To further my personal understandings of the cards, as well as supplement the little white book I send out with the decks (until the eventual release of the Ellis decK companion book) as well as a break from the graphic novel I'm working on presently, I thought it would be fun to start posting cards and talking about them a bit here in the blog.  I'm taking the first one from my Card of the Day on the Ellis decK app which I like to use as a study prompt myself.

The young person in all of us that rolls their eyes at everything. Often when we have something good go on for long enough, be it a job, relationship, project, or influence, we get so used to it that we take it for granted. After we take it for granted long enough, we can get sick of it or lose our appreciation for it. Something shiny and inspiring no longer has the novelty it once did. Maybe we used to love iced cream and get excited about it, but then we started eating it every day. Then we moved from surprise to expectation to boredom. From boredom, we move into a careless apathy, not sure what to do with ourselves. In a culture where we constantly get new everything thanks to our technology, many of us think this is the best way to be: the first kid on the block to be "over it." The fourth cup could be the ensuing stomach ache after too much of a good thing. The good news is this knock on the head should inspire us into doing something different.

This card is the standstill that happens to the uninspired. Looking at the same things over and over again, and searching for motivation in what has already been done, a stagnation occurs. The futility of trying to get inspired can be just as maddeningly dull as the boredom itself if we stick to what we already know. Especially if we're taking it for granted. The fourth cup will usually come and knock over our untidy kingdom enough to get things moving again. 

The misfortune here isn't that we may get a knock on the head. The problem is we've gotten lazy. When thinking on this card, we consider where in life we feel like a know-it-all and we've stopped listening.

    So, In theory, I'm writing a book right now. This is to be the companion book for the Ellis Deck and it is meant to go deeper into the card meanings than I do here on the website, as well as in the deck's booklet. If things go right, there will be a bit more of the story aspect and I'm hoping my personal musings on the cards will keep it from being ANOTHER sterile book of meanings. To be fair, I love sterile books of fixed meanings, I usually leave the bookstore with at least one per visit. I'm just hoping this book has a little more flavor to it.
    On top of that, I'm trying to get things in order for the next run of the decks. Trying to find the correct-size mailing envelopes, figure out shipping prices, getting a P.O. box, all these things need to get done. On top of that, I just typed "On Top of That" again, I didn't even look up at the top of this paragraph to see I've already used that piece of language. This probably means I've depleted my "Writer's Chi" for the rest of the evening, and I'll probably move on to a more passive activity after this.
    In all this "To-Do," it doesn't hurt to invoke the Knight of Pentacles. This is the Knight who gets the work done. He's interested in moving something from the "talking about an idea" realm into the "something you can see with your eyes and touch with your hands" realm. He's not afraid of the work it takes to do this and is eager to prove it can be done. If you are in a situation with a lot of talkers with no results, the Knight of Pentacles rode on a long time ago.

Since he's a Knight of Few Words, I'll cut the talking and save the rest of the writing for the book....for now.

   This is a Repost of a Front Page Entry I made last week, this site will be slowly evolving to have a blog as the front page. Thank you for tolerating all the flux - :)
     First of all, a big thank-you to everyone who purchased one of the first one hundred decks. The time spent on the project was not without some antagonizing moments where I wasn't sure I would be selling ten decks.
    I owe a second big thank-you to Thalasa Therese and the Daughters of Divination group for having me so very last minute to the Bay Area Tarot Symposium or B.A.T.S. This was a wonderful opportunity to get the Ellis Deck out of the Dallas bubble and into the world of Tarot readers from all over the country. The cards got such enthusiastic reception that the idea I had ever doubted myself seemed silly. By the end of the conference, I had sold my last deck!
    Being my first symposium, and being a young and eager vendor, I spent most of my time glued to my seat at the vendor table. Fortunately, that did not limit my experience in making contact with some very interesting people. If you are a card reader and wish to expand your knowledge of cards through classes, exposure to new materials, and incredible converstations, you cannot go wrong with this annual event.

For anyone that has purchased The Ellis Deck, I present to you its missing booklet. I am grateful for everyone who had the patience to look online at my site for card meanings and reading techniques. I am happy to send anyone already owning a deck a copy of the booklet for their use.
The booklet contains a foreward from my mentor John "Ashley" Bellamy, some words from myself, a brief introduction to the Tarot, a How-to for three tarot spreads, and brief interpretations of each card.

A larger companion book is in the works. I'm looking forward to fleshing out the card meanings and doing a bit more storytelling.

    My first run (and possibly some of the subsequent runs) of the Ellis Deck is without the little booklet that comes along with a lot of tarot decks. The main reason for this is I'm fortunate enough to have been able to afford the 100 I've printed to this point for the show 78 On Deck I'll be doing with friend and fellow artist Phillip McVean. This did not leave me the revenue for additional printing.
    My solution is that on the back of each tuckbox my Tarot Decks are packaged in, is a referral to my website for card meanings and techniques for reading.
    What that meant, is that I'll be writing 78 meanings to go with my cards. This started as kind of a dry process. I spent time writing words, and symbols that come to mind when I thought of each card. As I had enough done to review, I felt like this has been done. There are plenty of websites covered in card meanings, and that I would have been better off recommending one of those sites. After a walk, some coffee, a few conversations, and a trip back to my desk for the day, I had a new plan.
    I had a story in mind while I was creating the Major Arcana cards for my deck. It went along with the basic tarot story, but I put my own accents on it, and wanted to make it a little meatier than what had come in the booklet with decks I had collected in the past. Now, the process has gone from standard definitions, to short story paragraphs and has become a lot more fun to do. As the show gets closer and the printing of the posters is being done and the mockup of the gallery is coming together, this has become a wonderful second project to let me feel creative even during this left-brain period of the process.