cadla wrote:The Star

Thanks for this, it's delightful. Every time I see it though, I see "Robert meets a fish by the River Thames", which is really, incredibly meaningful since I live on an island in the middle of the Thames.

No man is an island Robert, but apparently a man can live on an island and speak to fish.

I have been getting along swimmingly with the deck. I might have to tweak the book I use with it as Petrarch has a one-track mind: Laura this, Laura that, love and death and pain, so I switched back to Chinese poetry with it.

I had an interesting ramble investigating Ogier on the Knave of Swords. My heart-stopping, majestically, soaring moment in time was when I read the Charlemagne had a sword called Joyeuse.

Mmmmm, history's tail has swept me off my riverbank, rushing headlong into tidal waters of nomenclature.

Fin

cadla wrote:No man is an island Robert, but apparently a man can live on an island and speak to fish.

I tend to speak to the ducks. Well, also the blackbirds and robins. I wave at the geese (but don't get too close. They hiss. Did you know they hiss? I didn't know they hiss.). Maybe I should try talking to the fish, although, I tend not to see them, but then again, I believe in precipices rather than fish tails, so not surprising is it?

I've actually got a small income coming in again (yay!), so maybe indeed I'll finally treat myself to this deck. That is, after I buy some roses, roses first, tarot second. I also want to treat myself to some pilgrimage badges, aren't these cool? http://www.robertmealing.com/2010/02/pilgrimage-badges/

So... roses, badges... um.. then maybe a tarot deck. The question is.. this one or Fortuna’s Wheel Tarot by Nigel Jackson?

I'm very glad you're enjoying it cadla. Maybe we should go off together and talk saints again. Lady Day today, you know. Happy Spring!

OMG pilgrimage badges, is that ever neat. I still have a few books I want to do inter-library loans for of memoirs of walking the Camino. That is a dream of mine; if I could get my knees healed up and my feet and my legs. . .

I bought and read a book on pilgrimages a few years ago. It's a light read but I enjoyed it: Pilgrimages : The Great Adventure of the Middle Ages by John Ure. I also got the modern English edition of The Canterbury Tales with woodcuts by Rockwell Kent (to die for.) Yeah, I copped out and got the easy edition. Haha. The art is fantastic, and I see a pilgrimage badge for Canterbury on the page you cited. I'd like to go there and Mont St. Michel as well. What I need is a wealthy patron to treat me to a world tour of pilgrimage sites.

I was just reading a book on Canadian history and we have our Saint in St. Jean de Brebeuf. I'd forgotten the horrendous torture he went through at the hands of the Huron. The church officials apparently split his skull in two after his death and rebuilt the missing sides with wax and had the two halves in different reliquaries, but in the late 1990s one half of his skull was taken back to the Martyrs Shrine at St. Marie Among the Hurons near Midland, in Ontario, where this is now a reliquary. I never knew that. This chap has a picture of it:
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_NR6lxJkhnY4/S ... ne+013.JPG

I've been there twice, but not for years, and not after they built this reliquary. I find reliquaries somewhat creepy but it's part of the Saints and history and the way people exhibit faith I suppose.

I have the King of Coins card with St. Jude staring at me from my desk here. He's my last court card in the Tarot of the Saints. I'm eking it out, only six Majors to go after Jude and I'm done the entire deck.

I love Nigel Jackson's work, so I can't discourage you from buying his deck. Oh, it's a book and then Adam McLean has done up the deck for sale. Would you buy both? The book looks like it has a lot of information in it. It's too bad you couldn't buy both decks, I really think the Dame has something to offer.

Another ramble through today's interesting facts.

The Nigel Jackson may become hard to find more quickly than Dame Fortune's Wheel.

Me, I'm saving up for the Vulva on Horseback.

debra wrote: Me, I'm saving up for the Vulva on Horseback.

As long as it's not another cheesy collage deck with fake antiquing. . . . .

I did a fascinating exploration of the Nine of Cups--quite interesting. It has me trying to do a gilded initial in a piece of art related to study of another tarot deck. Dang, I want my tournament knight in painted pewter to go with this Huson card.

The colours in this deck are so beautiful, just like an illuminated manuscript. This has got to be one of my best purchases this year.

I often browse around looking for new decks to buy but there aren't many any more that catch my interest. I'm glad I stopped dithering about this one.

Now, if Robert Place did a Dante deck I'd be a very happy camper.

One of the things I like in tarot is attendant books for study. Somewhere along the way I found a few objects and figurines. Apart from my Patton figurine with his dog Willie which I bought to go with the Patton on Leadership deck, they are all found things and one paper doll of Boromir I printed off the Internet to go with my Lord of the Rings Tarot.

My new fantasy for Dame Fortune's Wheel is a tournament knight as I mentioned in a previous post. I have struck a deal with the spouse to be able to buy a Schleich resin knight to go with this deck, after a certain milestone is reached in a few weeks.

The colours are perfect together.

Happy upcoming milestone!

robert wrote:Happy upcoming milestone!

Pfffah! Unfortunately it was missing a piece and the lance was bent (looked like a manufacturing problem), and I had to send it back for a refund. Never got a replacement from the devils at Chapters. No more money available now. That blue and yellow tournament knight would have looked so FINE with these cards.

No knight for me but I pulled the Knight of Cups today and managed a tie-in with the Canterbury Tales.

I feel moderately better.