fundamental

There were no cards drawn last week. This is the fourth reading this month, and the first in which anything other than pips have appeared. This drawing includes a trump, a court card, and an ace, and I would call it auspicious.

As readings go, it doesn't get any more basic than this. The question I asked prior to drawing the cards had to do with the persistence of bad attitudes. My internal life is so much better than in times past, I wondered why I sometimes fall into old habits of thinking. 

The first card, "the little wheel," answers that negative thinking is my history and my karma (habit, in other words), a simple and accurate answer. I call this card "the little wheel" or wheel of the individual, to differentiate it from the big wheel, the world.

In the middle sits the king of coins, the king of money, with his mind on his money and his money on his mind. Yes indeed.

The ace of cups tells me love is just around the corner. Finally.

Let's hope so.

Cards: Tarot de Besançon, France, early 19th cent. Photo by Dave B, a.k.a. catboxer. Click on the image for a larger view.

seven heads & ten horns

When it comes to literal depictions of symbolic texts, I've never seen the like of Albrecht Durer, the great 16th century German master whose woodblock of Revelation's Beast ridden by the Whore of Babylon is both scary and ridiculous.

This is partially because Revelation is an incoherent narrative, with a couple of beasts at a minimum, one coming out of the sea and the other from the land. The main beast, a red animal with seven heads and ten horns, is the one who conveys the lewd jockey. She holds up a golden cup full of obscenities.

What does it all mean? There are more theories about the symbols of Revelation than there are symbols in the book. I'm not a New Testament expert, and know only a little of the history of the time. However, I'll take a stab by pointing out that when John of Patmos wrote this troublesome text, about 95 CE, there had been 11 emperors, with three of them, Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, barely having time to sit down on the throne before they were disposed of, and a fourth, Titus, who ruled only a couple years before dying of the plague and being succeeded by his brother, Domitian.

If we subtract four from 11 that leaves seven emperors whom I believe to be symbolized by the heads of the monster. Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Vespasian, and Domitian carry the Great Whore, who quite obviously symbolizes the zeitgeist of the Romans, their sensate and sensuous culture, and the autocratic military dictatorship which ruled the empire from Rome.

There are other possibilities, of course. Seven heads might equal the city's fabled seven hills, and the ten horns the emperors who had ruled until the advent of the timid and vicious Domitian, who  banished John to the tiny island of Patmos, thereby setting the stage for possibly the most overinterpreted and misinterpreted literary work of all time.

the chase

I drew these cards on Sunday, but I've been chewing on them ever since, hence the late posting.

A certain amount of repetition is normal and to be expected in the chance occurrences of random events I suppose, but this is getting positively weird

We're looking at all pips again for a third week in a row, and two of these cards were in the spread two weeks ago. They simply exchanged places and came back. I also remember having drawn the 10 clubs, or teachers' card, not too long ago.

The nine and four of hearts are diametrical opposites in some ways, with the nine saying "Say goodbye to love, at least for now," and the four saying "Love lives here."

I've been alone for some time now, and no doubt love is what I'm looking for. These two emblems, one of love coming and the other of it going, are following one another as love draws closer, then moves farther away. This shows that time is not an adequate concept with which to measure our lives, because lives are  continuums in which people, places, and circumstances, appear, wane, go away completely, and sometunes reappear, whereas time is linear.

I've reached a milestone now. Rejection means nothing to me, so I have no fear. Something good is going to happen.

It's in the cards.

Photo and cards ©2001, 2013 by Dave B, a.k.a. catboxer. Click on the picture to embiggen.

los bajos

Today's reading is all pips, face cards and trumps took the week off. it's a humble but powerful message.

Spades predominate, emblems of the winter of our lives, and dealing with matters of work and/or bodily health.  

I've been visited numerous times by the six of spades over the past couple of years. it's a reminder of everything a person is doing right (or wrong) to maintain and, if possible, improve the only body he or she will ever have. To some extent it expresses the idea of fate or destiny, as opposed to the idea of faith which is embodied in the seven next to it.

The seven spades demands that we do more, go farther, and  commit ourselves to those behaviors which have improved our lives (or brought us low, as the case may be). Robert Camp says this card will challenge us to "rise to higher levels of thinking, speaking, and acting."

The imagery of five diamonds gives a clues to its meaning. In the center an ominous brown pentagon is wrapped in the arms of a reversed pentagram, universal symbol of evil. Around the border, 26 fat man bombs point inward, at the waste of resources this represents. The wastage of capital is always a reckless and foolish thing, and the card appears as an admonishment or a warning to be mindful of your expenditures.

There is also a broken numerical sequence here (6-7-5) which is significant because of the unsettled and unstable nature of odd numbers. Combining the three digits and reducing the sum yields a 9.

you got to move

There are times when I wonder about continuing this project. This is turning into an All About Me blog, although the original idea was to have a site devoted to the history, art, and various meanings of tarot in particular and all art in general.

But somewhere along the line it became like a diary. I write more often on a blog that's not about me at all, catboxx.blogspot.com (see sidebar), so I'm not used to this. But here we go.

This week's draw of the cards contains no trumps or face cards. The appearance of three pips unrelieved by landmarks sends the message that this read is blunt, didactic, and specific to my present situation.

After all the signs of impending love over the past couple of months, the nine of hearts now tells me to let that idea go. As compensation, I have the solid and irreplaceable advantages of family harmony, a close and productive relationship with my sisters, and material prosperity, i.e., not rich, but doing all right.

The four hearts was in this same position in the draw of April 21 this year.

Either my cards have been way off base, or I've been interpreting them very badly. We'll know as the knife blade of the present slides ahead in time, revealing everything.

The photo and the cards are ©2001, 2013 by Dave B a.k.a. catboxer. "You Got to Move" was sung most famously by Miss'ssipi Fred McDowell.

past perfected

This was November, 2010. I decided to do something different that month, and went to one of those "get your cards read for free" sites. For some reason, it was a 4-card draw, even though I wanted my usual 3 cards.

The fourth card wasn't in the same row as the others. It was here, in the line just below.

Then came December, and another appearance of le fou, this time as the only picture card in the center of a spread, between the 10 cups, the performers' card (I was teaching a lot of yoga then), and marching toward prosperity. 2011 Did turn out to be a very good year financially.

In January I read with a non-tarot deck (Mexican lottery cards), and in February the fool didn't make an appearance.

However, he was back the next month, in what I see as the most significant position among his three appearances -- a two-trump draw in which the fool is walking toward trump XXI the world, our segué to the present.

The way I interpret all this is as commentary on states of mind. In 2010 I was feeling rootless and homeless. I'd been divorced for a few years but was still wearing singleness uncomfortably, adjusting to a new and compromised physical condition, and living in an urban one-bedroom on a busy street. I was alienated from my environment and unsettled.

My living situation now is, if anything, more tenuous. I've got a nice place to live, but it's for sale. However, my attitude toward things has changed. I told my sister a few weeks ago that I felt as if no matter where I am in the world, I'm home.

The meaning of the cards, like the quality of our lives, is in our  minds, and a very sagacious person once observed, many, many years ago, that "With our thoughts, we make the world."

another view of the world

This is the third appearance of trump XXI the world out of the past five draws. It appeared twice in April (with different decks), but this is the first (of three) that it's showed up in May.

I've had this before, with the Fool card in 2010/2011. This is not a result of sloppy or careless shuffling. The method of selecting  three cards from a deck of 78 (or 74, in this case) is like this:

Shufle the deck using your regular method seven times. Use either hand to cut the pack in three (but try to always use the same hand). With a palm hovering over each pile of cards in turn, try to find the one emitting heat or magnetic energy. Sometimes more than one pile will give off energy; pick the hottest or most intense one, and your draw is the first three cards on top of that stack, placed face up starting on the left.

On the left is a karma card having to do with love -- unfinished business. On the right is a new way of making money -- pennies from heaven. Other than that, I don't want to say much about this    picture. I just drew these a little while ago, and I need time to chew on it a while.

Click yer gizmo on the pitcher to make large. Photo: "21x3" and tarot cards ©2001, 2013 by Dave B, a.k.a. catboxer.

details in "bleecker street"

There's analysis drawn in symbolic language in Steinberg's 1970 portrait of a dissolving society, "Bleecker Street," shown in its entirety in the post below.

Starting at bottom left with the Latino radiohead, and moving right we find a very faint person composed of thin vertical lines, for his identity is very faint and tentative. Next to him is a lady made of horizontal lines, like the image on black-and-white TV. She is, in fact, a TV lady, and her personality a pastiche of things she's picked up from the tube.

The exploding-head woman, who's had way too much of a powerful psychedelic (LSD is strongly suspected) anchors the bottom line of the composition, while a wino floats in the space between her and the man all covered with hair.

I'm baffled by the hairy man, whom I've seen in Steinberg before, but never unlocked. Steinberg frequently said he was a writer who drew, and in keeping with the specificity of the other symbols in this picture, I'm sure the hairy man stands for something specific. But what?

Likewise, it's hard to tell whether the young and attractive woman next to the hairy man is reputable or disreputable, but she's a bold contrast to the very elegantly dressed small, round woman, or the nun in sunglasses, both of whom move along the street directly behind her.

At the outer edge of the sidewalk in the next row up, we see a very childish lady, who looks as if she was drawn up by an immature hand. Next to her is a dirt, or smudge of a person, symbolizing the destitute homeless insane and addicted people.

Then comes Ragtime Cowboy Joe, a ridiculous person who has

purchased a manufactured personality, and now stands athwart the sidewalk with "a itchy trigger finger." Completing the second row and the south sidewalk, a smiling crocodile is about to devour a rat. Steinberg is here using animals to represent the essential nature of an animalistic human relationship, as such things occur out in the street where there are predators and other dangerous people.

The street itself and the center of the picture is dominated by the police, who exert whatever control and order they can into the bedlam around them. The police seem unconcerned about the dead guy lying in front of the shop called RGH!, in the doorway of which a second cowboy stands, though there's nothing to suggest the corpse is his responsibility.

A skull-faced neo-nazi wearing green sunglasses and boots with spurs marches along menacingly in front of the bar FEH, whose doorway frames yet another cowboy. In front of the storm trooper and slightly off to his right, a beautiful yellow-haired lady walks confidently, protected by her large and extremely pugnacious looking dog with a human face.

I've skipped over the many of the meaningful and interesting smaller characters in this document, a social analysis by Saul Steinberg, drawn in 1970 and totally devoid of sentimentality, moralizing, or cant.

bleecker street

Saul Steinberg's drawing for the January 16, 1971 issue of the New Yorker, a study of a New York street scene, and a portrait of  a society in meltdown, is master work from the humble cartoonist who turned out to be possibly the 20th century's greatest artist.

It's a two-dimensional work with a visible soundtrack; we can "see" and almost hear the combined cacophony of the Latino radio station blasting from the transistors of the Puerto Rican radiohead at lower left, blending harshly with the sound of the police siren, a mix typical of the streets of NYC and San Francisco at the time.

Dirts and drunks and addicts, who appear as smudges on the landscape, rub elbows here with the middle-class and poverty-stricken, the passive and the violent, in a grotesque dance of social anarchy.

Steinberg died in 1999, but the unwinding of our society from the core outward is a work in progress.

Yesterday I reveived that back issue of the magazine from an 
Ebay seller, and it's already framed, matted, and on the wall. 

new reading

A two-trump spread with the trumps bracketing the knave of hearts.

Before drawing and spreading the cards, I asked two very specific questions, both pertaining to subjects the cards have spoken much of lately.

Trump IV the emperor is discipline, order, having your ducks in line. For me to do the things I need to do every day now requires a level of discipline that's not completely brand new to me, but hasn't been seen for quite some time, put it that way. 

XVII the star is the hope card, as well as a predictor of attaining one's goals and/or desires, if one is patient and proceeds positively, especially when she's on the right as she is here. These are two of the easier trumps to interpret.

Most interesting of all is the jack of hearts, in this context, representing the querent (that would be me). I wrote a fairly detailed examination of t his card, here, a couple months ago.

Robert Camp also notes the jack of hearts is one of three "fixed" cards,* meaning the personality, or content of the card has a strong, fixed nature. Some see a jack of hearts personality type as stubborn and inflexible, others may regard him or her as reliable. The other two fixed cards? 8 clubs and the king of spades.

*"Destiny Cards,"p. 27.

Click on the image to see full size. Photo, "Jack among the trumps, and tarot cards ©2013, 2001 by Dave B. a.k.a. catboxer.

love trumps

This week's reading re-iterates the theme of love in my future. At my age, I'm not sure how that's possible, but I've learned to trust the cards.

The king of hearts, an emotional and fair-minded guy, somewhat self-sacrificing (he is a suicide king) moves into the next phase of an unpredictable life with some hesitation.

Five spades is another recurrent theme -- I drew it on the left a month ago -- signaling  changes in the specific things a person does every day, or in other words changes in routine. I'm cooking a lot less, and eating mostly raw food. Other changes occurring as well.

And then there's trump VI, which I don't believe I've ever drawn in a reading before. Of all the cards, this one along with the hanged man comes in for the most tortured, complex, and arcane occult interpretations. it simply means "love," specifically of the romantic variety. "Love" was the card's original name, and it appears to have been, in the earliest semi-complete deck, a depiction of a dynastic marriage of the houses of Sforza and Visconti.

The image was scrambled by the inclusion of a third person on the card in the Marseilles decks, and the interpretation of 19th-century "seers" such as Eliphas Levi.

The symbolism of the trumps is not difficult to understand in most cases, because the first part of the more-or-less standard sequencing of them contains patterns of meaning. The sequence begins with a depiction of the order or structure of society in trumps I through V, then come VI-VII-VIII-IX, or love, war, fortitude, and old age. Fortitude, or strength, doesn't seem to belong with the others, which are all things we encounter as we go through life. The deck's three virtues, strength, justice, and temperance, have shifted their positions in the sequence frequently over the years.

Then comes the first of the "big wheels," Rota Fortuna, and the first half of the trump sequence is complete.

Edit: The sequence is VI-VII-fortitude-IX in Waite's deck. In older decks such as the Marseilles, it's VI-VII-justice-IX. An even older sequence had justice in the 20th place.

Click on the image for a larger view. Photo and tarot cards ©2013, 2001 by Dave B, a.k.a. catboxer.

i looked at the world; the world looked round

For some reason I never expected the world card to show up in two spreads in a row, even though similar things have happened before. At the end of 2010 and beginning of 2011, the fool popped up in four out of five consecutive monthly draws, three of those in the center position.

Some would say that when this happens it's likely the result of sloppy or incomplete shuffling, but in this case that's not possible, since I used two different decks for the last two draws. Others might shrug it off as a random coincidence, and it certainly is that. But I believe, though I can't prove it, that there is something else at work here.

At the time I was getting the fool in my spread every month, I was feeling very rootless, almost homeless, although I had a roof over my head the whole time. Now the reappearance of the world card is signaling with some urgency that my family has an opportunity to write "the end" on the last page of our parents' history. I don't know why that's so important, but it is.

Anchoring the spread this week is the knight of swords (jack of spades), representing a real person who is coming into my life, someone young, charming, and not necessarily trustworthy. When this card appears the seeker needs to be on his or her guard, for readers of playing cards often refer to the jack of spades as "the card of the thief."

A standard interpretation for the empress --  plans successfully completed, fertility and abundance -- would make a logical outcome card and key to the reading. But that sounds a little too pat, and I strongly suspect this empress is a second portent, related to the queen of hearts who took the same spot three weeks ago. At the time it looked like a lame predictor of romance, but I see now it's not going to be that kind of relationship, as I'm now expecting some sort of teacher, guide, or mentor to show up unannounced.

What convinces me of this is the way the empress's gaze is focused on something outside and beyond the cards, but we don't know what it is. 

I'm fascinated by the crudely-rendered images on these old cards, especially the world with its strange, hermaphroditic dancer in the center oval, surrounded by the four heads of the tetramorph, those four-headed winged creatures who play such a large and lively part in the books of Ezekiel and Revelation. This version is badly worn by the demands of gaming, as the world is the highest trump (XXI) and the most desirable of all cards.

reynard hides out

Reynard the Fox, the Rogue, was seen of none;
His many crimes from Court kept him away;
An evil conscience shuns the light of day.
To face that grave assembly much he feared,
For all accused him; no one had he spared:
Graybeard, the Badger, stood his friend alone,
The Badger, who was Reynard's brother's son.



Illustration: The fox hides in the tall grass, afraid to show up at Court. Actually, this is one of the winners in The Society of German Nature Photographers (GDT) "GDT Nature Photographer of the Year 2013" contest. More than 3,500 photos were submitted to the contest, which is only open to the organization's members. Hermann Hirsch, 18, took the top prize, making him the youngest person to win this contest, but I don't know if this photo is hs, or what prize it won. (See TPM). I do know that it's not Renard, but a vixen whom the photographer named "Sophie."

deuces

Deuces make for easy interpretation, yet deal with one of the profoundest social relationships: our partners, spouses, siblings, and best friends.

2 Hearts = 2 hearts "beating as one." Robert Camp says "Even the birth of a child can show up as a Two of Hearts," which shows how much this card is a ruler of all matters pertaining to love and/or familial affection.

I call the deuce of clubs the card of fussin and fightin. It says there's communication occurring, but some of it may be contentious. Implied advice: talking it out and working it out as a way of addressing "fear and arguing," R. Camp's designation for this card.

2 diamonds = Wheelin & dealin, a business partnership which extends beyond business into friendship, family connection, marriage, etc. What works in a marriage may work in business as well; harmonious pooling of resources benefits everybody.

Two of spades is a "union or partnership in work or friendship," (Camp), and indicates the presence of a particularly deep and strong relationship, one which requires lots of close cooperation. 2 Spades also indicates a persistent desire for the company of others.

Any deuce is all about you and your BFF.

All quotes from Robert Camp, "Destiny Cards," (1998), pps. 128-134.

Click on the image for full size. Photo, "Deuces" and images on cards ©2013, 2001 by Dave B., a.k.a. catboxer.

the world

A reading for today, April 21st. An extremely auspicious turn of the cards which bodes well for our present enterprise.

The trump takes center, as it usually does. Despite all the wrong that's been done to her the past couple of centuries, the world remains our mother and our only real home, and in a tarot draw, when the world is yours, it has to be good news.

Now the reading of March 30, the pair-of-queens spread, comes into clear focus. At that time my sisters and I were just embarking on this adventure of house selling. As far as we knew, we were spinning the wheel, which is the trump (in the middle, of course) is bracketed by the two queens representing my sisters, one the queen of spiritual and emotional matters, the other pragmatic, practical, money-oriented.

Today's cards show my sisters and me working harmoniously together on this project (4 hearts), and running on all eight cylinders, on a final settling of our parents' legacy. We can anticipate a very good outcome if the cards, are an indication of what's to come, and we may end up getting more out of this property than we expected.

Five clubs was in the cards two weeks ago, on April 8, and the changes in thinking and daily living which began then are now continuing. The biggest one seems to be a total loss of any interest in politics; I sincerely hope someone calls me when that aspect of the world starts to change. For now, we're ruled by a bunch of oligarchs who used to have us believing everything they did, they did for us. But now they're admitting, when pressed, that far from being our BFFs, they're evil bastards who plan to keep us down, and what are we going to do about it?

Politics won't change an iota as long as oligarchs and lobbyists are running things. Once we throw them over, everything changes, so the solution to all our problems is obvious. Now, how do we get done what needs doing? Your guess is as good as mine.

The final dissolution of a parental estate carries with it a certain amount of sadness, but brings (to use a word I don't like  much) closure. At a time like this, one's mental life stays close  to home.

Click on the image for full size. Photo, "The World," and images on cards ©2013, 2001, by Dave B. a.k.a. catboxer.

hearts, flowers, and a knight

I decided to do the weekly reading with my old thumbed and tobacco-smelling Besançon cards, and glad I did. Just look at all that red!

What I'm finding is that it takes a month or so for understanding the specific meanings in the cards to come to fruition. This three-card spread from exactly one month ago is crystal clear now, but my interpretation at that time was hesitant and unfocused.

There was a lot of red in that layout too -- diamonds, instead of hearts, material concerns rather than relationships.

As my sisters and I prepare to sell my mother's place, which I'm living in momentarily, and close our parents' estate, the final act in another of life's chapters is signified in the reading of March 14 by the the nine, the number signifying an ending, and by the ten. Ten diamonds, the card of philanthropy and legacies, forecasts a successful resolution. In between them is my old girlfriend, the queen of clubs, telling me not to worry about any of this. No matter what, there's always the pleasure of reading and study.

Today's is the third reading since then, so I'm several behind, that is, the book is not yet closed on the two before this one, which speaks loudly either of romantic love or family relationships -- I think probably the latter. Seven cups (or hearts), one of the more complex cards, generally means some sort of betrayal, real or perceived, by someone close to us. But there's also a didactic element here, telling us to overcome bad faith with unconditional love. 

Ten cups symbolizes acting out one's affection in relations with large groups of people. I always think of it as the performer's card. In this case, I think it bears more closely on what's happening with the seven cups, and forecasting that any friction or disagreement will be resolved successfully.

Between the cups, almost as a reminder, is a learning and knowledge card. The knight of batons, the Queen of clubs's younger brother, is on fire with the excitement of learning. I'm a little old to be a jack, but that's how I feel sometimes too.

I don't know whether I'll do a reading next week. I take these things seriously, and don't like having unresolved interpretive loose ends going back  two, three, or four readings ago.

the wages of sin

Ye gentle feast of Whitsuntide was come;

The woods and trees were clad in vernal bloom;

The full-awakened birds, from every tree,

Make the air ring with cheerful melody;

Sweet were the meadows after passing showers;

Brilliant the heaven with light, the earth with flowers.

Noble, the King of Beasts, now holds his Court;

Thither his summoned vassals all resort;

From North and South they troop, from East and West,

Of Birds and Quadrupeds the First and Best.

The Royal will had been proclaimed that all

Of every class should come, both Great and Small,

To grace the pomp of that high festival.

Not one should fail, and yet there did fail One;

Reynard the Fox, the Rogue was seen of none...

--Goethe

To be continued.

Illustration: an English engraving after the design of Wilhelm von Kaulbach (German, 1870-74).

See also "renard le renard" at catboxx.

change squared

How odd that with all the thinking, writing, reflecting, and talking about changes, the number five, and queens, I should draw a pair of fives and my old friend, the Queen of Hearts, whom I last saw in that same spot in December.

And there are a lot of changes going on in my life right now, My sisters and I are in the midst of deciding whether to sell this place I'm living in. Other big shifts afoot: physical, pharmaceutical, and cyber-spacey. So fives are appropriate. 

Whether the shadow that accidentally fell on the photo, showing the passage of time moving from darkness to light, is also an omen I can't say at this point. One can hope, but "one never know, do one?"

I gave fast and dirty meanings for the two fives in the post immediately below this one, and to what I said about the five clubs there, Robert Camp adds that it can signify a change of residence.

Readings that have no trumps, such as this one, admit fewer possibilities for interpretation, and the suited cards tend to be blunt.

And of course there had to be a queen. I've drawn all four queens already this year; at least one and sometimes two each month. So now, here she is again, in the same place she appeared in December. The queen of hearts is always in the near future, like a mirage. It's like the white queen's rambling discourse about jam in "Through the Looking Glass:" "You get jam every other day -- so jam yesterday, and jam tomorrow, but never jam today. Every other day except this one."

Click on the picture for a bigger view. Photo and images on cards ©2012, 2001 by Dave B a.k.a. catboxer.

little things add up

Under ordinary circumstances, five spades is the most powerful five.

All fives in the deck (except trump V: the pope) are indicators of change, which occurs in that area of your life governed by the suit.

Five hearts is the breakup card; five clubs represents the inexact concept of changes in one's philosophy, way of thinking, or approach to a specific problem. Five diamonds indicates changes in income, or changes in the way one acquires it, or some other change in  material values.

The suit of spades or swords governs our working lives and our health, prosaic matters which are at the center of where we actually live. Five spades generally signifies changes in the little things we do every day, such as when and how we brush our teeth and shower, diet, whether we exercise or not, and so forth.

It doesn't have to always mean that; for example five spades and five diamonds appearing in the same reading would seem to indicate a change in occupation or profession.

Whether these changes have occurred already, are happening now, or will happen some time in the future, depends on the card's placement in the reading.

Click on the image for a larger view. Photo, "five spades" and tarot card ©2013, 2001 by Dave B a.k.a. catboxer.

changes

From now on, I'm going to read weekly rather than monthly.

Tarot is an oracle, with its cards symbolically representing all manner of human conditions, situations, events, and tendencies. Precognition can be a tarot function (I've seen it work that way), but more often the read is about the present, and how it's developing.

From the three-card spread, I expect to learn 1) Where I've been recently, 2) where I'm at now, and 3) What this is leading up to (unless I change course).

Occasionally the oracle is wrong. Much more often, the oracle is right, but I misinterpret due to "attachments" in the Buddhist sense, commonly called "denial."

The most blatant and instructive incident of this type happened in 2003, when I got the breakup card (pictured here) in the third spot, and denied it could happen. But it did, of course. My marriage began unraveling three years later, and in 2007 we went our separate ways.

What I'm saying is the cards can be wrong, but if you know what you're doing, they're usually not.

I'm also available to read for others, at no charge for a three-card read. The catch is you'll have to ask me. Hint: to leave a comment, you must have a g-mail email account. It's the dictatorship of Google, and none of my doing.

The illustration, Five Cups, is a Mamluk playing card, a hand-painted luxury item from Egypt, whose Mamluk Dynasty ended in 1571. These were the direct ancestors of European playing cards. Venetian importers brought these 52-card decks to Italy between 1360 and 1375, where they were imitated and quickly spread throughout Europe.

European cards, though crude knockoffs at first, were more interesting than the Mamluk originals, because the latter had no "face" cards. Because of the Muslim prohibition on pictorially representing humans, their court cards, while beautiful, were personality-less abstractions.