess:  follow your gut and expect a suprise.

Tell me if any of these cards (not necessarily with my keywords) make any sense for you in regards to the last month.  My e-mail addy:  dieter.kok@gmail.com

Big hugs,, guys and gals!

Time to get used to...

... being single (-ish).

Confused?  Don't worry, I'm also still trying to figure it out.  I broke up with Julian two weeks ago, but, being the rather selfish creature I am, I said, I still want to have sex with you and be in your life and and and.  He said, that's fine.

Last week he was a bit fragile and said he's like to talk.  I thought, OK, but I know what this is about and I'm standing by my decision to be single.  I went through that weekend ... and waited for nothing.  I tried to start the conversation but as per usual in the past few years, the subject was changed and being me, I let it slide.

(When things go well for him, such as with the new job, etc, he doesn't handle "not nice" things very well).

Eventually, two weeks after initially saying he wants to talk, he asked me to go through on Wednesday night and I agreed, and we finally talked.  And talked some more last night.

So, technically, we're both single, but still together.  Funny how much more sense that made in my head as compared to typed out.

Thank you for the amazing night, you guys!

Just got home from a really nice night of sushi with a group of friends.  I haven't had so much sushi at once in a long time, and I am actually physically uncomfortable right now.  I even managed to coax two cups of Chinese saké down my throat and, an hour and more later, I'm still burping the terrible stuff.

Anyway, enough moaning.  I had a really good time and for once got to sit in on some nice and naughty conversation that made me think, "I should be blushing at this."  IT WAS SO COOL!!

So, I'm working on a secret project.  Only two people know the details.

Check out this instrument:  it's called a sanshin, and is both precursor and cousin to the traditional Japanese shamisen.  It was based way back then on the Chinese sanxian (notice how they all the sound the same, or similar, when you say their names?) and developed in Okinawa before it spread to the rest of Japan and became the shamisen.  If memory serves it's because of the amount of trade happening between China and Okinawa at that stage, but hey, Wikipedia would know more specifically.

This version is the traditional python skin version...

... while these two images are of 'kankara sanshin', or tin-can sanshin, made

during and just after WW2.

It really sounded like an ugly little instrument when I first heard it, until I watch a little 8-minute documentary of it on Youtube and listened to a master play a kankara.  Wow, what a sound!  I suppose it once again just goes to show the difference between amateurs and maestros.

All things bright and Cape Towny...

Last night I finally managed to get myself a nice quartz point that I plan on using to tip a wand.

This isn't it, but it looks almost exactly the same.

I have been very lax when it comes to this blog, and I actually feel very bad about it, but it's almost as if I only want to write something when I feel down or depressed.  Why is that?  What is it about writing that makes it so much easier for us to share how we feel than actually saying the words?

Anyway, nonsense in my head.  I'll come back to this at some other point.

The wand I'm planning will have a hollow core and something inside it.  I'm still trying to figure out the "how" and the "what" of it, but this is the idea.  I don't want a normal type of wand, a piece of stick with some coloured ribbon wrapped around it and a stone glued to the end.  No, this one will have the stone SET INTO the wood, and some wrapping, and a hollow core with something inside.  and I'm going to carry it around with me, so in length the wand isn't going to be so long.

Phew!  Take a deep breath!

I noticed when I got home last night that my crystal has a rainbow or two inside it.  That is so wicked!  Rainbows are good luck, aren't they?

I also have a new set of tarot babies - the long-sought after Hanson-Roberts Tarot!  I've been looking for this deck for a few years now, and here my friend the Tarot Mama brings me a deck at the last meeting!  I was so thrilled.  They live in my bag now with the Primary Deck and the Gypsy cards.  Tarot bliss much...?

Things will look up. Deep down I know that - so why am I having such trouble making it a constant conscious thought?

I seem to have lost my drive in terms of the finance department.  Is there something wrong with me?  I want to use the money I make, but inevitably I end up giving it out on some other cause.  I hate having a loan to pay off (only because it wasn't insured against retrenchment - I mean WTF!?), but I wish I could give my mom more in terms of board, etc.  Paradox much?  (Or is there some other word that would be better used here??)

Anyway, I did rather well at the Bothasig Fayre the other day (somewhere around R 600) and I'm thinking I so wouldn't mind making that kind of dosh every day.  So, time to implement The Secret (weapon).  Heh heh heh.  That's the obscene amount of pasta I had for supper talking, by the way.  Ususally it wouldn't be a problem, but since the pasta was bolognaise and bolognaise involves red meat I happen to be suffering ever so slightly right now.  All energy usually used for my brain (or what remains of it) has been diverted into my stomach to digest the mince.  My mental circuits are sizzling and snapping and sparking.  Eish.  Intlokusami yaxnola.  I hope I spelt that right.  And said it right.

Goodnight, all!!

Is it called work-related stress when you haven't got any work?

I've found myself faced with this question on and off over the last few weeks and still haven't got a clear answer. Who does?  Come on, anyone?

On the upside:  I've finally started my zither project, and recently finished my embroidery project (I mentioned it in the next to last post).  Once it's been given to its new owner, I'll ask her permission and try and post a pic.  I've advertised my embroidery in a bid to make a spare cent and have had a bite from my Tarotmama friend.  I'm not going to be giving any names, she knows who she is  :)

I can't wait to see what my zither will look like.  I'm basing the overall design on a Chinese guzheng:

Besides the issue of the bridges (which my musical boyfriend says are easy enough to make? sort out?), I've been having some trouble with a workable sound box.  Regardless of whether or not this is going to be a concert instrument, I'd like it to at least be recognisable as something musical.

Huh, light bulb:  who's going to teach me how to play the thing...?  Hey, nothing like trial and error, I suppose.

If anyone happens to have a few thousand to spare, I wouldn't mind a real guzheng (hint, hint).

Peace out for now!

Today I babysat a college.

No, nothing weird.  I actually just watched the front office while Placecol rented the Beauty room at Face to Face.  Since the college is closed for business today and tomorrow, Jacob and Yolandi have no reason to go in, except for the Placecol thing.  However, Yolandi needs rest, and Jacob actually has things to do, whereas I, sitting at home cleaning house all day long, don't.

So I'm babysitting the college for two days  :)

I've come to realise over the past week or two that the heart and human emotion are incredibly fickle things.  Trying to make sense of them is an exercise in futility, and in any case, emotions making sense would make this life a rather boring existence, would you say?

The card combination for today:

I actually haven't got one...  It turns out, with moving my room around for the new bunk bed, I don't really have my cards within easy reach right now, and since I'm typing this from said new bed...

Well, you get the idea.

'Night, world!!

Going to the loo as a guy in winter has some serious drawbacks. SERIOUS drawbacks

It all has to do with cold hands and the necessity of touch.  Nuff said.

Now, that being said, I really haven't had a particularly remarkable week.  I finally came home on Monday afternoon after a week at Julian's and seriously can't say anything's actually happened between then and now.

On the upside, I'm redoing my learner's licences tomorrow (yes, both:  car and motorbike) so that I can do the whole driver's thing PROPERLY this time around.  Stress and leaving things until the last minute have always been my bane, but in my defence, I sometimes do my best when I'm pushed and / or rushed.  Sometimes.

On the art side, I've started an embroidery project.  I daresay it's the most ambitious one I've attempted thus far (and that isn't saying all that much).  I've been doing embroidery on and off  since I started high school, but have only really done one or two projects in their entirety.  Hopefully I can get myself to finish this one to my very exact specifications.  I've never been one to plod forward when I get stuck, so now I'm trying to teach myself to do just that.  I can't just drop things when they get too difficult, and that's what I've been doing, either directly or indirectly, for WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY too long.

OK, so the card combination today has very little to do with tarot (except for associations).  The cards are:

23:  The Mice  and  (tarot association:  7 of Swords)
33:  The Broken Mirror  (tarot association:  Key 13:  Death)

These two cards are just so apt right at this very moment.  They speak about being honest and being prepared for the end of a cycle (or something such).  Huh.  If you could see my thoughts now...

P.S.:  Amazing lack of Gypsy card images out there...

A whole week later...

... and I haven't managed to get my classes off the ground yet.  A friend suggested that I've grown almost bored with the way things are going now and don't value myself enough to make the Universe take note (that's my interpretation of the message, in any case).

So, starting tomorrow:

1.  Get my class programme completed;
2.  Get my private student sorted out so that we can start her journey into tarot (or at least get her into the boat)
3.  Clean my room
4.  Advertise.

I want to giggle sometimes at how life turns out with the choices we make; what we keep and leave behind; hold onto or give up...

Tarot pair for this blog:

Page of Pentacles and Key Three:  The Empress:  A typical artistic view of things, all flighty and whimsical, but filled with love, both lost and gained

 Memories of the past haunt me tonight.

Day two of the blog - and what a day!!

So, this morning, as with every Saturday morning for the past nine months (wow, a full pregnancy!!), I made my way down to the Old Biscuit Mill in Woodstock to read my cards.  It was a nice drive and all, despite being a bit nippier than usual.

What happens when I get there?  A full bloody three readings!!  Usually after 11.00 things pick up and I can put away a few readings, but today was one of those Saturdays where, besides the weather being up to fluff, everyone and his dog decided today's the day to stay in bed.

UGH!!  Disgusted much!?

First post - Howzit, guys?

Ok, so greetings and general salutations from the mind of Me!

This is my first post and hopefully the first of very many.

So, this week has involved me being aged around thirty years and shown the possibility of having no hair.  Why?  All for the sake of a make-up exam.  My sister and I both volunteered to sit as models for a make-up student at a friend's college, and while my dear little sister has stunning make-up applied, I get to wear a latex bald cap and crépe beard.  Not an easy thing to remove once the glue's set, let me tell you!

Right, so my path on life has involved tarot to greater or lesser degrees over the past ten or so years (I started reading at the age of fourteen).  I have never once regretted my first steps down the path of cartomancy, not even when I was at my most religiously lost.  As such, I want to teach tarot (anyone interested?) and not only read it.  A friend also suggested we start living tarot - how do I do that?  To each person it's a different style of "tarot life", so mine will be made clear to me when the time is right, I believe.  One example of a tarot life is a very good friend who will not read the cards for anyone, yet is a very good teacher, and seems to fill her schedule with lessons and courses.  I love that about her.  Do you know how it shocks people to find out she doesn't read?  I know I was very surprised  :)

So, I drew two cards that I'm haveing some trouble with.  I drew them both from one of the new members of my tarot family, Lo Scarabeo's Tarot Art Nouveau (the other is the classical Morgan-Greer Tarot).  Here are the cards:

Key XIV:  Temperance:  on her own she stand for moderation, recovery, serenity, harmony;
Knave of Chalices:  He stands for jealousy, extreme affection

Taking the traditional meaning of Key VIX into consideration, the first thing that came to mind was that I was jealous over my independence.  Now, since theis Temperance card does not follow the traditional interpretations, how does she apply to the Knave's jealousy?  Another thought that whispered through my head is that mayhap I'm jealous of the harmony and serenity I see in others.  I don't know; I've never found it easy to read my own cards, except when I don't try.  Who has an idea on how to read this?

Drawing a card for everyone I know, the King of Wands comes up:  entrepeneurial skill, austerity and advice from someone mature and authoritative.  Listen to the stories of your elders.  I think we'll be surprised at how helpful and advisory their tales can be.