Tarot and Literary eye-openers

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 15 Dec 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

Fudugazi	15 Dec 2004
I've often struggled with XVI - the Tower/Maison Dieu, as have many. Negative or postive? A liberation or a catastrophe? Last night, as I was reading a book - my beloved Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse - I came upon this passage: "Was there no safety? No learning by heart of the ways of the world? No guide, no shelter, but all was miracle, and leaping from the pinnacle of a tower into the air? Could it be, even for the elderly people, that this was life - startling, unexpected, unknown?" I was blinded and cracked open - literally a Tower moment, both revelation and total shift in perspective. So that's it! I thought. Oh, so exciting, so unsettling! So....towerish. As Virginia described, I saw those little figures in the Tarot, but no longer passively ejected - no, they accompanied the movement, the Tower's push - they leapt! Has anyone else had such a revelating moment about a Tarot card, or a spread, while reading a totally unrelated book? Or watching a film?

wildchilde	15 Dec 2004
mmmmm...that's scrumptuous Helvetica!! What an "ah-ha!" moment!!!! I personally tend to correlate everything in terms of the Tarot! LOL I see the cards as the archetypes and symbols of the God(s)...for me not in "religious/theological" terms but in I suppose you would say "esoteric" terms. I was ROFLMAO reading a previous post where someone was saying they actually saw the King of Cups in a diner. I see the archetypes everywhere!! Books, movies, walking down the street. I love Tarot!!!

Moongold	15 Dec 2004
Great thread ~ Tarot images stalk the pages of Rilke poetry but not as explicitly as your Tower statement. Rilke's You who never arrived seems to encapsulate our human yearning for understanding and meaning to life. When I first read it I had a deep pool a-ha experience and still feel that powerfully each timeI read this poem. It is the High Priestess for me.

Fulgour	15 Dec 2004
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926) You who never arrived in my arms, Beloved, who were lost from the start, I don't even know what songs would please you... http://www.pierdelune.com/rilke3.htm

Fudugazi	15 Dec 2004
Fulgour wrote: Rainer Maria Rilke (1875 - 1926) You who never arrived in my arms, Beloved, who were lost from the start, I don't even know what songs would please you... http://www.pierdelune.com/rilke3.htm Moongold, Fulgour, is that what II -La Papesse/the High Priestess is thinking, as she gazes ahead? Is that her secret, that she has been expecting the Beloved who never came, but she will not stop waiting, and in waiting through the centuries, has heard a thousand songs whispered in the wind, as she tries and tries to find the one that would call the Lover and release her from her ceaseless gazing?

Moongold	15 Dec 2004
It is the Divine of which we speak? She knows our yearning for the Divine, for truth, for the essence. In part she holds those secrets, the truths for which we yearn. She holds the key. You can sometimes see it in her hand.

Fulgour	15 Dec 2004
One of the ancient teachings concerning The High Priestess relates the story of the goddess Astarte, as the guardian spirit of the date palm warehouse. As a bride, she is seen to be the empty warehouse awaiting the harvest. As a wife, she is filled with the fruits of the season. And yet soon she is the bride again, and so yearly on.

Fudugazi	15 Dec 2004
The key, but not the song. Poor Papesse - to be so close to that Divine, that absolute... Divine or Profane, I think we all yearn to borrow that key, go through that little door, find the magic garden. Now we are too big, now too small (OK, yes, I've switched references now;)) And I think that there is a dimension of the Divine in all great love - that's what the cupid -- or the angel -- in the Lover is all about, no?

Fudugazi	15 Dec 2004
Fulgour wrote: One of the ancient teachings concerning The High Priestess relates the story of the goddess Astarte, as the guardian spirit of the date palm warehouse. As a bride, she is seen to be the empty warehouse awaiting the harvest. As a wife, she is filled with the fruits of the season. And yet soon she is the bride again, and so yearly on. Now that's a wonderful image. It brings back the date palms, the girls, the mothers. Astarte - I didn't know the High Priestess was related to her - I thought it was Isis. But Astarte and the date palms! It will add a dimension to my thinking of her (there must be some Mesopotamian text you can quote at this point, Fulgour?)

L'Etoile	15 Dec 2004
"And I think that there is a dimension of the Divine in all great love - that's what the cupid -- or the angel -- in the Lover is all about, no?" I live my life by that^. I see Tarot archetypes everywhere and am astonished that no one else does. Well, no one I know at least.*wink*

Fulgour	15 Dec 2004
Akkadian, Sumerian. Inanna: in Mesopotamian religion, goddess of war and sexual love. Ishtar is the Akkadian counterpart of the West Semitic goddess Astarte. Inanna, an important goddess in the Sumerian pantheon, came to be identified with Ishtar, but it is uncertain whether Inanna is also of Semitic origin or whether, as is more likely, her similarity to Ishtar caused the two to be identified. In the figure of Inanna several traditions seem to have been combined: she is sometimes the daughter of the sky god An, sometimes his wife; in other myths she is the daughter of Nanna, god of the moon, or of the wind, Enlil. In her earliest manifestations she was associated with the storehouse and thus personified as the goddess of dates, wool, meat, and grain; the storehouse gates were her emblems. She was also the goddess of rain and thunderstorms--leading to her association with An, the sky god--and was often pictured with the lion, whose roar resembled thunder. The power attributed to her in war may have arisen from her connection with storms. Inanna was also a fertility figure, and, as goddess of the storehouse and the bride of the god Dumuzi-Amaushumgalana, who represented the growth and fecundity of the date palm, she was characterized as young, beautiful, and impulsive--never as helpmate or mother. She is sometimes referred to as the Lady of the Date Clusters. ref: Encyclopaedia Britannica

Fudugazi	15 Dec 2004
L'Etoile wrote: I see Tarot archetypes everywhere and am astonished that no one else does. Well, no one I know at least.*wink* And do you see them the books you read, the poems, the songs you hear, the movies you watch? Do they bring you back, or propell you forward? And do you see yourself in them? And the Other? Is the Tarot a mirror, or a door?

Fudugazi	15 Dec 2004
Fulgour wrote: Sumerian Inanna, in Mesopotamian religion, goddess of war and sexual love: Akkadian, Sumerian. Inanna: in Mesopotamian religion, goddess of war and sexual love. Ishtar is the Akkadian counterpart of the West Semitic goddess Astarte. In her earliest manifestations she was associated with the storehouse and thus personified as the goddess of dates, wool, meat, and grain; the storehouse gates were her emblems. She was also the goddess of rain and thunderstorms--leading to her association with An, the sky god--and was often pictured with the lion, whose roar resembled thunder. The power attributed to her in war may have arisen from her connection with storms. Inanna was also a fertility figure, and, as goddess of the storehouse and the bride of the god Dumuzi-Amaushumgalana, who represented the growth and fecundity of the date palm, she was characterized as young, beautiful, and impulsive--never as helpmate or mother. She is sometimes referred to as the Lady of the Date Clusters. ref: Encyclopedia Britannica So Astarte is Innana! (silly me) - Innana who went down to her sister Ereshkigal's realm, the Underworld, was called to sacrifice her beloved husband, was putrefied, and re-emerged as a new being, queen of heaven and earth! Of course...the High Priestess! "You, beloved, man of my heart You, I have brought about an evil fate for you Your right hand you have placed on my vulva, Your left stroked my head, You have touched your mouth to mine, You have pressed my lips to your head. That is why you have been decreed an evil fate, Thus is treated the dragon of women..." The Hymn of Innana Sumer You can't stay with the Beloved in the Outer World, it seems. Except that Dumuzi's sister offered herself in his place, and in the end, the sentence was commuted, Innana was able to leave the Underworld, and her beloved Dumuzi spent half the year with her while his sister resided in the Underworld, and half in the Underworld himself. We are balanced, therefore, very finely, between the Divine and the Profane, between the Under and Outer worlds - is that what we see in the gaze of the High Priestess? I never thought of all that when I sought refuge under the shade of the date palms. To think that dates, delicious, sweet, tawny dates, can show us the way to the underworld, our very own confrontation with the Unknown. Are there any, anywhere on a tarot card?

Fulgour	15 Dec 2004
Date palms need to be cross-pollinated to bear fruit, as the wild plants are separate as male and female. The red fronds grow upwards, with fiery brilliance. Papyrus is another important palm, of the lotus family. There are so many ways just to approach the imagery. The storehouse is also associated with pomegranates. I see La Papess as a flower, the rising veil like leaves. Her book is made of her own creation, her crown buds. Often her right hand is covered by her cloak, while at her feet a basket-like pattern may sometimes seen. I believe even the name La Papess is that of a flower, with no reference at all to the fables of a female pope.

Fudugazi	15 Dec 2004
Fulgour wrote: Date palms need to be cross-pollinated to bear fruit, as the wild plants are separate as male and female. The red fronds grow upwards, with fiery brilliance. Papyrus is another important palm, of the lotus family. There are so many ways just to approach the imagery. The storehouse is also associated with pomegranates. I see La Papess as a flower, the rising veil like leaves. Her book is made of her own creation, her crown buds. Often her right hand is covered by her cloak, while at her feet a basket-like pattern may sometimes seen. I believe even the name La Papess is that of a flower, with no reference at all to the fables of a female pope. Thank you, Fulgour, that's beautiful. A fertile insight to take to bed with me. I never really saw the Papess - flower or woman - as completely chaste, myself (after all in the legend of the Papesse, she was revered for her wisdom...and she bore a child)

Cerulean	15 Dec 2004
I posted this a few years ago when I discovered that Yeats owned the Italian Dotti Tarocco ...(through Mary Greer's "Women and the Golden Dawn" and K. Raine's "Yeats and the Tarot" A Yeats tarot poem? Unfortunately, the Rider Waite Smith came to mind rather than my Dotti-ness...but here goes--a poem by Yeats and some rough equivalents to the major archana... The Cap and Bells The jester walked in the garden: (Fool) The garden had fallen still; He bade his soul rise upward and stand at her window sill (Magician invoking spirit) It rose in a straight blue garment (Papessa - spiritual) When owls began to call: (Emporer - rules, demand) It had grown wise-tongued by thinking (Pope - wisdom) of a quiet and light footfall; But the young queen would not listen She rose in her pale night-gown (Empress-fertility) She drew in the heavy casement And pulled the latches down (Justice/Strength - weight/force) He had his heart to go to her (Chariot - movement) When the owls called no more; (Hermit - isolation) In a red and quivering garment It sang to her through the door. (Lovers - longing/completion) It had grown sweet-tongued by dreaming (Angel/Temperance) Of a flutter of flower-like hair; But she took up her fan from the table And waved it off to air (Wheel of Fortune - change) 'I have cap and bells,' he pondered (Devil - material goods) "I will send them to her and die (Death - transformation) And when the morning whitened He left them where she went by (Hanged Man-sacrifice) She laid them upon her bosom Under a cloud of her hair And her red lips sang them a love-song Till stars grew out of air (Star - Hope) She opened her door and her window And the heart and soul came through, To her right hand came the red one (Sun-Glory/Day) To her left hand came the blue. (Moon-Imagination/Night) They set up a noise like crickets A chattering wise and sweet (Judgment Day--Resurrection) And her hair was a folded flower And the quiet of love in her feet (World-Culmination/Fulfillment) Happy Yeats! Cerulean Mari H. P.S. Since then, I've been searching for that perfect tarot that can truly illustrate my favorite post-World War II poet, Tamura Ryuichi and another zen-like poet, Jane Hirshfield...my Ananda has worked well for storyboarding sci-fi movie themes that I saw when I wanted to 'deconstruct the story...pardon, if my musing is not relevant. I was relating to your infinite delight and remembered a similar joy...thanks for your post!

Fudugazi	16 Dec 2004
Cerulean wrote: P.S. Since then, I've been searching for that perfect tarot that can truly illustrate my favorite post-World War II poet, Tamura Ryuichi and another zen-like poet, Jane Hirshfield...my Ananda has worked well for storyboarding sci-fi movie themes that I saw when I wanted to 'deconstruct the story...pardon, if my musing is not relevant. I was relating to your infinite delight and remembered a similar joy...thanks for your post! And I thought I knew Yeats! thank you for that Cerulean, a revelation indeed. Have you any decks that come close to what you find in Ryuichi or Hirshfield? How would a zen deck look like? - blank? a few lines of black on white? or like those lovely Japanese illustrations of cherry blossoms, perhaps. You might have to make one yourself...

Fulgour	16 Dec 2004
From Macbeth by William Shakespeare Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time and all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying... Nothing. * It should be remembered here that Macbeth is about to be killed, and he knows it. His wife has ended her life and now he has a rant before battle. But, the audience knows he's lost his last chance and is going to meet a deserved fate. Sympathy?

MeeWah	16 Dec 2004
Helvetica wrote: And do you see them the books you read, the poems, the songs you hear, the movies you watch? Do they bring you back, or propell you forward? And do you see yourself in them? And the Other? Is the Tarot a mirror, or a door? Yes in the books, in the poems, the songs heard, the movies watched. & in the conversations. Most certainly in the events or course of daily living as those moments the emodiments of the archetypal or symbolic where one can see the self in relation to other people & things. The Tarot is both a mirror & a door. As a mirror, reflective of the surface, that which is more immediately apparent or accessible. As a door, it opens the perception to a deeper reflection of the unconscious; the realization of the intrinsic link to all things. & that essence of the unseen. To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. ~William Blake, from "Auguries of Innocence"

Ace	16 Dec 2004
Helvetica wrote: How would a zen deck look like? - blank? a few lines of black on white? or like those lovely Japanese illustrations of cherry blossoms, perhaps. You might have to make one yourself... Maybe that new International Icon deck that people are talking about where all the RWS symbols are stripped down to very basic figures is a Zen Deck!

Fudugazi	16 Dec 2004
MeeWah wrote: The Tarot is both a mirror & a door. As a mirror, reflective of the surface, that which is more immediately apparent or accessible. As a door, it opens the perception to a deeper reflection of the unconscious; the realization of the intrinsic link to all things. & that essence of the unseen. As I read that, I thought of Alice Through the Looking-Glass - Alice walks through the looking-glass in the parlour, into the reversed world where she meets flowers that laugh at her for being such an ugly-looking flower, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the twins who sing her The Walrus and the Carpenter, a knitting sheep who keeps shop and tells her "you can look in front of you, and on both sides, if you like, but you can't look all around you - unless you've got eyes at the back of your head", and the Red Knight of chess, who turns out to be rather decrepit - the accumulation of characters and signs and symbols that make up our unconscious. In the Ancestral Path Tarot, if I remember, Judgement is shows as a girl going through a looking-glass. What does she find on the other side? An intriguing thought. I have the deck in the post, I shall find out, with a little help from Lewis Carroll.... I wonder, in fact, if most of the archetypes and symbols we find in the Tarot were not dreamt by its many creators, who went through the looking-glass, so that what we are looking at, when we study our cards, mirror and door, is the reversed world behind illusion? Or is that just another illusion? (I need Cerulean for a Zen view of mirrors and doors, and through the looking glass). MeeWah wrote: To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour. ~William Blake, from "Auguries of Innocence" Ah Blake! he would know what we are all talking about here ;) He probably even met Innana/Astarte in Cheapside. Not to mention the Empress...

Fudugazi	16 Dec 2004
Ace wrote: Maybe that new International Icon deck that people are talking about where all the RWS symbols are stripped down to very basic figures is a Zen Deck! Maybe - though it looks more like one of these 1930s shipping company posters advertising transatlantic crossings in stylised liners with stylised looking passengers, all drawn in clean lines with few features - very attractive posters they are too.

Imagemaker	16 Dec 2004
Jane Hirschfeld, in her book of essays, wrote the best summary of Zen I ever saw. And it could be applied equally to reading tarot spreads. (Paraphrased quote, as I remember it): Life can be encapsulated in 3 statements: 1. everything changes, 2. everything is connected, 2. pay attention. What deck reflects that? For me, it's any deck that allows me to quickly and accurately pierce through to truth. Then it's a Zen deck.

MeeWah	16 Dec 2004
Helvetica wrote: As I read that, I thought of Alice Through the Looking-Glass - Alice walks through the looking-glass in the parlour, into the reversed world where she meets flowers that laugh at her for being such an ugly-looking flower, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, the twins who sing her The Walrus and the Carpenter, a knitting sheep who keeps shop and tells her "you can look in front of you, and on both sides, if you like, but you can't look all around you - unless you've got eyes at the back of your head", and the Red Knight of chess, who turns out to be rather decrepit - the accumulation of characters and signs and symbols that make up our unconscious. In the Ancestral Path Tarot, if I remember, Judgement is shows as a girl going through a looking-glass. What does she find on the other side? An intriguing thought. I have the deck in the post, I shall find out, with a little help from Lewis Carroll.... I wonder, in fact, if most of the archetypes and symbols we find in the Tarot were not dreamt by its many creators, who went through the looking-glass, so that what we are looking at, when we study our cards, mirror and door, is the reversed world behind illusion? Or is that just another illusion? (I need Cerulean for a Zen view of mirrors and doors, and through the looking glass). Ah Blake! he would know what we are all talking about here ;) He probably even met Innana/Astarte in Cheapside. Not to mention the Empress... I was thinking of "Alice Through the Looking Glass". I tend to see the creators of Tarot decks & writers of books to express their unconscious realms through their conscious "workings". I see our world *is* the Other Side of the Looking Glass, the "reversed" side. That is, we peer through the Veil of Forgetfulness; through the conscious mind that separates us from the more wholistic view & of our real origin--that of the superconscious. The conscious mind is finite; tends to obscure the view & sees as if through a glass darkly. The subconscious is the filter or bridge that communicates between the other two realms. As beautifully & allegorically told in "The Three Candles of Little Veronica" by Manfred Kyber, we live in a House of Shadows yet seek the Garden of Light. "...Yes, of course, Veronica, and that's why it is so important to have good and right thoughts. Each person creates his own spiritual surroundings. With many people these don't look at all pretty, and the dark forces that are related to these images hang onto them. But a good thought not only protects you yourself and helps your being grow into the light. It is, at the same time, a power which reaches out further. Through every thought of goodness, a wicked person becomes better, a wild animal less savage, and a poisonous plant less dangerous. There is a rise and fall woven together in everything, and the whole of creation, now sunk in darkness, is striving together upward to the light and longs for knowledge and deliverance." ~Exerpt from "The Three Candles of Little Veronica" by Manfred Kyber

Fudugazi	16 Dec 2004
Imagemaker wrote: Jane Hirschfeld, in her book of essays, wrote the best summary of Zen I ever saw. And it could be applied equally to reading tarot spreads. (Paraphrased quote, as I remember it): Life can be encapsulated in 3 statements: 1. everything changes, 2. everything is connected, 2. pay attention. What deck reflects that? For me, it's any deck that allows me to quickly and accurately pierce through to truth. Then it's a Zen deck. You're right - probably the zenest attitude to hold as well. Thanks for the 3 statements, it reminds me very much of the i-ching (unsurprisingly). I'll hunt down Hirschfeld, this is the second reference to her. Pay attention. Don't you think that's the hardest thing to do? I try, and deliberately make myself notice the birds chasing each other for a crumb, the drooping leaf, the orange paint peeling off a bike, a brass doorhandle that has been shone into a mirror surface (one wonders what Alice might have seen if she had gone through the doorhandle). I pay attention, too, when I am reading, I notice the cards, I make myself look at them, I notice my querent and the energy between us. But I need waking up, now and then, I get tired, I drift, I get lost in a world of too many mirrors. That's why these little miracles, phrases in a book, or a scene in a film, can suddenly make me sit up straight, make me pay attention.

Fudugazi	16 Dec 2004
MeeWah wrote: I was thinking of "Alice Through the Looking Glass". As beautifully & allegorically told in "The Three Candles of Little Veronica" by Manfred Kyber, we live in a House of Shadows yet seek the Garden of Light. "...Yes, of course, Veronica, and that's why it is so important to have good and right thoughts. Each person creates his own spiritual surroundings. With many people these don't look at all pretty, and the dark forces that are related to these images hang onto them. But a good thought not only protects you yourself and helps your being grow into the light. It is, at the same time, a power which reaches out further. Through every thought of goodness, a wicked person becomes better, a wild animal less savage, and a poisonous plant less dangerous. There is a rise and fall woven together in everything, and the whole of creation, now sunk in darkness, is striving together upward to the light and longs for knowledge and deliverance." ~Exerpt from "The Three Candles of Little Veronica" by Manfred Kyber I didn't know about that book. Amazon tells me it's a German fable - it sounds delightful. I had such an experience the other night, of good thoughts that heal. I was angry with someone, so angry and hurt. I picked up the 7 of pentacles that I had drawn in a reading about the situation - the Tarot of Prague 7 of pentacles is beautiful, like the rest of the deck. A man meditates before the fruits of his labour, a tree filled with pentacles, as he waits for them to grow to maturity. But in my mood, the card began to look more sinister - the man's pensive expression became melancholy, then desperate, the two figures of Temperance and Prudence looked no longer consoling (as they do now) but mocking. I put it away and went to my new Héron Conver (TdM) deck and picked out the VII de Deniers, which is the corresponding card. In those round coins and curling flowering vines I lost myself. I looked and let the sunlike circles and flowers flow into me. I didn't try and interpret, I didn't read the card, I just looked at it until I was calm and the anger and hurt had lifted. Only later, reading Jodorowski's book, did I see that he sees tat card as symbolising "matter becoming spirit, going through matter to reach spirit". It had literally done that to me, and then I read the book and put a name to it. And I see too, that it links to our discussion about going through the looking-glass - it's synchronous, because I'd not thought about it that way. Going through that looking glass can be dangerous, however - do you remember the film Through a Glass, Darkly, with the girl who has visions and goes mad? Oh, and baba-prague, should you read this, I am quite reconciled with the thoughtful man, and Temperance, and Prudence ;)

MeeWah	16 Dec 2004
Helvetica wrote: I didn't know about that book. Amazon tells me it's a German fable - it sounds delightful... It is! The book indicates it is "The story of a child's soul in this world and the other". The edition is translated from the German; published 1977 by The Waldorf Press of Adelphi University in Garden City, New York. ISBN 0-914614-05-3. Helvetica wrote: ...I had such an experience the other night, of good thoughts that heal. I was angry with someone, so angry and hurt. I picked up the 7 of pentacles that I had drawn in a reading about the situation - the Tarot of Prague 7 of pentacles is beautiful, like the rest of the deck. A man meditates before the fruits of his labour, a tree filled with pentacles, as he waits for them to grow to maturity. But in my mood, the card began to look more sinister - the man's pensive expression became melancholy, then desperate, the two figures of Temperance and Prudence looked no longer consoling (as they do now) but mocking. I put it away and went to my new Héron Conver (TdM) deck and picked out the VII de Deniers, which is the corresponding card. In those round coins and curling flowering vines I lost myself. I looked and let the sunlike circles and flowers flow into me. I didn't try and interpret, I didn't read the card, I just looked at it until I was calm and the anger and hurt had lifted. Only later, reading Jodorowski's book, did I see that he sees tat card as symbolising "matter becoming spirit, going through matter to reach spirit". It had literally done that to me, and then I read the book and put a name to it... I know the Tarot of Prague 7-Pentacles. It appeared in a personal reading & impressed me as reflective of the current Chariot Year. I am frequently assessing & reminding myself of that which I seek to accomplish. Interesting that 7-Pentacles is seen as matter becoming spirit, going through matter to reach spirit--a summary of the soul journey from spirit & back to spirit. 7 is the number of initiation. Enlightenment through experience. Well-acquainted with the RWS 3-Swords from its frequent appearance over a span of years, its appearance diminished only after I worked with it. Interestingly, some of the readings I did for others within that period also featured this card in prominent positions. In those throws, I saw a mirror of my own experiences of processing--from denial, to anger, to grief; & then to understanding, acceptance & forgiving self (though I have also seen 6-Cups as forgiveness). Now, 3-Swords can also mean that which wounds also has the power to heal. For one may not realize the existance of inner restrictions nor the lack of understanding until they are manifested & experienced. Helvetica wrote: ...Going through that looking glass can be dangerous, however - do you remember the film Through a Glass, Darkly, with the girl who has visions and goes mad? ... I have not seen it, but concur that going through the looking glass can be dangerous. Whether one is well-integrated or not, all subject in one way or another to stepping into oblivion or undergoing the dark nights of the soul. The process of individuation itself has risks, let alone delving into one's soul. & whether seen as going through the looking glass or voyaging to the ocean depths, we move out of the known comfort or safe zones. Seeking to live holds risks. Does that mean one does not take chances? No. Each night one sleeps, one takes a chance & moreorless trusts to wake up again in the morning.

MeeWah	16 Dec 2004
6-The Lovers has personal significance as does 15-The Devil. "The Road Not Taken" by American poet Robert Frost (1874–1963) illustrates the former succinctly & perhaps, also the latter: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Fulgour	16 Dec 2004
Through the Looking Glass (And What Alice Found There) Looking Glass 1 Looking Glass 2 Complete Works

Fudugazi	16 Dec 2004
MeeWah wrote: 6-The Lovers has personal significance as does 15-The Devil. "The Road Not Taken" by American poet Robert Frost (1874–1963) illustrates the former succinctly & perhaps, also the latter: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; ... Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. I've loved that poem as long as I've known it, it is so evocative of the choices we make, and the moment, much later, when we start thinking "it has made all the difference". Of course, choices appear periodically, like so many crossroads, and once again two roads diverge in a wood. But I've never associated it with the Lovers and the Devil. I shall look at it differently now - thanks for sharing the association. (And 6 - Lovers has personal associations for me too- long has - together with the Empress - I was born the 3 of 3; and now, 15 -Devil, because both have appeared together in a spread, the Devil first, followed by the Lovers, in a significant reading during what is a tense time for me). For me, that poem has meant the Hermit's quest. I see him alone in that yellow wood, it is dim, so he must keep his lamp lit, and besides, his eyes are failing. He is old, but still he must choose a road if he is to arrive at the end of his quest, or at least at a way-stage. He takes the one that wanted wear...because he is a hermit, after all.

Cerulean	19 Dec 2004
covered with burning fire, to bring panic to those in the castle. But so subtly did Venus launch it that no man nor woman of them, however long they may have looked, had the power to see it. When the brand had flown, those in the tower fell into panic. Fire blazed out in the whole area, and they had to acknowledge their capture. They all cried out, "Betrayed? Betrayed? All dead! Woe! Woe! Let us fly this country." Each threw down his keys where he stood...nor did anyone wait one another; each one with his clothes pulled up to his middle, thought only of flight. Fear fled, and Shame shot forth; flaming, all left the castle.... Venus's Conflagration; Winning the Rose Romance of the Rose: Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun Translated by Charles Dahlberg... Also from the introduction: "The Romance of the Rose, for nearly three hundred years after its composition in the thirteenth century, one of the most widely read works in the French language. Since French was the official language of the English court for many years, it was nearly as important there as in France..." Interesting literature...someday I'll find one set of cards that work for all these themes... Cheers, Cerulean

Fudugazi	20 Dec 2004
Cerulean wrote: When the brand had flown, those in the tower fell into panic. Fire blazed out in the whole area, and they had to acknowledge their capture. They all cried out, "Betrayed? Betrayed? All dead! Woe! Woe! Let us fly this country." Each threw down his keys where he stood...nor did anyone wait one another; each one with his clothes pulled up to his middle, thought only of flight. Fear fled, and Shame shot forth; flaming, all left the castle.... Interesting literature...someday I'll find one set of cards that work for all these themes... And when you do, don't forget to tell! (and I too, should I find one). But it might be that we must make our own...

Rosanne	20 Dec 2004
Your thread had me rummaging around for that book! And I found it Paul Theroux 'Sir Vidia's Shadow' opening paragraph:- 'It is a good thing that time is a light, because so much of life is mumbling shadows and the future is just silence and darkness. But time passes, times torch illuminates, it finds connections, it makes sense of confusion, it reveals the truth. And you hardly know the oddness of life until you have lived a little. Then you get it. You are older, looking back. For a period you understand and can say, I see it all clearly. I remember everything. It can be a brief passage, for a revelation.' Time is Tarot for me and he expressed it perfectly. Regards Rosanne P.S. I loved all the postings thus far.

SunChariot	28 Dec 2004
Helvetica wrote: I've often struggled with XVI - the Tower/Maison Dieu, as have many. Negative or postive? A liberation or a catastrophe? Last night, as I was reading a book - my beloved Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse - I came upon this passage: "Was there no safety? No learning by heart of the ways of the world? No guide, no shelter, but all was miracle, and leaping from the pinnacle of a tower into the air? Could it be, even for the elderly people, that this was life - startling, unexpected, unknown?" I was blinded and cracked open - literally a Tower moment, both revelation and total shift in perspective. So that's it! I thought. Oh, so exciting, so unsettling! So....towerish. As Virginia described, I saw those little figures in the Tarot, but no longer passively ejected - no, they accompanied the movement, the Tower's push - they leapt! Has anyone else had such a revelating moment about a Tarot card, or a spread, while reading a totally unrelated book? Or watching a film? I loved that quote, it was truly beautiful. I need to get a hold of that book.:-) I have had that, those revelation moments lots of time. I think Tarot opens up your intuition. And once you develop it and learn to trust it more, the universe will send you messages in other forms also. It sends you messages to teach you what you need to understand. If you are looking for them, you recognise them for the gift that they are. But it only seems to send them to those who are open to seeing them. I don't think I got any of these expriences before starting Tarot, and if I did I would have thought they were coincidences anyway. For me two that stuck in my mind where 1) when I was first learning Tarot and to trust it... I was on a break at work, on a day when it had rained a few days in a row and there had been no sun at all in all that time. So I decided to do a Tarot meditation on one of my Haindl cards. The card had a hazy little sun on it. And I did my little 5 minute medition next to a window...and like two seconds after I put the card away, the sun popped out for the first time in days. It looked identical to the sun on the card I had just put away. And I knew there was a connection between the Tarot and the universe and that they were working together for me in my life. Or another time 2) I started to doubt my readings about my ex, my skillls, adn Tarot in general. Cause ALL the ones I did for myself said exactly what I wanted my future to be. All the same. Right in the middle of a crisis of faith in the Tarot, I got a Tarot newsletter I subscribed to... In it my Tarot horoscope said I needed to trust my instincts, they were right on, And to trust anything that comes to me in a divinatory mode, such as Tarot. AND the reading for my ex's horoscope said EXACTLY what my readings had told me all along. I guess there is something in the universe that wants me to be where I am, and will not let me give up on Tarot. :-) But with each of these experiences, my faith in it grows. All my reading seem to be puctuated by info that the universe seems to send me to fill in any gaps and to help me know that there is something bigger than me happening when I do a reading. I just love when that happens. I add them all into my journal. Bar

The Tarot and Literary eye-openers thread was originally posted on 15 Dec 2004 in the Talking Tarot board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Talking Tarot, or read more archived threads.