It has the head of a rabbit and the body of......

Well, last week kind of slipped away from me, I know I was busy, but I couldn’t honestly tell you what with!

Today’s blog is dedicated to Tarot, tarot readings were the first thing I offered in my little business, it was also a key part of my own healing and a huge part of my spiritual journey and psychic development.

Tarot is typically the thing people go to tell them their future, and there are many misconceptions about the tarot.

The first time I had ever even heard of or seen a tarot deck I’ll have been about 10 years old watching the Simpsons! Lisa was at a renaissance fair, and she followed a rabbit which Chief Wiggum was saying it was an Esquilax, a horse with the head of a rabbit and the body of a rabbit lol! Any way she follows the *ahem* Esquilax which lead her to a woman who was using the tarot, and she asked Lisa if she would like to know her future. Lisa agreed and the reader pulled a few cards, the first one was the death card. This is a card that is completely misunderstood and often misrepresented. The tarot reader however did explain that it didn’t mean what she thought it meant but that it meant change. The next card was The Happy Squirrel this was a terrible card apparently – no reason was given.

I didn’t actually encounter anything to do with tarot cards again until I was much, much older, probably in my 20’s. But I never got a reading or owned my own deck until I was 30. The first reading I ever had was the Angel Tarot Deck by Doreen Virtue, this reading enabled me to have the release I needed, I believe this was helped by the fact I’d just had reiki. Shortly after this I felt drawn to buy my own, not for any reason of wanting to tell the future, I couldn’t even explain to you why I felt drawn to buy one. But I did, and I took on the journey of learning the meanings, the symbology. I would pull my cards each, looking for self-enquiry, what I needed to do to look after me, what were the cards nudging me to do. And still to this day I still use the cards in this way, the only thing which has changed is I no longer religiously journal them down. But I often take pictures etc. and explore their meanings for myself.

Now, tarot has been used throughout the centuries, from roughly the 14th century, not only to divine the future but to identify hidden truths. Due to witch trials and witch hunts those who used the tarot, or really any divinatory tools had to do so very carefully. Witch hysteria spread throughout Europe in the mid-1400s so being a healer, seer or wise woman/man was dangerous, in fact a lot of people were accused due to jealousy – but I’m not going to go too deeply into this as I’ll be talking more about this during the week. The original tarot decks were playing cards and it was to play cards. The first known records kept regarding Tarot date back to 1367 in Berne and they appear to have spread very quickly across the whole of Europe, predominantly regarding card games being banned. Very little is actually known about the how many cards they were and the appearance of them; the only significant texts that have been found are by by John of Rheinfelden in 1377 from Freiburg im Breisgau. One of the early patterns of playing cards that developed was one with the suits of Batons/Clubs, Coins, Swords, and Cups. These suits are still used today in traditional Italian, Spanish and Portuguese playing card decks, however they have also been adapted in packs used specifically for tarot divination cards that first appeared in the latter half of the 18th century. And the earliest tarot packs are recorded between 1440-1450 in Milan, Bologna, Florence, and Ferrara and this is when additional trump cards were added with symbolic illustrations were added to the common four-suit pack. These new decks were called Carte da Trionfi which means Triumph Cards, and the additional cards were known simply as Trionfi, which became "trumps" in English. In the gaming decks there were 4 different suited decks, which were:

· The Italian suited decks: you had the Tarocco Piemontese, The Swiss 1JJ Tarot, The Tarocco Bolognese, all had different illustrations, different number of cards, and suits, but the Italian suited decks were the oldest form of tarot deck to be found.

· The Italo-Portuguese-suited deck: This deck is the only deck to use the Portuguese suit system.

· The French-suited decks: Industrie und Gluck – the Industrie und Gluck ("Diligence and Fortune"), Tarot Nouveau (sometimes known as Tarot Bourgeois), Adler-Cego, and the Schmid-Cego. This like the Italian suited decks had different illustrations, number systems, suits, and trumps.

· German-suited decks; Adler-Cego, and the Schmid-Cego.

The earliest documented cases of divination or the occult uses of tarot cards goes back to 1750’s which documented a rough version of Tarot Bourgeois. The popularisation of esoteric tarot started with Antoine Court and Jean-Baptiste Alliette in Paris during the 1780s, using the Tarot of Marseilles. This system of using tarot was largely abandoned by the French in the 1900’s in favour of Tarot Nouveau. Alliette was the first to issue a tarot deck specifically designed for occult/esoteric purposes around 1789. This deck contained the Major Arcana (Greater secrets) and the Minor Arcana (lesser secrets).

To this day the three most commonly used tarot decks are the Tarot of Marseilles, the Rider–Waite–Smith tarot deck, and the Thoth tarot deck.

Tarot has a rich history and is much more than predicting the future, it can show you where you need to heal, where you need to focus and where you need to grow and is particularly good for shadow work. Shadow work involves us getting in touch with the parts of ourselves that we've repressed some may refer to this as their "dark side." Shadow work is where we dive into the unconscious realm that shapes our thoughts, emotions, and behaviours. This helps us deal with our past and it enables us to grow and heal and become more acutely aware of our triggers. This work was popularised by Swiss Psychiatrist Carl Jung, he actually also believed that tarot allows us to access doorways to our unconscious mind.

I also use this as a coaching tool, I use it in my own business and my own action plans and business plans for the year. Tarot can be incredibly versatile when you look at it differently instead of just being another divination tool.

Everyone can use the tarot, its simply about learning something new. If you’re interested in learning more about the tarot please get in touch and I’ll see how I can help you, or if you prefer online and learning at your own pace – keep your eyes peeled something big is coming!

Sending you all lots of love and light

Marie