TdM: Joan reads for dodalisque

[Joan Marie]

Hello there! I think this is my first time reading for you dodalisque.

When you please, let me know what you'd like me to consult my Las Vegas version of Tarot de Marseille! (It's actually called "Golden Tarot of Marseille")

Seriously, I bought my first TdM deck recently and I'm kind of embarrassed now by my purchase although some dark part pf me kinda like the shiny shiny gold on these cards. It's the Claude Burde deck from 1751 but it's the "Golden" version. Pretty kitschy really, especially when I see you all using such beautiful ancient looking decks.

So, lucky you mister. What can me and my golden cards help you with today?

[dodalisque]

Hi Joan,
Whoa, Le Ancien Tarot de Las Vegas. I know the Claude Burdell deck so I'm looking forward to seeing this version for the first time. I've racked my brains for an interesting question. But this tableau seems designed for a general reading about the current state of my Body/Mind/Spirit. I'm nearly 65 now, so aging and encroaching doom is much on my mind these days. Maybe a reading about what I have to look forward to in the realms of Body/Mind/Spirit in the coming years. Be as funny and pessimistic as you like. I'm English, I can take it. If this isn't appealing, let me know and I'll give it some more thought. Just ask if you need more information.
Tom

[Joan Marie]

Be as funny and pessimistic as you like. I'm English, I can take it.

Thank you!

I was in London recently visiting a good friend in his 70's. He'd recently had a stroke which affected his speech but it did nothing to hinder his decidedly acerbic and dark wit, nor his ability to take as well he gives. And 70+ years of running up and down tube station stairs has left him, despite everything, extremely spry, often chastising me for being a "tube-tourist" unable to keep up with an old man stroke victim.

So I am fairly familiar with the English sense of humour. Looking forward to this reading and for getting out my shiny cards!
-Joan

[Joan Marie]

I decided that my las Vegas deck might be just the perfect one for a reading about your "golden years".

And, just as I wrote the above sentence, I got a notification from my Planetary Times ap that we are in the hour of Saturn which is a good hour for topics regarding age and maturity.

So I am cautiously optimistic.

So here is our layout and it's very pips heavy which makes me wish I'd gone with all trumps and courts but a card laid is a card played I always learned, so we're gonna go with it. Vegas Rules.

Let's start with the middle column, the overall theme.
10 of Swords, 4 of Coins, 2 of Wands.

The ten with it's two swords crossed at the tips, signifies an ending, something closing, all wrapped up and neatly woven. Ready for storage.
Now, don't panic, please, we've only just begun here. We didn't say what's finished and ready for storage yet...
The Four of Coins, all wound up in whatever all that stuff is, each coin very separate and held securely. Trying to hold onto something, looking for security?
And our 2 of wands... Should I stay or should I go? A call for decision.

So, I put this together summoning the spirits of Cher, and all the other ageing stars still gracing the stages of Las Vegas nightly and twice on Sundays, and they tell me this central theme is pretty basic old man stuff. The issue isn't necessarily dying completely as much as it piece by piece, as we do, and deciding how we are going to get through that.

So now let's try our mirroring, row 1, Spirit!
Justice & Queen of Coins, straddling the 10 of Swords

The two ladies seem pretty much in agreement. Whatever is "over" (10 of swords) they don't seem too bothered by it. They both have busy hands. I'm going to leave it to you out of polite discretion to determine what could be, (clears throat) over. Whatever it is though, the spirit remains in tact.

I want to note here that there is a distinct lack of "bad" cards in this spread. My overall feeling from this spread (and I should maybe save this for the end, but here we are) is one of uneventfulness. Which when one considers all the scary possibilities old-age can threaten, uneventful is not such a bad thing. It's kind of ideal.

Let's go to row two, Mind!
3 of Coins mirroring Ace of Clubs, on either side of 4 of Coins

My first impulse is to say that Ace is calling to Queen just above, it's that streak of green. I think it supports my earlier statement that the Queen isn't bothered. There is some energy, some creative impulses or something that are providing her with happy occupations.

So back to the mirror.
Again, I see agreement between these two cards, color-wise with the nice greens, and energy -wise, with busy-ness, stuff to do. This portends well as to the state of your mind as you creep toward physical decrepitude. ( oh wait, we haven't done body yet..)

My friend this looks to me like your mind will remain as active and sharp as always, and that 4 of coins in the middle just confirms the resistance to change. So, keep up your eye doctor appointments because you are gonna need those peepers.

Now the final and possibly scariest of the three rows, Body!
I shall call upon the spirit of Elvis for who else from Las Vegas would know better what the ravages of time will do to the human body.

The Magician mirroring the 4 of Cups, with the 2 of wands in the middle.
And how perfect, the Magician, the consummate entertainer just like our spirit guide Elvis, mirroring the overfullness of the 4 of cups.

Again, in the harmonious way of this spread, I see agreement between these two cards. Color-wise, and theme-wise in some way.
The 2 of Wands in the middle indicates you have a choice. Simply put, do you want to be the young leather-jacketed, Viva Las Vegas Elvis, or the be-caped bell-bottomed kinda sweaty Live in Las Vegas Elvis?

I'm pretty sure the charming Magician is the one Anne Margaret would go for. Be like him.

Okay, that's it. I am exhausted from channeling all these magnificent celebrities. The Rat Pack are standing by for my next reading with this gilded deck.

Until then I must rest.

I hope this reading brought you something useful. if not, we'll have to try again.

Are you there Frank, Sammy, & Dean? It's me Joan...

[dodalisque]

That's lovely, Joan. Man, I'm going to have a blast in the afterlife. Dante had Virgil as his guide through the Seven Circles of Hell, and I'll have Fat Elvis - who really should know his way around the place. And Cher is going to be my Beatrice in Paradise. 80s Cher hopefully, during her "Moonstruck" period.

My favourite word in the reading is "uneventfulness". "God's greatest gift is the ultra-mundane life", as my teacher Sri Chinmoy says. That's great the way you pick up on the unremarkable nature of the chosen cards. Small, even-numbered pips, and no nasty Majors. The 10 of Swords is really the only card that's traditionally dark. But since that appears in the row dedicated to Spirit, and Swords usually relate to the element of Air, or intellect, I take it as the most positive possible card. The end of thoughts - the death of the ego - pure spirit. All of those annoying mental conflicts that have tormented me all these years resolved at last. I like your idea of the 10 of Swords as being neatly "woven," tying up all the loose ends. The two swords are crossed like a knife and fork on a plate after a satisfying meal.

If you think of the RWS version of the 10 of Swords, it's a pretty funny card to pick for that position in the spread. It's everybody's moment of death really. But tomorrow's dawn - the next incarnation - is beginning to peep over the horizon. To me, the three cards in the top row might be predicting the actual means of my death. My wife of over 40 years (an earthy Capricorn), the Queen of Coins, is handing me (a typical Scorpio), a giant Viagra pill; the 10 of Swords is the ensuing heart-attack; and Justice is saying, "How just. How fitting. He died as he lived." That would also explain the Ace of Wands in the next row, still lusting after the Queen of Coins above. I love the way you draw attention to the lively green color shared by the two cards. That probably also echoes our many shared intellectual and aesthetic interests.

The two ladies in the top row must be my guardian angels. I notice that between them they hold the four suit symbols - Justice: swords and cups, i.e. the scales; Queen of Coins: coin and wand. Down in the bottom row these are the objects given to Le Bateleur, card 1, at the moment of my physical birth. Cute. By the time I hand them back to my guardian angels, at the 10 of Swords death moment, the suit symbols are bigger. So I guess some progress has been made during this incarnation. Blending the top two outside cards I guess you get something like: The life you were granted on earth (Queen of Coins) was the life you deserved (Justice). It's a Law of Karma sentiment.

Looking at the second row dealing with Mind...I usually associate the number 3 with creativity. I always wanted to be a creative artist and make beautiful things, especially with words, but it just never happened. Very frustrating. A vocation but no talent. The Ace of Wands looks to me like raw, unrealised potential. A favourite teacher at school once compared me to an expensive Swiss watch that someone had forgotten to wind up. So that's how I read the blend of the two outside cards: unused creative energy. What happened to me is shown in the middle card: the boring, predictable, inside-the-box 4 of Coins. The choice of material stability, a bourgeois cast of mind. Too much respect for order and tradition to do anything truly original. Ho hum. You mention checking my eyes. The 4 of Coins does look like a face. Is that where you get the eyes idea from? Ah, I never use the damn things anyway. Or I didn't before I started staring at tarot cards.

In the bottom row which concerns the Body, the 2 of Wands is full of explosive energy. It's true, I played a lot of sports and have the constitution of a rhinoceros, or a Regalian ox, as Data says in one episode of Star Trek Next Generation. Blending the two outside cards, I see a trickster of the heart - a liar maybe. Someone who turns tricks to control other people's emotions. I have actually worked for several years as a hypnotherapist. Emotions I always think of as being part of the body. Our body IS the unconscious, or at least gets manipulated by the unconscious like a puppet. The 4 of Cups has the same frozen quality as the 4 of Coins above. Astrologically, Scorpios are "fixed water". So maybe rigid emotional control is at the root of my lack of success in the creative field.

So thanks again, Joan. These 9 card tableaux always look like a brick wall at first glance. Your insights removed a few bricks to allow me to peer through. Gosh, these readings can be a little personal and mildly upsetting. That's when you know it's a good reading. I suppose I ended up interpreting the spread as looking back on my life - a sort of summation. My original question wasn't quite precise enough. I tend to find I often am only aware of the question I wanted to ask after the reading is completed.

I don't know how you found it, but I think this is actually a very awkward spread. I mean, Spirit: shouldn't these all be Cups? Mind: shouldn't these three cards all be Swords? Body: should be three Coins, surely. What the heck can the Queen of Coins possibly have to tell us about Spirit?! [Answers should be submitted as haiku.] I tend to use the 4 Elements as my way into a reading. But in this spread I notice there was not one Cup in the Spirit row; not one Sword in the Mind row; and no Coin in the Body row. Nothing in its proper place. So I guess my whole life has been an unpredictable jumble.

BTW, I like the deck you used. There is another lovely deck with a gold background, the Spanish Tarot de Marsella by Rodes and Sanchez. I would use it all the time except that the titles and numbers on the cards are all in red, and I'm color-blind with red, so that information is completely invisible to me. I'll take a few pics and send them along. Thanks again for your glitzy reading about extinction.

Tom

[Charlie Brown]

] What the heck can the Queen of Coins possibly have to tell us about Spirit?! [Answers should be submitted as haiku.]

Patience, reflection.
The luxury that is time.
Myopia, too.

[Charlie Brown]

I feel like the bottom row could be read as erectile dysfunction, although I'm not an experience health reader.

ETA: Upon reflection, it's probably better read as some kind of urinary/urethra type thing, like maybe not being able to pee because of prostate issues. Either way, something to look forward to.

[Joan Marie]

] What the heck can the Queen of Coins possibly have to tell us about Spirit?! [Answers should be submitted as haiku.]

Patience, reflection.
The luxury that is time.
Myopia, too.

I for one will never get the image of the Queen of Coins proffering an oversized Viagra to her King. So thanks for that dodalisque!

[Joan Marie]

Thanks again for your glitzy reading about extinction.

Thank you and I hope you enjoyed it. I really do appreciate your thoughtful feedback. You gave me much to think about and it's very helpful to me as I learn this beautiful deck.

I really do need to acquire a less shiny one though.

[dodalisque]

Thanks Joan, and thanks CB, I think. But why stop there? Eternal damnation might be on the cards too! I said above that there are Seven Circles of Hell in Dante's "Inferno", but I have no idea where I got that from. It turns out there are "ten divisions" of Hell in Dante, giving the 10 of Swords in the middle of the Spirit row a rather alarming aspect. But happily, in the Divine Comedy there are "ten divisions" of Purgatory and Paradise as well, so I guess the question is still up in the air.

[dodalisque]

] What the heck can the Queen of Coins possibly have to tell us about Spirit?! [Answers should be submitted as haiku.]

Patience, reflection.
The luxury that is time.
Myopia, too.

Very nice. How about:

William Blake saw
"the World in a grain of sand".
Some hold only sand.

[BreathingSince72]

Oh my God, you guys are killing me...KILLING me! I am never going to unsee any of that reading. Cher, Elvis, erectile issues! But hey what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.