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XVII - THE STAR The Three Star Spread is based on this picture. One woman stands on iron ore and watches a basket star swimming in the sea. Another woman stands on fossil crinoids (relatives of the sea star) and watches a falling iron meteor. Each woman tries to attract the other's attention, though they do not look at each other. A single glowing eye unites the women, their visions, and the ground they stand on. This layout is used to clarify a relationship between two people. Odd numbers represent one person, even numbers represent the other. Card 9 unites the two. Try reading both sides for each person. The spread can also be read for one person: Odd numbers represent what you think and do in the world and how others see you. Even numbers represent the subconscious, the imagination, and how you see yourself. Card 9 balances the two.
Cards 1&2: The ground that each person stands on: home and work, responsibilities, and
the past as it affects the current situation. |
| Three of Coils: A cauldron, a dipper, and a sacred well cover with three windows showing bubbles rising from the deep source. Triskele spirals are offerings to the precious water that heals, cleans and nourishes everyone as it brings them together. |
| X - The Wheel: A girl transforms her heart into a red bird and offers it trustingly to ancient Fortuna, who replaces it with a larger heart made of growing leaves. An iron wheel hangs on the axis of the World Tree and twists around eight nails to mark the year's fire festivals, and smaller wheels symbolize the four elements. |
| XIII - Death: A mask of rusty iron weeping salt crystals - the shocking decay of what seems imperishable. A skull dissolves, its phosphate combining with iron to form vivianite crystals in an unexpected and mysterious transformation that carries no trace of the original bone. |
| Eight of Bells: Traditional West African dance bells on an ankle bracelet forged with podlike rattles. The bells are no use alone, and each is made with the consistent skill of long-term study and repetition. |
| Five of Blades: A feather-crowned shaman contemplates a ritual ladder of hawk-shaped sawblades. To pass the test and ascend to the sky, she must grow wings or climb without fear that the blades will injure her. |
| Madrone of Spikes: Water of Fire. Her lightning rod forms a fulgurite, a tube of lighting-sintered sand. Her body is a madrone tree that shelters a spadefoot toad. She drops toad eggs and tadpoles into desert rain pools. She is the shower of sparks that inspires a new project or relationship, and the soothing reassurance that allows it to grow. |
| Two of Blades: Two seahorse-shaped Chinese fisherman's knives with stout blades and podlike handles with long handles for untying knots, peaceful blades for those who know what can be lovingly revealed and what is better kept hidden to avoid conflict. |
| Seven of Coils: Water escapes from a bowl shaped like a seven-tentacled jellyfish. A Moon Jellyfish (Aurelia aurita) hangs overhead, luring the imagination with its beauty and symmetry, but ultimately insubstantial and impossible to hold or see clearly. |
| II - Red Earth (The High Priestess): The extinct Australian Pleistocene horned tortoise, Meiolania, carries a shell of iron ore stromatolites (fossil algae), one of the earth's oldest life forms. Unknowable guardian of earth history and geological secrets, she is a guide to true knowledge and opens the door to new mysteries we would not have guessed existed. |
All artwork, electronic images, and text are copyright ©2001-2004 by Lorena Babcock Moore. Script copyright ©2004 by Daniel Moore.