A Couple of Quick Kippers

I’ve had the urge lately to try out the kipper cards. I’ve owned the Mystical Kipper deck for a couple of years but it hasn’t gotten any use. I have the traditional German kipperkarten winging their way to me. In the meantime, I put my Mystical Kipper deck to use.

I’ve been told that the kippers work similarly to Lenormand cards, so that’s how I approached them. About the only thing I know about kippers is that it’s traditional in a three-card spread to start with MC1 or MC2 (Main Cards; Man and Lady), and read in the direction they are looking.

I’m also aware that “directionality” is  part of kipper reading; that is, if a figure has its back to another card, or is pointing in a direction, then the other cards can add nuance to the reading. That is done in Lenormand reading as well, although it’s not as commonly acknowledged among native-English Lenormand readers.

Kipper Reading #1

The first reading was done over the weekend, to ask how a meeting would go Monday morning. I had a work meeting scheduled to check in with a contractor who is helping me with a technical project. Here are the cards:

Marriage Card – Military Person – High Honors

A Funny “Quickie” with Clouds

Over the weekend, I did a quick two-card reading to try out what Andy B. calls the tirage oui ou non. In this reading technique, the answer comes from the flow of two cards. It is similar to the quick cut that I’ve written about before.

So with that in mind, I asked if the Lenormand decks I’d previously ordered would come this week. I cut the cards and got Clouds + Ship.

Job Opportunity?

Here is a quick reading with my Mertz Lenormand. I was contacted by a recruiter about a job opportunity at Company X. I’m not actively seeking a new job, and I’m probably overqualified for what they’re looking for.

Still, I was curious and asked the Lenormand: how is the opportunity at X for me?

I got: Roads – Man – Moon

Doctor, doctor. Can you see I’m hurting, hurting?

I had a doctor appointment this week. I injured my toe over a year ago, and I still have pain in the toe and foot. Scans hadn’t showed anything permanent injured, and supposedly any damage was to tissues or ligaments that just take months to heal. I wanted a followup to assess whether my (slow) healing is still what the doctor expects.

I pulled out my Judith Bärtschi Lenormand deck to ask: What will the outcome of my doctor appointment be?

Cross – Mice – Child – Moon – House (Sorry for the poor lighting!)

Reading in a line, this flows from left to right, and the cards go from negative to more positive. Read “poetically,” with a story based purely on the thing pictured on each card: the mice eat at the base of the cross. The child plays in the moonlight until it’s time to go home.

Reading and Eating; Eating and Reading

Sorry to disappoint anyone who hoped this title meant I’d be speaking of gourmet delights paired with cards. Perhaps an earthy cheese with a Marseilles tarot, or finger foods with a Dondorf Lenormand? Cheesecake with a Waite-Smith tarot? Oh, the possibilities… but no, these are readings about avoiding too much food.

I’ve noticed a definite tendency to snack lately. And my fondness for sweets has increased. At a time when I want to eat better and lose a few pounds, this is annoying. Today I thought, why not ask the cards what I can do immediately to stop the mindless snacking? I pulled out a tarot and a Lenormand for this question.

Here’s a look with the gilded and gorgeous Renaissance Tarot by the (deceased) artist and author, Brian Williams.

Strength — Hermit — 9 of Coins

What’s the Magician Deck Think of the Greenwood Tarot?

This is a reading I did a couple of weeks ago, or thereabouts. I hadn’t used the Magician’s Deck in quite a while. I must admit that, when I first received it, aside from a handful of cards I felt the deck was very cold and sometimes uncomfortably alien. When you consider that its goals are to map out a level of reality behind the universe, maybe that makes sense. In other words, its angels go back to their roots of beings who keep the gears of reality turning, and they are not the anthropomorphic (arch-)angels we may be familiar with.

What struck me when I did this reading is how warm the card images appeared to me now. It’s almost like I had a different deck in my hands, and I was pleased to work with it again. Sadly, my cards are all curled along the vertical now; I’m not sure if that’s because of my storage pouch (which is oversize but still a snug fit) or because that’s the nature of the paper. But they are no less usable, and being in the throes of my new Greenwood romance at the time, I asked: What energies are flowing through the Greenwood Tarot?

Carto-GPS Reading with Thelema Tarot — Apr 19

Today I am doing a Here and Now reading — my carto-GPS — with my just-arrived Thelema Tarot by Renata Lechner. This is a dreamy looking and reasonably attractive deck, with a handful of standout cards at first glance. My main complaint is that it’s cut poorly, and the top left corner is almost sharp. In person, it looks like all of the cards are pointing to the top left.

This spread that I call “Here and Now” can be thought of as a GPS for taking a quick look at where I’m going and what I need to avoid. While I’ve showed daily readings with it so far, today I wanted to demonstrate it applied to a specific topic. Wanting something short, meaningful and that I could talk about freely, I chose this blog as the topic. What direction should* I take for this blog?

 

 

Thelema Tarot reading; click for full size image

Carto-GPS with Tarot d’Eltynne

Here is a reading using (yet) another deck I like but rarely use: the Tarot d’Eltynne. The Tarot d’Eltynne is an updated version of the cruder looking, but presumably competent, Oracle Belline. I learned about d’Eltynne a few years ago, from Chanah who ran The Freaky Fortuneteller.

There was not, and still isn’t, much information on the Belline in English but the deck seems popular among French speakers. There has been more interest in this deck with the popularity surge of the Petit Lenormand, since the Belline has indirect links between its creator and Mlle Lenormand. The cards can be read like Lenormand, but also hold a depth of individual meanings in their own right, and are associated with planets for added nuance.

This spread that I call “Here and Now” can be thought of as a carto-GPS for taking a quick look at where I’m going and what I need to avoid. This was a daily reading for last Wednesday. I wanted general advice, and had a challenging meeting at work that day. I was concerned because the host is challenging to work with. (Those of you not in the corporate world may not understand the dread that meetings can inspire, but trust me, they can be stressful!) I also drew a card from the Angel Prayers Oracle Deck for specific advice.

 

Tarot d’Eltynne reading; click for full size image

A Daily GPS with Energy Oracle Cards

Here is a reading using a deck I like but never use: The Energy Oracle Cards by Sandra Taylor. (Who, incidentally, lives in a neighboring city to me.) If you aren’t familiar with the deck, it is based on tarot-inspired images that the author has stated are part of her clairvoyant vocabulary during her reading and coaching sessions.

This spread that I call “Here and Now” can be thought of as a GPS for taking a quick look at where I’m going and what I need to avoid. I’m using it as a daily reading here.

 

Energy Oracle Cards reading; click for full size image

More of (top left):

This is what I need to do or bring more of, and the card here is Action. Apparently I need to take more action. This contrasts with…

First Reading with LXXXI The Magician’s Deck

Another day, another deck; but perhaps not just any deck. This post is my test run of LXXXI (that’s 81 in Roman numerals), The Magician’s Deck. This 81-card oracle deck is geared towards the working magician (in what people might think of as a shamanic, service-oriented practice), particularly those doing the Quareia course. As such it fits nicely in the box with decks that are esoteric in nature, where “esoteric” is not synonymous with Golden Dawn or Qabalah. I was trying to think what decks to relate it to, and I could jokingly say that it’s the lovechild of the Dreampower Tarot and the Playing Card Oracles Alchemy Edition, with the Thoth as an estranged godparent.

There is some truth to my jest, in that one of the artists is Stuart Littlejohn, who created the Dreampower Tarot back in the 90s. Credit must also go to the other artist, Cassandra Beanland, and the prime mover behind the deck, Josephine McCarthy — who is a tarot expert, even if you won’t see her at tarot forums or conferences.

The Deck

While designed to be a magician’s divination tool, I believe this deck is workable by anyone who feels drawn to it. The results will depend on how well the reader can translate concepts that may seem grand and abstract into everyday life. I think this is true of many decks, even the standard tarot. If you’ve ever interpreted the Magician as a business professional, the Chariot as a car or the Devil as sexual relations or organizational skills, then most likely you could make the jump to this deck.

The deck itself, as mentioned, has 81 cards. The sides look like they have a bit of saddle-stitching on them, with little bumps. Ms. McCarthy told me this is a side-effect of the printer creatively accommodating the printing of 81 cards, and in practice I find it unnoticeable. The cardstock is a bit slippery, at least in the deck’s brand new condition, but is pleasing to my hands and the deck has a nice heft. The artwork is, in my opinion, much more attractive in person than online. I had doubts about whether I’d find all of the art appealing in hand when I committed to the crowdfunding, but I found all of the illustrations quite attractive when I got the deck. Even the cards that had looked a little creepy to me online.