How do I love thee? Let me count the ways...
I could write and write and write about how the Druidcraft is growing within me - more paced but deeper now, past the first coup de foudre - or should I say - visitation from Taranis.
In general, what I love - the use of symbols - very present but not overdone (except in some cards), the quality of the painting and the expressions on the faces of the characters. I have always liked the pre-raphaelites (those that aren't overly sentimental in the Victorian fashion), so that style of detailed but generous strokes and colouring fills me with delight. I also like the opportunity it is giving me to explore Celtic mythology and symbolism - which I have always been aware of (Gaul and Helvetia being Celtic), but never got to know and feel as much as the Graeco-Roman.
But what really blows me away in this deck is the depiction of the British countryside, grassy, mossy, hilly, dappled, sensual - the impression, when one looks at these cards, of standing in front of an door that opens on unspoilt nature. The trees, shrubs and flowers are so well done! Gnarled mossy barks of oaks that serve as seat, refuge or marriage bed to various characters, young-old peeling barks of birches, soft grasses mingled with curling ferns, flowers delicately drawn and coloured; waters that reflect the skies, the surrounding vegetation and the moods of the characters...
Can anything be more beautiful than the fresh sharp beauty of the Princess of Swords card - the loveliness of the girl standing - or dancing? - in the new day revisited in the dainty snowdrops and primroses, her fine incisiveness in the flowering hawthorn and the kestrel swirling overhead and her firm but gentle steps towards the future in the mossy granite stones under her feet?
Can anything be more naturally sensual, full of sexual and aromatic joy, than Cernunnos and the Lovers cards? Both show that wonderful world-within-a-world that opens after love, before more love, in which the trusting couple's spirits and bodies fuse all together. There again the depiction of nature fully participates in the sensuous atmosphere: grasses, mosses, ferns, oak, primrose and blossoms...
When I first saw him, Cernunnos created a shockwave in me that I am still trying to absord and understand. I am fascinated by that huge hairy figure in the sunny glade - which could be frightening but instead draws me with all my heart and spirit - and body. The card plays on all our myths and fantasies of the man of the wood, the antlered god, a wild and abundant life free of the trappings of civilisation; the two lovers asleep in the glade lie in Arcadia...with the dark presence of Cernunnos, at the same time benevolent protection and dark cthonian promise, fulfilling and haunting paradise...
Other cards I love? The High Priestess, that wiry woman - as thin as a diviner's rod and twice as powerful, and her twin card, the Moon, which shows the same scene from another angle, and recoloured eerily green.
Death, with the crone holding the skull, and her cauldron of endings and transformation; the pregnant and alluring Lady bearing her baby, her bounty and her sex-appeal like the trees their leaves and moss - she is one of the two Lovers. The Hanged Man becoming Green Man, his hair pouring into the blackberry brambles - altogether an astonishing sight. The Lord with his Burt Lancaster face and his antlered helmet worn both casually and ceremonially; the señorita in Strength, dancing with her wild boar - the sword on the ground imply that this scene began as two wits and physical powers facing each other off before reaching this respectful loving accommodation because neither woman nor boar could win through force.
In the courts - I love the sensual romantic King of Cups; the bon viveur but stuffy-looking King of Pentacles; the princes of Wands and Swords - dashing movement so well evoked here! - both horses leaping over waves of grass. The gorgeous Queen of Wands.
I like the Six of Wands, with its scene of successful return from the hunt and the intimate bond of respect between chief and followers; the Samhain harvest of the mistletoe in the Seven of Pentacles (they forgot the bull sacrifice...); the arm flung out of the lake to present us with the Ace of Swords - an interesting mingling of air and water, because at its most vibrantly new, the mind is as receptive and flexible as water; the beautiful waterfall/mountain spring emerging from the Ace of Cups, flowing among the hazel branches with a salmon leaping up its cascade to reach its source...we see here that the emotions at their birth are wise and full of energy.
The Three of Cups, unlike some here, I like: because I see Cups as feminine anyway, the male fellowship raising the cups (of mead?) gives me a happy balance - men enjoying the mellower side of life, in friendship and trust. I also like the Seven of Swords, which gets away from the odd "thief" image of much RWS tarot, and instead concentrates on the study and mysticism of the Seven - its cleverness, which can become deception when ill-used (so when the card is ill-aspected). I like the Two of Swords, its "Two roads diverged in a yellow wood" imagery and that gigantic oak delimiting the choice to be made - and suggesting a way to overcome the duality of the situation. I like the Three of Swords, because of its emphasis on creative thought - it also shows how thought linked to nature and endurance (the oak) can help us overcome trouble. The blacksmith in the Eight of Pentacles speaks to me at the moment, and I love the wonderful Nine of Wands colouring and the posture of the character - relaxed watchfulness, with a suggestion of banked power.
There are many more cards I like than not like - but inevitably there are those I don't gel with. The biggest disappointment for me is The World, which looks like these tacky Saint pictures you see in Catholic tourist shops. Other than that it is more some elements of some cards that bother me - the dim expression on the face of the woman in the Two of Pentacles; the melodramatic one on the Queen of Cups; the camp-looking Magician (I do like him - I just get distracted by the campness); the hideous UFO Pentacle in the Ace (but I love the bear emerging from his cave).
I have more to say about what I love than what I dislike. Every time I look through this deck I see more, deeper, richer, more intriguing. It is changing, in many subtle ways, my philosophy of life.
LittleBuddha - see what you think after a while. I have worked with this deck together with the Marseille and find they complement and enhance each other, if both are approached without dogma.
Cernunnos, here I come!