Black Cat Deck: Ten of Masks

In the Tarot, the Ten of Disks relates to inheritance, material wealth, and status in the community.  The Ten of Masks suggests the diversity of black cats among the domestic feline tribes.  The ten faces include a newborn kitten for the future and a skull for the ancestors.  A hairless Sphynx (bottom of card), an exotic Persian (bottom left), and an Oriental (bottom right)represent purebred physical extremes.  The rest are shelter cats that I have known.  Longhairs are memorials for Coati (top left) and Suki (center left).  Shorthairs are “Mambo” Tyrese (memorial; sister of Crockett and Coona; top of card), Leila (top right), a tiny princess who is still waiting for a home, and Jerry (memorial, center right).

Ten of Masks

Black Cat Deck: Three of Masks

A mask for Mardi Gras and the New Moon…the Three of Masks shows two half cat faces, identical except for hair length, peering from behind a cat  mask.  This is the type of mask with a handle that you can hold.  It’s more playful (and tricky) and less serious than a mask that you wear.  You can use it to hide your own face or reveal it on a whim, “borrowing” the personality of the mask, hinting at shapeshifting powers without completely assuming the identity (and the responsibility) that you do when you wear the mask tied around your head and leave your hands free to do the work of the entity you have temporarily become.

Three of Masks

The cats are the “two Houngans”, Crockett (shorthair) and Coona (longhair), sturdy brothers who still live at the shelter.  I had known them for quite awhile before I realized that they are nearly identical except for hair length, since Coona’s fuzzy black and sable coat is usually adorned with numerous dredlocks.  He often watches from a high shelf while Crockett lurks under the furniture.  They wander the porch together, and at night or in times of stress, they share a cubbyhole.   They are powerful, intense cats who follow me around looking for my attention (and offering their own) without wanting to be petted.

Moon Turtle Mandalas

The circular turtle shell in the Black Cat Deck’s  Eight of Masks is a motif that I have used in several drawings, the most detailed of which is the scratchboard Tsunami Turtle.  The first time I used it, I painted the Dark Moon Tortoise Mandala in forest fire charcoal, charred bone, and silver metallic powders.  It’s been holding a collection of white chalcedony “moon pebbles”, though now I’m drilling some of the pebbles for other projects.  Here it is with an old pencil drawing, Coyote Imitates Uroboros.

Coyote Imitates Uroboros

The design was modified from a realistic drawing of a box turtle shell:

Box Turtle Outline

I’ve used box turtle shells for several drawings that are inspired by the infinite variety of yellow and brown designs on the shell.  The one below is a fanciful handprint design painted in realistic colors using handground iron oxide mineral pigments (goethite, limonite, hematite, and Fe-Mn oxide).  I have a collection of more than a dozen shells, all with very different patterns.  One is nearly black with only a small brown patch on each scute.  Another is mostly yellow.  Most are about half brown and half yellow, with concentric, radiating, or irregular glyph-like patterns. 

Box Turtle Hands

Download a large printable version of the Box Turtle Outline template  HERE to decorate with your own “cheloglyphs”!

The Turtle Shell as a Moon Calendar:  In most turtles, the carapace (the top half of the shell) has 13 scutes (thin brownish and/or yellowish plates that are made of keratin, the same material as hair) and the plastron usually has 12 (some species have 10).  The scutes cover and protect the bone underneath, and develop concentric ridges as the turtle grows.  The number of marginal scutes (the small rectangular plates around the edge of the shell) varies depending on the species but their are typically 12 to 14 on each side, sometimes with a tiny scute called the nuchal at the center front.

All these divisions make the turtle shell an interesting way to lay out stones or other natural objects, divination spreads, drawings, and similar projects that are based on the lunar calendar. 

This Moon Turtle design is a very stylized and fully reversible circular version that I adapted for use with many different media – paper, fabric, metal, etc. :

Small Circular Turtle Template

Download a large printable version for your own project  HERE.

(Downloadable images are for personal use only, not for resale .)

Acuna Cactus

Over the weekend we visited a remote locality for the rare Acuna Cactus, Echinomastus erectocentrus var. acunensis.  After driving for several miles down a 4WD road and hiking up a steep, rugged hill, we reached the hidden cactus garden.

Echinomastus erectocentrus var. acunensis

The other variety of this species, var. erectocentrus (Needlespine Cactus), grows near our house and is an old friend.  Both cacti are rare, very picky about habitat, and have very small ranges.  I’ve had a page of var. erectocentrus photos on my cactus website for several years, and was very happy to finally add new photos of both cacti and publish the first detailed, fully illustrated comparison of the two as living plants, not as herbarium specimens.  The only thing still missing is a photo of acunensis in bloom, and with luck, I’ll get one this spring. 

Echinomastus erectocentrus webpage:

http://www.mineralarts.com/cactus/needlespine.html

Black Cat Deck: Seven of Claws

The Seven of Claws shows a cat balanced on a cottonwood log that has fallen into the water, watching a snake doctor or water strider.  He wants the bug, but he doesn’t want to get wet, and his footing is not secure on the round, smooth surface of the log.  How deep is the water?  What will the bug do if he pokes at it?  How does he get back off the log?  He’s not in any real danger, but his little adventure has brought confusion and frustration along with new and enticing discoveries.  As the suit symbols suggest, only decisive movement will resolve the situation – there’s nothing to be gained by waiting.  The cat is Impy, who gets into situations like this every day even though he lives indoors.  He loves to climb and is drawn to any source of light, fresh air, or movement.  But he is nearly blind, so he often has trouble finding his way down from high places.  The drawing was made from a photo of him climbing along the windowsill to avoid two other cats who were sleeping on a table.

Seven of Claws

Here’s the Title Card, which features Scootch, a small black female shorthair who lived at the Hermitage Cat Shelter a few years ago.  She was born with paralyzed hind legs, but she was a beautiful lady-cat with enormous presence and a bewitching personality.  The drawing was made from a photo of her, so I included her characteristic hunched shoulders and intense expression, but left out her twisted hind legs and instead gave her the power of the kundalini serpent that I always sensed when I was near her.  I am also using the face as an index symbol for the suit of Masks.

The card isn’t very exciting and I may re-do the lettering, though I think it’s nice and understated the way it is.

Title Card

Black Cat Deck: 8 of Masks

The Eight of Masks shows a cat making a cautious exploration of an intriguing creature – a box turtle that has withdrawn into its shell.  Above the cat hangs a moonlike circular turtle shell mandala decorated with eight identical cat faces, symbolic of the mysterious puzzle that turtles present to all cats.  It is a metaphor for feline curiousity about the living world, and a reminder that the simplest of Earth’s ancient secrets can sometimes fool one of its most perfect and successful predators.  The cat in the drawing is our beautiful Reginald – sleek, agile, curious, fearless, yet untouchable.

8 of Masks

Black Cat Cards: Three of Fangs

Three of Fangs

The Three of Fangs shows two cats playing a pouncing game while a third cat approaches, drawn by the excitement and the swirl of energy.  Will he join in the fun or try to break up the game?  Will the other two cats welcome him or drive him away?  All three silhouettes were drawn from photos of the same cat – Dumas, whose long legs, muscular body, and energetic poses make him a good model.

Drilled Pebbles

The Tucson gem shows are in town.  Years ago, this annual event was a total-immersion experience for me – a mad week of looking, visiting, buying, selling, trading, and discovery that inspired me for the rest of the year.  But the shows have changed, though there are still tons of minerals and gems to delight the eye.  Dealers are scattered through more venues around town, prices and expectations have risen, and the whole affair is more serious and less fun.  I haven’t made a sale or a trade in several years, so I don’t buy as much.  The friends I had among the dealers have long since died or quit coming, my own interests and projects have diversified, and I have more cats, more responsibility, and less spare change than I used to.  But I still visit a few shows each year, to admire minerals and buy a few tools, a strand of beads or a cabochon, and perhaps a rock or two.  This year my first stop was the outdoor show at Tucson Electric Park, a sprawling village of little white tents, RVers with tables full of rocks, and the diverse (and sometimes just weird) collection of dealers in the Main Tent.  Made my traditional visit to Kent’s Tools.  The store is a Tucson landmark, with an enormous inventory of new and used tools of all kinds, and their booth at the gem show has a huge array of jeweler’s supplies and lapidary equipment.  This time I bought some little diamond core drills for poking holes in rocks.

Peridot Pendants

These two pendants are for an iron necklace.  Total length is 1.75″ and 1.5″.  They are very large specimens of facet-grade peridot (the gem name for the mineral olivine) from the mines at Peridot, Arizona.  Both are natural rough stones – the one on the right has a natural rounded, frosted, slightly oily-looking polish.

Drilled Pebbles

These two are stones that I collected.  They will eventually adorn knife chains or jewelry.  Both are about one inch long.  On the left is a brown chert beach pebble from the Outer Banks.  The other one is a transluent chalcedony ventifact from Wyoming, naturally sculpted and polished by windblown silt.  The little white hydrated spot is opaque and moonlike, and both pebbles are much more attractive in person.