Panda
Gentle panda symbolism bringing Chinese peace-friendship ideals to tarot arcana.
by Severino Baraldi · 2017
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The record
The giant panda is a symbol of friendship and peace in Chinese culture. It is a carnivorous bear, which nonetheless lives almost exclusively on bamboo and other vegetables. While in the West they are depicted as cute and somewhat clown- like, in the East they are seen as noble animals which are the living embodiment or manifestation of Yin and Yang. Giant pandas have only recently been removed from the endangered species list, which is not to say that the numbers of pandas surviving in the wild is not still desperately low. Lo Scarabeos Panda Tarot is an interesting mash up of Eastern and Western traditions. This deck is essentially a Rider Waite clone wherein many scenes depicted are based on Pamela Coleman Smith's famous tableaux. The settings have been changed to give a more authentic feel to the scenes, after all it would be beyond twee to see pandas carrying out their tarot activities in a Western mediaeval setting. Somehow it seems more palatable to see them in their resplendent traditional Chinese robes with a pagoda in the background The pandas here are anthropomorphic in that they take the place of humans and carry out human activities. They are almost universally happy,
The cards
