Obvious Change

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This is a first.

It’s new but not difficult.

The Alleyman’s Tarot is unique, as far as I know. It’s intended to be. The customization is the irresistible part of the deck. From the beginning, Seven Dane Asmund, has encouraged deck owners to follow the Alleyman’s lead and take cards out or put cards into the deck as opportunity and intuition prompt. This original deck was curated from many artists and decks, and has multiples of several cards, especially if you add in the expansion packs. Which I did.

I’ve always used standard, one of each card RWS decks up until this one. Believe it or not, I still don’t use the Alleyman’s deck ALL of the time. Believe it or not, this is the first time I’ve done a reading with multiples of one card in it.

It’s fitting that the first multiple card is Death, change because it takes a small shift in perspective. Fitting, but not surprising and certainly not supernatural. Of all the multiples in the Alleyman’s deck, the most common card is the major arcana Death card and I’m glad because the artwork on these things is phenomenal. This is serious, gorgeous, hang it on a museum wall art.

But two deaths in one reading? Do they cancel each other out like adding negative numbers? Actually, it kind of fits right in with the way I read Tarot.

It’s easy, actually.

In the past we’ve talked about each card can have multiple key words and multiple threads of meaning. Different artwork for the same card just fits right in with that.

We’ve seen this in action before. There have been times when the image from one deck or another resonates with the energy message at hand. When the energy brings to mind the image from a different deck…I’ll tell you, so you can google it and see the different visuals for yourself.

That’s all there is to it for multiples of the same card. They aren’t identical. The images are different, and convey different aspects of that same card. The multiple different cards are different facets of the same diamond.

We’ve talked about reversals before too. I let intuition lead. If it feels like nothing, I’ll just flip the card upright and go on. If it feels significant, I read it as an indication of blocked or challenged or turbulent energy. That’s the case today, so the “smoke” death and the high priestess are staying reversed (upside down relative to the person doing the reading)

Intuitively the reading today came through as this one concise idea: Make the obviously needed change; we always fight the demons alone.

There is a trace of that adage to stop waiting for the perfect time because the time is never perfect.

The fading energy is death upside down….resistance and blockages around changing are fading. I don’t know if “resistance is useless” as the Vogons said, but it certainly is decreasing.

If you like TV that is even older than the Vogons and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, cue the Brady Bunch episode where Peter’s voice keeps cracking so they write into the “It’s time to change” song.

How’s that for an outdated pop culture reference?

The High Priestess is about the mysterious. What is a blocked or turbulent mystery? It could mean it is something utterly unknowable. I know I’ve said that reversals don’t automatically mean the exact opposite of the usual meaning for the card, but in this case it turns out to be functionally the same thing as inverting the meaning. If something fails at being mysterious, it is obvious. If something is having a hard time hiding, it is seen.

Put these two together and the first half of this week’s message is get your head out of the sand and face the obvious. Something needs to change and avoiding it isn’t helping.

From those two we head into a more classic, death or horseback card. This one is harsh, down to brass tacks, realistic confrontation of violent ends. In the reading we go from ethereal smokey death to violent bloody death – death.

Although not usually related to the death card, I intuitively get this is about confronting inner demons, about an internal change. There may be something about ourselves we don’t want to admit or face, but it is something we’ve known for a long time. “Suspected from the beginning” comes through here.

All that and I still haven’t touched the guidebook.

Let’s see how this unfolds, and I’ll read the Alleyman’s Notebook on the cards and maybe we can weave that in on Friday or Saturday for the weekend update if nothing gets in the way this week.

Photo by the author of this weeks real-world card layout. Alleyman’s Tarot deck used with permission of Publishing Goblin LLC