It’s a simple visual. The 17th-century Gerard Bodet Tarot from Belgium (re-created recently by Tarot Sheet Revival) – features something that many Tarot readers would regard as a ‘mistake’.

In the bottom section of the card, a pale, calming pool of blue ink that (perhaps?) ‘should’ have been contained in the batons/wands themselves has spilled, probably caused by a printing quirk in the basic printing process, into an area of the card looks like it ‘should’ have been clear white space. But this ‘mistake’ touches me. 

This Four of Wands is an interesting card: the stable, calm energy of the four and the fiery, passionate Wands/Batons, together. The four asks us to take a break from activity; this fire must stabilise. The initial spark has produced a good fire, but it needs some rest. Maybe your fire is reading thousand books, geeking out on a hobby, doing too many projects, or acting on every urge that runs through your body. For me, right now, it’s the projects. But it can be anything that propels you forward with drive and passion.

The ‘pip’ cards in Marseille-type decks (numbers 1-10 in the Minor Arcana) can be a difficult prospect when you are not used to reading with them. With the Wands in particular, each pip card can look similar to the last, and so we must pay very close attention.

Here, four batons form a giant X that reaches to each corner of the card. It creates four white triangular spaces, each containing a flower. In the Gerard Bodet Tarot, the blue ink spillage says more to me about the calming energy of the Four of Wands than any ‘deliberate’ symbol which might have been carefully considered by a deck designer.

When we read, we read. For me, it doesn’t matter what the designer of the card had in mind. Doesn’t reading take us beyond the human mind, into a spiritual truth? Aren’t we doing something utterly illogical when we read a Tarot card anyway? Why should I ask what a card supposedly ‘means’ and try to apply logic to what is an illogical, intuitive process? Let the card speak, in this moment, in its own way!

Yes, this spill of ink from the 17th Century speaks to me viscerally; my body forgets its anxieties as my eyes roam over the soft, sky blue. Muscles relax and shoulders loosen. The calmness of that light blue spills over the receptive flower at the bottom of the card (‘receptive’ because it has a hole in its stem). I, too, become receptive to blue. I feel the colour spilling into me like cool waves reaching into a smoking beachside fire-pit. Tssssst.

I carry the image of the spilling blue colour with me all day today. Each time I pick up my laptop to write and write and write (again and again and again) I remember the calm of the blue, and I put the laptop down. I create time for deep breaths.

I make space for a forest walk: the blue invited it. I take the calm blue outdoors with me: I see it in the river that flows at the bottom of the glen. It’s up there, in the sky, in the soft blue appearing between the grey clouds (if I look hard enough).

When I work with Tarot, I work with what is in front of me. I don’t care what the deck designer wants me to work with. What a magical occurrence it was for a printing mistake in the 17th Century to affect my day like this, leading me into the forest hundreds of years later.

This spilling blue is cause-and-effect in action. This is true Karma, which, in Buddhism, is not some kind of divine retribution, but the simple truth that everything that happens in the world has an effect on something else. Each action puts energy into the collective system. How else would a spillage of blue ink in a woodblock factory in 1600s Belgium be influencing my day today? Sometimes, our ‘accidents’ spill out into the future and bring peace or joy or even misery in ways that can never be known at the time.

This is why I love the ancient Tarot decks, where things are not always slick and perfect and ‘beautiful’. The symbolism is ours for the making. We create a magical space where all events and symbols are offered meaning., whatever the initial intention was. 

I could bathe in this blue forever.

(Note before going further: you may have noticed that I have recently decided to jump off the orderly ship. I will now be sharing the 78 cards of the tarot in a more random order than I was initially; it seems much more apt and fun this way!)

That’s all for now, friends. If the Marseille-style decks such as the Gerard Bodet Tarot speak to you, and you would like to learn how to read with them, I am running a full-day workshop on the Marseille Tarot in Edinburgh, Scotland, in February 2025. You can also sign up for the Tarot Blog newsletter (different to my main newsletter) below to receive email updates on every new post.

Smiles from Scotland,

Stephen