One of our many websites happens to be arms-and-armor where we offer chess sets, books and other items related to the subject of the website. It occurred to me that there isn’t a tarot deck based on historic arms & armor, and there should be. It can be argued that tarot is not a violent sport, but the fact is that it was invented and developed to forecast, and the most important forecasts in ancient and medieval times was the weather, food and the outcome of a looming battle, war, campaign, political confrontation or intrigue. Only then came love, sex and family matters. Of course, the whole deal was created originally for the benefit of the local or regional or known-world leader, but eventually, as all things must, the tarot and other divination devices came to the Middle Class, which is us.
That ballista in the graphic image above was created by Claude especially for this Arms & Armor deck, and it is featured along with many famous swords, axes, shields, fighting sticks, ninja stars, magical weapons and of course a variety of beautiful but battle-worthy armor.
The settings are Ancient, Medieval, Modern and Off-World. I think it’s a fun project and has a great deal of potential as a functional and highly guiding tarot deck in itself.
I expect the deck to take a while, unless orders pile in — at ten decks, I feel compelled to finish the deck and bring it in for printing and cutting and quality-control checking and shipping.
Until then, I feel no compulsion whatever to complete a deck. It’s entirely up to you which deck I complete next.
There’s about 200 hours of my time and intense visual efforts in every deck. Marvette spends another 200 hours with the deck, balancing the colors and contrasts and tones in shadows, middle tones and highlights, then squares it off, fits it into the deck matrix, and off it goes to Samantha to print.
Sam will spend about an hour preparing the images for her machines; she’s an expert and there are tons of details to figure out before printing and cutting. Another 10 hours or so before all is ready for shipping.
Now the finished decks go to Rose, Janna, Dan and others, who check each and every card, making sure it’s printed right, cut right, and that all the cards that are supposed to be there actually are there — again, another few hours down the drain.
Is that it? No, not quite. Before they can be shipped, the decks must be packed inside their voile pouches and then tucked into a protective shipping system so they’ll get to you fresh, alive and intact.
Then to Jewel for shipping, and that adds up to at least another hour or two for your tarot decks to get to you.
That surely is it, no??? No. There’s more.
Now someone — it varies — is designated or volunteers to go to the post office, UPS or Fed-Ex to ship your package with your tarot deck — or decks, if you decided to save on shipping and order several) and then someone working for minimum postal services wages has to shlep the package to your door or post box.
Sounds like an awful lot of labor-intense trouble just for a tarot deck, doesn’t it? But it’s worth all the ass-busting work if it works for you as a personal shamanic tool.
With that in mind, I hope you feel inclined to order one of my tarot decks to apply to your personal work; I think it will open a whole new world for you, and may open your eyes to still more “formerly invisible” worlds all around you.
Although they are well-disguised as oracular cards, the Tarot is widely recognized as a ladder of consciousness which can be easily ascended and transcended. It’s a fantastic tool for any world-maker, world-traveler or inter-dimensional voyager, such as yourself.
See You At The Top!!!
gorby