Mel's Old Fashioned Pips & Courts and Homemade Baked Goods

SolSionnach

I'm enjoying the conversation - don't have anything to add just yet!
 

Bernice

Morning Mel,

Well I've slept on the elemental arrangment and come to the conclusion that your first response re. elements for the Trumps (your post #67) is probably the best one. Assigning elements to each card or a 'set' of cards isn't really feasible - it seems too restrictive of their allegory expressions.

Also..... although I do like to Temple of Columns, in my minds eye I see one of those old drawings. Three Towers with a walkway (escarpment?) joining them together at the middle level, and a landscape background.

The Celestial Tier in the sky (a few clouds wafting about),
The Virtues just beneath the skyline, and at top of the tower spires.
The Cycle of Life in the top tower rooms.
The Orders of Man, in the lower tower rooms.

Where the card is an Active one - I imagine a glow of candle-light at the window.


The foreground landscape, leading up to the Towers = the pips & courts.
...................

OK. I'm done imagining......... back to the Temple. I cannot satifactorily fit the elements to it.

Bee :)

Later: Check out Hucks post here re. the Elements.

http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=1769997&postcount=12
 

Melanchollic

3 of Batons

3 OF BATONS

Nickname - "The Futile Merger"
Element - Air/Earth
Temper - Sanguine Melancholic
Power - all
Timing - random
Movement - random
Direction - East West axis
In the cycle of a year - none
In the cycle of a day - none
In the cycle of a life - none
Sex - both
Cards - 5 Batons, 9 Batons, Knight Batons, 10 Cups, 4 Cups, Valet Cups


The Air of the Triad, and the Earth of the Baton are opposite. Since the 3 Of Batons is a badly dignified card, the opposing energies can't be reconciled, despite the triads need to do so. This gives us a situation were things can not "get it together" - tasks or projects that just won't congeal despite our efforts, bickering and disagreements between co-workers, friends, or family, contracts and mediations, and partnerships that can't be brought to fruition. The 3 wants to be 'the mean', to bring back the unity of the Monad, but the opposition of Air/Earth is like two magnets, so there is a labored futile struggle, and things remain disjointed and never converge or coalesce.

Short Sample Reading

The Querent asks: "Will I get the promotion?"

Card #1 (The Querent) = Purgatory (Tower)
Card #2 (The Quesited) = Justice
Card #3 (How they interact) = 3 Batons

Judgement: Clearly a 'no' here. The querent is The Tower. I interpret this card as purgatory, as I believe that the image is actually a secularized version of the 'Christ's descent into Limbo' theme*. The querent's position is like purgatory. The 'boss' is Justice. He feels his decision is fair and 'just'. The 3 of Batons supports The Tower. The querent and the promotion will not come together despite the querent's efforts.

*To avoid depicting the Savior on a gaming card, the 'cracking open of limbo' is shown via a bolt from heaven in the TdM. Other early patterns differ. The TdM also alters the standard 'Christ in Majesty' icon to avoid depicting him on a gaming card.


ChristinLimbosmall.jpg
 

Bernice

MEL: ... The TdM also alters the standard 'Christ in Majesty' icon to avoid depicting him on a gaming card.

Mel, which trump are you relating this to?
....

And... "the cracking open of limbs", this is 'purgatory?
I thought it was believed/imagined to be a half-way place 'twix Heaven & Hell. Didn't know that you got your limbs cracked open - what a painful place! (...and me born in a 'christian' country....)
....

This 3 Batons: Seems like an 'honest' 3, trying to adjust properly to circumstances - shame it's so ill-dignified.

Bee :)
 

Melanchollic

Bernice said:
Mel, which trump are you relating this to?
....

And... "the cracking open of limbs", this is 'purgatory?
I thought it was believed/imagined to be a half-way place 'twix Heaven & Hell. Didn't know that you got your limbs cracked open - what a painful place! (...and me born in a 'christian' country....)
....

This 3 Batons: Seems like an 'honest' 3, trying to adjust properly to circumstances - shame it's so ill-dignified.

Bee :)



The World card in the TdM is a version of the Christ in Majesty image.



ChristinMajestyXXI.jpg



Sorry for the small print! That says "cracking open of limbo", with an 'O'.

Purgatory/Limbo is a kind of temporary hell where everyone will go, short of the perfect Saint, to burn off, or purge, their minor sins, and await Judgement, which is the release from Purgatory (XVI). At Judgement (XX) it will be decided who goes to Hell (XV), and who to Heaven (XXI). The medieval imagery of Hell and Purgatory is actually quite similar, and both were often depicted as Towers. I believe in the tarot trumps the idea is...


  • The Devil = Hell

  • The Tower = Purgatory


This has a nice symmetry within the sequence:



ABC-tier3.jpg


HELL/PURGATORY--------------THE INTERIM (Creation)------------JUDGEMENT/HEAVEN​
 

frelkins

Well. . .hmm Mel to see Tower or Maison Dieu as purgatory offers a really interesting and different possibility of meaning for this card. Not the usual, "total disaster," but rather something more like "time of purification," or "redemptive suffering."

In this view, how would we distinguish it from le Pendu/Traitor?
 

Melanchollic

frelkins said:
Well. . .hmm Mel to see Tower or Maison Dieu as purgatory offers a really interesting and different possibility of meaning for this card. Not the usual, "total disaster," but rather something more like "time of purification," or "redemptive suffering."

In this view, how would we distinguish it from le Pendu/Traitor?


Ahh..

Dame Fortuna herself!

I interpret the Hanged man as disgrace, dishonor, defamation, ruined reputation, "people talkin' bad 'bout ya", or generally a decline in good fortune, being the step after the downward turn of the wheel, and before Death.

I 'do' the Tower similarly to how most folks 'do' the Hanged Man; something like anguish, suffering, paying for your sins (a bad STD?), immobility, etc.

In general yes/no question they both would simply be 'no'.

On the 3 Columns Model, The Juggler, The Hanged Man, and the Tower form a vertical line, so they are like manifestations of the same energy on different levels.


templeoftarot.jpg
 

frelkins

[quote="Mel]The Juggler, The Hanged Man, and the Tower form a vertical line, so they are like manifestations of the same energy on different levels.[/quote]

yo Mel, so I see it as a movement from good to not so good in that model. The Juggler is skillful or tricky, a white lie, a practical joke, or maybe cutting a corner (but sometimes this can be good, like finding a good shortcut at work, being a clever employee); the Hanged Man is yeah, you're called a traitor, a bad person, there's bad gossip about you; the Tower then would be suffering, delay, unfortunate, unwanted event. Death is also an unwanted change, but it's a good change; that doesn't mean necessarily, a pain-free change, however. Tower is an all-bad change. Wheel is an all-good, all-wanted, way happy change.

what's your reaction to that, Mel?
 

Melanchollic

frelkins said:
what's your reaction to that, Mel?



I think we'd better talk about this over dinner and cocktails. ;)
 

Rosanne

ummm. I do not see the WOF as all good change. Just change.

Interestingly I see Strength (fortitude) + Hanged Man cards as Virtue and Vice.

and the controlling Virtue of Temperance or the opposite Wrath (Devil)

so Strength and Hanged Man ( Fortitude and Inconstancy) past a planet :D

To Hope and/or Despair (The Star and Moon)....

But I like how you see it (even after dinner and cocktails)

~Rosanne