Windowbox Witchery's Tarot Journal

I did a three card spread for this, to get three main feelings or words that might give me insight into how this month is going to go.

Grimer- poison, gross things, novel

Zubat- repetition, wandering, and exhaustion

Onix- outwardly strong, opinionated, folds quickly against emotional arguments

Oh. Oh dear.

Well, on the good side, Grimer does represent novel things, even if they might be gross. On the bad side, it could represent some emotional poison that I could be giving or receiving.

Zubat could be representing the feelings about I have about my current job situation. I am tired of working at my boring, repetitive job, and I’m currently wandering trying to find my career instead of a day job that I hate.

Using my Morgan-Greer deck, I shuffled, then searched for The Devil, and the two cards next to it.

On the left is the reversed 8 of Cups, and on the right is the upright King of Pentacles.

According to the cards, my two deepest, darkest desires are:

8 of Cups: I want to expand my horizons, but I’m afraid of what that will entail. I’m afraid of the risks that come with it and what I might potentially miss out on, and maybe I need to chill the fuck out and just move forward already?

King of Pentacles: I desire security. Power. Stability. Abundance. I want to feel like I have enough and want for nothing. I want to be in a position where I feel safe and happy.

Whelp, I feel like my cards have taken me for a bit of a ride again, and have pointed to my move. To be fair, this is a huge step I’m taking in my life. I am worried about the things I will miss out on. I will miss things that I can only get here on the west coast.

Dishonored is a sassy fucking deck.

During my friend’s questions, the cards kept repeating themselves in message. The cards were different, but the message was always the same (“Look inside of yourself for the answer”). It got to the point where we were both in stitches (but still kind of exasperated because he asked several different questions and he even threatened to reach through the screen and slap it).

There was also one question where he got a rather literal answer that we found hilarious where he asked about his father, and got a card that was comparable to a Rider-Waite card that had literal dad symbology on it.

However, there was one question where I actually hesitated to answer it, and also got a card that confirmed that I was very right to not really want to answer it. The both of us were quite creeped out by the deck’s answer, but I still answered one more question before I called it a night.

All in all, for my first reading of someone else with the deck, I’m actually rather pleased with it. It gave pretty clear answers that the two of us were able to discuss, and I also learned to trust my gut when it came to readings as well.

What is Cardcaptor Sakura?

Cardcaptor Sakura, for those of us who haven’t heard about it, is an anime from the 1990′s by the group known as CLAMP. CLAMP’s other works include Angelic Layer (which would get me into my other hobby of dolls and BJDs), Chobits, and X-1999 to name a few.

In the anime, a young school girl named Sakura Kinomoto finds an odd book in her father’s study and opens it, releasing cards known as The Clow into her world. Since she released them, it became her duty to re-capture and seal them once again, with the help of the card’s guardian.

She’s joined on her quest by Keroberos (Cerberus), or Kero for short, the sun guardian of the cards created from Western Magic, and her best friend Tomoyo Daidouji (who is also her second cousin), who likes to dress her up in fun outfits for her quests. And she competes with Syaoran Li, who is the descendant of the creator of the cards, Clow Reed, to become worthy of the title of Master of the Clow.

Now that we have the backstory out of the way, let’s get to the interesting bits.

What are the Clow Cards?

The Clow Cards are cards created by the sorcerer Clow Reed. They each posses a magical power, related to their name. Clow himself is of Chinese and English origin, so his magic combines both Eastern and Western traditions that he picked up from his English father and Chinese mother.

To protect their power once Clow died, he had the cards sealed away in the Clow Book until “The Chosen One” appeared. The Chosen One would be judged by Yue, the Clow’s moon guardian who was created from Eastern magic, once all the cards were collected.

Each of the cards has its own powers and personality, as they are sentient beings within their own right. Some of them are peaceful, some are violent, and each of their powers revolves around a specific element or a power that could help someone accomplish a task.

In order to become the owner of Clow Cards, you have to capture them and sign your name on them to bind them to you. Once the card becomes yours, you can use its powers freely, and the cards may even change imagery based upon their owner (more on that in the next section).

The Clow/Sakura cards were based off of the Major Arcana of more traditional tarot, which I’ll talk about more when I cover the Hierarchy of the Clow/Sakura Cards.

What are Sakura/Star Cards?

In the source material, many of the Clow Cards change when Sakura takes ownership of them. They change color and style, and even the symbology changes ever so slightly. Here’s a visual comparison between the Sakura Cards and the Clow Cards (large image, click to zoom in).

The Sakura Cards are the exact same as the Clow, with mostly visual differences such as color (Clow Cards have a red/gold color scheme with sun and moon motifs, and Sakura Cards have a pink/gold scheme with star motifs), the magic circle design on the back, and a few extra cards: The Nameless and The Hope.

Hierarchy of The Clow

The Clow Cards have their own hierarchy, which is as such:

The Master of the Clow (In the manga/anime, it was Clow Reed, and then later it became Sakura). This could represent the reader themselves when it comes to real-world divination.

The Sun Guardian Keroberos and The Moon Guardian Yue

The Four Elements

The Earthy

The Fiery

The Watery

The Windy

The Two Attributes

The Light

The Dark

And the rest of the 46 known cards are split into these categories, with the exception of three that only the Master has control of:

The Nameless

This card only exists as a Sakura Card, and it represents Sakura’s and Syaoran’s intense feelings for one another.

In Tsubasa Chronicles, another manga by CLAMP that is a combination of all their worlds, an older Syaoran is deeply in love with an older Sakura, but it’s implied in Cardcaptor that they are in love as children as well.

The Nothing

The Nothing is a card that contains the negative half of all the magic of the Clow. Clow Reed made this card to act as a balance to the other Cards.

As its name suggests, it will turn anyone or anything that touches it into nothing, effectively “unmaking” them.

The Hope

Another Sakura Card exclusive, this card is the result of a merger between The Nameless and The Nothing.

It’s powers are unknown, but are speculated to be simply giving people hope.

Despite drawing inspiration from tarot, The Clow/Sakura Cards have no Arcana to speak of, but instead rely on this hierarchy and class system.

The Fortune Book compares the Clow/Sakura Cards to playing cards in terms of divination rather than tarot, since playing cards were derived from the Minor Arcana of tarot and thus have no Major Arcana to speak of, though the Clow/Sakura Cards all mimic the style of the Major Arcana in terms of design.

Symbology

Obviously for any tarot, symbology is super important, as it gives a reader clues to the meaning of the card.

The Clow/Sakura Cards each have their own symbols, but the decks themselves also have their own color schemes and motifs, mostly just to visually differentiate between them.

As for the individual card symbols and representations, they stay relatively the same between the two decks.

There is also groups of symbols that reflect the card’s powers:

A feminine figure

As the central image

Holding something related to the card’s power, such as The Bubbles or The Arrow

An Animal related to the power

The Jump has a rabbit-like creature

An Object

The Sword

An old man holding something relating to the power

The Time

Within the source material, there is a lot of emphasis on the feminine form and many things about the show are feminine-coded. Sakura’s deck is pink, she wears frilly, elaborate dresses to go capture Clow, Kero’s everyday form is soft, round in nature, and cute.

I would argue that this is because Cardcaptor Sakura is a magical girl anime, and that’s a traditionally feminine market, and CLAMP themselves are all women, so they made it to appeal to women.

As such, there could also be discussions on the feminine principles of magic and how they relate to the symbology as well.

So, how can I use these for Divination in my own practice?

The Clow can be used in Cardcaptor’s canon to predict the future. Each card’s meaning is derived from each card’s individual power, and most of them are actually quite obvious.

For instance, according to The Fortune Book (which you can download here, with or without pictures), The Mirror would represent looking at and evaluating one’s self, as though you were examining your reflection in the mirror. Simple, right?

As previously mentioned, each card has their own meaning, so, like with any deck, it will require you, as a reader, to learn each card’s meaning individually.

When it comes to spreads, obviously any spread you can use for other tarot or divination decks you can use for The Clow, as far as I’m aware!

In Conclusion

The Clow/Sakura Cards are a very non-traditional form of card divination, and are actually quite blatant about their meanings. As such, it would be an easy deck to pick up for beginners who want to try something that isn’t Rider-Waite and/or doesn’t conform to the Major/Minor Arcana format.

Today I pulled the Wheel of Fortune card from the Pusheen digital Tarot Deck by hungrymelissa!

The first thing I notice on this card is Pusheen, dressed up like Santa Paws, handing out goodies from their bag. This gives me a feeling of generosity and goodwill.

The Wheel of Fortune represents good luck, life cycles, or destiny when upright, but can represent bad luck, negative external forces or a lack of control when reversed.

The Pusheen tarot doesn’t align with traditional symbology for the Wheel of Fortune card from the Rider-Waite tarot. 

The planet aligned with the Wheel of Fortune is Jupiter, the planet of opportunity, success, and expansion.

The Wheel of Fortune represents cycles, things coming and going, good times and bad. Even if things are difficult now, they will get better, and will eventually become more fun and accepting.