I've laid out a series of cards from the Tarot of Prague.
I have Prudence out of course, and what I'm looking at is the tilt of the head.
Prudence looks to my left as I face the card and to her right.
If you look thru the deck, the interesting thing is that most of the women in the deck tilt their heads to the right, my right, or look straight. There are exceptions of course.
Prudence looks down and left, again my left.
5 Pents looks left and up.
Star looks down, but her head has a tilt to the left.
The World looks to the left.
Does this matter???
I tend to think in terms of the right side of the card as the future, and the left as the past. (But this is something that gives me meaning only in terms of the reading I'm doing, and isn't something I'm always thinking about.)
I do this consistently, regardless of the deck.
So the following things occur to me when I see the Prudence card. A vast expanse of water is behind her.
My first thought looking at her was: "Still waters run deep." There is some chop to the water, not much, but some, and her clothes look windblown.
There is a coquetteishness to her stance that is also a bit too casual when you look at her face.
She is a bit like the snake to me. She could be ready to pounce if need be.
There is a sense of her being coiled and ready to strike....there is a sense of the snake in the ribbons at her waist. The way they flutter in some way echoes the undulation of the snake in her hand...
Her face has a slackness to it, but also a sweetness.
She doesn't seem to care what it is the snake will see in the mirror.
These are just my first obversations on this card, and I'll post again on her once I've thought more about her. I have kept her in the deck and she has not appeared, but I think that her appearances will be very interesting.
The other thing that interests me is the cards in the deck with the water featured and the skyline. Also interested in the rooftop cards, but that isn't the case here. Here is the water behind the figure and the sun brightening the tops of the buildings...looks like a dawning to me, but I'm sure that during a read it could perhaps look like sunset. But there is a clarity to the sun that says sunrise to me.
I think the distance of the water behind her and the color of the water speaks of a time essence. That Prudence occurs over time and with experience, that it is a murky journey, and that what you see (mirror) depends on the viewer, the viewer's level of conciousness and level of threat.
The thing that bothers me is the spaciness I see in her face. She doesn't seem all there. There is that dreamy quality to her face...and the other thing I find interesting is that she seems to be rolling her hips, almost dancing...so I wonder what it is she hears. What is she listening to? That's it. She appears distracted as if she is listening to something.....