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Dark Grimoire Tarot Review
© 2008 by Judith A. Johnston
That Bloodcurdling Guy and His Many Friends
Oh, I love a tarot deck that comes at things differently! Fresh artwork by a living artist, who does not appropriate and scan the artwork of others long-dead for "new" decks, plus a different way of thinking that is not a rehash of the same old Rider-Waite system.
Michele Penco, the artist of the Dark Grimoire Tarot, spent months doing storyboards and characterizations for the cards and sometimes featured them on her online blog. She seems genuinely interested in the stories of H.P. Lovecraft that provide the impetus for this deck. Once I saw that Michele had really captured the stories, I bought the deck, and felt it would be a terrific companion for the H.P. Lovecraft Tarot that features Daryl Hutchinson's thoughtful, creative artwork. Daryl knows these stories very well, so he makes a perfect guide to the Lovecraft oeuvre. At the moment, his deck is out-of-print and hard to track down, but if you own one, it is a useful and beautiful comparison deck to the Dark Grimoire.
I have had fun comparing the two decks and each artist's interpretation of character and story, and I have re-read several stories in H.P. Lovecraft anthologies. About four years ago I bought and read the following anthologies from Amazon.ca, which are also available in the States, and you can find similar anthologies in the UK, Europe, and Australia in slightly different editions. I also bought a selection of some of his early writing, which is often compared to that of Clark Ashton Smith, but Lovecraft soon developed his own style and characters that are individual to him. There is always the library for hunting up stories too:
The Transition of H.P. Lovecraft : The Road to Madness ISBN 0345384229
The Best of H.P. Lovecraft : Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre ISBN 0345350804
H.P. Lovecraft and Others : Tales of the Cthulhu Mythos ISBN 034542204X
Once familiar with the stories and the Dark Grimoire deck, people might like to branch out and see how Lovecraft influenced writers over the last 80 years. Several anthologies contain short stories by authors who were contemporaries of Lovecraft, as well as present-day authors like Stephen King or Neil Gaiman, who grew up reading Lovecraft and delight in bringing his characters or settings into their own work. My favourite of these is Neil Gaiman's Shoggoth's Old Peculiar which has wonderful references to H.P. Lovecraft's story The Shadow Over Innsmouth that is so much a part of this tarot deck.
Admittedly, it takes a bit of time to "get" the references and familiarize yourself with all of Lovecraft's stories, but that is the fun for me and one of the main reasons I enjoy Lo Scarabeo decks so much, you need to do some research but the delight in finding things for yourself is unending. You do not have to track down every single card in the deck either, they are quite evocative on their own. Lo Scarabeo decks are like beautiful puzzles that give pleasure to one's life and provide food for the mind. They usually have a few interesting decks throughout the year that give me hope for the continuation of imagination and creativity in the tarot genre.
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| We Are ALL Mad, I Tell You
I read some of these stories when young, but did not really understand H.P. Lovecraft at the time. I have only come to appreciate him with reading a wider selection of his work and seeing one story tie into another. In these days of blood and guts horror, it is refreshing to read Lovecraft, who crafted wonderful stories of atmosphere and suspense without having any gore. Many of his characters go mad and cannot speak of the things they have seen, while other characters find them indescribable. Still, Lovecraft manages to convey a lingering disquiet and dreamlike quality that makes one half believe he is telling the truth. Welcome to his Eldritch dream-world.
The notes in the booklet accompanying the deck have clues to the stories for the Major arcana, but you will have to sift and read to find the references in the Minor arcana. I really found this interesting though, particularly when I discovered a scene that is also illustrated in the H.P. Lovecraft Tarot. It was fascinating to compare the cards. The first one I noticed was that they both used the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, who wrote the Necronomicon, on The Magician card. I have scanned a comparison of that to highlight the similarity and differences of the artists. They really bounce off each other, giving you different impressions of the words.
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Those Demon Swords Are Out to Get Me
Do you have bulgy eyes and a strange-shaped head? Do you have any ancestors from New England? Watch out, or you will need to take a trip to Innsmouth and discover the real truth about strange old Aunt Heddy. Whatever you do, avoid a stay overnight in the Gilman House hotel, or you might end up in a situation like the fellow on the 7 of Swords. At least I think that is the scene depicted, since the gun was not in the story. As a Sword archetype, the idea of thought and demons comes through wonderfully in this picture of hovering menace. Michele Penco has taken some liberties with scenery and such, as is her right as an interpreter, but for the most part, these scenes are familiar enough to identify.
The 2 of Swords features another story called The Music of Erich Zann, which is a bit strange since Erich Zann was an old man in the story, but this might simply be an interpretation of the artist, or a reference to the younger man who is the story's narrator, and the blindfold of course refers to the archetypal imagery on this card. Since the Swords are about demons enslaving the mind, this story fits perfectly with the obsessive Erich and his playing of music. Here is a visual of the artwork showing Erich Zann playing his "viol" compared to Daryl Hutchinson's interpretation.
The 10 of Swords most certainly deals with The Dunwich Horror and Wilbur Whately and his farmhouse. Likewise, IX The Hermit depicts Henry Armitage deciphering the horrifying diary of Wilbur using several esoteric books to help him, under an electric light with his hands shaking at the monstrous revelations. Be wary of the whippoorwill's call and strange, malign odours near Sentinel Hill; Great Cthulhu has many cousins in forest belts. Dunwich is a crumbling little town, not used to visits by outsiders, with furtive, solitary residents, much like Innsmouth. "By Their smell can men sometimes know Them near."
As I mentioned, The Shadow Over Innsmouth is featured many times in the deck, including XVIII The Moon, and the 5 of Swords. I am not sure if the 9 of Swords also refers to this story, because I first I thought it was related to Arthur Jermyn, one of Lovecraft's early stories. I have noticed this familiarity in several cards, since Lovecraft used common themes in disparate stories. Writers often take an idea and write several different stories with it, in the same way that visual artists work an idea out in a series, and Lovecraft is a good example of this.
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| Cthulhu Calls While In Your Cups
There are quite a few cards showing scenes from The Call of Cthulhu. The 7 of Chalices seems to be artist Henry Wilcox, dreaming of "great cyclopean cities of titan blocks and sky-flung monoliths" which fits in with the general description of dreams representing emotions and the element of water in this classic Cups suit. It is interesting to note that Lovecraft himself was often troubled by dreams and nightmares and had a nervous collapse in his teenage years. I like to think that his writing saved him from such nervousness as he worked out nightmares, characters, and situations in his writing, and thus dispelled any physical problems he had experienced when young.
The 8 of Pentacles also shows Wilcox, who was a sculptor, bringing to life in clay and marble the images from his dreams, an interpretation in the earthy materials of the Pentacles suit. I really liked the way Penco tied that earth element into her image. Similarly, another artist, Richard Pickman, from the story Pickman's Model, is drawn on the 3 of Pentacles in his earthy cave-like basement, painting one of those lovely ghouls that had a great appetite for flesh.
The 4 of Chalices could be Inspector Legrasse contemplating the statue of Cthulhu or perhaps Professor Angell, or even poor Robert Blake from The Haunter of the Dark contemplating the steeple of the church on Federal Hill through his window while he tries to decipher the book he took from the church, (although there is no small statue of Cthulhu in that specific story.) I also think The Fool might be Blake after his breakdown, sitting under a light to dispel the burning eye, the steeple, the amorphous dancers of Azathoth, and the robed, hooded figures of the Starry Wisdom sect. He doesn't wear a strait jacket in the story though. The 6 of Chalices also reminds me of that story, although it is a woman on the card, because Blake used to sit and watch the roofs of the town below his windows and the sunsets that flamed behind them.
The scene on The Wheel might refer to a sect in the swamps of New Orleans. According to Lovecraft, many white-robed Cthulhu Cults are found around the world in Haiti, Africa, Australia, China, the Philippines, and North America, so this is obviously one of the cults on the 5 of Pentacles, with the tentacles of Cthulhu shadowed on the wall. The fictional cults were often thought to be practicing Voodoo, but that was only because Cthulhu was a closely guarded secret, almost unknown to people who were not initiates. This Voodoo aspect is referred to on the Justice card, which I rather like, since as well as being serious or severe and weighing things in judgment, it means to me that Justice, to retain equilibrium, can also separate from the disturbing practices and rituals of others, and their dark evocations.
The door on the XIII Death card appears to be the door to the city of R'lyeh where Cthulhu and the Old Ones wait to arise when the stars are right. There is a scene in The Call of Cthulhu describing some seamen who find the city rising in Australian waters and they investigate and find this massive door and inadvertently let Cthulhu out when it is opened. The smoke of long-undisturbed darkness is described, although unlike the card there were no other people.
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| | Women, Women, Everywhere
I am lost to explain the women on several of these cards as Lovecraft did not often feature women, except peripherally, in his stories. The "Lady" on the Empress seems to be of the artist's imagination, since Cthulhu alone was the priest who held the incantations and ability to conjure and bring back the Old Ones and cause R'lyeh to resurface. Perhaps the goddess is simply an addition to fit in with the familiar tarot archetype? The 8 of Swords suggested to me the Mi-Go brain cylinder from the story The Whisperer in Darkness, although the characters in that were men, so this woman on the card would seem to take the place of Henry Akeley, that lone fighter of aliens and holder of the Black Stone.
The woman on the Strength card holds up the Shining Trapezohedron to ward off a monster, but in the story from which the Trapezohedron comes, The Haunter of the Dark, there is no woman, so I think the artist is again inventing a female balance for the deck. The Wands suit is about lights defeating the darkness, but I generally feel after looking at some confusing scenes on cards that Penco has amalgamated scenes and characters to fit cards as she saw fit, and used women instead of the men Lovecraft wrote about. And why not? We are not adhering to rigid formulae set down by equally rigid tarot experts, WE are imagining!
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| Polyphemus Thrashes Euclid
Dagon the Fish-God is referred to as "Polyphemus-like, and loathesome" in the story Dagon. In mythology, Polyphemus was the giant one-eyed son of Poseidon and chief of the Cyclopes. In Homer's epic Odyssey, Ulysses (or Odysseus) blinds this Cyclops in order to escape his cave. Many things in H.P. Lovecraft's writing are referred to as "cyclopean" or gigantic, particularly buildings or monuments, and this enormous architecture is hinted at on the cards.
Several references are made by Lovecraft to architecture that is "non-Euclidean." Euclidean geometry uses basic principles of points and straight lines and conformity, or equality of counterparts. Everything is balanced in angle and line and relationships are preserved between things, no matter which way they turn. Non-Euclidean geometry would then be "not quite right" as Lovecraft labels it. Angles and relationship of measurement would be skewed, relating the parts would be confusing, chaos would enter the equation. It reminds me of Shirley Jackson's novel The Haunting of Hill House, where the house was so "off" that doors would not stay open. You expect weird things to happen in such places.
There are several scenes in the Dark Grimoire of lumpen cities of block and stone, with great monoliths, but nothing unusually non-Euclidean. This seems to be a fancy that can only be worked out in the individual reader's mind, like conjuring up the miasma of fog and off-kilter smells. Michele has many cards with pyramids on them, suggesting aged civilization and mystery, but not in any way non-Euclidean, yet her buildings do suggest the unexpected and unfamiliar, which remains true to Lovecraft.
Here are cyclopean buildings with Dagon's head and others drawn beside the main figure on XXI The World card: we are all a-tumble in the clouds and steppes of imagination.
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|  | What IS the Shining Trapezohedron ?
Hey, that is a good question to haunt us in the dark. Fortunately, there are some printable models of polyhedra on the Internet, and I found two types of trapezohedron available to craft. The smaller one is a Square Trapezohedron, and the larger, more pointed one, is a Pentagonal Trapezohedron. Trapezohedrons have kite shapes making up the facets, and in these two examples, the square one has four kites, like the four sides of a square, repeated on the top and bottom for a total of eight sides. The pentagonal one has five kites like the five sides of a pentagon, repeated for a total of ten sides. The basic models range from trigonal trapezohedrons to decagonal trapezohedrons and the more sides they have the sharper and more pointed they get, which I think you can see if comparing my two models.
I coloured the sides of my models in Photoshop by sampling colours from scans of the Dark Grimoire cards. I love to try different artsy things while studying decks, and this familiarized me with both the story and the wonderfully subdued colours of the deck. If you look on the 7 of Wands card, you can see that Michele Penco has rendered the trapezohedron very well, with its shining light bouncing off its many sides to horrify the dark beasts and cause them to shrink back.
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| The Esoteric Order of I Read Lovecraft
Dagon as The Devil was a bit puzzling as I had not at the time read Lovecraft's story Dagon, and did not understand the reference. Upon reading that, the secret society called the Esoteric Order of Dagon, described in the story The Shadow Over Innsmouth, finally fell into place for me. Reading the stories out of the order of their publication can be a bit confusing, but that too is part of fitting the puzzle together. I claim no expertise, but the effort made to understand this deck and the writing of Lovecraft really is a joy for me; I am keen on the adventure of the hunt, just as I was with the H.P. Lovecraft Tarot when I first received it.
The stampeding horses and buggy on VII The Chariot are straight from The Colour Out of Space, although the rider is not. Several waterfalls and lakes are shown in the deck, referring perhaps to the waterfalls near Innsmouth or the waterfalls described in The Doom That Came to Sarnath. The court cards could refer to many kings and rulers described in various stories. The search remains for each deck owner to track these charming landscapes from the cards in the words of H.P. Lovecraft. Remember to search in attendant writings from other authors, a clue being the story The Dweller in the Tomb by Lin Carter as hinted at in V The Hierophant in the Dark Grimoire.
Some cards highlight scenes from Lovecraft's novella, At the Mountains of Madness, a lyrical enchantment of travel, archaeology, the huge Old Ones, and demonic Shoggoth. I thought that the 4 of Wands and maybe the 10 of Wands and XIX The Sun, might refer to this longer story. As I said, many of these works tend to have similar elements.
Part of the challenge of H.P. Lovecraft lies in keeping his pantheon of demons and gods straight in your mind. There are many sites on the Internet that have alphabetical dictionaries of characters and their relation to each other, so I would encourage people to browse: a few keywords and the name "Lovecraft"in a search will bring up relevant sites for further clarification.
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H.P. is Such a Reasonable Chap
Ever in search of empirical evidence of my devotion to reason, I recently bought a comic representation of stories by Lovecraft. I could see myself tracking down other comics with Lovecraft stories in them, sort of akin to my hot pursuit of postcard bundles dealing with Neil Gaiman's Sandman graphic novels. It is born of keen interest, my interest as a human wrapped up in the human condition, verifying statistics and trends and such; a necessary, and understandable, function of rationality.
[Actually I just like comics. Shhh, don't tell.]
I am not greatly interested in the obsessive "fandom" of horror or science fiction, I echo William Shatner's attitude in that I think people need to "Get a life," but there is something compelling about winding your way through decks and art and writing in relation to Lovecraft. I have found it so, although I would never use Lovecraft-speak or anything.
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.
Darn, that just slipped out.
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| Tarot of Reincarnation Review
© 2008 by Judith A. Johnston
This is not really a tarot deck, it's a tarock deck, used for playing the game of tarock in Europe. However, because it has 78 cards split into Major and Minor Arcana, you can adapt it successfully to conventional tarot systems. It also has absolutely nothing to do with reincarnation, but has a Natural History theme which was why I bought it.
Some people immediately label this sort of deck as "unreadable," but if you look closer, it is an example of a particular deck that can light up the intellect and help you pursue other interests while tying into tarot. Like most things in life, it is the effort you put into them that makes them meaningful.
Lo Scarabeo is never too helpful with information and reference material concerning the graphics in their decks, but after some research, I found that the original illustrations were published in the 19th century in a Funk and Wagnall's dictionary circa 1895. This is mentioned with some of the images at an online site of clip art:
I set up a file where I listed each card and I have slowly been building a reference of salient facts about each animal to use with this deck. The little white booklet will refer to an image as "Eagle" for instance on the Empress III card. I found after some reading that this depicts the Imperial Eagle (Aquila heliaca formerly A. mogilnik or A. imperialis.) Aquila is Latin for "eagle," and this eagle is thought to be the model for the aquila, the standard of the Roman legions. The adults look most like Golden Eagles and are dark with a pale shawl." At first I thought it was the Golden Eagle, because the Imperial Eagle is pretty rare if not extinct these days, but it was still prevalent in the 19th century when these images were created. Similarly, the "Little Owl" on the High Priestess card is a Barn Owl, and the "Hawk" on the Emperor card is a Sparrowhawk, Accipiter nisus, and the "Blackbird" depicted on the Tower is a Mistle Thrush, Turdus viscivorus. If nothing else, the deck is an example of why Latin names for species are so important to use for reference.
After pinning down the exact species (not always possible as I found with the "Frog" on the 7 of Hearts), I made short notes on the animal's habits and habitat and then made further notes in list form that tied specifics about this animal into the archetypal definition of the card. As part of my research, I have tried to find interesting artwork, jewellery or photographs to go with each animal. I found a photo of a mechanical bank with a chimpanzee to illustrate the chimpanzee on the Magician card in my notes, and a lovely picture of a silver pendant of a swordfish, that I used to illustrate the Swordfish on the 2 of Hearts card.
This is the sort of thing I like to do to learn about a deck and make it relevant to me. Many people complain that there are no books for most Lo Scarabeo decks, and that's one of the reasons I like them, because you can look things up yourself and make the archetypal images meaningful to you by writing your own notes and exploring the theme. If you are interested in animals, the naming of species, illustration, science, travel, and natural history, you would like working with these cards.
Hearts - Animals from the sea or reptiles like the frog, jellyfish, turtle.
Clubs - Insects like beetles, moths, spiders.
Diamonds - Mammals like the giraffe, camel, fox, hyena.
Spades - Birds like herons, pelican, hawks.
It also includes two Fool cards, a woman and man, which resemble the male and female significator cards from European fortune telling decks, although it is not necessary to use them this way. And don't forget, you can always separate the 22 Major Arcana cards and use the Minor Arcana by itself as a playing card deck with gorgeous illustrations.
This is a handsome and interesting deck for any purpose.
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Graven Images Oracle Review
© 2008 by Judith A. Johnston
When I first saw images from this deck online, it was unpublished. The idea for the deck had been turned down by one of the major card publishers in the United States, but I did not know this when I wrote to Natalie Zaman to enthuse about the deck and start a thread on it at an online forum. Apparently, she was feeling discouraged about the work that she and Katharine Clark were so committed to, and was so buoyed by the interest and attention coming from the public in that thread, that she persevered in finding a publisher. We are fortunate that Phyllis Galde of Galde Press had the vision to see the unusual vitality and effort in this deck and agree to publish it.
I felt an immediate connection to the images, and to Nat and Kat themselves. Both women are active in their communities, and involved in teaching and talking about life and history in a positive way. I respect such action and their spiritual approach to life and other people. I was fortunate to be asked to sew them tarot bags using Nat's cemetery photographs, and simply working with those images made me appreciate the value of the deck.
As this deck and its images became part of my experience, a 1998 documentary was shown on television called Mortal Remains by Chris Gallager of Foxglove Films. It was filmed on location in British Columbia, but also showed one of the most fascinating larger cemeteries in North America, Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City. The film explained that in previous centuries, death or aging was not feared and avoided the way our Western society views it now. People used to stroll and picnic in cemeteries, children played there, families connected, living and dead. I think our fear of death and showing the emotion of grief has turned us away from the richness of such historical sites, and our own family graves. Although you might feel grief and strong emotion, you will feel life as well, and an infinite connection to the way things are for humans: we all die. Cemeteries are stories of human life, often stated in stone carvings, rich in symbolism: stories containing pleasure and adversity, war, illness, and terrible accident, but nonetheless compelling, because we like to read stories about other people, it helps us sort through our own lives.
For those that run from facing death, the Graven Images Oracle can be a path to healing those fears. Feel the peace of death, walk through the decades in cemeteries, be awed by human life, do genealogical research, visit the grave of your spouse or parent. Embrace it, for it must be faced. Make that connection and feel sanctuary in your lives. A life of learning also connects to unavoidable death, it is part of being human.
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| IVY, IVY OUT AND FREE
Before the deck was published, Nat told an eerie story of one odd section of her favourite cemetery, Elmwood Cemetery in New Jersey. Elmwood is an old cemetery hidden away off an industrial road, with large, dark trees in dense groups throughout the graveyard. This particular section was under some imposing pines and the air smelled very strongly of pine resin even with the car windows rolled up. Natalie described her discovery of the Ivy card:
"I stepped in—hesitantly. By the time I had taken a handful of steps, the ivy was calf-high. The stones seemed to float in a green sea. And it was dim and murky in there—any pictures I took ended up needing the flash—even though I was outside and it was the middle of the day. As I examined the stones—and I really didn’t want to touch anything—I found that all of them were carved with the Cyrillic alphabet."
Cemeteries are often quiet places where the sounds of the outside world seem to fade and you walk in a blanketed atmosphere of natural quietude. The actuality of the scene was murkier and more oppressive than the flash-lit picture conveys. Consider Nat's other comments about this place:
"I think the picture captures a tiny bit of the movement that was going on in that place, because you see, something lives in that little wood. Oh, of course there are animals, but what I saw, out of the corners of my eyes and even head on, were shadows—too large to be woodchucks—flitting from tree to tree. And there was the distinct feeling that I was being watched. It wasn’t negative or threatening, but watchful—and it followed me home. I’ll never forget that night—it was one of those times where you’re in bed with your eyes closed and you feel that if you open them you’ll be face to face with something…"
I can hear that rustling and see shadows from the edge of my eyes! The calf-deep ivy reminds me of swimming in an unknown lake in the dark. Water, trees, stone; the familiar becomes strange when things are saturated in twilight. You almost expect something to brush your leg or grab your foot and hold you, pull you down.
I decided to do up a little watercolour and ink sketch of the Ivy card, and then draw a mandala behind the headstone, randomly, without too much planning. I like to do quickie sketches or exercises with cards since it helps me to connect with the images and remember the cards. The ivy looks like a skirt on this monument, a liquid swirl of green leaves spilling over the stone and billowing up at the hem, almost as imposing as the pines enveloping it. No poignant folk songs for this cemetery, or sweet roses entwining on graves, but thick, green vines, lushly overtaking carved stone and language, hidden, everywhere blanketed by the smell of pine, with companion stones amid the murk.
As I was drawing the sketch I got the idea of writing "love" in the Cyrillic alphabet in the mandala so that is what gave me the theme for the picture. The stylized trees in the mandala were inspired by artwork on a Russian lacquer box. It seemed a peaceful thing after Nat's experience at the grave site. I felt so sorry for these forgotten people and sent them love in their own language.
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|  | A SYMBOL OF FRIENDSHIP
There is something so connective in the hand of another person, so comforting. It always seems to be about hands for me, so it was no surprise that the card I initially felt drawn to in this deck is the Amity card showing two hands clasping. This is an old Masonic symbol, and in cemetery symbolism it can mean leaving earth to be welcomed into heaven by God or relatives.
I know it best as a symbol of friendship and marriage from a delightful book called Mary Martin's Needlepoint. Mary Martin was an actress, very famous on the stage in the 1950s, and she was devoted to small sculptures and art that showed clasped hands, as they symbolized her marriage and commitment to her second husband Richard Halliday. She had a wonderful collection of art, including one tiny picture she made herself of petit point in silk thread. That book and her collection always stayed in my mind as it perfectly reflected my own feelings about hands and the creative spirit of making art with your hands.
My beautiful framed print of Amity, signed and numbered by Natalie, sits here by my computer desk. The word "amity" comes from the Latin "amicus" which means "friend." We thirst for it, this simple thing, these two hands clasping in unity.
One of the strengths of this deck is the simplicity of the stone images. Yes, there are fancier grave markers in the world, but the simplicity of this oracle's images allows for a deep, individual response. I think Natalie understood that when she took the photographs, and thus gave us the opportunity to weave the story ourselves, with these plain, strong images of stone touching our lives.
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| WHEN THIS YOU SEE, REMEMBER ME
Walk through a cemetery and you will see stones reflecting the need to remember a person's hobby or favourite picture or poem. Remember me, remember this poem, this incident of my life, when this you see, remember me.
Cabinet photographs were done by professional photographers so that families would have a memento of the dead relative. Many of these old photographs are of children, posed so that it looked like the child was only sleeping, but often there was no way to disguise that the poor child had died, so there is a deep poignancy in these photographs. Nat and Kat both have small collections of these emotionally moving photographs, and there are exhibits of them in museums and online if you are interested. The Sleeper card best captures this awareness and idea that a child was only sleeping, waiting in heaven for the reunion with loved ones.
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|  | FOR ALL THE LAMBS
You will inevitably see the graves of children in any cemetery. In our day the grave of a child is horrifying, but in times past there were many more children buried, all part of a family's growth, although still horrifying. There were no grief counsellors and medication for those folks, they were expected to mourn a reasonable length of time and then get on with life and have more children. I see such beautiful, tiny, ivory-coloured monuments with lambs and angels watching over dead children, asleep in peace.
Several times, I have used photographs or gravestone rubbings in my own work, and felt deeply satisfied by doing so. I had been thinking about doing a necklace to celebrate this deck, and thought about lambs and the many poignant monuments to lovely fresh-faced children, robbed of life, that are gathered in cemeteries. I have a ceramic planter that was a gift to my Mother when I was a baby. It's a cheerful little lamb, but how different is the succour of the lamb on a grave. Did women overcome such grief to carry on? I don't think as a human that you could; how terrible a grief for a parent to outlive their child.
I fashioned a small bead embroidery containing the poignancy of loss and memory, for all the lambs that had to leave their mothers. It has a picture of a bleating lamb, calling for its mother, and silk ribbon embroidery with baby's breath, white roses, forget-me-nots, and lilies. I imagined as I stitched this that it might be worn by a grieving Edwardian mother as a memento to remind her of a baby that died too soon.
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| BOOK A READING FOR YOURSELF
I prefer books where the author has taken the time to develop a system that enhances the theme of a deck. Kat Clark has done that with a very thoughtful and engaging approach to using the deck. She states right up front that she does not use esoteric language; this is a deck of personal insight, not of occult mystery. There are no reversed meanings to cards, but rather a system of positive and negative cards within the five groups of cards. The easiest way to understand how positive and negative work within the positions of the main Pentagram Layout, is to pull some cards and take some notes as you do a reading for yourself.
It is a matter of organization until you become fully familiar with the system. Each position means something, each card means something, which is generally the way decks work, but Kat has introduced an extra punch with a breakdown of positive and negative influences on the five points, secondary to the main layout. For instance, in the spread example I did, my card in the first position was Oaks which is a Physical card and #11, so a shadow or negative card. However, a Physical Negative card in the number one position of the Divine, also means you are disconnected from your higher self and need to rediscover you inner light. Kat has a useful list to aid you in discerning these secondary meanings.
I wrote it down when I explored each card as I found it easier to get used to the interconnectedness of cards that way and to map the positive and negative influences more carefully. I also found I could make notations of my impressions of the cards and just use that and the position for a good reading. The extra layer of cards can be used or not, as you wish, and you'll still have an insightful reading. I like the extra meaning myself, as I found some of the notes were not things that would occur to me.
The system is flexible and there is also a three-card Past, Present, and Future Layout by itself, or with one of more clarifying cards. A good, basic reading system that is sensible. I like that, in the same way I like the strength in the simplicity of the images. You can immediately tune into the deck and use it effectively. The symbolism on the cards is wonderful, and fascinating to read about in the book.You can augment study of the cards with a local cemetery trip or a browse through a dictionary of symbols, to get a overview of how much these symbols have meant to people over the years.
I found the clarity of the photographs really popped as I pulled each one for my reading. Some have soft, stone colouring, and others have bright grass or trees or light in them. Each card has a fresh sparseness that helps to focus the mind. In my reading I pulled the Book card with the Alpha and Omega symbols in the #6 position, the summation or outcome position. I thought this must be the most auspicious card to go in that spot: a Divine card in the Divine position, for the first and the last card.
These are not gimmicky cards, they are cards of life, how to cope with life, and discover your own journey through life. I like that attitude, and I really like this bright, inventive deck, rich with symbolism and history.
The Graven Images Oracle by Natalie Zaman and Katharine Clark
Galde Press (October 1, 2007)
ISBN-10: 193194251X
ISBN-13: 978-1931942515
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