Golden Tarot

templumkat

What type of Wand?

Hi Kat and other Golden Tarot users!

I just received the deck and it may be the first deck that replaces my Rider-Waite for more than a few weeks, after twenty years of reading Tarot! So well done on that score, Kat!

I have a question - the source for the Wands is given as a work by Jacques Daret, located at the Berlin Museum. I wondered what type of staff it is, if it is a particular type of tree or branch? I tried the Berlin Museum website, and googled Daret, but found no direct references to the painting in question.

Anyone any ideas? I ask because I got the Ace of Wands in a particular reading, and it would be massively relevant due to the fit of the artwork to the answer if the wand was also of a particular type.

Many many thanks for such a great deck.

TemplumKat
 

Khatruman

First Reading

Just wanted to post the first reading I did with the Golden, after I forced myself to finally shuffle these beautiful cards. I decided to do a three-card, past-present-future reading:

Card One (Past): Five of Cups
Card Two (Present): Two of Cups
Card Three (Future): Seven of Coins

What an amazingly clear reading! What I found remarkable about the first card, 5 Cups, was how it fit more beautifully in this reading than the comparable RWS 5 Cups. The Golden shows a weary Pope asleep in a chair beside the spilled and drunken cups. In her interpretation of the card, Kat states, "To have tasted from many cups, and forgotten the sweet wine ." Oh how true that situation has been in my phase as a tarotist. I have just come off of a massive buying streak (thanks to the tarot enablers here at aeclectic })), having accumulated many decks, yet doing very little reading in depth. I tried each deck and they were starting to become flat. I had even taken to laying out all of my decks, cutting them and reading the mass of cards, only to feel overwhelmed, tired and oversatiated (maybe not a word, but I am taking poetic license :D). This has been my immediate past with the tarot.

Card two, the Two of Cups. Once again Kat's interpretation hit it: "Balance, unity and happy compromise. Deep mutual understanding and intuition." Focusing on this deck made me feel deeply united with tarot again. Also, I saw the advice in this with the reduction from 5 Cups to 2 Cups. Five is such a conflicting number, the fifth wheel.. a five legged table. There is just too much. Get it down to two: me and the tarot. Back to the happy couple. This has been the first deck I have bought since the summer. I backed off severely from the tarot for a while, overwhelmed by the wealth of input.

So to the future? The seven of coins: "Hard work is now rewarded, and it's time to enjoy your adequate assets." I am coming into the fruits of this planting of knowledge. I realize that I had been in a stage where I had sipped from too many sources, had drunk myself into a stupor, and the Golden just came along at this time to bring me back into a union. It is time to see the fruits grow from the tree. Again, Kat's images resonate more wonderfully here than the corresponding RWS card. I see the ripe fruits and the harvester ready to reap.

This reading also showed me that it is time to pare down my tarot collection. I have too many distracting, and unnecessary decks. I did an initial scan of my list and came up with five decks I do not need. I am preparing to put them up for sale in the Trading section soon.

Kat, from the dead on reading I just had, I think this is a deck I will be able to use a great deal. Might mean I'll have to buy me another sometime in the near future.
 

retrokat

Re: What type of Wand?

templumkat said:

I have a question - the source for the Wands is given as a work by Jacques Daret, located at the Berlin Museum. I wondered what type of staff it is, if it is a particular type of tree or branch? I tried the Berlin Museum website, and googled Daret, but found no direct references to the painting in question.

Anyone any ideas? I ask because I got the Ace of Wands in a particular reading, and it would be massively relevant due to the fit of the artwork to the answer if the wand was also of a particular type. TemplumKat

You can see the original paintings from which most of my collage elements were drawn on an amazingly comprehensive site called Euroweb Web Gallery of Art. Their Daret page includes the painting from which my "Wand" was drawn - although as you'll see it was really an upright on a bier in a Nativity Scene. I hope you're not too disappointed?

http://gallery.euroweb.hu/html/d/daret/index.html
 

GitaByte

Now see this is what knocks me out - I will bet anything that the fact that the wand turned out to be part of the bier will actually crystallize aspects of the reading. I find the thought that went into this deck absolutely amazing. I must admit to being initially annoyed that so much of the little book was taken up by "useless" attributions, yet more and more I find myself looking up an aspect and finding my reading enhanced by elements of where the artwork was taken from. I realize that not every possible interpretation could have been forseen, but there are such an astounding amount of resonances that one can find by studying the sources of these collaged images.

I also share the marvel of the writer who spoke about the 5 of wands card - I find this interpretation and imagery so much more revealing than the standard RW. It adds so much interpretive dimension, I just keep finding more to marvel at in this deck.

I could go on and on - and I surely will in later posts
Brava Kat!
 

retrokat

The attributions were always really important to me. This deck first started off as a vehicle to promote this type af artwork, since it's mostly inaccessible to the average person - ie, it's in Cathedrals in Italy etc.

US Games decided on the box/booklet/deck pack during production, and it appeared originally (with a far less attractive box) in their wholesale catalog as including a 120 page booklet. I was upset, as that meant that the hefty section on attributions was gone. They very kindly changed it when I explained how important I thought it was to the deck.

I bet that including the attributions section cost them quite a bit, as it almost doubles the size of the book, and makes the whole package a lot more substantial. I can scarcely believe that they make any profit at all in the set's current form! I'll be eternally grateful that they included the references, though.

By the way, a face from that same Daret painting was in the Five of Wands. Coincidence? :)
 

templumkat

Wand is a Prop! Thank you!

Kat

Thank you for your prompt response and the Link to the Art Gallery, which is a very useful resource indeed!

The fact that the "wand" or "staff" is actually based on a support for the bier did crystallise something, as in Kabbalah the "tent support" or "prop" is the meaning of the Hebrew letter "Samekh," attributed to the path on the Tree of Life between Yesod and Tiphareth, and hence the "Temperence" card, which depicts an Angel. This has meaning to me in the context of the reading!

Ah, Kabbalah, obscuring the already obscure! LOL.

TemplumKat.
 

GitaByte

"By the way, a face from that same Daret painting was in the Five of Wands. Coincidence?"

LOL! Ok in some serendipitous way maybe it was - because I actually meant to be writing about the 5 of Cups! Who knows what faces lurk in my subconscious! LOL!
 

Cocobird55

The deck is wonderful. I love the box, and the gilding.

I've been buying a lot of decks lately, was was trying to decided if I should order this one or wait a while. But last night, when I walked into Borders, there it was, and I couldn't resist. I'm glad that I didn't.

Sue
 

GitaByte

Queen of Swords?

I am curious, I keep getting the Queen of Swords as the first card in repeated readings. I have never used a significator since I dont like to pull a card out of the possibility of showing up in a reading, so my first drawn card often operates for me as a sort of significator. The thing is that not only have I repeatedly been getting the Q of swords, but I have also been having alot of old thoughts coming forth, and some wierd dreams which have her in them. I would like to understand more about what the Queen of S means so that I could perhaps get more insight in what is occurring. Does anyone have any ideas on this?
 

Lee

I have a question about the Death card...

I don't have this deck yet, but I notice that there is a difference between the Death card on Kat's website (the published version of the card, I don't mean the first version) and the Death card on the facade.com free reading site, which offers the Golden Tarot (published version) as an option.

On Kat's site, the card has a skull at the top of the card, with long bones emanating from it like a spider's legs, or bat wings.

On facade.com, the card is missing the skeleton figure at the top, but instead, there is a hooded skeleton standing on the right side of the card, looking down at the woman.

What's on the printed card?

Thanks --
Lee