AUTHOR'S NOTE: Nothing profound today, just a bit of whimsy from the Monty Python - Mel Brooks collaboration Yellowbeard that I find amusing from a tarot perspective. There has been much conjecture about the intentions of the angelic hand emerging from the cloud in the Waite-Smith 4 of Cups as it offers a fourth chalice … Continue reading “Heavenly Fourth”
RWS Material
The King of Swords: A Study in Impartiality
Once upon a time I was doing a deep dive into the subject of the "facing" (aka "gaze" or "regard") of the human figures on the tarot cards. Facing is often seen as showing where the focus or attention of a card falls outside of its normal span of control, usually conveying an impulse to … Continue reading The King of Swords: A Study in Impartiality
The Suit of Swords As “Opportunity” – The Rest of the Story
I recently realized that I never completed my discussion of the Swords minor cards as conveying "opportunity" rather than always showing us their unpleasant side. My goal was to explore how we might handle these cards in a constructive way and not merely wind up suffering their "slings and arrows," whether outrageous or only irritating. … Continue reading The Suit of Swords As “Opportunity” – The Rest of the Story
Four as a “Closed Loop”System
"The security that arises from needs being met." This observation was presented in The Grand Etteilla regarding the nature of the 4 of Clubs (Wands). It equates the card with the process of "digestion" that succeeds the "generation" of the 3 of Clubs, but there is no mention of the "elimination" that must inevitably follow. … Continue reading Four as a “Closed Loop”System
Cards of “Quiet Anticipation”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: It could be said with ample justification that Aleister Crowley had a rather uncharitable view of many of the Minor Arcana, often giving them ominous or sullen titles. But my focus here will be on the Waite-Smith (aka "RWS") deck, which is more approachable from a nonpartisan perspective. I labored long and hard … Continue reading Cards of “Quiet Anticipation”
Islands in the Sea: The “Gateless” Suit of Pentacles
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is one of the more intriguing and challenging mental tasks I've undertaken in a while: rethinking the numbered cards of Pentacles in line with Barbara Walker's discussion in The Secrets of the Tarot: History, Origins and Symbolism. I've long felt that the quaint, folkloric descriptions that have grown up around the Minor … Continue reading Islands in the Sea: The “Gateless” Suit of Pentacles
The Tens as “Disengagement”
AUTHOR'S NOTE: This meditation on the nature of Ten is an extension of my previous thoughts on the subject. I've written in the past that, esoterically speaking, the Tens of the tarot suits represent the exhaustion of the original elemental force that first appeared as pure, untrammeled spiritual energy in the Aces. This is based … Continue reading The Tens as “Disengagement”
The Suit of Wands As “Arrows”
I'm currently reading Alain Bougearel's book, The Language of the Cards: An Initiation into French Cartomancy (OUROBOROS Editions, August 16, 2020), in which he equates the tarot suit of Batons (modern Wands) to the playing-card suit of Diamonds, and associates the arrowhead-shaped suit emblem with the military arrow as a weapon of ranged combat. He … Continue reading The Suit of Wands As “Arrows”
Barbara Walker and the RWS Suit of Pentacles
Although it's a bit overstuffed with mythology and "armchair" anthropology (think "Golden Bough Lite"), I've been reading Barbara Walker's fascinating and frequently enlightening 1984 book Secrets of the Tarot: Origins, History and Symbolism. Despite the meticulous academic tone of much of her writing and its overarching themes of matriarchal culture and Goddess worship in antiquity, … Continue reading Barbara Walker and the RWS Suit of Pentacles
Patience Is Not A Virtue (When Persistence Won’t Do)
AUTHOR'S NOTE: At the risk of "beating a dead horse," I'm going to present a few more thoughts on my uneasy, rather tepid rapport with the (Rider) Waite-Smith (RWS) Tarot and my much more robust appreciation of Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot. I come down somewhere in the middle on "pip" decks like the Tarot de … Continue reading Patience Is Not A Virtue (When Persistence Won’t Do)
Parsifal's Wheel Tarot & Astrology 