On New Years Eve I drew a card from the Enchanted Oracle. The card I got was not what I was expecting! This is what "Tattered Dreams" has to say: "Something that you believed in and counted on has unraveled. A belief has ceased to be true for you anymore. A person has proven false. An outcome has fallen far short of the expectation. Whatever has happened, it has had reverberating effects in your world. It is as if the foundation has been shaken and everything on it has fallen. It is unspeakably distressing, but it has happened nonetheless. It is fortunate, though, that the wheels that create dreams do keep spinning in spite of tragedies. And the same energy that may destroy something can also provide the energy to rebuild. And in the midst of tattered dreams, there is always a butterfly that will give you hope, if only you can see it." This could not be more true!!! On New Years Day, my flat was burgled. I was unfortunate enough to be home when it happened. ...

The original purpose of tarot cards was for playing games, the first basic rules appearing in the manuscript of Martiano da Tortona before 1425, and the next from the year 1637. The game of tarot has many cultural variations. Divination using playing cards is in evidence as early as 1540 in a book entitled The Oracles of Francesco Marcolino da Forlì which allows a simple method of divination, though the cards are used only to select a random oracle and have no meaning in themselves. Manuscripts from 1735 ( The Square of Sevens ) and 1750 ( Pratesi Cartomancer ) document rudimentary divinatory meanings for the cards of the tarot as well as a system for laying out the cards. Giacomo Casanova wrote in his diary that in 1765 his Russian mistress frequently used a deck of playing cards for divination. The name "tarot" may come from the River Taro in northern Italy, near Parma. The Val di Taro was of strategic importance during the Middle Ages, as it was traversed by th...