Testing, Testing: Triumph of Life Tarot (Cancer Sucks)

This deck is just out, initiated and overseen by Andrew McGregor of the Hermit's Lamp in Toronto.

The Triumph of Life Tarot is a kick-in-the-pants to cancer, and a leg-up to cancer research via the Terry Fox Foundation. It's a collaborative labour of love by 75 artists from both sides of the Atlantic, all of whom have been affected by the C-word in some way.

I was privileged to see Terry on the Trans-Canada Highway near Thunder Bay, Ontario, just before he was forced to give up his courageous journey in the summer of 1980. He looked exhausted and so alone.
It's not an image one forgets.

There are seventy-five artistic visions in this deck, and yet it manages to look cohesive.

Was that your intent?

TOWER 16 (artist Ellen Lorenzi-Prince)

As you can see from this image of the Tower, the angel is fractured into many pieces, and yet our eyes perceive it as whole. We hope that this visual phenomenon applies to our entire deck.

The images running right to the edges of the cards seem to help them blend into each other. Cancer knows no borders.
Your thoughts?

3 WANDS (artist James Wells)

When it comes to cancer, we're all equal, all naked, all vulnerable. We may have some choice about our treatment, but much of what lies ahead is out of our hands.



Would you mind if I chose several cards to show some of your vision?
Be our guest.
Thank you. I've chosen just a few of so many beautiful alliances.

SWORDS KING (Yara Messer)                                           4 WANDS (Michael Patrick Mackid)

2 WANDS (Ellen-Mary O'Brien)

EMPEROR 4 (Markus William Kasunich)  4 DISCS (Karen Leeflang)  4 SWORDS (Lydia Knox)

9 CUPS (Lisa de St. Croix)  5 DISCS (Shari Lynn Smith)  JUDGEMENT 20 (Neil Lovell) 

Many thanks for putting your work out into the world. May it make a world of difference.

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In Neighbourhood news

GINGERBREAD HOUSES are a sugary business

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November is a sad kind of month - Raven's Prophecy Tarot

Or so it seems to me, anyway.

There is Remembrance Day on the 11th, where we honour the war-fallen dead and surviving veterans.
It is the month of the poppy lapel pin...

...and of this poem by John McCrae of Guelph, Ontario, who died in 1917, serving in WWI.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

The torch; be yours to hold it high.

If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

In Flanders fields.

May 1915

It's the month when the remaining leaves let go their hold on the trees,
When the gardens seem woebegone, bedraggled, has-been, lost.
Where the landscape changes from blooms and greens to taupe-y grey.

When we move out of Daylight Savings Time, and are plunged into an earlier sunset and longer darker evenings.

The fanciful drama of Halloween festivities has passed; pumpkins, ghosts, witches are packed away.
The cobwebs festooning the lampshades aren't cute and whimsical anymore; dusting will be required.
And although the stores would have me think otherwise, I'm not quite ready for all-out Christmas.

To which deck shall I turn for November thoughts?
The Raven's Prophecy, with its bright spots in the midst of darkness.

Eight of Swords

Well, the people around you haven't dropped their leaves or lost their bloom, have they?

Then I suggest you bring your focus 'round to them, and revel in all those colourful personalities and gifts.

The landscape is having a much-needed nap. Surely you don't begrudge it that?

Ten of Coins

Got a bit of spare cash? Buy some roses to perk up the house.

Eight of Cups

Another eight. Invite seven friends to dinner. 

Do something that floats your boat.

Take up watercolour. Paint amazing sugar cookies.

Buy a feather boa or a black velvet jacket.

The lakes are cold and dark, it's true. But you needn't be.

3 The Empress

Oh the colours...I want to ingest them, breathe them in. They make me happy.

Well, Empress, I guess your job here is done; I'm smiling.

In neighbourhood news

Would you trust your hair to THE FEROCIOUS BARBER? Me neither.
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Leading a double life, with the Tarot of the Sidhe

Sounds exciting, exotic, mysterious, doesn't it?

Perhaps it would be if one were a double agent, a spy, an undercover cop (or maybe not, since I have no personal experience with those lifestyles). But I'm not. I'm just plain old me whose regular life as most people know me doesn't include tarot, or an interest in the fae, or shamanic journeying, or magic, or any of that kind of stuff.

It's been like this for almost a decade now, one side rubbing alongside the other reasonably comfortably, without making me feel like I had multiple personalities.

However, that has changed. Here's why.

My 'regular' life became smaller when I retired from teaching. I see fewer people. That track, or rut in the road of life, or whatever you'd like to call it, has become narrower and shallower. Less of me is working there. Less of my time and creative spark is spent in that space.

My other life, the 'woo-woo' side as some would say, is growing. Reading, mentoring, blogging. Yet hardly anyone in my day-to-day choir-singing, grandmothering life knows (or wants to know) anything about it. So NOW what?

I have a new job with the Tarot Association of the British Isles, aka TABI, as their Free Reading Monitor. It is just beginning, so there will be more time spent while I'm in the learning-how phase. Yet when someone asks what I plan to do with all that extra time now that I'm retired, what do I tell them? Only a piece of the truth. I hedge, and smile, and gloss over it. I say "Whatever I want!" and leave it at that. Or talk about travel. Or family. It's feeling more and more vexacious, less and less truthful.

At some point, the WHOLE of me is going to have to exist in my real world. But how? And when?
I know not.

Today I'm going to the Tarot of the Sidhe, which was featured a while back in a post about trimming borders. They (the Sidhe) were also the main topic of a recent online event called Faery Allies Telesummit.

OK, Sidhe. I would really appreciate some suggestions, please.
How can I ease the rest of me into my everyday life?

The Elder V (aka The Hierophant, the Teacher)

It seems to me that you are mistaking the fact that you are in the Elder-phase of your life, and thus experienced in many things, with the fact that THIS particular project, becoming one within yourself and in your world, is new. You have no experience at all with what you are trying to do, and yet you bemoan the fact that it isn't happening.
Look at the riches in this image - are they not wonderful to behold?
So many things have been given to you: family and friends, knowledge, teaching, music, health, a beautiful safe environment. Colours, creatures, nature, magic. Experiences, travel.
Surely with all that, you are able to map a path. Use your knowledge. Ask for guidance. Go slowly.
Now is not the time for discomfort. It is the time for blossoming!

In other words, stop feeling sorry for myself and get going on this.

Indeed.

Maker of Earth (aka Ace of Pentacles)

The Elder speaks wisely. I bid you to cultivate the patience of the Earth. I am the slow-moving element. And I, the Maker, the Ace, am just the beginning. I see you as I sit on this green bed of growing things, and offer you the light of my star. You will know what to do.




In neighbourhood news

Seen, last Tuesday night, in the byways and alleys,
clutching chocolate:

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