The Threes – Synthesis and Creativity

3 of Wands – Galaxy Cluster
It may be obvious that stars cluster together in galaxies, but galaxies themselves also form large groups or clusters. In fact some of them are mind-bogglingly huge, containing a thousand or more galaxies each with billions of stars. This is the universe on its grandest scale. The 3 of Wands is about vision. It takes an effort of thought to even imagine the size of a galaxy cluster, and similarly this card demands that we let go of our self-imposed limitations and think big. Let your wildest dreams be your guide and think outside of the box.

3 of Cups – Star Cluster
On a smaller scale than galaxies, stars form dense and beautiful clusters. Their mutual gravity pulls them together so that the fate of one star affects the rest. The best-known star cluster is the Pleiades, visible to the naked eye in the constellation Orion. The effect of one star upon another in the cluster is mirrored in the group synergy of the 3 of Cups. This is the card of like-minded friends and collaborators, the people who – outside of our love partners – we actually chose to be with. This group energy can express in anything from holding a party to a collective brainstorming session to embarking on a collaborative project to playing a team sport.

3 of Swords – Red Dwarf
A red dwarf is the runt of the litter where stars are concerned. About half the size of our sun and neither big nor powerful enough to shine brightly, it’s easily outdone by brighter companions in the night sky. Here, the synthesis of the threes is expressed as pain and the hurt, though internalised, usually has an external source. Someone, sometime, has plunged a knife into your heart. The 3 of Swords shows us that it is time to become conscious of where we are hurting, and to allow the pain to work itself out so that we can heal.

3 of Pentacles – Atomic structure
An atom is not a undifferentiated lump of matter but a grouping together of different subatomic particles; a nucleus of protons and neutrons (which are themselves made up of quarks), orbited by one or more electrons. The simple, elegant, fundamental structure of the atom can teach us much about building a solid and suitable foundation for our creative endeavours. The 3 of Pentacles takes the exciting vision of the 3 of Wands, makes a concrete plan, and sets about putting that plan to work.

Choose your Quantum Card for this Week



Here's another selection of Quantum Tarot cards, chosen by me at random. Please pick whichever one draws your eye and if you like leave me a comment about your choice - I'd be really interested to know. :)

I'm tempted by both the World and the Queen of Wands, but I'm going to go for the 3 of Pentacles. This is a time when I'm really focussed on building a creative life as a writer, and as I've got three projects on the go it seems extra appropriate!

This week I've been guest-blogging over at Arwen's excellent Musings on the Tarot. She asked me to write about the process of creating the Quantum Tarot and I had great fun doing it. It was wonderful to look back over the journey Chris Butler and I have had with the deck over the last couple of years, now that it's finally seeing the light of day.

As an added incentive, if you post a comment on Arwen's blog, you'll be entered into a draw for a FREE reading with the Quantum Tarot, which I'll be posting here on my blog next week.

The Twos - Relationship and Duality

In the tarot, twos represent duality – the splitting or propagating of the initiating energy of the aces. The challenge of the twos is the integration, or bringing into relationship, of these often conflicting energies.

2 of Wands – Planet formation
Planets form out of disks of dust and gas, whirling into form under the pressure of gravity. The 2 of Wands represents a vision, an idea or a project in its early, protean form. The inspiration of the ace has begun to coalesce, but the details are not yet clear. The epiphany, the eureka moment, has occurred, now the process of formation and cohesion must take place to convert it into a fully-developed plan.

2 of Cups – Binary system
A binary system is a pair of stars that have been caught by each other’s gravity into perpetual, mutual orbit. Here, duality takes on its most complementary shape in the formation of a relationship. Cups is the realm of emotion and the two can often indicate falling in love. Not exclusively, however. It symbolises any meeting of two minds and hearts that may go onto form a third entity – a relationship. This might just as likely be a friendship or business partnership as a love relationship.

2 of Swords – Dark matter
Dark matter is so called because of its mysterious nature. It does not react with the other, ordinary matter in the universe and its existence is only known because of its gravitational effects. When the duality of the twos meets the realm of the mind, you get an energy that works against itself. The swords are crossed, indicating a psyche in conflict. The blindfold shows how we may keep ourselves “in the dark” by self-defeating habits of thought or denial. We are, quite literally, blinkered.

2 of Pentacles – Spin
Spin is a quality of subatomic particles and forms part of quantum theory. The particles do not literally spin round, but they do have a measurable angular momentum. The strange behaviour of subatomic particles in quantum theory is reflected in the up-and-down quality of the 2 of Pentacles. Here, the energy of the twos expresses in a kind of will-they-won’t-they sense of indecision. Things could go either way. In the physical world of pentacles, the duality is acted out literally – we are faced with a concrete choice, or we are “juggling” options. There is a sense that everything is still up in the air and the outcome is far from certain.

Choose your Quantum Card of the Week



As a tribute to Susan Gold's Tarot Table Talk blog, I'm offering a choice of six cards (chosen at random) from the Quantum Tarot for your card of the week.

Susan features a different deck every week for her readers to choose from, and recently she was kind enough to feature the Quantum.

Simply choose the card that draws your eye or seems to chime with what's going on for you. If you like, leave a comment and share which card you chose and why - I'd be really interested to hear your story.

My own choice for this week? It will have to be Justice - this definitely a time for being honest with myself and facing the truth - and speaking it too!

The Quantum Tarot is published this month by Kunati

Aces High

In any tarot deck, the Minor Arcana comprise the number cards from Ace to Ten in each suit. There are four suits, just as there are with playing cards. Suit names vary but the Quantum Tarot follows the convention of the well-known Rider-Waite-Smith tarot, calling the four suits Wands, Cups, Swords and Pentacles.

The four Aces of the Quantum Tarot represent the carrier particles for the four universal forces - Gravity (the Empress), Electromagnetism (the Magician), the Strong Nuclear Force (the Emperor) and the Weak Nuclear Force (the High Priestess).

The following table shows the correspondence between the Aces and the Major Arcana cards:


Aces all represent beginnings, births, and emergence. Each ace embodies the energy of its suit in its purest form.

The Ace of Wands expresses the fiery energy of their suit through an upsurge of physical, spiritual or sexual force. This is Ace-ness in its most basic form - an explosion of sheer energy and life.

The Ace of Cups symbolises the birth of a new emotion, an opening of the heart. Its flowing, watery imagery shows the boundless nature of pure compassion.

The Ace of Swords represents the eureka moment when an idea emerges into consciousness. Its cutting edge expresses the sharpness and focus of a new level of awareness.

The Ace of Pentacles indicates the beginning of a new project in the physical, material world. The single Pentacle is the first building block, the first step along the road to manifesting something in reality.
Next week: The Twos.

Wallpapering with the Quantum



I thought I'd share with you the desktop wallpapers that Quantum artist Chris Butler created especially for our virtual launch party. They'll brighten up any computer desktop (I currently have the Moon wallpaper on mine) as well as giving you just a taste of the Quantum deck. Great job Chris!

To download the wallpapers, simply right-click on an image, click on Save Image As, then select the directory where you want to save the wallpaper. To load the wallpaper onto your desktop (for Windows XP users), simply right-click anywhere in your deskstop, select properties, then click on the Desktop tab. Now click Browse, navigate to the directory where you saved your wallpaper, highlight the wallpaper file and click OK. Click Apply to activate the wallpaper on your desktop, then OK again.

The Quantum Tarot is published September 2008 by Kunati.


A Quantum Shift in Our Understanding of the Universe



Many questions about the origins of the universe could be about to be answered when the Large Hadron Collider at Cern comes online this Wednesday.

The LHC,
the biggest and most powerful particle accelerator in the world, may provide the solution to such mysteries as the Big Bang, the nature of dark matter and the existence of extra dimensions.

Extra dimensions (beyond the one temporal and three spatial dimensions we are used to) are a critical part of superstring theory, and finding them may be an important first step in confirming strings as the fundamental building blocks of matter.

Many of the theories tested by the LHC are illustrated and explained in the
Quantum Tarot, including the Fool (the Big Bang), Death (Matter & Antimatter), 2 of Swords(Dark Matter), and the Star (String Theory).

The Quantum Tarot is published this month by Kunati and is available from

Quantum Tarot Blasts Off at #3!

The Quantum Tarot launched yesterday with a flurry of online activity, including a unique "virtual party". This event, described by author and publisher Derek Armstrong as "a first in author marketing", took place on the popular and influential Aeclectic Tarot Forum.

Running to many pages, hundreds of posts and thousands of views, the online launch included a specially-created Quantum cocktail, raffle prizes, custom-made Quantum Tarot desktops and forum avatars designed by Quantum deck artist Chris Butler.
The raffle prizes were; a copy of the Quantum Tarot, a specially-designed 22-card Infinity Arcana by Chris, plus a selection of A4 prints from the deck.

Amidst the 24 hours of celebrations, the Quantum climbed to #3 in Amazon's tarot top 100, and continues to sell strongly.

The deck is also featured this week over at Susan Gold's Tarot Table Talk, where you can pick a card from the Quantum as your card of the week.

Many thanks to Kunati, our publisher, for all their support over the last few months and doing such a beautiful job of producing the deck.