Notebook: Page 3

Curiously Tarot + EP Onward . . .

Hello newcomers! And as always, a warm welcome to readers who’ve been on this adventure for a while.

The newly evolving EP has several parts, including a “Notebook” feature that will arrive three times a month. As a rule (though not always) each “Page” will have two sections:

• In “Tarot Everywhere,” I’ll invite you to join one of my serendipity journeys.

• In “Tarot Timestream,” I’ll offer some notes on what’s new in the world of Tarot.

Page 3 didn’t quite make it into the month of August, due to a late start. But you can catch up on the first two Pages here—and we’ll have three more in the month of September.

That said: Today starts off with an unexpected journey from Curious Minds to “curious” Tarots.

Tarot Everywhere

By chance, I watched an episode of the series Five Levels. It’s a production of Wired Magazine, designed to take a single topic (for example, “Black Holes” or “Infinity”) through five levels of explanation. An expert host explains the topic “first to a child, then a teenager, then an undergrad majoring in the same subject, a grad student and, finally, a colleague.”

It’s a lot of fun if you’re into science-y stuff—and you can watch any/all of the 25 episodes on demand.

I happened across the episode on “Memory” while I was researching along that line (more soon!) and became intrigued by the “colleague”—Dani S. Massey—and her theories about networks.

It took just a minute of Googling to find out that Massey has a fascinating personal story. I’m tempted to say “unique”—but you can’t be sure about such things. However, I’ll bet there aren’t many other MacArthur Fellows (that’s the “Genius Prize”) who have written a tour-de-force book with their equally brilliant identical twin, Perry Zurn.

If you want to know how all that happened, and how the twins ended up with different pronouns, you can read this review + interview in Science Magazine. Quick quote:

In Curious Minds: The Power of Connection, they investigate the neurological, historical, philosophical, and linguistic foundations of curiosity. What exactly is curiosity? Where does it come from and how does it work? In a manuscript peppered with questions, the academics explore everything from Plutarch to Google algorithms, to argue that curiosity is networked. “It works by linking ideas, facts, perceptions, sensations and data points together,” they write in the book, “Yet it also works within human grids of friendship, society and culture.”

It seems to me that Tarot and curiosity are a natural match—whether in terms of divination as curiosity about the future, or the powerful appeal of the Tarot itself. So (as usual) I just searched on the two terms together, and (as usual) found a nice set of treasures.

Three, to be exact. From newest to oldest:

Amelia Arozear’s Curious Travels Tarot

After a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign, this deck was picked up by U.S. Games according to the artist’s website, but I didn’t find a forthcoming date. And the remaining indie decks are currently priced for a pretty penny.

I could not find out why the deck is named Curious Travels. But here’s a comment from the artist:

What makes this deck special is not only its traditional value, but also its ability to tell a new story. With just one flip-through of this deck you will find strength underneath a lion's gaze, wander with knights and kings, and dance beside stars. I hope everyone who experiences this deck will feel like they are part of its story, as I did when I created them.

The watercolor illustrations vary in style from card to card, but all are highlighted with a touch of metallic gold.

Chris-Ann’s The Tarot of Curious Creatures

This deck definitely appeals to my whimsical side—but at first I was a bit put off. It’s another in a series of Tarots by designer and author Chris-Ann, whose Light Seers Tarot has been very popular. That deck is done in a kind of story-book illustrational style that doesn’t work for me, and her Muse Tarot, though different, also falls outside my personal preferences.

However . . . . Curious Creatures is wildly different from both.

At first I wondered whether Chris-Ann could really have illustrated all three—but after listening to the first 20 minutes of this interview, I was convinced.

Sometimes I like decks in spite of myself, especially when they are more on the playful side. In this case, though, several images invited serious attention. For example: this may be the most convincing Temperance I’ve ever seen!

Hay House (the deck’s publisher) has it on sale at the moment, so you might want to find out more for yourself. One reviewer there says of these curious creatures: “They are like a community of crazy friends. A delight to work with.”

Michelle Cohen’s The Curious Tarot

Unfortunately, it seems you won’t be able to find out more about The Curious Tarot, a handmade deck (from around 2009) that has never been published.

I’m hoping to find out more about the artist, and will let you know if I do. But in the meantime will call attention to the compelling use of faces and masks in these images.

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Looking at all three of these decks, I wondered why they have some notable similarities—not least in the sense of combining animal and human imagery.

I thought there might be a clue in the word “curious,” but if so, it’s not obvious!

curious (adj.)

mid-14c., "subtle, sophisticated;" late 14c., "eager to know, inquisitive, desirous of seeing" (often in a bad sense), also "wrought with or requiring care and art;" from Old French curios "solicitous, anxious, inquisitive; odd, strange" (Modern French curieux) and directly from Latin curiosus "careful, diligent; inquiring eagerly, meddlesome," akin to cura "care"

I think there might be hints of echoes, though, in this reviewer’s description of the book Curious Minds:

Traipsing across literatures of antiquity and medieval science, Victorian poetry and nature essays, as well as work by writers from a variety of marginalized communities, [Massey and Zurn] trace a multitudinous curiosity.

They identify three styles of curiosity—the busybody, who collects stories, creating loose knowledge networks; the hunter, who hunts down secrets or discoveries, creating tight networks; and the dancer, who takes leaps of creative imagination, creating loopy ones.

Needless to say, I started thinking about whether those “styles of curiosity” might also be ways of working with Tarot. That’s another post though . . . .

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If you suspected I was spending too much time on the serendipity journey—you were right. So Tarot Timestream and “Onward EP” will have to get their proper due tomorrow.

See you then. C