Dancing 'on' Two Pentacles

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Dancing on Two Pentacles

I’ve been thinking about balance. Or maybe what passes for balance when your life is full of contradiction, chaos, and too many things demanding pieces of you at once.

Right now I’m working on the Two of Pentacles — the card of juggling, of instability, of keeping multiple plates spinning while the floor feels like it might fall out from under you at any moment. The irony isn’t lost on me. My life looks messy on paper, and in real life, it feels even worse. Work. Art. Relationships. Bills. Emotional labor. The little invisible weights that no one applauds you for carrying. And somehow, you have to smile while keeping the rhythm, pretending you’ve got it together.

Painting it is almost meditative. I let the brush stumble over the canvas like I stumble through my own life — messy loops, high saturated pigments, strokes that refuse to be neat. The two coins float and twist in a storm I can control only by letting go. The swirl of watercolors bleeding into each other, the way oils smear when the paint is thick, it’s all a reflection of the precariousness I carry.

Instability isn’t always chaos. Sometimes it’s rhythm. Sometimes it’s a dance you didn’t choreograph but are learning to move with anyway. My cat curls next to me, unimpressed, flicking a tail as if to remind me: “This is not the end of the world.” The tiny constant companionship anchors the juggling act.

I think of balance differently now. It’s not holding everything perfectly. It’s choosing which weights are yours to lift and which to let crash. It’s laughter in the middle of panic. It’s rage and softness coexisting. It’s painting a card about juggling while your own life feels like a two-ring circus.

This Two of Pentacles isn’t about perfection. It’s about presence. Awareness. The terrifying exhilaration of keeping everything in motion without losing yourself.

Sometimes the coins drop. Sometimes the floor cracks. And that’s okay. Because the act of getting up, brushing off paint, adjusting your rhythm, and starting again — that is the point. That is the magic. That is the ritual of living fully, even when your hands are full and the world feels like it’s tipping.

Balance isn’t static. It’s a heartbeat. It’s a wobble. It’s the storm and the calm at once. And as I paint this card, I realize: the dance itself is sacred.

Emerging from the Cocoon (Covered in Paint, Teeth Gritted)

Winter always tricks me into thinking I’ve disappeared.

Not dead — just buried under layers of waiting. Waiting for heat. Waiting for time. Waiting for my nervous system to stop buzzing long enough to remember I have hands, and those hands make things that matter.

For months I’ve been in a cocoon phase. Not the Instagram kind. Not the “soft healing journey” kind. The cramped, itchy, half-feral kind. The kind where the studio is a dining room table that still has crumbs on it. The kind where you only get thirty minutes every other day and you have to decide whether to make art or stare at the wall and recover from being alive.

And still — something has been shifting.

I’ve started painting again. Slowly. Awkwardly. Like stretching a limb that fell asleep years ago. Acrylic first, because oil asks for time and warmth and patience I don’t always have. Multiple tarot pieces moving at once because my brain doesn’t walk — it paces. The pentacles coming through first, grounded and stubborn, like they’re reminding me that growth is underground work.

Right now I’m working on the Ace of Pentacles — opportunity, money, new beginnings — which feels almost sarcastic and deeply necessary at the same time. A quiet promise sitting on a loud little canvas. My cat curled beside me like a small familiar, watching every brushstroke like it’s part ritual, part surveillance. Paint water on one side, coffee on the other, fur inevitably embedded somewhere in the texture.

High saturation pigments. Small surfaces. Loud little paintings that feel like they’re whispering secrets while screaming at the same time.

Not masterpieces. Not polished. Alive.

And honestly — the cocoon isn’t just about art.

I just had one of those explosive, soul-rattling arguments with my partner. The kind where your chest feels like it’s cracking open and you realize how tired you are of shrinking yourself to keep the peace. I’m fucking exhausted from being made to feel small. From folding my body and my voice and my needs into neat little shapes so someone else doesn’t feel comfortable.

It hit me hard — that same energy was seeping into my work. Painting smaller emotionally, not just physically. Holding back intensity. Editing my rage and my tenderness before they even hit the canvas.

No more.

The cocoon phase has teeth. It’s where you decide what parts of yourself are coming out alive and what parts get left behind as shed skin.

And here’s the truth: emerging isn’t graceful. It’s messy. It’s loud. It’s crying while you’re cleaning paintbrushes. It’s painting skulls and bodies that refuse to disappear. It’s brown bodies taking up sacred space. It’s softness that bites back. It’s refusing to apologize for existing in a world that constantly tells certain bodies they are not welcome, not beautiful, not powerful.

Every brushstroke right now feels like a small act of rebellion. Against silence. Against erasure. Against the voice that says “be smaller or be alone.”

I’m choosing to be louder instead.

Not fully out of the cocoon yet. Still damp-winged. Still learning how to exist in the open air again. But there’s movement. There’s color. There’s ritual in the act of showing up for thirty minutes and making something honest instead of something impressive.

If winter is about anything, it’s slow growth. Roots cracking stone where no one can see.

And I’m done pretending that growth is gentle. Sometimes it’s an argument that finally exposes a wound. Sometimes it’s anger that turns into paint. Sometimes it’s realizing your body — your loud, vulnerable, sacred body — deserves to take up the whole damn canvas.

The work is coming back.

So am I.

Winters Slow Alchemy (Slow Progress on the Pentacles)

I am making slow progress on the deck. I decided to bring my supplies in from the art room where my water cup was frozen solid.

Slow Magic: Painting the Minor Arcana in Winter

Progress on the Minor Arcana has been quiet. Not stalled—just moving at the pace of breath, bone, and season.

I’ve begun with the Pentacles, an intentional choice. Earth first. Body first. Work, survival, money, craft—the slow mathematics of staying alive. Instead of oil, I’m painting these in acrylic, letting the medium mirror the energy: quicker drying, layered decisions, a willingness to move forward without endlessly reworking the past.

I’m working on two to four cards at a time, passing between them like a pilgrim moving between small altars. When one painting resists me, another opens. When one feels heavy, another feels generous. It keeps the process alive—less like forcing a single vision into existence and more like listening for which image is ready to speak.

Winter feels like the right container for this pace. The world itself is not rushing. Roots are growing underground. Seeds are deciding who they will become. Nothing looks dramatic on the surface, yet everything essential is happening in the dark.

This is how the Minor Arcana wants to be made—not in a rush of spectacle, but through accumulation. Quiet labor. Repetition. Small revelations. Layer by layer. Card by card.

Pentacles teach patience. They remind me that magic is not always lightning—it is often soil, time, and the discipline to return to the work even when progress looks invisible.

Slow progress, yes.

But slow progress is still progress.

And sometimes it is the most honest kind.

http://phantasmagoriatarot.blogspot.com/

The Cantigee Oracle

The Cantigee Oracle: Where Watercolor, Ecology, and Creative Spirit Converge

The Cantigee Oracle is not merely a divination tool — it is an ecological meditation, a creative companion, and a living art object. Crafted with luminous watercolor illustrations by Laura Zuspan and written by Rae Diamond, this deck feels less like a traditional oracle and more like a portal into poetic awareness, artistic ritual, and environmental reverence.

A Wash of Watercolor Dreamscapes

The deck’s visual identity is defined by its fluid watercolor aesthetic — soft yet emotionally potent, dreamlike yet grounded in natural symbolism. Zuspan’s painterly style leans into organic motion: pigment blooms like breath on paper, figures emerge and dissolve, flora and myth intertwine. The circular card format enhances this sense of cyclical flow, echoing themes of seasons, ecosystems, and spiritual return.

Rather than crisp or rigid imagery, the watercolor technique invites ambiguity and intuition. Colors bleed, edges soften, and scenes feel remembered rather than observed — a perfect match for an oracle rooted in transformation, imagination, and the living world. The result is art that feels handmade, intimate, and alive.

Creative Prompts as Sacred Sparks

What truly distinguishes the Cantigee Oracle is its commitment to creativity as a spiritual practice. Each card extends beyond symbolic meaning into actionable artistic prompts — encouraging painting, writing, movement, music, sculpture, storytelling, and embodied expression.

These prompts do not feel like add-ons. They are integrated into the deck’s philosophy: creativity becomes a ritual, a method of insight, and a bridge between inner vision and outer action. Whether you are an artist seeking inspiration or a seeker craving deeper engagement, the prompts transform the deck into a generative engine for making, reflecting, and evolving.

This is an oracle designed not just to tell, but to ignite.

Nature, Spirit, and Responsibility

Interwoven throughout the guidebook is a strong ecological consciousness. Each card explores environmental symbolism and encourages awareness of humanity’s relationship with the Earth. The deck frames spiritual growth as inseparable from planetary care — a refreshing and timely stance that aligns mystical insight with ethical responsibility.

This makes the Cantigee Oracle particularly resonant for eco-minded creatives, nature mystics, and those drawn to earth-centered spirituality.

Who This Deck Is For

The Cantigee Oracle will especially appeal to:

• Artists seeking inspiration beyond traditional tarot
• Creatives drawn to watercolor aesthetics and painterly storytelling
• Spiritual practitioners who value ecology, mindfulness, and embodied ritual
• Writers, musicians, and makers craving symbolic prompts
• Readers who prefer poetic, intuitive, and open-ended systems over rigid structures

Final Reflection

The Cantigee Oracle feels like a collaboration between art, nature, and spirit — a deck that doesn’t simply offer answers, but invites participation, imagination, and creation. Its watercolor visuals whisper rather than shout, its prompts encourage action rather than passive consumption, and its ecological heart keeps the reading grounded in real-world reverence.

This is not just a deck to consult — it is one to create with.

Court Cards

The Phantasmagoria Tarot and the Court Cards are a hauntingly perfect pairing — both are mirrors of identity in motion: masks we wear, archetypes that possess us, fragments of the self that come alive in crisis or creation.

In the realm of the Phantasmagoria, the court isn’t a literal monarchy — it’s a psychic theater. Each court figure is an actor in the drama of the soul, shifting between dream and nightmare, human and archetype.

Below is a poetic-philosophical lens and ritual framework to explore the Court Cards through the Phantasmagoria — for reflection, writing, or spellwork. This is a working document and nothing is set in stone yet.

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🎭 The Court of Shadows: Phantasmagoria’s Inner Theatre

Concept:
The Court represents four houses of consciousness — not people, but presences. Each one whispers a different tone in your internal monologue: the dreamer, the actor, the watcher, and the ghost.

Each suit becomes a dimension of haunting:

• Wands – The Firelight: passion, creation, obsession, the will to act
• Cups – The Reflection: emotion, longing, illusion, nostalgia
• Swords – The Mirror Shard: thought, judgment, perception, distortion
• Pentacles – The Flesh: embodiment, survival, material spellcraft, decay

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🕯️ The Four Roles Within Each Court

Archetype	Function	Phantasmagoric Aspect
Page	The Dreamer / The Haunted Child	The apparition of potential — the innocent who still believes in magic and shadow. A whisper from what you could be if you risk the unknown.
Knight	The Seeker / The Masked Performer	The restless spirit who charges into illusion, desperate for meaning. Represents the motion of crisis — the storm, the transformation.
Queen	The Oracle / The Mirror	Embodiment of power and empathy. She sees what others fear to see. Represents the inner voice that translates chaos into art.
King	The Architect / The Shadow Sovereign	The one who builds systems from smoke — control, mastery, structure. Represents integration, or the illusion of it. The King is always one breath away from madness or transcendence.

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🔮 Phantasmagoria Court Spread — “Masks of the Monarchs”

A spread for exploring the roles you play when the psyche feels divided.

      (3)
   (2) (1) (4)
      (5)

1. The Page – The Voice of the Inner Child: What raw dream, fear, or creative impulse is emerging?
2. The Knight – The Momentum: How am I reacting to conflict or change?
3. The Queen – The Emotional Wisdom: What am I feeling but not expressing?
4. The King – The Authority: What part of me demands control or dominance?
5. The Mirror of the Court: What illusion binds these roles together — and what truth wants to be seen?

Read the cards as a psychological narrative — a play in five acts, performed by different faces of the same soul.

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🕯️ Integration Ritual — “Unmasking the Court”

After your reading:

1. Lay the cards before a mirror or black bowl of water.
2. Whisper:

   “All masks fall before reflection.
   All monarchs return to the dream.”

3. Watch the candlelight flicker on the cards — see which figure calls you.
4. Journal or paint what they would say if they could step out of the card.

Optional: leave the chosen court card on your altar for a lunar cycle — a companion for inner dialogue.

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🕸️ Interpretive Thread: The Courts as Phases of the Psyche

Each rank can also correspond to a cycle of becoming — a ritual of growth through crisis:

• Page: Innocence → Curiosity → Awakening
• Knight: Action → Chaos → Revelation
• Queen: Understanding → Compassion → Power
• King: Integration → Authority → Transcendence

In a Phantasmagoric context, these are not linear but looping — you will always return to the Page, dreaming again after every death.

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Yule Ritual

Had this draft ready to go and forgot to schedule it! Sorry it's late. 

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Here is the Phantasmagoria Tarot Yule Ritual, written as a shadowed solstice rite — part séance, part dream, part rebirth. It keeps the ancient light of Yule but refracts it through the gothic lens of Phantasmagoria: the long night as theatre, the light as revelation, the self as both ghost and dawn.

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🕯️ Phantasmagoria Yule Rite: The Longest Night

Theme:
The Sun dies, but the soul dreams.
The world stands still, and the unseen stirs.
This is the turning — where endings whisper to beginnings, and the heart learns to see in the dark.

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I. The Setting: The Theatre of Midwinter

Prepare your space as if you were about to host a midnight performance for spirits and memories.

You’ll need:

• A single black candle (for the death of the Sun)
• A small mirror or bowl of water (the dreaming portal)
• Your Phantasmagoria deck
• A strand of evergreen or sprig of rosemary (the promise of return)

Place the candle before the mirror. Let the reflection of its flame become your twin sun — one burning in this world, one in the dream.

Whisper:

“The light sinks into the underworld.
The year exhales its final breath.
I enter the phantasm —
to find the flame that never dies.”

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II. The Spread — “The Ghost of the Sun”

A 6-card spread shaped like an inverted flame — a descent before ascent.

      (6)
    (5) (4)
   (2) (3)
      (1)

1. The Shadow of the Year – What part of me has died or dimmed in this cycle?
2. The Phantom Flame – What remains of my inner light, even in the void?
3. The Mirror of Winter – What truth do I see when the world stands still?
4. The Voice Beneath – What message rises from the depths of silence or grief?
5. The Pale Sun – What light begins to return — fragile, spectral, real?
6. The New Dawn – What awakening waits beyond the longest night?

Read the cards as a vision in the mirror, not a list — imagine each image flickering to life, one after another, like scenes in a silent film.

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III. Integration: The Whisper of Light

When your reading feels complete:

1. Choose one card — the one that feels like the heart of your vision.
2. Hold it before the mirror flame and say:

   “From shadow you return to light.
   From ending, beginning.
   From death, dream.”

3. Place that card beneath your pillow or beside your candle overnight.
   Let its imagery weave through your dreams.

In the morning, extinguish the candle and whisper:

“The Sun is reborn — and I am remade.”

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IV. The Archetypal Echo: Cards of the Solstice

In the Phantasmagoria lens, these Major Arcana act as your solstitial guides:

• Death – The longest night itself, the stillness between heartbeats
• The Hermit – The candle carried through the dark
• The Moon – The dream and its distortions, the theatre of the unseen
• The Star – The return of distant hope, fragile yet eternal
• The Sun – The revelation of dawn, the triumph of light through shadow

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V. Closing Words: Benediction of the Black Sun

“I have walked through the theatre of endings.
I have watched my shadow dance in candlelight.

Now, beneath the black sun,
I rise unseen but luminous.
The phantoms fade, but their wisdom remains.
The year turns, and so do I —
endless, eternal, ever reborn in smoke and gold.”

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Changing the Wands

The Phantasmagoria Tarot

I'm having a dilemma. I want to use fire dancers now but my brain is also saying I had some good options before. What do you think best represents the wands? Traditional sticks and paint brushes, or fire wands?

Suit of Wands

The Wands are the fire that animates the unseen. They represent creation, passion, energy, and the will to bring a vision into reality. In the world of the Phantasmagoria, they are the sparks that light the stage — the Dreamer’s breath of life given to art, idea, and impulse. Each card speaks to the movement from inspiration to manifestation, from the flicker of desire to the blazing act of creation.

Ace of Wands

 A fresh flame of passion ignites. You throw yourself into a new project with renewed excitement. You are ablaze with potential.

Two of Wands

 You need to take care to channel your energy in the right direction. You don’t want your flame to burn out so you need to be deliberate in your planning. 

Three of Wands

 After the choice is made you're ready to ignite to fire. You foresee the possibilities of the future. You’re sending out your energy into the universe and anticipating your labor will bear fruits. 

Four of Wands

 It’s time to celebrate your success! You’re in it for the long run and are only passing through the first phase of many. For the time being, relish in your bounty.

Five of Wands

 The next challenge is on the horizon. You need to transform conflicts into a spark that reenergizes your passion.

Six of Wands

 You get a taste of success. Your supporters gift you their energy and you in turn, give them your imagination. This is once again just a momentary success but enjoy it to the fullest until the next challenge arises. 

Seven of Wands

 Stand your ground regardless of the lack of support. You will come out on top.

Eight of Wands

 Keep moving forward and with a quickness in your step. Focus on the task at hand and don’t get distracted. 

Nine of Wands

 You are in transition to come up against the ‘final boss’ so-to-speak. Reserve your strength until you know its time to let it burn. 

Ten of Wands

 You have won the final battle but now you feel you carry the burdens of the world on your back. You could go the road alone or find a way to delegate it. Is there a way to warm the fire again?

Still working on the court cards...

Page of Wands

 

Knight of Wands

 

Queen of Wands

 

King of Wands