Table of Contents

Tarot Reflections

 March 01, 2003

Valerie Sim serves as the VP of Communications for the ATA. She received her first deck of tarot cards 32 years ago and began studying astrology in 1973. Both have continued to be passions for her over the years and have led to the authorship of her own tarot and astrological teaching materials, with which she has been an online teacher for the past year and a half. 

In her position as VP of Communications, Valerie is the Editor of ATA's bi-monthly e-zine, Tarot Reflections, and the members-only tarot magazine, the ATA Quarterly.

 Valerie is the Listowner of a popular tarot email list, Comparative Tarot, a list which is populated by tarot students, readers, teachers, authors and artists. She is currently finishing up her book about the Comparative Tarot method and ways to keep tarot fun and exciting, called Tarot: Out of the Box; has written the pamphlet, or "little white book," for the recently published Lo Scarabeo Comparative Tarot Deck; and is a frequent reviewer for Tarot Passages. On the shamanic path and active in animal rescue, Valerie has many favorite decks including Animal Wise, Vision Quest and Shining Tribe.

I have heard of this occurring with other recently released tarot decks. Perhaps it is something inherent in the printing process used these days? Seems like a minor quibble, but I hope the publishers can do something about this as it has even made a few tarotists I know slightly ill. Fortunately, I was not that adversely affected, but did find it distinctly unpleasant.

The Art
Willow Arlenea’s art draws from her background in Fine Arts and Transpersonal Psychology, and she admits that her images arise from a combination of her Native American, Celtic and Wiccan spiritual studies, as well as from her experience with both Vipassana Meditation and Sufi dancing. To me, the cards have a distinctly shamanic feel. You would think that this might produce artwork that is overly eclectic and too great a mixture of too many styles, but I don’t find this to be a case.  The cards do contain a lot of symbols but I find them nicely integrated, pleasing and easy to interpret.

Majors
With the Major Arcana traditional meanings are approached from a slightly different angle. Some of the nomenclature has been changed to better reflect the newer paradigm presented by the deck’s creators. In this deck Justice is 8 and Strength is 11. Renamed Majors are as follows:

Suit Cards
Suits are fairly conventional, but are amplified in a unique & refreshing way:

Swords                         Mental Realm (and original patterns, including sacred geometry & changing paradigms)

Disks                            Material World & Daily Life (plus instinctual wisdom personified by animals)

Cups                             Emotional World (as well as defensive strategies and patterned responses)

Wands                          Chi or Life-force energy, (with an additional correlation with the energies of the physical and transpersonal chakras)

Courts
The deck employs gender-neutral classifications for the Court cards that Cori describes as “simply four ways to express the gifts of each suit.” (p 7) They are:

Server (Page) - expresses the impulse to help

Teacher (Knight) - the embodiment of some aspect of wisdom of the suit

Healer (Queen) – one who exerts a healing influence on oneself or others

Master (King) – the integrated whole or most comprehensive expression of that suit

Working With the Cards

The author advocates adapting Gestalt therapy to address different parts of each card in the first person. Thus, the Hanged Man is not merely some third party hanging suspended in space but is experienced as though in dream work by saying something like “I am relinquishing control of my life and am experiencing deep inner growth. My ego is suspended. I am in harmony with God’s will.” Cori also encourages readers to work with the cards colors and movement. As mentioned earlier, each card has a distinct flow of movement that evokes deep feelings and responses. Likewise, the reader is challenged to respond to the colors in each picture, expanding on their visual language. Spreads Though the book does include some material on two and three card spreads and introduces a six-card relationship spread, the “spread”, if you can call it that, that I enjoyed most was one consisting of six separate and consecutive one-card draws. Suggested questions were:

* What do I need to remember in this situation?

* What is trying to unfold?

* What is the basic energy of this situation?

* What am I up against here?

* What is the deeper lesson in this situation/relationship?

* What is the healing potential of this situation/relationship? (p 11)

I tried this for a couple of different situations and it worked beautifully.

In Conclusion
I heartily recommend this tarot package. Though the muted colors and energy dances might relegate this for some men to the tarot’s version of a “chic flick”, I think most people, male or female, would appreciate the value of this set for transpersonal analysis and growth.

The set is published by Red Wheel/Weiser (http://www.redwheelweiser.com/) and is currently available through many local bookstores, Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Borders.

Tarot of Transformation. Author: Jami Lee Cori. Artist: Willow Arlenea (2002) Boston: Red Wheel/Weiser. ISBN 1-57863-239-0

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