Meaning of the Nivaci in the Gypsy Tarot
Card no. 18
This card is somewhat similar to the one called the Moon in the Tarot de Marseille, and we know how much importance the moon and the sun have in people’s lives, all the more so among the Gypsies. And more precisely among the Gypsy “healers”, who practice love spells and the divinatory arts thanks to their deep esoteric and astrological knowledge.
These gifts have always been passed down from mother to daughter, but legend has it that they can also be received by having sexual intercourse on a full moon night with a Nivaci, a kind of water spirit whose appearance is half man, half fish, and who can be just as benevolent as he is malevolent. The Gypsy sorceress is therefore in close correlation with the moon, which she cherishes for its ambiguity, constantly playing with shadow and light, and deceiving everyone around her with anything that can embody the spirits of the departed, which can take shape within a Nivaci, a white dog or a black cat.
❤️ Depiction of the Nivaci ❤️
The drawing on this card therefore shows us the 2 sides of lunar power. First of all, at the top of this card you can see a Gypsy woman seated near an astral globe. Dressed in the most motley of clothes and wearing a turban around her thick brown hair, she points her finger at the moon, which is half full and fiery red, in a night sky veiled by thick gray clouds.
Then, at the bottom of this card, we witness a somewhat metaphysical, indeed surrealist scene. We find ourselves facing a misty swamp, out of which emerges a Nivaci, a water creature half man, half fish, whose hands have 6 fingers, and whose lower body resembles that of a mermaid. Around the Nivaci, lying on the ground, are a white dog and a black cat, meant to represent the wandering soul of the departed.
🙂 Meaning of the Nivaci upright 🙂
It is rare to come across a barely positive card in the Gypsy Tarot when it is drawn upright, but that is the case with this one, certainly to stress a little further the ambivalence that the moon can have on people’s minds. Here, the card speaks to you of clairvoyance, as if you were going to be able to sense the events to come in your destiny.
But it also reveals to you that these events will be falsified and that you will therefore have to be wary of how they unfold, and above all of how they end. There will indeed be distortions of reality and you will not be able to change the situation. You will therefore be in a very confused position, where slander and deception will be the order of the day.
🙃 Meaning of the Nivaci reversed 🙃
To fit a little more with lunar bipolarity, it is therefore reversed that this card will be far more positive for the person concerned by the reading. Thus, the card announces many reconciliations within your relationships, whether they are professional or more family ones.
Trust, then, which you will share with certain people around you, and which will bring breakthroughs and many arrangements in situations that had turned sour and had been at a standstill for quite some time. This card drawn reversed therefore sounds the end of hostilities and the beginning of a well-deserved peace.
Meaning of the 22 cards of the Gypsy Tarot
SOMMAIRE