Corrine Kenner's Blog, page 5
January 23, 2015
Tarot Poetry: Strangely Bright Against the Tombstone
Strangely bright against the tombstone Lightning strikes on high A tower falls a trumpet sounds But your empty veins are dry To sleep! The night is born Awake! The twilight dies Be still! The monster hears you But your empty veins are dry Strangely bright against the tombstone Dead fingers start to pry Don’t look! Their lust is growing But […]
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January 19, 2015
“There are many ways to read the Tarot.”
There are many ways to read the Tarot. Here, focus on love and your heart’s truest wishes. But call not upon your darkest desires, lest dark forces affect your fortune. Breathe deeply. Do not think immoral thoughts. For there are demons within us all. — From the Penny Dreadful series
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January 11, 2015
Belladonna
Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante, Had a bad cold, nevertheless Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe, With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she, Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor, (Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!) Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks, The lady of situations. Here […]
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April 24, 2014
March 25, 2014
Star, Moon, Sun
Here’s your chance to zoom in on three cards from one of the first Rider Tarot decks ever printed — the Star, Moon, and Sun from my copy of an original “Pam B,” which probably came off the presses in England during the early 1920s. Just click on the image, and then click again to see the scan close up.
Personally, I’m fascinated by the amount of detail that Pamela Colman Smith managed to pack into her illustrations. I also like to look for her recurring motifs, especially in her landscapes. Her flowers, hills, and bodies of water are all very similar. That’s probably due to the Japanese influence of her art teacher, Arthur Wesley Dow, from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. (Georgia O’Keefe was also one of his students.)
If you really like to geek out over vintage tarot cards, Saskia Jansen has put together a great description of the early “Pam” decks for the World of Playing Cards website, here.
March 23, 2014
Quick Tip: Tarot by the Numbers
In the tarot’s Major Arcana, the numbered cards are often said to represent stations on the journey through life. They also symbolize a progression of events: Aces represent beginnings, while tens represent conclusions. The suits, of course, indicate which events are unfolding: Wands symbolize spiritual experiences, Cups represent emotional affairs, Swords depict intellectual issues, and Pentacles relate to physical realities.
Obviously, the tarot deck is meant to be shuffled, so Minor Arcana cards rarely turn up in sequential order during a reading. You might be surprised, however, by how often you’ll see the same numbers pop up in a tarot reading: it’s not uncommon to find a preponderance of early, middle, or end cards in a tarot spread, or various cards relating to, say, the number seven.
All in all, if you can remember the significance of each suit, as well as the fact that each numbered card represents a separate stage in that area of life, you’ll be able to interpret the cards without memorizing the individual meanings of all 78 cards in the deck. The Ace of Wands, for example, often symbolizes the beginning of a spiritual quest. The Five of Wands suggests the halfway point of a spiritual experience, and the Ten of Wands typically signifies the conclusion of a spiritual journey.
March 22, 2014
Meet the Ghosts of Devils Lake
In this collection of true ghost tales, you’ll discover a wide range of bone-chilling stories from the dark and dangerous waters of Devils Lake, North Dakota—where the spirits of Indian and pioneer settlers alike are forever bound to the land they loved.
You’ll meet the real men and women who still haunt the dusty trails they walked a century ago. You’ll see them in the shadows of the wooded shore, and follow them across grassy prairie fields.
In sixty carefully chosen and researched accounts, you will find:
Legendary stories of bravery and courage in the face of certain disaster
Lost souls, doomed to relive their tragic deaths
Vicious outlaws, condemned to repeat their crimes for all eternity
Paranormal places, including a mysterious “Stairway to Hell”
Supernatural creatures, like the ethereal Canyo Tina on the south shore
You’ll come to know a wide range of fascinating people, including:
Lillian Wineman, the eccentric old woman who stayed with her belongings—even after all of her possessions were moved into a museum
The Ward Brothers, who were murdered on their homestead and forced to seek justice from the next world
The captain of the Minnie H steamboat, who still waits and watches for any travelers who need safe passage to the Other Side
A lost colony of suffering Jewish settlers and their children
The Dakota warriors drowned by the spirits of an angry lake
Corrine Kenner is a Devils Lake native and the award-winning author of more than a dozen books on the paranormal. She has traveled the world studying the mysteries of life and death—and in this book, she offers a glimpse of the Great Beyond from spirits close to home.
March 21, 2014
The Egg Experiment
How much of a tarot reading is based on the images in a tarot deck, and how much is based on the inherent meaning of the cards?
If you’re an experienced tarot reader, you might be surprised.
Try this experiment: Look at the cards in this imaginary “Egg Tarot” deck, and tell me if you could glean entirely different readings from each picture, based solely on what you know about the same cards in a traditional tarot deck.
Click to view slideshow.
Could you read a deck like this? Feel free to describe your observations in the comments.
March 19, 2014
The Basket Maker
Here’s an exclusive look at a rare illustration by Pamela Colman Smith, the artist who created the Rider-Waite Tarot. It’s a print from “The Basket Maker,” a small portfolio of her work that she self-published in London in 1901.
It’s extremely rare: the Cornell University Library has one copy, and there’s a second at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
The portfolio itself is olive green, and it holds three hand-colored illustrations that accompany three children’s poems.
March 15, 2014
Portlandia Tarot Cards
Flavorwire Exclusive: ‘Portlandia’ Tarot Cards
By Jason DiamondIt’s obvious that Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein hit a nerve with Portlandia. If you live in a big city and have complained that people you call “hipsters” are taking over, only to realize that the people you’re calling hipsters actually act and look a lot like you, the show probably bears more resemblance to your life than you’d like to admit.
If you watch the show, you’ll recall skits about requesting the biography of the chicken you’re about to eat, feminist bookstores that sell vagina pillows, and putting birds on, well, everything. They’re all absurd parts of the contemporary urban experience, which is skewered just as hilariously in the new Portlandia Activity Book as it is on TV.
It includes quizzes to find out whether you’re in a cult, a list of “Notable Lunar Phases” you may not have known about, and a spirit animal Rorschach test — and it’s all great, but the tarot cards included in the book are definitely our favorite part.
