In a method, its accessibility, versatility, and open-source sample make the Tarot de Marseille the deck of the folks. The folks’s deck.
The next is an extract from Charlie Claire Burgess‘s latest publication, the Gay Marseille Tarot and accompanying guidebook – out now!
Tarot is a instrument for understanding oneself and directing one’s life outdoors of the prescribed paths of dominant social conventions and institutionalized norms.
Utilized by outcasts, occultists, and weirdos (a time period I exploit as a praise) for hundreds of years, the tarot naturally attracts those that are othered and marginalized, providing an alternate pathway to non secular data—which is to say, data of the spirit, which is data of the self. Tarot’s liminality is constructed proper into its use and design, making it a modality that inherently embraces and celebrates the unusual, the totally different, the magical, and the queer in us all.
The Tarot de Marseille is a sample of tarot iconography that developed in Europe within the seventeenth and 18th centuries. The place in prior centuries tarot playing cards had been the province of the wealthy, who might afford to pay for hand-painted tarot packs, Marseille decks had been mass produced utilizing woodblock printing. This made them extra inexpensive and accessible to the widespread particular person for the primary time ever. The sport of tarot unfold quickly all through Europe and past, with the Marseille model gaining new spins and variations in every place it ventured. In a method, its accessibility, versatility, and open-source sample make the Tarot de Marseille the deck of the folks. The folks’s deck.
The Homosexual Marseille hopes to construct on the spirit of the folks’s deck by lovingly re-envisioning the Tarot de Marseille in queer, trans, poly, kinky, liberatory lights for the LGBTQIA2S+ group and others on right this moment’s margins.
These playing cards unapologetically have a good time queer icons, queer tradition, and tales from queer historical past, together with cross-dressing folks hero Pope Joan because the Pope (Hierophant); gender transgressing saint Jehanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc) calling their folks to stand up in Judgment; and the patron saint of homosexual males, Saint Sebastian, erotically surrendering as The Hanged One. The inexperienced bloom on the Magician’s lapel nods to the inexperienced carnations worn by Oscar Wilde and his buddies as an emblem of homosexual love, and the Popess’s e book references the paranormal language invented by doubtlessly lesbian medieval abbess Hildegard of Bingen. The Solar celebrates the position of tub homes in queer historical past as protected areas for homosexual males to satisfy, be seen to 1 one other, and discover pleasure and connection in one another’s arms, and The Moon reveres the lunar orb as canonically sapphic.
The queer cultural references proceed into the Minor Arcana’s numbered playing cards, known as “pips”. Historically, pip playing cards present geometric preparations of a sure variety of go well with symbols: three cups for the three of Cups, eight wands for the 8 of Wands, and many others. The Homosexual Marseille integrates playful hints and queer prospers to the imagery to make them simpler to learn, whereas nonetheless staying near the basic designs. The three of Cups turns the red-lipped goblets into three mouths singing in concord—or in ecstasy, because the case could also be. The Ace of Coin’s leopard print and lipstick subtly invoke the cardboard’s potential abundance. The 6 of Swords’ needle and vials have a good time hormone alternative remedy, lending new significance to the cardboard’s that means of transition.
Equally, the courtroom playing cards are modeled after the basic designs, however modernized with a cheeky, queer spirit appropriate for our queer pack of playing cards. The normal ranks of Web page, Knight, Queen, and King are retained, however the gender expressions of the characters subvert and play with the gendered, hierarchical roles.
The Homosexual Marseille Tarot is playful and irreverent whereas additionally being significantly pleased with queer folks, queer historical past, and queer tradition. The tarot has at all times been a queer-aligned instrument for locating ourselves, shaping our lives, and making that means outdoors of the sanctioned paths of dominant tradition. With this deck, it’s written within the playing cards: the long run is queer.
The Gay Marseille Tarot and Guidebook at the moment are accessible from Little Pink Tarot, or you’ll be able to order direct from Charlie at their website, The Word Witch.
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