{"id":391,"date":"2023-05-25T00:28:00","date_gmt":"2023-05-25T08:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thorn-hedge.com\/tarot\/?p=391"},"modified":"2025-10-19T02:52:46","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T10:52:46","slug":"the-bitter-suite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thorn-hedge.com\/tarot\/journal\/the-bitter-suite\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bitter Suite"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I am really aging myself here, but one of my biggest influences in my early days of learning the tarot was an episode of Xena: Warrior Princess, “The Bitter Suite<\/a>.” It aired on 02 February 1998 and was instantly a huge thing on the early internet, and it really stirred the possibility of scholarly interest in fandom. My little nerd moment aside, the imagery was amazing, and I wanted to soak up every bit of it. I did this by using my Paint Shop Pro skills and on-line graphics and screen capture sites to make a study deck for myself.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Two and a half decades, and many moods later, I no longer have those cards, but certain images are burned into my head. The episode, of course, is ripe with Major Arcana influences and images (Xena and Ares as the Devil; Gabrielle as the Empress; The Wheel of Fortune.) In my deck, the Seven of Swords was a broken Chakram. The meaning behind the image, and the card is betrayal, deception, lies and <\/em>trickery<\/i>.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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I am really aging myself here, but one of my biggest influences in my early days of learning the tarot was an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-journal","col-md-12"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Bitter Suite - Thorn Hedge Tarot<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/thorn-hedge.com\/tarot\/journal\/the-bitter-suite\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Bitter Suite - Thorn Hedge Tarot\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I am really aging myself here, but one of my biggest influences in my early days of learning the tarot was an […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/thorn-hedge.com\/tarot\/journal\/the-bitter-suite\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Thorn Hedge Tarot\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-05-25T08:28:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-10-19T10:52:46+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/thorn-hedge.com\/tarot\/wp-content\/uploads\/xenbs53.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"480\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Lyssa\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Lyssa\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thorn-hedge.com\\\/tarot\\\/journal\\\/the-bitter-suite\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thorn-hedge.com\\\/tarot\\\/journal\\\/the-bitter-suite\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Lyssa\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thorn-hedge.com\\\/tarot\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d651b28bb6f36b0d58fd1ab1b12de3b0\"},\"headline\":\"The Bitter Suite\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-05-25T08:28:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-10-19T10:52:46+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thorn-hedge.com\\\/tarot\\\/journal\\\/the-bitter-suite\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":175,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thorn-hedge.com\\\/tarot\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/d651b28bb6f36b0d58fd1ab1b12de3b0\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thorn-hedge.com\\\/tarot\\\/journal\\\/the-bitter-suite\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thorn-hedge.com\\\/tarot\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/xenbs53.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Journal\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/thorn-hedge.com\\\/tarot\\\/journal\\\/the-bitter-suite\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thorn-hedge.com\\\/tarot\\\/journal\\\/the-bitter-suite\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/thorn-hedge.com\\\/tarot\\\/journal\\\/the-bitter-suite\\\/\",\"name\":\"The Bitter Suite - 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