Hello, hello, and I hope you all had or are continuing to have a good Christmas or holiday break.
This week, I’m going to be looking at the two Sibilla decks (the Sibilla Vera and the Sibilla Indovina) in terms of what they might be able to tell us for the year ahead.
Now, you may have been wondering, and in answer to the question of “Can you do a Grand Tableau with Sibilla cards?” the answer is YES! It’s by no means the only possible layout you can do with Sibillas, and I won’t do it for the other deck, but it’s actually really good fun to play with because of the storytelling nature of these cards.
So, without further ado, see below for a possible layout WITH card reversals included, that I did for 2023 News Stories.
2023 News Predictions With The Sibilla Vera Deck
About A Sibilla Vera/Gypsy Card Oracle Grand Tableau
Obviously, there is SO much we can possibly look at that I’m actually not going to spend as much time going into detail on this as I did with the Kipper. Instead, I’ll start with the four corners and a very broad overview, and illustrate some snippets in more detail.
In terms of card meanings, most are fairly self explanatory; reversals are usually either the opposite meaning, or intensify the meaning. And for card meanings, you might want to check out the book about the Gypsy Oracle cards (another version of the Sibilla Vera where cards have the same images and meanings) by M. Jacqueline Murray, as she goes through them each in great detail.
Now, you can of course explore any cards or areas you’re interested in yourself in your own time, but the principle is pretty similar to that of the Kipper. I didn’t include Houses here for the sake of simplicity, but you can of course incorporate those using the numbers on the right hand corner of each card in the Sibilla Vera).
Other techniques you can use here include knighting and mirroring to get more info. You can look around any cards of interest to get a picture of the influences and story around them, as well as explore where they fall in ‘events’ by looking at the rows, columns and diagonals in which they sit.
So for my overview today, I’m just going to look at the four corners first off, and get into a bit of detail on each so you can see what I mean.
The Four Corners
The four corners, clockwise from the bottom left, give us news (Letter) of a frivolous or unreliable young woman (Young Woman, R) and sense of service (Service) mourned or lost (Widower).
Now, for illustration of how you can explore more about any card of interest quite simply, just taking a quick glance around that Widower card, we can see that other people mourned appear to include an Old Woman and a Wife and mother. There’s also a great Love that is grieved or causes loss and sadness (Sorrow). Obviously, the Widower is mirrored by the other corner cards, but knighting the Widower card gives you extra information; it speaks of regret and sadness over a marriage (Melancholy, Marriage), but also that the Widower gains benefits and gifts from his mourning status (Gifts). So there’s something bittersweet or even a bit self indulgent for him here. You can look at the diagonals and rows & columns leading to any card, too; the diagonal here leading to the Widower tells us there are private consolations (Room, Consolation) that come from the constant grieving (Constancy, Sorrow) of this figure. Which is kind of interesting.
Similarly, looking around the Letter card, for news and messages, we can see it being delivered by the Messenger, that there’s news of a Child and a Servant/Maid, i.e. someone looking after the child, a nanny figure perhaps, and news or a message bringing Celebration. Knighting the Letter card, we get Longing, so someone’s longing or yearning for news or a message, there’s a Scholar (or Man of Letters) involved, which in this case could refer to a journalist (of either sex) and Falsehood. So is the Scholar/Man of Letters writing something false? Is this “fake news” or a false narrative that someone’s been longing to have ‘put out there’? The cards leading to it diagonally show privacy and private life (Room) and a sense of failed protection (Soldier, R), as well as Money or payment for the Servant/Maid figure, and news or a message about this. Curiouser and curiouser.
Now let’s look in more detail at the unreliable or frivolous Young Woman (R) in the top corner. She is given the more negative connotation of this card because she is reversed; upright, she’s generally seen as quite an honourable, pleasant young woman. Generally, the reverse suggests someone displaying indolence, laziness, dishonourable behaviour, which is what we have here. Around her, we see that she feels trapped or imprisoned in some way (Prison), and below her that there’s a kind of unhealthy loyalty or faithfulness at work (Fidelity, Malady). A kind of maladaptive loyalty. If we look at the diagonals leading from her, we see the Malady again bringing Money and a Friend or friendship, a nice Surprise or benefit which also brings Hope. So she does appear to have allies or people on-side.
Finally, what about the Service in the right-hand corner? This card, the male servant, generally indicates a kind of spirit of service for members of either sex. But there’s something ‘off’ here; although he is upright, next to Service, we have the reversed Thought, which suggests thoughtlessness, carelessness, impetuousness, perhaps, acting without thinking. Below him is Cheerfulness, so it’s kind of “service with a smile” but importantly, here we have a Male Enemy at work, so there’s a cheerful or celebrating enemy. Service is mirrored, of course, by the indolent Young Woman, the mourning Widower and the Letter, for news and messages, so has a connection with all of these. Knighting this card, we get the Male Lover so that suggests that the main intent of this “service” is to find love, and also Gifts, the treasures, so it’s really about “service for gain” or the benefits and rewards it brings. All fairly superficial, low-level and unedifying stuff. Meanwhile, looking at the diagonals here, we see service to or from a Male Enemy who is constantly showing off or makes proud and arrogant displays (Constancy, Haughtiness), and brings Surprise gains for a Lord, or Main Man in the situation.
My first summary, then, of what appears to be going on in this 2023 reading:
There’ll be news of a frivolous, indolent or unreliable young woman, and a spirit of service being lost or mourned. Others mourned by those who have lost them include an older woman and a wife or mother, and there’s a sense of sorrow, although it seems that the state of constant grieving itself appears to convey some private benefits to those doing so and may be rather self-indulgent. Meanwhile, news is delivered about a child and someone looking after them, news which someone, at least, will be celebrating. They have been yearning for this message or news, which could be written by a journalist or writer, although it may not be entirely true, and could have an element of “fake news” about it or convey a false narrative. It seems to involve a sense of privacy or private/family life where there is a lack of protection of safety, as well as money for the person looking after the child, which will be part of the “message” being brought.
Meanwhile, the frivolous or unreliable young woman feels trapped in some way, and she has a foundation of unhealthy, perhaps manipulative, attachments and loyalties underpinning her. But the unhealthiness or maladaptive approach brings money and friendships, benefits and surprises which give her hope. So she does have people on-side. However, there is something rather off about the approach to “service” here. It may be “service with a smile”, but appears to involve thoughtlessness, impetuousness, perhaps even a lack of basic intelligence, and there is a male enemy involved in it or performing it. The purpose of the “service” seems primarily to gain love or to be or gain a male lover, and also to get access to the benefits, gifts and rewards it brings. The service of the male enemy involves what seems to be constant showing off or displays of great arrogance, which nonetheless brings surprise gains for a particular “main man” in the picture.
So there we go! Obviously, there are a number of figures in world news who this may apply to. All in all though, it appears to be highlighting a sense of shaky values, general selfishness and self indulgence, and superficiality at play for whoever is involved.
Tomorrow, I’ll be going into more detail of what the rows and columns are telling us about this story.