Ace of Rods - Morgan Greer Deck

My last post was about the Ace of Wands using the Arcus Arcanum deck. Now here's the deal - I am only doing readings with the Arcus Arcanum deck right now, but I did use the Morgan Greer deck for a while. I had to stop using it because, as my Tarot teacher put it, it was my Pollyanna deck. No matter what was going on in my life or the life of the person I was reading for, everything was hunky dory in the reading!

For a while, I used two decks (if someone wanted to hear the good stuff, I'd pull out the Morgan Greer deck), but at this point, I've been away from Tarot for a while and am working to reconnect with my Arcus Arcanum deck.

That being said, I still love my Morgan Greer deck, and I feel like doing a bit of a comparison between these two aces.

This is the Ace of Rods from the Morgan Greer deck.



And here's the Ace of Wands from the Arcus Arcanum deck.


Some of the differences are obvious. The Morgan Greer deck feels (to me) very 1960s. This is interesting since it was published in 1979. I'm not sure when the Arcus Arcanum deck first came out, but it was illustrated by a comic book artist, and the pictures really do have a class comic book feel to them.

Some of the differences are in my interpretation of the cards. Both are fire aces (wood). Aces are about beginings of a cycle, they are the person alone, they are individual cards. Both as fire signs are about passion and However, the Ace of Rods in the Morgan Greer deck has a more ethereal feel to it. The Arcus Arcanum Ace of Wands has a much stronger, more passionate feel to it.

In the Morgan Greer Ace of Rods, the hand is wielding the stick, prepared for the change to come. In the Arcus Arcanum Ace of Wands, the hand that is wielding the stick is the passion, and it's being attacked by a lion! That's not just a card about the start of a new cycle, that's a pretty explicit statement about a coming onslaught! When I first looked at the Ace of Wands in the Arcus Arcanum deck, this is one of the differences that really slapped me in the face. The other card whose difference in meaning really shocked me is the Lovers card (and I'm sure that I'll be posting information on that card here in the future).

I wish that I could properly emphasize how what I'm saying isn't good or bad per say. Each card has its own interpretation, and while one card gives me a more forceful feel with the idea of outside influences pushing in on the individual, that's not necessarily bad (or necessarily good). I'm still ambivalent about my decision to post this blog with my interpretations of cards because of what a personal thing each interpretation is. This is how I personally feel about the cards. Looking over my notes about how I felt about the cards a few years ago, it's interesting seeing how my interpretations have changed. I wonder how different (or not different) my interpretations of the same cards will be in another five years!

It goes without saying that everything I'm writing is my own interpretation of the cards (of course). Someone else might look at this and think I'm nuts ;-) Of course, someone would actually need to be reading my blog for them to think that what I'm saying is nuts, and since there's no one reading this, I guess that's something I don't have to worry about!