{"id":16679,"date":"2018-03-01T01:10:21","date_gmt":"2018-03-01T06:10:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/paganpages.org\/content\/?p=17336"},"modified":"2018-03-10T12:34:05","modified_gmt":"2018-03-10T17:34:05","slug":"seeing-the-signs-38","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/2018\/03\/01\/seeing-the-signs-38\/","title":{"rendered":"Seeing the Signs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Book Review – <\/span>The Tarot Companion: A Portable Guide for Reading the Cards for Yourself and Others by Liz Dean<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"\"\"<\/p>\n

OK \u2013 I am not a big fan of eBooks. I don\u2019t have a tablet so I have to read them on my laptop and right there that causes certain problems. I have to sit at my desk \u2013 I have sit in my upright chair \u2013 I can\u2019t be comfortable in my easy chair \u2013 I can\u2019t read in bed \u2013 I most certainly can\u2019t read in the tub \u2013 which I wouldn\u2019t be able to do with a tablet, either. What can I say? I\u2019m an old woman! A crone. I like books. Real books! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

But sometimes books come your way and the only way you can access them is electronically and this is how it was with <\/span>The Tarot Companion: A Portable Guide for Reading the Cards for Yourself and Others<\/u><\/span> by Liz Dean, published by Fair Winds Press in 2018. So it\u2019s hot off the presses, as the saying goes! I suppose it\u2019s portable if you\u2019re reading it on a tablet or a phone and you are actually carrying the text with you. And technically, I can take my laptop with me \u2013 it\u2019s just seven years old now and really heavy so I generally don\u2019t do that anymore. I thought of printing out this book \u2013 it\u2019s 176 pages and I decided not to. I have to pay for my printing and that would have put me way over my monthly budget. But believe me \u2013 I am definitely going to look for this book <\/span>in print. <\/i><\/span>It\u2019s a fabulous book. Meanwhile, I have it safely in a file on my laptop \u2013 it\u2019s one of my favorite Tarot references!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The cards Ms. Dean features are the Universal Waite cards, which are a brighter, shinier conception of the classic Rider-Waite cards. They also tend to focus more on the main person in the card and not so much on the background imagery. They are a great set of cards for beginners and for anyone who wants to get back to basics with their divinatory skills. I love my Rider-Waite cards but I really like the Universal Waite deck and I\u2019m thinking of picking up a set if I happen to see them on my travels \u2013 you know, if they come to me. Like Tarot cards do. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Like many books about reading the Tarot, she starts off with attuning your new deck and how to properly keep them and store them. Chapter one is all about the proper way of shuffling the cards and I was quite interested to see that she differentiated between shuffling the cards for yourself and for another person. She does the same with cutting the deck. She also says to always flip the cards sideways \u201cleft to right\u201d (page 9). I admit that it took me years before I came upon this all on my own \u2013 I used to flip the cards this way, that way, upside down, whatever which way \u2013 it\u2019s amazing I got any good readings at all! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

One thing she acknowledges is that sometime you lay down the cards and you don\u2019t get a clear reading at all. She says in that case, to shuffle and cut the cards and then read the cards again. I always felt like I was \u201ccheating\u201d if I did that but now I feel totally vindicated! But even then \u2013 sometimes the cards just aren\u2019t telling you anything. One thing she says to look for \u2013 \u201cDid the Ten of Wands come up?\u201d She writes, \u201cIf so, this often means that there\u2019s too much going on and it\u2019s not the right time to read your cards. Wait a day or two and try again.\u201d (page 9). This was the first time I had ever heard this. The Ten of Wands \u2013 with its picture of oppression \u2013 doesn\u2019t strike me as a card of busyness \u2013 that would be more the Eight of Wands \u2013 too much information! Wands going everywhere like too many emails and too many texts! But I\u2019ll keep what she says in mind. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Thinking it over \u2013 maybe the Ten of Wands \u2013 the man pushing all those Wands \u2013 is a card of too much going on \u2013 trying to keep all those wands in order and in one place and going forward! And it\u2019s back-breaking! And perhaps heart-breaking too? So, yes \u2013 what Ms. Dean says makes total sense. Isn\u2019t a new point of view so refreshing? <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike most books about the Tarot, Ms. Dean’s Card Layouts are in the beginning of the book as opposed to the rear of the book. She features a 3-card Layout \u2013 basically, Past, Present and Future \u2013 but she tells us how to tweak this layout to read for different life aspects, so that this one 3-Card Layout can be used in dozens of ways. Naturally, she presents the Celtic Cross layout \u2013 I do not believe that a book about the Tarot would be complete without the Celtic Cross. She also has a \u201cThe Week Ahead\u201d layout to predict what the immediate seven days will bring you or your querent. She tends to focus on the immediate future, which makes sense. I have never understood looking beyond a few weeks. Anything could change and isn\u2019t that the whole point? To see what\u2019s ahead so you <\/span>can <\/i><\/span>make changes? <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Chapter Two she introduces the Major Arcana. She presents each card, starting with The Fool and ending with The World, with the picture of the card on one side of the page and the text on the other. On my laptop, I have the picture and the text on the screen at the same time. She gives an \u201cupright meaning\u201d of two or three paragraphs, and then a more in depth look at how each particular card can affect the querent in the areas of career and money, relationships, and at home. Then she considers the \u201creversed meaning\u201d of the card. Unlike many Tarot books, she doesn\u2019t say that the reversed card is a \u201cblockage\u201d or it\u2019s a \u201cmuted\u201d meaning of the upright card. Nor does she have an upside-down view of the card, either. For instance, her analysis of the reversed Fool is this: \u201cIs what you\u2019re proposing \u2013 or a situation \u2013 a leap too far? The Fool reversed brings out his irresponsible side, as his mouth works ahead of his brain\u2026\u201d (page 17). I like that she tells it like it is. No sugar-coating. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The last thing she has for each card is a \u201cWisdom Message\u201d. Each one is different for each card. Naturally, for the Fool it\u2019s \u201cLeap, but look first.\u201d (page 17). For Strength, it\u2019s \u201cWith strength, you can discover your higher purpose.\u201d (page 33). The Moon card\u2019s Wisdom Message is \u201cBe guided by the messages from your unconscious.\u201d (page 53).<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same with the Minor Arcana, which she covers in Chapter Three. The descriptions of the cards are succinct, to the point, and spot-on. Unlike the Major Arcana, she does not have an in depth look at how the card affects career, money, relationships and home life \u2013 perhaps because each suit has a particular strength in each of these areas. But she does mention how, for instance, Aces affect a reading \u2013 she writes, \u201c\u2026 one Ace brings a focus on the life area according to the suit, which can set the theme of the reading.\u201d (page 63). She goes on to say what two Aces in a reading mean (an important partnership); three Aces (good news); four Aces (excitement, potential). (page 63). She does the same thing with the court cards. Two pages mean friendship but rivalry if they\u2019re reversed; three pages mean lots of social activities; four pages mean a social group of young people. (page 111). <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

At the end of the book, there is an index to make looking up any card or concept a breeze. I cannot recommend this book highly enough; as I said earlier, as soon as I can find it in book form, I plan to purchase it. I want it on my actual hands and not just on my laptop. But until then, I will be referencing it as an eBook! This book is my new favorite Tarot book. Check out <\/span>The Tarot Companion: A Portable Guide to Reading the Cards for Yourself and Others<\/u><\/span>\u00a0 Liz Dean today! <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Click Image for Amazon Information<\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

References<\/u><\/span><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/a> Dean, Liz. <\/span>The Tarot Companion: A Portable Guide to Reading the Cards for Yourself and Others<\/u><\/span>. Beverly, MA: Fair Winds Press, 2018. <\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

***<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

About the Author:<\/b><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Polly MacDavid<\/b>\u00a0lives in Buffalo, New York at the moment but that could easily change, since she is a gypsy at heart. Like a gypsy, she is attracted to the divinatory arts, as well as camp fires and dancing barefoot. She has three cats who all help her with her magic.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Her philosophy about religion and magic is that it must be thoroughly based in science and logic. She is Dianic Wiccan and she is solitary.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

She blogs at\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span>silverapplequeen.wordpress.com<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a>. She writes about general life, politics and poetry. She is writing a novel about sex, drugs and recovery.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Book Review – The Tarot Companion: A Portable Guide for Reading the Cards for Yourself and Others by Liz Dean OK \u2013 I am not a big fan of eBooks. I don\u2019t have a tablet so I have to read them on my laptop and right there that causes certain problems. I have to sit at my desk \u2013 I have sit in my upright chair \u2013 I can\u2019t be comfortable in my easy chair \u2013 I can\u2019t read in bed \u2013 I most certainly can\u2019t read in the tub \u2013 which I wouldn\u2019t be able to do with a tablet, either. What can I say? I\u2019m an old woman! A crone. I like books. Real books! But sometimes books come your way and the only way you can access them is electronically and this is how it was with The Tarot Companion: A Portable Guide for Reading the Cards for Yourself and Others by Liz Dean, published by Fair Winds Press in 2018. So it\u2019s hot off the presses, as the saying goes! I suppose it\u2019s portable if you\u2019re reading it on a tablet or a phone and you are actually carrying the text with you. And technically, I can take my laptop with me \u2013 it\u2019s just seven years old now and really heavy so I generally don\u2019t do that anymore. I thought of printing out this book \u2013 it\u2019s 176 pages and I decided not to. I have to pay for my printing and that would have put me way over my monthly budget. But believe me \u2013 I am definitely going to look for this book in print. It\u2019s a fabulous book. Meanwhile, I have it safely in a file on my laptop \u2013 it\u2019s one of my favorite Tarot references! The cards Ms. Dean features are the Universal Waite cards, which are a brighter, shinier conception of the classic Rider-Waite cards. They also tend to focus more on the main person in the card and not so much on the background imagery. They are a great set of cards for beginners and for anyone who wants to get back to basics with their divinatory skills. I love my Rider-Waite cards but I really like the Universal Waite deck and I\u2019m thinking of picking up a set if I happen to see them on my travels \u2013 you know, if they come to me. Like Tarot cards do. Like many books about reading the Tarot, she starts off with attuning your new deck and how to properly keep them and store them. Chapter one is all about the proper way of shuffling the cards and I was quite interested to see that she differentiated between shuffling the cards for yourself and for another person. She does the same with cutting the deck. She also says to always flip the cards sideways \u201cleft to right\u201d (page 9). I admit that it took me years before I came upon this all on my own \u2013 I used to flip the cards this way, that way, upside down, whatever which way \u2013 it\u2019s amazing I got any good readings at all! One thing she acknowledges is that sometime you lay down the cards and you don\u2019t get a clear reading at all. She says in that case, to shuffle and cut the cards and then read the cards again. I always felt like I was \u201ccheating\u201d if I did that but now I feel totally vindicated! But even then \u2013 sometimes the cards just aren\u2019t telling you anything. One thing she says to look for \u2013 \u201cDid the Ten of Wands come up?\u201d She writes, \u201cIf so, this often means that there\u2019s too much going on and it\u2019s not the right time to read your cards. Wait a day or two and try again.\u201d (page 9). This was the first time I had ever heard this. The Ten of Wands \u2013 with its picture of oppression \u2013 doesn\u2019t strike me as a card of busyness \u2013 that would be more the Eight of Wands \u2013 too much information! Wands going everywhere like too many emails and too many texts! But I\u2019ll keep what she says in mind. Thinking it over \u2013 maybe the Ten of Wands \u2013 the man pushing all those Wands \u2013 is a card of too much going on \u2013 trying to keep all those wands in order and in one place and going forward! And it\u2019s back-breaking! And perhaps heart-breaking too? So, yes \u2013 what Ms. Dean says makes total sense. Isn\u2019t a new point of view so refreshing? Unlike most books about the Tarot, Ms. Dean’s Card Layouts are in the beginning of the book as opposed to the rear of the book. She features a 3-card Layout \u2013 basically, Past, Present and Future \u2013 but she tells us how to tweak this layout to read for different life aspects, so that this one 3-Card Layout can be used in dozens of ways. Naturally, she presents the Celtic Cross layout \u2013 I do not believe that a book about the Tarot would be complete without the Celtic Cross. She also has a \u201cThe Week Ahead\u201d layout to predict what the immediate seven days will bring you or your querent. She tends to focus on the immediate future, which makes sense. I have never understood looking beyond a few weeks. Anything could change and isn\u2019t that the whole point? To see what\u2019s ahead so you can make changes? Chapter Two she introduces the Major Arcana. She presents each card, starting with The Fool and ending with The World, with the picture of the card on one side of the page and the text on the other. On my laptop, I have the picture and the text on the screen at the same time. She gives an \u201cupright meaning\u201d of two or three paragraphs, and then a more in depth look at how each particular card can affect the querent in the areas of career and money, relationships, and at home. Then she considers the \u201creversed meaning\u201d of the card. Unlike many Tarot books, she doesn\u2019t say that the reversed card is a \u201cblockage\u201d or it\u2019s a \u201cmuted\u201d meaning of the upright card. Nor does she have an upside-down view of the card, either. For instance, her analysis of the reversed Fool is this: \u201cIs what you\u2019re proposing \u2013 or a situation \u2013 a leap too far? The Fool reversed brings out his irresponsible side, as his mouth works ahead of his brain\u2026\u201d (page 17). I like that she tells it like it is. No sugar-coating. The last thing she has for each card is a \u201cWisdom Message\u201d. Each one is different for each card. Naturally, for the Fool it\u2019s \u201cLeap, but look first.\u201d (page 17). For Strength, it\u2019s \u201cWith strength, you can discover your higher purpose.\u201d (page 33). The Moon card\u2019s Wisdom Message is \u201cBe guided by the messages from your unconscious.\u201d (page 53). It\u2019s the same with the Minor Arcana, which she covers in Chapter Three. The descriptions of the cards are succinct, to the point, and spot-on. Unlike the Major Arcana, she does not have an in depth look at how the card affects career, money, relationships and home life \u2013 perhaps because each suit has a particular strength in each of these areas. But she does mention how, for instance, Aces affect a reading \u2013 she writes, \u201c\u2026 one Ace brings a focus on the life area according to the suit, which can set the theme of the reading.\u201d (page 63). She goes on to say what two Aces in a reading mean (an important partnership); three Aces (good news); four Aces (excitement, potential). (page 63). She does the same thing with the court cards. Two pages mean friendship but rivalry if they\u2019re reversed; three pages mean lots of social activities; four pages mean a social group of young people. (page 111). At the end of the book, there is an index to make looking up any card or concept a breeze. I cannot recommend this book highly enough; as I said earlier, as soon as I can find it in book form, I plan to purchase it. I want it on my actual hands and not just on my laptop. But until then, I will be referencing it as an eBook! This book is my new favorite Tarot book. Check out The Tarot Companion: A Portable Guide to Reading the Cards for Yourself and Others\u00a0 Liz Dean today! Click Image for Amazon Information References Dean, Liz. The Tarot Companion: A Portable Guide to Reading the Cards for Yourself and Others. Beverly, MA: Fair Winds Press, 2018. *** About the Author: Polly MacDavid\u00a0lives in Buffalo, New York at the moment but that could easily change, since she is a gypsy at heart. Like a gypsy, she is attracted to the divinatory arts, as well as camp fires and dancing barefoot. She has three cats who all help her with her magic. Her philosophy about religion and magic is that it must be thoroughly based in science and logic. She is Dianic Wiccan and she is solitary. She blogs at\u00a0silverapplequeen.wordpress.com. She writes about general life, politics and poetry. She is writing a novel about sex, drugs and recovery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":197,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":1,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16679","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/197"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16679\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paganpages.org\/emagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}