Theatre Deli are making a tarot deck and asked me to contribute some of my art.
I told them I don’t believe in tarot.
And they said: we don’t either, we just want to make some art
Which of course I’m up for!
I chose to do the Moon card.
Apparently, the moon “is a card of illusion and deception, and therefore often suggests a time when something is not as it appears to be.“
Although the more I read, the more interpretations I found
So I checked out some previous tarot cards of the Moon. And found some early cards with women spinning:
“an elderly spinster appears in profile on the moon cards of the French Vievil deck and its successors in the rouen-Brussels pattern.”
I’m just about to be 60 years old and I’m very pleased to say that I’m not married.
So this feels perfect!
The woman on these cards “has been associated with Cotha one of the 3 fates to spin, measure and cut the thread of an individuals lifetime, but she might be a housewife, taking advantage of the moonlight to spin yard for the next days weaving. Or perhaps she’s a witch spinning a magic spell under the full moon.“
Actually the woman on this card is spinning the crescents the wrong way round for the actual phases of the moon – fitting with tarot idea of illusion and deception.
I also wanted to include the calendar stone at Knowth. I found out about this through a tv programme by Dara O Briain: https://www.channel5.com/show/wonders-of-the-moon-with-dara-o-briain/sason-1/episode-1. Then learnt more from Anthony Murphy’s great website.
Knowth is a Neolithic stone memorial – from 3300BC – with a very early calendar of the moon: its earlier than Stonehenge.
The Stone is explained more here:
I’ve included the crescent moons from the calendar along the bottom of my card.
While the full moons are down the right hand side.
The dark blue sky is like the dark blue, I saw when I was following the moon through a full night – before sunrise.
The green hill the moon faced woman is sitting on is like the Emerald green Hill at Knowth:
