Mona Lisa Tarot

I finally had the time and mental and spiritual energy to greet my new Mona Lisa Tarot deck. My first time with a deck, I usually say a basic "hello" and pull a card or two to see what comes from it, it's been a good indicator to show me from the get-go if I can connect with a deck as a reading deck or if it's only a deck to admire. I was pleasantly surprised with the cards that I pulled and indeed it's shown strength as a reading deck for me. Instantly I see this will be a deck that I will need to use intuitively and toss out the typical RWS meanings. While the RWS meanings are there in abstract ways, the images on these cards are far from being typical.




I pulled the 3 of Swords, and very plainly, the image is a woman writing with a baby in the background, replace this with my computer and it's unmistakably how I've spent my last 7 weeks. The other card was the Knight of Pentacles and again, the sense of wanting to flee the city and responsibility is too strong to ignore. Alexiss has been what they call a colicky baby and it's been a difficult time, sometimes making me want to run away from home. (but I love her dearly and understand she's just as irritated by all of this too) The LWB keywords are fate/mission and disagreement/misunderstanding, true but the words are not as strong as the impact of the images. I don't feel a need to peer further and meditate on these cards as they only show me in a snapshot of the current day, and show it very well! I won't delve into them further, but what they have done is made me want to study this deck further and compare, but this deck has shown it's value for reading intuitively rather than relying on the cold hard RWS meaning, perhaps giving more depth and clearer pictures into my future readings.

I then asked what I could do to make Alexiss happy or comforted and once again, the cards were plain and in-my-face.

I pulled the 7 of Wands and the Queen of Swords. The 7 of wands shows Mona Lisa protecting a child, the orange/red background is so prominent, I can only see it as protecting Alexiss with fiery and all my might. Plain and simple, she needs me to protect and care for her best I can. Mona Lisa herself is a mystery and her "face a study in contradiction" (from the intro in the LWB, in the Queen of Swords I've taken her representation as someone whom I don't know well and may very well have her own agenda or not portray herself for who she truly is. This card tells me not to listen to all those that preach about care of babies, they have their own agenda and are speaking in general terms instead of on a personal level, and those who've had babies know that each one is different and unique.

What I found interesting was we both got a card from Swords, this suit relates to Air and is about communication, Alexiss is verbal (cries, coos, babble) but cannot tell me outright what she needs, it's become a practice of picking up her other non verbal ways to communicate to tell me what she needs. Funny how little Miss Alexiss is running the show these days, she gets the Queen and I get the 3, I guess that tells the tale how she's pulling the strings right now and I'm following. lol. The Knight of Pentacles can be interpretted as upcoming travel by foot... mmmm... all those nights with her on my shoulder pacing to calm her.

I'm amazed at the clarity of this deck enough to put more time into more in depth study, but that will come later.