OK, so this reading is a bit personal. I thought hard about whether I should share it or not. In the end I decided to go ahead and share it. The final message will not be news to anyone who is married. In fact, it’s a message that married people need to hear often.
The reason why I specially wanted to share this reading is that it is a good example of what this amazing Tarot deck can do. The Fairytale Tarot is not only a deck of 78 exquisitely drawn illustrations. It is also a collection of 78 fairy tales and folk stories from all over the world. The stories are beautifully retold in the substantial book that accompanies the deck. By some strange alchemy each story is perfectly attuned to the traditional meaning of its associated card in such a way as to illuminate hidden depths in the card’s interpretation. Nothing can get a wake-up call to a person the way a story can.
The context of this reading, which happened at the end of 2015, was a bit of marital discord. I can’t remember what it was about now, but I know that I was highly irritated and knew for a fact that it was all my husband’s fault for being inconsiderate and wrong-headed. I turned to my beloved Tarot for comfort. This is the card that came up for me – the Seven of Swords and the story of the Frog Prince.
The Seven of Swords is one of the few nasty cards in the Tarot deck. There can be spite in it, and deviousness and deceit. I have discovered that the Tarot can be very frank when it speaks to you. It will call a spade a spade. But it will always do so in the spirit of encouraging you to be a better person. I am happy to say that the Tarot was very gentle with me that night. It seems that I had only earned a mild reproof.
The story of the princess and the frog is a well known one. It’s the original story about kissing a frog to catch a prince. In this illustration the frog is explaining to the princess that he is really a prince under an enchantment. Only love can save him. This is what I wrote in my journal at the time:
“Princess meets frog. The frog wants to be transformed back into human form. The thing is, the frog is not the only one in need of transformation. The princess badly needs a makeover too. She is rather a selfish little brat. The frog is, in fact, the more evolved of the two, because he is actually a wise, mature being under the ugly disguise. He is trying to be the best that he can be. He will take the princess in hand and make a beautiful, graceful, serene and kind woman out of her, simply by releasing her inner self with his love. She too will become all that she can be, through the magic of the devoted love of another human being. The message to me is to realise that my husband isn’t the only one who needs to change.”
Infinity Tarot 