The Twos

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 20 Nov 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

bigcaat	20 Nov 2004
Doing some study on my twos (Universal Waite) I noticed something interesting. The person in the Two of Pentacles looks down at what he holds in his hand. Looking at the material. The person in the Two of Swords is blindfolded, facing forward, but if she *thinks* about it, the blindfold doesn't completely cover her eyes. Thinking logically. (Conversely, if we look at it as she is just blindfolded, the person might need to abandon logic and rely on intuition.) In the Two of Cups, the people look at each other. Looking at emotions. And in the Two of Wands, the person looks beyond himself -- to find himself. Just found the differences in the way they face in each card interesting. What are your interpretations of the Twos? Caat

noby	20 Nov 2004
In my little tarot notebook, when I wrote down qualities I associated with all the Twos, I wrote, "balance, encounter, approach." I particularly like the word encounter for these cards. How do we react in encounters with others and life, with the outside world? In a lot of cases, :WS :WL :WS and :SS :SL :SS are more forceful suits than :CS :CL :CS and :OS :OL :OS. In encountering the world, the enterprising Wands see a chance for power and dominion and the conflict-prone Swords see something to actively control, while Cups and Pentacles have more fluid, receptive responses. The following are my thoughts on the Twos in the RWS tradition. In :T2W, we see the success of having risen up in the world, but also the loneliness of this forceful approach. One has risen to the top, but at the price of becoming walled off from the world. One becomes trapped in a prison of one's own making. In :T3W, we see the wise response to this state. The person in :T3W has cast off worldly power in favor of the true freedom and mastery of one who lives simply, embracing what life has to offer, but with one's feet on the humble earth, rather than upon the floors of a castle balcony. In :T2S, we see the tension of a forced peace, the kind of response where one is determined to be happy and peaceful at all costs and makes a stand against anything negative and difficult. The result is a tense kind of peace which comes from blinding ourselves to our problems and holding them at a distance, rather than receiving them openly. In :T2C, we see an emotionally healthy approach to encounters with others - one of many cards in the tarot that demonstrates that in order to have power and health ourselves, we have to give as freely as we receive, holding nothing back. There is total flow here, openness, merging. In :T2P, we see a graceful and fluid presence that comes with learning to respond to that which comes in the dance of life fully and openly. We move through change gracefully when we are receptive and work with it, embracing what comes, rather than trying to work against it and resist what we'd rather not deal with, as in :T2S.

Fulgour	25 Nov 2004
I wonder what the world thought when Pamela Colman Smith introduced her Tarot images ~ with illustrations of all 78 cards! In some ways it's not hard to imagine, what with people still trying to give credit to any and everybody but her for this... Kind of like the way William Shakespeare couldn't possibly have written those amazing plays (...another man, by the same name?) And yet when we look at her pictures it is plain to see her spirit, the intensity of her convictions, and her brilliant playful streak. I have spent hours altogether looking at this group of drawings, sometimes more confounded after awhile than before I started. They are brilliant, the very essence of two-ness, all on their own. I wish more people would drop the "Rider-Waite" name for her deck.

The The Twos thread was originally posted on 20 Nov 2004 in the Using Tarot Cards board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Using Tarot Cards, or read more archived threads.