As some of you know, by daugher has come to fear the tripod. This evening, she was looking through KellyM’s tarot deck, and showing me the cups, saying cup, cup, cup as she found cup cards. A while later, KellyM found her applying the Queen of Cups to the evil tripod. It seems obviously an attempt to cast a protective spell. I’m so proud.
I am proud of her and I don’t even know her. I thought the tripod bit was one of the greatest parenting techniques I had ever read.
lee, that rocks! Your daughter intuitively picked up the protective meaning in the Queen of Cups. Children have these amazing abilities and insights, if only they would get a little credit for them once in a while.
My son has just been reading The White Mountains for school and writing the book report. It’s a science fiction novel about human kids terrorized and dominated by Giant Evil Alien Tripods from Space!
Maybe she was sacrificing the Queen of Cups to the tripod in an attempt to appease it.
She applied the Queen of Wands to it a few minutes later.
The question is what she’ll do when she gets to the Hanged Man! 
Please, please, please don’t let her find the Tower! :eek:
I loved those books when I was a kid. It was about the most adventurous thing in our elementary school library. IIRC there are two or three books in all. Now I’ll have to see if the local library has a copy, can you provide the author’s name?
So how long before an Ignorance-fighting zealot chastises lee for encouraging her kids to consult the Tarot?
As soon as we figure out what the hell she’s talking about.
consults Harry Potter for clarification
Consult the tarot? Funny that. Fancy consulting pasteboard.
Oh, I used to be able to give a reading that would scare a mark silly, but I never consulted the tarot for anything other than having fun with friends. And I never charged to tell a fortune. But marks are like my daughter and like she still clings a bit to the fear of the tripod even though I explained that it can harm her other than falling on her or piching her fingers if she is not careful, they believe readings no matter how much you explain to them how you did it. People will believe that some pasteboard has better insight into them than a person does. The cards know!
I am very glad that she is confronting her demon. Like Susan, I think children should be taught to confront their fears, with an iron poker if need be. I would never have thought to encourage her to use the cards against the evil poker, but that does seem to be what she did.
evil tripod, not poker
When WhyKid was a babe, we had the normal nightmare stuff around three or four. He made a “magic wand” out of tin foil and a wooden spoon that he’d keep under his pillow to zap the dragon in his dreams. Worked like a charm…er…so to speak!
We also made “monster spray” (water and lavender essential oil in a spray bottle) he sprayed under his bed and in his closet before bed. I can happily report that it was 100% effective! There were no monsters under the bed or in the closet. And the room had a nice floral scent, too!
Yeah, but Lee, remember the lesson of the grade B movies: Evil can find the most innocuous ways of instigating itself past your defenses.
If your daughter starts developing a taste for green pea soup…
If only! Hubby can’t eat lentils so she doesn’t get any, the poor girl.
Well? Was the Evil Tripod appeased?
Well, she still perks up when we say the t-word, but she doesn’t look as scared. So, it could be that it is.
That would be John Christopher, I believe. I really loved those books and I’ve never looked at tripods the same way…
RE Evil Space Tripods, lee might want to take her daughter to the British movie of H.G. Wells WAR OF THE WORLDS.
(I don’t know if the Spielberg version has EST’s.)
I want those books. I read part of the story in the Boys’ Life serialization of them back when I was in grade school, but never found out how it ended.