What My Mother Taught Me

Recently I have been immersed in the playing cards quite a bit. I think it’s all started after I spiritually committed myself to Ana Cortez’s upcoming deck — The Book of Knowing.

In contrast to other authors and deck creators, Ana has graciously allowed, and even encouraged, reproducing the paintings her father, C.J. Freeman, had channeled and manifested, to make a personal playing cards oracle deck.

I downloaded the images and mounted them onto a regular deck of Bicycle brand playing cards. And then, when my own version of The Book of Knowing was finished, I communed with the elements, circling under an Aquarius Full Moon, ritually dedicating myself to the cards.

A few cards of my own Book of Knowing deck

V. Erco 2012 edition

Since then, I have been obsessing over unique and vintage playing cards decks on eBay. Mainly, I got some amazing Russian and Ukrainian decks — while being especially fascinated by the wonderful art of Vladislav Erco and his Taras Bulba inspired cards.

Getting a hold of these papery treasures gives my heart an all-over fuzzy feeling. It reminds me of my mother laying her piquet cards over the kitchen table, fortune telling on matters of the pocket and the heart while her girlfriends sip Turkish coffee. Growing up, card reading felt absolutely normal — “What, your mom doesn’t read the cards?”

After following my own divinatory interests for many years, and spending a lot of this time in the intrigues of tarot, I came back to roots and requested my mother to teach me her way of reading the playing cards. She wasn’t very interested. “I don’t know how I do it,” she said.

“Well, how did you learn to read them to begin with?” I wondered. She couldn’t remember.

“I think I learned it from an old gypsy lady… Hmmm, maybe not. I really don’t know.” I wasn’t surprised. My mother’s memory is like Swiss cheese. After all, she can’t even remember what time of day I was born. “I think it was early afternoon, Nadyusha. Maybe it was late afternoon. Probably after 5 PM. Wait, maybe it was midnight.” It doesn’t matter really because my mom is an amazing reader. Or, as my dear Californian friends would say: She’s right on!

But here’s the deal — My mother’s style of reading is not psychological, Jungian, or archetypal. It ain’t based on astrology or the seasons. She uses very basic, pre-assigned meanings for each of the cards. She works within the permutations of these meanings, filling in negative space with brilliant intuition.

I am going to share with you the card meanings my mother has shared with me. For this purpose I’ve translated them from Russian. The intuition part, however, is your own business!

	Diamonds	Spades	Hearts	Clubs
King	An unmarried young man / The Life of a an unmarried young man	An Official, a Lawyer, a Soldier, or a Boss / Life of an older man	A Male, a sweetheart (love interest) if read for a female / The Life of a client or of a sweetheart	A male. His Life
Queen	An unmarried young woman / The Life of a an unmarried young woman	An older female, often divorced, and older. Could also represent a female in an official position.	A female, or a sweetheart (if reading for a male client). Her Life.	A female. Her Life.
Jack	Worries of a young and unmarried individual	Worries in official matters.	Worries of the client or his / her love interest.	Worries of an individual.
10	Good financial news.	A tough love situation. A financial (official) interest.	Love of a “Hearts” individual.	Love of a “Clubs” individual.
9	A bed of an unmarried individual.	A sick bed.	The bed of a “Hearts” individual. A lucky card.	The bed of a of a “Clubs” individual.
8	Thoughts and conversations of an unmarried person.	Thoughts and conversations of official matters.	Thoughts and conversations of a client or their sweetheart.	Thoughts and conversations of a “Clubs” individual.
7	A meeting with a younger, unmarried individual.	A meeting with an official, or a much older person.	A meeting with a sweetheart.	A meeting with a “Clubs” person.
6	A path, a way of a younger, unmarried individual.	A path, a way of an official, or a much older person	A path, a way of a client or their sweetheart.	A path, a way of a “Clubs” person.
Ace	Great news in financial matters. Success (especially when combined with 10 of Diamonds)	An official structure (hospital, bank, office, etc.) Also a bad luck card, especially when the Spade is pointing down.	A client’s or their sweetheart’s home.	A home of a “Clubs” person.

As you can see, these are very basic meanings. Coming down from a tarot reading perspective, it is almost more complicated to be able to read such simplified combinations. There are more intertwined nuances my mother uses in her card reading, but this is the basic skeleton of information she follows.

Affectionately,

Madame Nadia

Join me on the “Lucky Mojo Hoodoo Rootwork Hour” tomorrow

I am honored to be again a guest on the longest running conjure radio show, The Lucky Mojo Hoodoo Rootwork Hour — alongside my good friend and mentor, Ms. cat yronwode, and one of the most talented and elegant rootworkers of our time, ConjureMan Ali.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with the show: The Lucky Mojo Hoodoo Rootwork Hour is a real, live call-in show where the general public gets a chance to ask about actual problems with love, career, and spiritual protection, and we recommend and fully describe hoodoo rootwork spells to address, ameliorate, and remediate their issues.

I am planning to divine with the Lenormand cards, and with a self-made version of the upcoming The Book of Knowing playing cards oracle by Ana Cortez.

I hope you can tune in, and join us during the show in the chat room or on the phone. The show starts at 5 PM CST — 6:30 CST.

See you there!

 

Affectionately,

Madame Nadia

 

A Monthly Draw for August 2012

 

I drew from various oracles to foresee what’s coming up during the month of August. Here are a few images of the various sources of wisdom and the messages that came through for me. I am still working on deciphering what it all means.

 

 

 

Daily Read: Multiple Oracles – One Message

Yesterday I stayed home instead of going to work. I terribly needed rest. My body felt like it has been hit by a truck. During the past 3 “epic” weeks of severe sciatica problems — during which my toddler went through a mega stomach virus — I also had to deal with my own sinus infection, and an ongoing saga with a root canal that is still unfolding. With not enough sleep and unexpected financial blows relating to electrical and plumbing; and culminating into a nasty storm that forced us to leave our home and stay in a hotel for several nights while clearing up uprooted trees from our back yard during the days, my nerves and my muscles needed a time out.

So yesterday morning, while attempting to lay down low and actually rest after my husband left to work and the baby went to day care, my mind started making plans of all these things I wanted to accomplish because I stayed at home. A classic, right?

So I pulled a few cards to see what kind of a day I’m going to have. And funny enough, all of the different oracles had the same message:

Girl, chill out! You might spend a lot of time in your head planning and dreaming, but not much chance for executing these ideas of yours today.

And boy, were the cards right?

I pulled 2 cards, Luck and Expectation, from Pepi Valderrama’s upcoming Kipper cards first. (I guess due to a Mercury Retrograde mishap I am the only person in the world owning a copy of this edition besides Pepi)

Then I drew card number 10 from King Solomon’s Oracle. This card came out reversed.

I also drew 7 of Cups from the Romantic Victorian Tarot.

And finally, I also pulled Kitchen Table from the Dirty Tarot oracle that tied all the information together, reinforcing the idea of bonding and downtime vs. practicality.

Digging in the cards — psycho-processing and The “Dirty Tarot”

* Disclaimer: Loads of profane language in this post.

Part 1 — Digging in the Dirt

Once in a while I feel really, really, REALLY down. My whole being drops into some sticky darkness that can get quite suffocating. There I dwell on my own nature, my mistakes, and everything else that seems imperfect in my life. My shadow-self progressively grows until it seems much larger than me. After a while volcanos of anger begin to erupt from within this darkness. The tension rises quickly, and the bubbles in my steaming brain begin pleading: “I’m a fire cracker, baby — You better fuck off while you can!”

Times like this scare my therapist, who right away goes into a spiel about the newest designer anti-depresants on the market. I value pharmaceuticals quite a bit; nonetheless, I spend half an hour reassuring her that though right now everything totally feels jacked up from the inside out, it’s actually a good kind of jacked up. Looks like she ain’t buying it, so I continue:

“In order to be fertile,” I go on to tell her, “earth must be moist and dark.” Among the ashes of self-loathing, layers of muscle and bone, and pools of hot blood is fermenting a tiny seed of self-descovery and reinvention. To find it we must dig in the dirt of our past until we’re blue in the face and thoroughly finished attempting to clean the proverbial dirt from underneath our fingernails. “Can the spiritual ever be manicured?” I ask rethorically.  I think clean spirituality is a trendy capitalist fabrication designed to upsale the blissed-out, and lululemon-clad Yuppies, making the “guru” market a fabulous milking cow.

When it’s time to get down and dirty I prefer a coffin on a yoga mat… fuck you very much!

So I accept the glove. As I descend into the darkness of my internal morgue, I turn up the volume on my demon radio. A Persephone of sorts, I slip into an elegant pair of chewed up combat boots — and dual myself — Fight Club style. And I take my fucking sweet time with it too. And then it’s quiet.

Eventually I leave the underworld anticlimactically. No Boddhisatvas, no unicorns, and no models with secrets inside their designer bosoms raise me into sainthood with an ease of profound mythical advice. I just feel done, and ready, and able to kick self-pity in the gut and move on. It usually happens when I finally feel absolutely and utterly sick of myself!

And then I make a cup of instant coffee, and lay down the cards.

Part 2 — Dirty Tarot

The Dirty Tarot isn’t really a tarot deck, though it is sort-of dirty in a deliciously entertaining kinda way. If asked for my opinion, I’d rather call it an oracle — but, Dori Midnight, the creator of this pack, refers to it as a deck of divination.

While crisscrossing NOLA’s French Quarter past June in search of unique spiritual supplies and vintage glamour fashion , I stumbled upon this gem at Voodoo Authentica. In a little decorative glass case, on a pink wall across from the register, I spotted the Heart and the Tattoo cards, shining in their rockability amongst more traditional decks on display.

The long-haired and expressionless register girl shared that the cards are made by a local reader who is originally from San Francisco, Bay Area. Being firstly a card collector (fiend), and secondly a Bay Area dweller with an 11-year-long tenor prior to moving to cornfield kingdom along the CST zone —  I quickly parted with $35 + taxes, picking up the last copy they had in stock.

The deck comes in a satin black bag with an instructional booklet. I find the card stock to be of perfect stiffness, which is admirable compared to the usual flimsiness of self-published decks. The 40 cards constituting the Dirty Tarot are printed on double-sided glossy paper, and measure 5’4″ by 3’4″. The colors are vibrant, and the art style is childish and quite amusing; especially when adorable images like Pretty Pony, Roller Skates, and Cheese Puffs are juxtaposed with cards like Whiskey, Pussy, and Cheap Fuck. Miss Midnight is clearly keepin’ it real!

Although I bought this pack as a souvenir to remind me of a true U.S. Sin City, the readings I’ve got so far with this deck were right on. I ended up reaching for the Dirty Tarot very recently, while emerging from underneath many layers of emotional funk. I feel the cards not only cheered me up, but also gave me a profound reading.

Past — Boat: Navigating an emotional journey. Charting a course. Working with the elements, surrendering to the winds. Seeking. Emotional Passage.

Present / Conscious — Cock: Manifestation. External. Fathering. Producing seeds. Firm muscular impulse. External reactive energy.

Present / Unconscious — Horn: Clear golden blast. Illumination. Enlightenment. Wake up and listen closely. Resonance.

Future — Road Trip: Get perspective. Spaciousness. Liberation. Wilderness of life. Distance. Moving forward for the sake of seeing the landscape change.

Finally, I leave you with this powerful song by Peter Gabriel, which tends to come to mind when major emotional shit hits the fan of my life.

And on this gentle note, dearies, I’ll take a bow and go bye bye.

3X3 Lenormand Sample Reading for the Month Ahead

I thought it would be of interest to share a sample 3X3 reading I gave a fellow student of the Cartomantes Cabinet. My colleague’s concerned with the month ahead, focusing mainly on love and money. Personally, I think he’ll have a rocking month!

The Cards 

3 Sixes — a lot of money. Money will be coming in, possibly through a full-time job. Corresponds w/ the Fish card. 2 Kings — Agreement (possibly foreshadows a successful month in the relationship arena).

– 1 –

The Focus — TOWER — ambition that is triggered by the STARS, which represent hope and guidance.

Stars + Fish + House + Ring — This shows that you’re interest isn’t only in work and relationship separately, but there’s also a desire for the relationship to help or facilitate financial growth. I hope this makes sense?

– 2 –

Rod + Clover =  Lucky argument / Satisfying sexual encounters

Clover + Tower = An official lucky break

Tower + Letter = A message of official nature

Letter + Key =  A positive message / document

– 3 –

Past: Star + Clover + House  = Hoping for happiness in the household / relationship. Also, hoping for luck to come from the relationship.

Present: Rod + Tower + Letter = Official documents / correspondence going back-and-forth between you and a potential employer. Possible arguments based on anxiety around this issue.

Future: Fish + Key + Ring = A successful contract that brings an increase in money. Also, this position is supported within your romantic relationship.

– 4 –

House + Ring = An official commitment in a relationship + Rod = but it will also generate some strife and arguments.

Stars + Fish = A hope for business / improved finances + Letter = A document that brings a positive answer to this hope.

In the Works: Ana Cortez’s New Deck

I am so excited to share these awesome news with all of you! My mentor and friend, Ana Cortez, the author and co-creator of the Playing Cards Oracles is raising funds to publish a  second deck.

I find this upcoming project very exciting, and am planning to support it personally as well. I thought I’d share the information with you, so you too might participate in the manifestation of this new and brilliant playing cards deck.

Read more about this extraordinary project on Ana’s site.

And if you just want to go and get you a few decks, or buy an original painting, here’s the link to Kickstarter: The Book of Knowing

Summertime: A 3-Months Russian Gypsy Draw

Summertime, time, time,
Child, the living’s easy.
Fish are jumping out
And the cotton, Lord,
Cotton’s high, Lord, so high.

The sun is shining bright and the countdown has begun! My solar return commences in less than 24 hours, crowned with a Rose Full Moon is Sagittarius and a partial Lunar Eclipse. Also, two whole weeks of summer break start in a week and a day from today. And here’s the cherry on the icing: we’ll be on a plane to the mysterious city of my fantasies, New Orleans, in 9 days — Child, the living’s easy!

Well, maybe not that easy considering the job front is starting to borderline unbearable again. But summer beats even that. My life is a carnival. I am aware of that. And so over a ride on the roller coaster I pick the ferris wheel consciously. Too old for drama, I’m intent on manifesting a calmer type of happiness. And when I am completely loosing my zen, I will try to remind myself of the following Russian proverb:

G-d’s with us, and hell’s with them!

Talking about proverbs, I figured that today would be a good day to set some periodical fortunetelling in place with the Russian Gypsy Fortune Telling Cards. Summertime, here I come!

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

[# Title — General card description; Prediction based on a specific position. Time period]

40 Knot — Family Ties; You have tied strong knots for a lifetime. Life

31 Sun — Warmth and strength of character. Immediate to middle.

Your daddy’s rich
And your ma is so good-looking, baby.
She’s looking good now,
Hush, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby,
No, no, no, no, don’t you cry.
Don’t you cry!

36 Handshake — State of the union between two people; The handshake will weaken if you don’t make an effort to strengthen it. Middle to life.

35 Anchor — Stability or hindrance; Disillusionment with the ideal / doubts. Middle

50 Bread — Happiness; Profit and happiness in the house, success in business affairs. Middle.

One of these mornings
You’re gonna rise, rise up singing,
You’re gonna spread your wings,
Child, and take, take to the sky,
Lord, the sky.

Last Card (outcome):

39 Horse (no match) — Emotional upheaval; Your feelings will be trampled upon. Immediate.

But until that morning
Honey, n-n-nothing’s going to harm you now,
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
Don’t you cry,
Cry.

I wish everybody a wonderful summer, full of sunny, bright days, and lucky and happy fortunes. with this in mind, today I leave you with Janis because nobody does Summertime better than her. Bless your soul, sister!

Daily Draw — June 2, 2012

What a week that was! It felt like the days were ringing through my head on a speed dial, and I couldn’t be happier on Friday evening. I kinda feel guilty for not posting anything on this blog for a while… Oh well.

I did continue with my Lenormand practice, and drew cards everyday for my husband and myself. Again, I do not have enough synonyms for the word amazing to describe how accurate this system is. But I haven’t had time for my Cartomantes Cabinet studies. I was able to resume my learning only last night, and I hope to go through Lesson 4 concerning the 9X9 Spread this weekend. As a Lenormand fiend studying this “building block” spread makes me very excited!

In any case, I figured I’ll have enough time to share my daily reading from this morning.

Here goes:

Clouds + Moon + Stork + Ship + Clover

The Stork is a key card and denots movement and change. The combination of Moon + Stork + Ship is a classic message of promotion and often relocation. Since it’s a daily draw, I feel that it is an uplifting message about my work / career situation. This make me very happy because there has been a confusing and stressful recent development (Clouds + Moon) relating to my husband’s and my current work situation.

The Ship + Clover make me feel like a small wish will be granted — I think it relates to a package I am expecting to arrive by mail.

With the Clouds mirroring the Clover I feel that anxiety and stress are going to continue tricking my Gemini mind today, like the sun that is hiding behind the clouds on and off today.

Finally the Moon and Ship reinforce that positive change is coming. I am also wondering if this change is going to touch ground on the upcoming Full Moon and Lunar Eclipse, which happen to manifest on my birthday this year.

Titania — Lenormand’s Psychodelic Sister

When the Lenormand has just started picking my interest, in the early stages of my addiction when I spent only a small amount of time and money on these cards, I came across images from Titania’s Fortune Cards — and they made me cringe. “Who?”, I thought to myself, “who would buy and enjoy such a horrid card set?”

To me it seemed a complete sensory overload with golden borders; like a vintage china plate stained with paint by a child’s fingertips.

Well, surprise, surprise! Here I am, a true Lenormand fiend, with Titania’s in hand, humming:

Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun.
If the sun don’t come, you get a tan
From standing in the English rain.
I am the eggman, they are the eggmen.
I am the walrus, goo goo g’joob g’goo goo g’joob

In her book, Titania’s Fortune Cards — How to interpret the cards,  the author Tiania Harding explains that she’s been fascinated by the Lenormand ever since her mother’s friend, Marion Charlouis, read the cards at the age of 13. She explains:

These cards are a modern interpretation of those she [Charlouis] used: we have remained faithful to the symbol and much of the meaning she invested in each image, but have given a more up-to-date feel to communicate the different ways we now lead our lives.

I am not sure what to make of the ways Miss Harding leads her life in the year 2000, judging by the color palette of the cards. Though in my experience, these little, inverted and neony peculiarities trigger that nostalgic spot in myself were naive fantasies of Woodstock, free love, and LSD live. In my mind, these cards represent a 1960’s reincarnation of Mlle Lenormand.

Just Look at her, I hear my Spirit of Divination exclaiming:

Look! Today Marie Anne Adelaide is wearing nothing but her hair down. Swinging from side to side, she’s dancing to a psychodelic tune playing only in her mind.

What does she say? Does she have a message for us? I ask.

Groovy, replies my Spirit of Divination, She says, Groo-Vy.

The real reason I finally made the decision to purchase this deck was a few conversations on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum about the similarity of the Titania interpretations to the Russian school of Lenormand. Since there are no books in English on the subject, I ordered this deck and book set from The Book Depositary.

A week later, sitting in my office I observed a cooky 4X9 arrangement staring back at me from the hardwood floor. Suddenly I wasn’t cringing. The images, though painfully saturated, carried very clear and concise messages. The experience was very different from what I expected. There was no complex, multi-layerd meshing of meaning and art; like the collaged, new wave versions of Lenormand that have been flooding the market recently — vis a vie Melissa, Alice in Wonderland, and Les Vieus Jours.

I was immediately aware of the ease with which this pack communicates. Without numbers, words, playing card inserts, or multifaceted imagery the key symbols float atop the overly saturated backgrounds in an almost juvenile fashion. It doesn’t take long before a card bangs it’s meaning over your eyeball.

Looking through the book I did find some resemblance to the Russian school of Lenormand (at least compared to several Russian (online) sources and their English translation on the AT Forum), though other interpretations weren’t similar at all. For instance, this is what, Titania Hardy says of the Cross: “This is the card of destiny! You are looked after, and your road is in the hands of the gods.” The Russian sources, on the other hand, place a much heavier spin on this religious symbol — it represents the cross one has to bear, so to speak.

After a little bonding time, I actually found many cards attractive, in their own neony way. I really like the Tower and the Tree cards. And the Anchor and the Star are simply Psychobilly-adorable. But other cards I still find particularly unappealing. For instance, all I can think about when I look at the the Man and the Woman cards is “Barbie and Ken are getting married”. These really don’t work for me, and I have a hard time “charging” these for myself or my clients.

Finally, I am not sorry at all for investing in Titania’s deck. Like the 1960’s, there’s something endearingly hopeful and playful in this psychedelic pack of cards. And so, I leave you with a trippy version of Beatles’ I am the Walrus, performed by Bono in an original movie musical Across the Universe. 

Have a groovy week, y’all!