Homemade Tarot birthday card

I’ve been engaging with Tarot cards as a source of imagery, creative prompts, speculation and self-exploration on and off for about thirty years now.

Recently, I’ve been dipping into them again, blowing the dust off a favoured deck or two and, in parallel, exploring runes (that’s another post but much of the most interesting stuff to be said about runes comes from academic runologists rather than occultists if you ask me. Not that you did).

Anyway, I couldn’t find a birthday that really worked for supermum so I bought a pack of Sharpies, some A4 card and sat down in a cafe late last night. This was my second attempt. Note: I’m not an artist!

Source: Uploaded by user via Dad Who Writes on Pinterest

 

The card is the Three of Cups and it’s obviously informed by the classic Rider-Waite. The runes are Anglo-Saxon (the names translate as Wealth, Joy and Gift – runes all have names, not unlike ideograms, though the forms themselves are purely symbolic). It’s interesting how the simple ‘X’ rune has come to carry a whole additional freight of meanings. The stylised sunflowers came zooming in from the Sun major trump. Also (supermum reminded me) we saw a lot of sunflowers at that Anselm Kiefer show at White Cube we went to.

I see the Three of Cups as associated with creativity, joy, birth(days), new beginnings. Supermum asked why one cup was suspended in mid-air and I suggested that two cups are grounded, enabling ones creativity to actually result in something being concretely created (what else would any kind of a birth be?) but acknowledging the need reach into the unknown, to step out into thin air (which would remind one of the Fool).

Much else could be said but I thought you might find this of interest.

Theology – “I know the trickiest question in the world!”

It’s quite late. Dudelet (age 6) is finishing a rather improvised tea.

“I know the trickiest question in the world”

“What’s that?”

“At the beginning of the universe, who made God?”

“Hmm. That is tricky. I really don’t know.”

“You’ve got three guesses. Then I’ll have three.”

“Okay. Er…God started at the same moment the universe started.”

“That’s number one.”

“God is actually a junior god and he was made by another god.”

“What? Another god made god.”

“Well, yes. Why not?”

“You’ve got one left.”

“There is no God.”

“Yes there is! If there isn’t a god, who made us? God made us!”

“Who told you that?”

“I don’t know. I’ve always known it.”

“But someone must have told you.”

“Can’t remember. My go. God is made out of dust.”

“That’s interesting. I quite like that. What’s your next guess?”

“God is in an egg. When the egg hatched, – this is what Miss C told us the Chinese say – there was actually a giant in the egg and she was actually a goddess and she made lots of models of men and women out of clay. Then she got a vine and went all around the world making marks in the clay and each model came to life. And that’s how the world started.”

“I really like that. That’s amazing.”

“And then there was a crack in the world and lots of water came out and flooded everywhere. And the giant tried to stop the crack but the water kept coming on coming…”

“A lot of different stories seem to have a myth about this.”

“Oh – I forgot. The sky fell down to the earth. And the giant had to hold it up.”

“I think there’s a Greek story about that too. What’s your third guess?”

“That was two guesses in one.”

Later, supermum came in and he told the story all over again. Then he announced that we had to have another three guesses and things got complicated. I never did find out who told him God made us but we have our suspicions.