Restarting the articles has proven more difficult than I expected.
The previous two weeks unforeseen professional and personal demands on my time prevented even this simple message. The good news is that such demands appear, for the moment, to be resolving positively.
I am continuing to use my time making art. I am pleased to say that the general shift of my emphasis has resulted in a number of fresh ideas for images.
That these images depart from my previous experience painting delights me. But my desire to successfully execute these ideas means that much more time needs be spent in preparation and testing of the methods in mind. Even a decade ago I would have lacked the perspective or patience to make these experiments. I would have feared the final product might escape my imagination.
Minotaur Skull -material test of the Derwent Graphitint pencils and paint pans. The idea evoloved from a desire to have an underlying image on a canvas I am using to test various methods of gilding.
Now, I find that the experiments not only yield the necessary experience to work on the original idea, but that new ideas emerge from the experimentation process.
I hope my small cadre of readers will forgive this period of unevenness in the blog. I cannot say with certainty if it will resume the regular cycle I had committed to. I hope it will, because I believe such commitments to one’s audience is important. I’m old-fashioned that way.
Another test of the Derwent Graphitint. I was looking to get the effect of fog. In the end, I used some Winsor Newton Cotman watercolors to deepen the foreground intensity. I like the Graphitint, but the basic 12 color pencils set and the half-pan paints didn’t really have enough “oomph” to sell the effect I was looking for.
In the meantime, please accept the art candy here, and rest assured I am working toward resumption of our regularly scheduled programming.
This summer’s exercise in the exploration of the Major Arcana of the Rider Waite Smith Tarot began with a different intention and expectation than what it ultimately ended up being. I don’t consider this a failure on my part, either from an editorial standpoint, or in terms of the material presented. This is exactly what working with the Tarot is about.
Tarot is a mnemonic device. At it’s heart, it’s a set of images that are supposed to remind us of a set of predetermined meanings. And, of course, it is is that. But if that is all that it is, then everyone could understand and use these cards. In fact, this process could be fully automated and presented as a handy phone app. And it has been. Yet much like the auto-horoscope apps, this recitation of rote meanings only appears inciteful through coincidence, and the wishful thinking of the user. That is, it’s ability to access the ethereal and the subconscious is an illusion.
To really reach beyond, we have to become a part of the process ourselves. The cards are reminders, certainly, but they are also stimuli. Yes, the Fool may indicate new beginnings, naivete, or poor decisions (depending on whose book you read). But perhaps that moment of stepping off the cliff is what sets our imagination on it’s journey. If we become too involved with the “accepted” meaning of the card, we are locking ourselves off from other paths it might set us on.
This is just as valid a consideration when looking upon the cards as the “hero’s journey” or some other hidden initiatory message. While I do not discount this idea, adherence to that as an absolute and total meaning of the cards is limiting in aspect.
The point is that one must remain open to where the card directs the mind, rather than rushing toward a conventional interpretation. It may not even be the Fool that starts that inspiration. It may be the scarlet color of the tunic, or the angle of staff used to carry the pack. Or it may be the little dog that follows him.
If you follow my Instagram account, you are acquainted with the clips from the cards I have used to announce each week’s installment. I have accumulated them in the photo below. In preparing these, my intent was to find some piece of Pamela Smith’s images that would be unique, possibly iconic, but also not necessarily the obvious emblem of each card. In doing so, I hoped to express that same idea that the card as it is generally experienced may be refreshed by approaching it from a different angle.
The Instagram clips from the article series. What do these snippets say to you? What do you think made me pick them?
The RWS have been around for over a century now. The fact that the designs are now in public domain mean that they are appearing everywhere from t-shirts to coffee mugs. The decks themselves are being reissued by multiple publishers who are recoloring and re-embellishing the old line work. They come in iridescent and hologram finishes, gilded or silvered on black and blue, and a wide range of color variations.
The result of this is that we are so inundated with the form of the images that we are becoming jaded. They are commonplace. Like the pentagram, the triple moon, and the Eye of Horus, our reaction to their sacred and special nature are growing weaker because of overexposure.
This is also a bane for the experienced reader, who, like myself, have been looking at these cards for years and years and almost immediately getting a one or two phrase “shorthand” meaning. I think this is one reason why we collect decks. Even though we go back to our favorites, the ability to access fresh and variant versions of the Tarot iconography can shake up our complacent reaction to the cards. It’s like hearing the same symphony played by a different orchestra, or arranged by a different conductor. Yes they are all Mozart, but perhaps in this version a passage ordinarily favoring strings has been given over to the woodwinds. The notes are the same notes, but played on a different instrument. This creates a different experience of the symphony, and evokes a different response in our minds.
So too is our experience of the RWS style deck interpreted by a different artist. And this gives us an opportunity to imagine and intuit different messages. It changes the nature of the narrative. By this process we may internalize some of these responses, and then when we return to that original deck, we have a different context for that card when it comes up.
There is inherent in this approach the potential stigma of the Unverifiable Personal Gnosis. This is the thing that you know you know, because you know. And frequently in modern discussions of magical practice, the “UPG” is somewhat frowned upon. I hope through the explorations of the cards these last several weeks, I have demonstrated that very much of the supposed “secret teachings” are the UPG of persons from the 18th and 19th century, frequently being legitimized as “ancient and forbidden knowledge” through spurious attributions to the Romani people and the Ancient Egyptians, among others.
The works I have cited in these articles are but a few of the many many texts on Tarot. They are in my personal library, and I am certain that they, along with some other texts I own on cartomancy, have an influence on my personal understanding of the cards. I will say that I agree in parts with these works, and I disagree on the whole. Many texts are in conflict, and this is not unique to the discipline of Tarot. The shelves of astrology texts I possess are at odds in terms of both interpretations and mechanisms.
Additionally, there has been and continues to be an impetus to merge other mantic arts like astrology and numerology, and other magical systems, like gematria, Kabbala, and angel magic with Tarot, and to establish some longstanding heritage for this fusion. If we pare away the legends and find a solid historical narrative for the Tarot – as I believe Paul Huson has done in his Mystical Origins of the Tarot, then we have to discard or at least degrade the majority of these pedigrees. Yet without a secret mystical tradition, the combination of the cards – as a visual magical tool – is still a valid method. There is, of course, some belief that the “true occult teaching” would be needed for such to work, but it truly depends on one’s approach.
There is some context that certain of the Tarot were used both for beneficent and baneful magic as early as the 17th century, and probably as soon as these cards were available. The basic doctrine of sympathies applied here, and of course still does. If you want to call the Devil, there’s the Devil card for that. If you dabble with love spells, the Lovers is an obvious choice, but there’s also the Two of Cups, or the Four of Wands. The imagery works regardless of “system” and truly needs no ancient occult connection to be effective. If we lock ourselves into such systems of thinking about the cards, we are also limiting our ability to access unexpected revelations from the cards themselves.
Shortly after finishing last week’s article I saw a posting by Psychic Witch author Mat Auryn. He suggested that on the Five of Wands, the staffs seem to just fail to make a pentagram. He further goes on to say that the persons wielding the staff’s then may be seen to represent the elements, where the one is the spotted tunic is Quintessence, or Spirit, and that he has purposely withdrawn his staff to “break” the natural shape of the pentagram. This is an intriguing insight. Generally speaking the usual meaning here is conflict or disorder. Yet with this approach, we can go further to express that when Spirit or Intelligence is extracted from its natural place within the elemental system, things tend to fall apart. We are presented with a metaphor of the world in chaos, or a person in chaos, rather than an external and literal conflict.
Expanding on this insight, I went back and looked at that card. It is also possible to contextualize as the five persons are about to form the pentagram We can here almost reverse the usual meaning of conflict and see the Five of Wands as an emblem of cooperation and common goals. Is this just wishful thinking? A complete personal rewrite of the meaning that for ages has been the same thing? Probably. But does that mean that either approach is wrong? No.
It is ultimately the impression of the card that we form as it gets turned over and laid down that is the meaning of the card. The key is to train ourselves to respond freshly to that impression rather than hammering the card into a pre-defined message, which completely ignores what our subconscious is trying to tell us.
I hope the last few weeks exercises have inspired you to look at the RWS and it’s related kin in a new light. Beyond that, an active awareness of all the images and impressions we are fed daily can expand our lives, our knowledge, and our ability to affect the world around us.
I’ll be back next week with new topics. As much as I have enjoyed this journey, I need now to step away from it and reset my thinking to write more extemporaneously as I was prior to April. We’ll see where it takes us.
Thank you for your continued patronage.
Featured image and Instagram pic clipped from the Blue Oyster Cult album Agents of Fortune. Artwork is by Lynn Curlee.
Well, not me, thank you. I am a Creature of the Winter Dark, and the exultation of the primary luminary in his sign of Leo is not a comfort here in Texas with another week of 100°+ temps. The Sun is one of my least favorite cards. It’s certainly in the bottom five. I frequently avoid incarnations and avatars of the Sun in various mythologies. Save for it’s placement in my natal chart (only a couple of hours before dipping peacefully below the horizon) I do my best to avoid it. But here we are, and I shall try to assay it as best I can, though I shan’t say it will be without bias. No reading ever is.
Bit over the top, this one. But that is in keeping with the reverence for the top luminary.
Card XIX The Sun is characterized by a large solar disk, with 12 straight rays (assuming one behind the Roman numeral as logical) and 12 wavy rays. Beneath it in the background is a row of sunflowers planted behind a garden wall. In front of the wall there is a white horse. On his back is a nude child, crowned with a ring of smaller sunflowers and a red feather in the center. The child holds a great red banner.
The imagery here appears to be the more straightforward of almost any Tarot card. The rays can be taken to represent the hours of the day and the wavy rays those of the night (of which the Sun still holds sway). Alternatively, the rays can represent the signs of the Zodiac and the wavy rays the Houses, which are dependent upon the Rising Line. This meridian, most important in astrological calculations, is essentially the horizon at the time of birth. Since this is also a factor of the hour and moment, the Sun may be said to also control where the Houses are laid out. Equal Houses in a perfect system are synonymous with the signs, but because the Sun travels sign to sign over the space of about 30 days, and house to house in a period of twenty-four hours, there is likely to always be some variation. If a latitude driven House system like Placidus is used, then there is even more to take into consideration, but it is the Sun as arbiter of the hour that determines the Ascendant, and the Ascendant that determines the Houses. Since it is the Houses that are used to express good or ill omen of planetary placement and aspect, the Sun’s influence here may be as important, if not more important, than the Sun sign alone.
Sun signs are what most people who look at the daily horoscope are aware of. The Sun, as the biggest brightest and fastest moving object in our skies, has taken the lion’s share of the astrological celebrity. And lion’s share is appropriately given to him, as he is ruler of the Sign of Leo, that brightest and hottest season, following just after the Summer Solstice. The Moon, as his opposite, second largest, and second fastest, was given dominion over neighboring Cancer, preceding the Solstice, and expressed as water. Water as opposite the Sun’s fire makes a more complete analogy.
From these, then, the ancient Chaldees put the remaining five visible “wanderers” in charge of the chart in opposing pairs, starting with Mercury holding Gemini and Virgo, Venus with Taurus and Libra, Mars ruling the notorious Aries and Scorpio, Jupiter the burgeoning Pisces and Sagittarius, and finally old dark Saturn having sway over the cold winter signs of Capricorn and Aquarius. Comparatively recent discoveries of additional planets have necessitated given them rulership of signs in ways that seem most suitable, so the dark deep waters of Scorpio have been assigned to Pluto surrounded by his river Styx, Neptune rules the seas that Pisces swims in, and dreaming Uranus presides over Aquarian skies.
It is however the annual solar visit into each sign that gave us that popular Seventies singles scene question: “Hey, baby, what’s your sign?”. The Sun being biggest and brightest and fastest was given greatest influence in determining which characteristics would most mark an individual’s personality, or at least, their Leo-ness. The big and bold and egocentric and externalized aspects of ourselves are, like the bright Sun, and the charging Lion, what we see in ourselves and in others. The Moon, by contrast, governing the nightly tides, is equated to our tendency for emotional passions, thus our Moon Sign, is more frequently associated with our subconscious selves. Rounding out the top three is the Rising Sign, which is that sign where the Ascendant is placed, the sign on our “dawn” horizon at the hour of our birth. This is influential, in that it defines the First House, and the First House is the house of our ego, our self-image, and often our selfishness. Awareness of Sun, Moon, and Rising is becoming more common in the casual astrology follower these days, and are at least helpful if one doesn’t grasp the complex webs of planets, houses, aspects, rulerships, exaltations, detriments, falls, decans, parts, etc, that go into a full chart workup.
But what does all this astrology have to do with the Tarot card? Well, again, my approach to the Sun as a card is somewhat ambivalent. I think it’s a showy one-note card that just comes in bringing cheery good fortune and positive vibes and is very much often read like the Sun sign in a natal chart. That is, much more importance is given to its appearance than to the rest of the chart, or the rest of the Tarot spread itself.
This sample from the Tarot of Marseilles shows a French preference for two children playing in the sunlight. This variation is not unique, though there are a number of interpretations to it’s meaning. Some say it represents a young couple – or marriage – one of the potential inferences of this card. Alternatively the pair are the offspring of a successful domestic life, which is by extension the same thing. Others may see them as the denizens of the Tower, reborn in the full light of the New Dawn. I can find some other potential sources for them, though perhaps not so likely ones. Levi acknowledges them, as does Waite, but both elect for the version with a single child, and Waite goes further to prefer the single child on the spotless white horse. Through this we may be meant to associate the radiant Sun with the Christ Child.
The “arrival of Baby New Year” artwork smacks of the Baroque style of France’s Sun King Louis XIV. Now don’t get me wrong. I love Baroque art, but I am also conscious of the egotism involved. This is, after all, the man who, when told his plans for the palace at Versailles would bankrupt the state, replied “L’etat c’est moi.” – “I am the state.” While his great-great-great-grandson would lose it all (including his head) late, Louis XIV influence on the world and history was certainly worthy of the title he bestowed upon himself. Part of his propaganda was indulging a neo-pagan cult of Apollo, with him as the dutifully Catholic, but also fully mythical embodiment of the solar deity. The art and decoration of his palaces are resplendent with scenes of Greek myth, frequently erotic (and even pornographic) depictions of the Sun- centered sagas.
Which is why it’s curious to find that on the quintessential French Tarot decks, there are two children on this card. Most obviously when we find two of anything we expect an allusion to Gemini. Yet Gemini and the Sun are hardly related, as we’ve already expressed. The Sun rules Leo, little Mercury is charged with authority over Gemini. So who are these two, who often show up as cherubs in the iconography of other decks? There are perhaps a couple of candidates.
Let’s go with a French intrigue first. During the reign of the Sun King, a warrant was issued for one Eustache Dauger. Dauger was held in prison for the rest of his life, dying in the infamous Bastille. In this time he was the responsibility of a single jailer. This unusual arrangement has lead to much speculation, and expounded upon by the misreporting by the salacious minded Voltaire, that Dauger had been sentenced to wear an iron mask, forever obscuring his identity. It was also Voltaire who suggested that this person was an older bastard son of the previous king, and thus a longshot contender for the throne. Alexander Dumas, who penned The Man in the Iron Mask based on Dauger, makes him a moments older legitimate twin, whose existence must be kept secret by the usurper Louis. So perhaps these two children are a bit of naughty French parody that came at a later time (since during the reign of Louis XIV and indeed his successors, such a comment would send one to the Bastille or the guillotine.).
Another possible origin for the two children is an artistic theme quite common in Renaissance and later art associating the infant John the Baptist and the Christ Child. John, as the predecessor and prophet of Jesus, is a significant figure in the Gospels. John was an older cousin, according to the lore. When he was executed by Herod for preaching against him and the Roman occupation, Jesus moved up in prominence. It was fashionable in many works of religious art to show the two children together, often in the company of their mothers. Leonardo painted at least two such works, and the dual children on the Marseilles card always get me thinking of them.
Leonardo’s Virgin of the Rocks. This is the version that is in the National Gallery in London. There’s another one in the Louvre that is somewhat different. It is generally acknowledged that this version may have been finished by apprentices, or later altered. In the Louvre version, the angel is pointing toward the Christ Child, here signified by the cross on his shoulder. The other infant is John the Baptist, his cousin and predecessor. The pointed finger as a symbol of the presence of the Divine is a common feature in Leonardo’s works. The French version is missing the cross, and the halos on the children, and the “modesty cloth” on the Christ Child. These alterations to the London version suggest a later “correction” by the church rather than a contemporary alteration to the painting by Leonardo’s helpers. The two children may be a possible source for the dual infants in some versions of the Sun Tarot.
The single child on the white horse is almost certainly a metaphor for the Christ, with his far too large red banner symbolizing the blood sacrifice that is reputed to save all of humanity. Confuting the Sun and the Son was useful in converting early pagans, and adopting some of the heliocal energies and attributions with the growing Christian cult. It’s important to remember that early Roman versions of Christ were not the bearded dark man we tend to view as Jesus today. Roman Jesus was Roman, often depicted as the Shepherd, clean-shaven, and light-haired or sometimes blonde. The infant in the Sun card is much more a remnant of that tradition, which is quasi-pagan, than of the later Gothic faith. This may be why I tend to bridle at the imagery of this card, which -at least artistically- doesn’t fit well with the style of the rest of the deck. I have no doubt that it was executed by Smith. Her definitive squiggle is buried down in the stones of the wall on the right. But it’s depiction is anachronistic in an otherwise congruous deck. It looks more like a Tiffany window than a Gothic icon. To me it just seems all too showy.
That is the nature of the Sun though. In hottest August, when all the summer’s growth has ripened and the true bounty of the earth has burst forth, we are perhaps able to appreciate this boisterous celebrant trump. If we are able to divorce it from the rather ham-handed Christian symbolism, and look at it rather as a pagan Sun that is part of the pagan celestial triad of Star-Moon-Sun, then it’s munificence and fertility might be felt as meant, and the traditional associations of fruition allowed to radiate out into the cards of the surrounding reading.
Two cards remain in the Major Arcana, styled XX-Judgement (sic) and XXI, The World. For many these last two complete the Tarot Journey begun with our ambling Fool about to walk off the cliff. Within them are the bones of their ancestors, and both artistically and oracularly they present a number of problems for the modern non-Christian reader. But I hope I am able to provide some incite into how I have worked around these shortcomings when using the traditional Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
As for this week’s trump, my best effort was to take it as astrologically as possible, because again, I just don’t like it.
We all have our favorites, and our non-favorites. We must be aware how that colors the story we tell to the client, or to ourselves, when either of those come up in the reading.
Until next week, thank you for your continued interest.
