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This card came up in a reading yesterday and the word "wizard's robe" came to my mind when I looked at the old man.
But I don't see a connection between a wizard's robe and the way I normally see this card (for me it means wealth, especially inherited wealth and traditions).
What do you think?
I had a similar experience to yours once, but it was the idea
of "Patterns" that transported my consciousness skyward...
There are so many different patterns to be found in this card.
Even the behaviour of the dogs...they follow a known pattern
by relating to the man and not minding the child Etc. etc. &c.
I find this card can be one of the hardest to read - It can really depend on cards surrounding it, and what messages are coming through...
As for wizards robes - I know what you mean... Sometimes, this card can come up meaning "stale-mate" for me - Meaning simply that the people in this card have become totally complacent - They're there with each other, but they're not "there" - You know what I mean? - They don't appreciate it...
They don't appreciate the fact that the old man is actually quite special - Special like a wizard, or simply special like the old man of the house who has all the answers - The only ones who notice this are the dogs, because of their innate sense for things...
Wow, Im rambling...
Just one of my many interpretations for this card...
Yes - it could be reminiscent of Merlin - with Igraine and Uther (in disguise as Igraine's husband). The child would then be Morgaine. Interesting thought.
I've also seen this as Odysseus returning from his travels. Penelope is there with one of her suitors and her son. The dog is the one who first recognizes his master.
Mary
Al Si'ra
11-01-2006, 18:41
This card began to come up for me a lot in relationship spreads..The thing is this card is taken as a good sign if the relationship is not all that secure-could even indicate building a family together..
But when i look at the card..There are lots of pentacles in the form of this Kabbala tree you know and i feel like the figures are dissappearing behind them..I can't help myself but think this is a kind of web that they are trapped in..When appearing for ladies in readings..I aim to interpret this card as the lady trying to build a family in which she may not(looking at the other cards too) be happy to live in later on..It's not that she won't get it..She will..But it's not certain for me if she's going to be really happy with it..
:love:
There is one aspect of the Ten of Pentacles, that I would like to offer, in light of the 'Wizards robe'. The Tenth Commandment states' thou shalt not covet thy neighbours house,Neighbours wife, male servant ox and ass' (I think thats it.) What does 'covet' mean? I guess today it is taken to mean 'long to possess what belongs to another' There is an old association with 'coveting' and casting the evil eye or doing spells to bring evil down upon someone of whom you wish to own what is theirs; to change their Fortune. I often see this card as the safety, and completeness of the family can be bought down by 'wizardry' I often wonder why he is outside the gate/arch and not within the confines of the House? Is he looking for a home? Is his male servant/son pleading his cause?Or is all well and he can now leave for his own home after a visit? ~Rosanne
Sevens:
In each of the 3 buildings seen through the arch:
7 windows
In the castle on the upper plaque:
7 windows
Seen among the 4 people and 2 dogs:
7 eyes
Also among this group:
7 hands and/or feet
:P It goes on like this... but then, depending on where
you start counting what ~ you could end up anyplace.
I realize now that my view of the card has been a little too simple so far. Thanks for all the input!
The Old man can be seen as Waite himself, projected in the image of The Ancient of Days. Within the robe is woven a talisman of his name.. W.A.I.T.E.
The Old man can be seen as Waite himself, projected in the image of The Ancient of Days. Within the robe is woven a talisman of his name.. W.A.I.T.E.I rather think Pam's robe here was inspired by a theatrical costume,
worn by King Lear during a famous performace she had a big part in.
W.H.I.T.B.Y. is the theme, since it was there in North Yorkshire that
Pamela Colman Smith performed the part of Cordelia ~ and very well.
Waite of course favored flowing white robes for his Grand Orient gig.
This card came up in a reading yesterday and the word "wizard's robe" came to my mind when I looked at the old man.
But I don't see a connection between a wizard's robe and the way I normally see this card (for me it means wealth, especially inherited wealth and traditions).
What do you think?
"...The mere numerical powers and bare words of the meanings are insufficient by themselves; but the pictures are like doors which open into unexpected chambers, or like a turn in the open road with a wide prospect beyond."
A. E. WAITE Pictorial Key to the Tarot Rider & Company, second edition 1971, p.169
I agree the strange harp like sigils on the old man's cloak perhaps suggest he is some sort of wizard or shaman; we may imagine in their form the shape of a lyre, wrapping him in the music of strange faerie instruments while on a vision quest in the land of faerie, a journey through the great distance:
“…When my Exempt Mistress is seated by her golden harp, you should see how the world goes by- how the world goes by in Faerie and the Crown comes down. It was in offices of music that she came to me more than all- strange music sounding from far away, and pipings of mysterous musicians. The instruments are unearthiy in Faerie, and especially among the old hills; but in all that lived and breathed I found that there were lutes and strings in her presence, and I knew at last what is said in quiet places by the wind-harp. There are woes unknown in Faerie and weeping voices in the night-time; but she lifted in sweet music her hands of healing and said unto them: "Peace, be still." She carried the cure by music through wounded reams of Faerie. She opened out all its mysteries in melodious voices. The daisy breathed about her like a choice garden of roses, and the honey-suckle was a sweet incense, as if rising before a high altar. The waterfalls and streams and rivulets ran in light beside her. I saw the rainbow of Faerie shining to the eyes in splendour and beating at the ears in music. The sound of many waters glistened in rainbow colours. The quests of Faerie were set to her subtle melodies, all that wide worid over. She took the thoughts of men upon great voyages. I heard the heart of Faerie throbbing. I heard also such messages in the night-time that my own heart was put to rest…
http://i161.photobucket.com/albums/t212/kwaw/RWS/rw10pentacles.jpg
“… This is also the end of all stories, like those which I have been telling unto now. Sunset and night-time are over; my Morning-Glory shines in the glory of morning, with gleaming hair "back blown from rosy bands, And light and joy and fragrance in her hands." Hereof is therefore my journey through the great distance, and such is my Swan-Song. I have been making poems of Faerie through my whole life; but this is the end of my poems.
A.E. WAITE. A Journey through the Great Distance (The Gypsy, May 1915)
http://adepti.com/docs/gypsy.txt
Waite's fellow Golden Dawn member Florence Farr would play an instrument (including I believe a harp) when leading members through a group path working. One method of pathworking was to use the cards themselves as a starting point, in which "the pictures are like doors which open into unexpected chambers, or like a turn in the open road with a wide prospect beyond."
Doorways, entryways of all sort including for example arches thus symbolise too an entry into the land of faerie, the world of spirit vision, the great distance into which the old shaman wrapped in strange music journeys, present but apart from the daily life around him.
The journey throught the 'great distance' is the great distance of a lifetime itself of course, and perhaps for the old man, it is a journey of reminiscence of the life whose end is approaching ~ contemplating his swan song.
An old man and a child, eaching petting a dog, looking at each other ~ The number 10 is like perhaps the double headed Janus of New Year, the old face looking back, the new forward.
The child while clinging to its mother has reached that curious age to look beyond mother and domain; the old too clings to mother earth and life but is also perhaps also looking beyond the domain to the long journey ahead; each pets a dog, each dog anticipating 'walkies' on a journey ahead beyond the domain of infancy and old age, beyond home/body ~ the number 10 not a circle but one of the unavoidable crossroads (X) upon life's journey; an adventureous spirit may embrace the prospect and an anxious one delay, but in the end it is inescapable. One cannot stop in one place forever, old man and child must make that crossing, step round that corner into the wide open prospects beyond.
Brother Harmonius
15-05-2008, 00:03
I have a Kabbalistic interpretation of the Ten of Pentacles, specific to the Rider-Waite-Smith card. I don't know if other interpretations resemble my own, but I would welcome the knowledge that others before me have noticed the same symbology, as that would further validate my own perception.
The heart of my interpretation has to do with the dogs, which act as an axis mundi (or canis mundi, if you will), the hermetic medium between God (the old man) and humans (the child).
Note that both are petting the dogs. The child is not sitting on the old man's lap, the child and old man are not in direct contact with each other. Replace the dog that the child is touching with "prayer". Replace the dog the patriarch is touching with "grace".
Therefore, you have a system of magic which is orderly and proper. The way people communicate themselves to God is through a go between, an agent of communication, which the dog represents.
As above, so below
The reciprocating principal of the Tabula Smaragdina1 (Emerald Tablets of Hermes) is represented by the dynamic tension of the old man and the child, connected as they are by the dogs. Both dogs are facing the old man. Maybe the old man carries the biscuit (laugh). Or maybe the dog being petted by the child is delivering the child's message to the old man, and the dog in the foreground awaits the old man's (God's) grace, to be delivered in turn to the child.
In this action, the dog represents an Archangel, for it is the Archangel that leads Enoch and Ezekiel to the seven layers of heaven.
(angelus, itself derived from Koine Greek: άνγελος, angelos, "messenger")
So, the canis mundi ("dog of the world") is the intermediary, the channel we must take in order to bring about personal success. That isn't just personal, by the way, because as Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai of the Zohar said, "the righteous few hold up the pillars of heaven." So, whenever the heavenly order is upheld at all, ever, by anyone then universal harmony cannot be snuffed out, and total chaos and evil cannot prevail.
The card, some will impatiently remind us, isn't about making deals with God, it is about "arriving," and material stability, the harvest of a lifetime of familial accordance.
Yes, but that is really the most evident, sensational effect of universal concordance.
Now, look at the man and woman. They are not just talking and holding hands, but seem to be in a swirling kind of dance, just like the yin and yang components of the T'ai Chi. They also appear between the child and old man, as a kind of buffer zone. They represent order, as well, the universal compatibility of the feminine and masculine forces. The child can't "get around" the laws of nature, and we are the child, so neither can we!
The card is saturated with orderly progression. And, while it is a card portending good fortune, it is not like the kind of fortune of winning a lottery, but the kind of fortune that follows right action in a tedious, selfless natural system.
The man and woman remind me of gears or cogs in a machine. So do the dogs. There is no immediate effect; effects arise from circular and indirect interactions of the moving parts, requiring intermediate steps.
The way to God is by adhering to the physical laws of nature, and also by petitioning the angelic intermediaries whose business it is to traverse the rainbow bridge between heaven and earth.
1 - C.G. Jung, Mysterium Coniunctionis. (Bolingen Series XX, The Collected Works of C.G.Jung, Vol. 14. 1963) p. 17, “II. That which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is below, to accomplish the miracles of One Thing.” The Emerald Table of Hermes Trismegistus (an unattributed translation in my electronic collection). Jung refers to Tabula Smaragdina, De alchemia, p.363, and also Tabula Smaragdina, Ruska, p. 2.
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