If you don't know about her, you should. Brigit (Biddy) Esselmont has been a professional tarot reader for fifteen years and has been an online presence in the tarot community for many of those years as well. I first remember encountering her on the Aeclectic Tarot Forums back in 2004 and was impressed with her meticulous skill for developing workable tarot spreads that weren't just new arrangements of the same old positions. I mean, seriously people, you can arrange the cards into a different shape, but if the position meanings are the same as all the others, what's so different about this new spread? Biddy's spreads are worked and re-worked and tested until she's satisfied they are entirely useful. Her talent is in no way limited to spreads. With Biddy's newly released e-book, "The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings" Biddy has condensed so much of her work into a very usable and useful handbook.
Tarot is such a vast subject and the meanings of tarot cards are, in some ways, infinite and variable, that it can be quite a challenge to present a volume of tarot card meanings without rambling on and on and going off on various tangents. Biddy presents her card meanings in such a clear, concise manner while stating at the beginning that the book is not meant to be a "be-all and end-all" to tarot card meanings and that tarot cards often take on different meanings depending on the reading. It is called a "guide" for that very reason. It is called the "Ultimate Guide"and I don't feel it disappoints in that regard because it is very comprehensive. But Biddy had to place some limits on the virtually limitless topic of tarot. The guide uses only the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. While the majority of tarot decks are based in Rider Waite imagery, the other systems such as Tarot de Marseilles and Thoth, while similar, do have their own meaning associations that differ from the RWS. The book would have become unwieldy had she attempted to incorporate all systems and meanings. As it stands, the book is very well organized, and it's clear a great deal of thought went into how to make it accessible and easy to consult.
There is also a companion workbook in which Biddy encourages you to basically create your own Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings! It is formatted just like her book only you have the task of working with the cards and allowing your own intuition and study to speak and journal what these cards come to mean to you. Brilliant! Together the Guide and Workbook are $38.50. If you do well with workbooks and appreciate the pre-formatted design, it's well worth the extra $9.50, but if you don't think you'll use it, don't buy it. Once again, Biddy knows her audience and has created a product that is customizable to anyone's individual preference.
Of course, I always "test drive" products that I review. Biddy includes some bonuses at the end of her book which include suggestions for 3-card readings. I randomly chose one and will use her guide to interpret the reading. I have been experiencing some frustrating roadblocks at my work. I have been trying to interview for other positions outside of my department and my efforts have resulted in a big, fat nothing. So, I chose: Where You Stand Now/What You Aspire To/How To Get There for my spread.
Where I Stand Now: Using Biddy's keyword chart, the 10 of Swords means: back-stabbed, defeat, crisis, betrayal, endings, loss. I can immediately relate to much of this given how I am perceiving my current situation at work. I do feel where I am is a dead-end and every effort I have made to change my situation thus far has been met with defeat. One of the quotations used for the 10 of Swords gives me some hope: "Many a man has finally succeeded only because he has failed after repeated efforts. If he had never met defeat he would never have known any great victory." --Orison Swett Marden In Biddy's more descriptive text, she speaks of acceptance of endings, and while my job has not ended (so far!) I was given some news on Friday that clearly told me that it was indeed a dead-end job, that I had virtually no hope of moving upward within my department. I spent the weekend feeling very sorry for myself but determined to make some changes. Unsure what those changes will be, however, I am still in this 10 of Swords place, feeling defeated and a little betrayed but resolving myself to this situation. She writes, "The Ten of Swords is about letting go and accepting your current circumstances. You no longer resist change but allow it to happen, even if it causes some initial pain and hurt to you. You accept that there must be change in order to facilitate renewal, and you allow it to occur rather than fighting it." Yes, indeed, by the end of this weekend, I am able to say I am there.
What I Aspire To: Biddy's keywords for the 7 of Pentacles are: Vision, perseverance, profit, reward, investment. Hell to the yeah! I aspire to a job where I have a vision, and I don't mind persevering if there will be profit, and reward, but not in a position that has no potential to yield anything. I want to invest in something that has promise. The most applicable quote under this card is: "Progress however, of the best kind, is comparatively slow. Great results cannot be achieved at once; and we must be satisfied to advance in life as we walk, step by step." -- Samuel Smiles. See, I understand that. And slow progress is good, but none is not. In her general definition, Biddy talks about this being a card of long-term goals and of putting forth efforts in areas that look promising rather than into efforts that clearly will not pay off. No one is looking for a quick win here, so this card and her definition is very apt. I simply want my efforts to be rewarded and to apply myself where I will see and reap those rewards.
How To Get There: Biddy's keywords for the 5 of Swords are: Conflict, tension, loss, defeat, win at all costs, betrayal. Hmmmm. Could tarot be telling me that I'm not going to get where I aspire to at my current place of employment? Possibly. Meanwhile, I can use the energy of this card to keep trying to "win." Not at all costs, of course, but to not be satisfied with "losing." Surprisingly this quote struck the strongest with me in this situation: "You must never be satisfied with losing. You must get angry, terribly angry, about losing. But the mark of the good loser is that he takes his anger out on himself and not his victorious opponents or on his teammates." Richard M. Nixon, of all people. In this case, Biddy's card meaning specifically for work and finances nailed it, I think. She writes: "In a work reading, the Five of Swords suggests that you have to operate within a very competitive, dog-eat-dog environment. Hostility, tension and conflict are high, so you must look out for your own interests and needs, otherwise you will not succeed." Bam. Right on it. Clearly, I need to invest my time into looking for work outside my current environment, possibly outside the company itself, in order to invest in something that will ultimately yield reward. While I remain there, I need to get serious about actively looking out for number one or I'm doomed to lose out time and time again.
Keep in mind, too, that for this trial run reading, I have only used very abbreviated portions of Biddy's card meanings. They are extensive and cover not just the general meaning of each card but also its application to Work & Finance, Relationships, Personality Types, Spirituality, and Well-being and Health. For my topic, I focused on her General and Work & Finance categories. Did I say this guide was comprehensive? It's also not what we often derisively call a LWB or Little White Book, the small pamphlet that is included in many tarot deck boxes with basic, generic, keywords and meanings for each card. This guide is genuinely helpful, by itself, in rendering an accurate and useful reading. I didn't even add my own personal, intuitive commentary on this reading and with the guide alone was given valuable insight into my current situation.
You can, if you like, view a sample of The Ultimate Guide to Tarot Card Meanings.
