Gardener
In her book The Kabbalah Tree, Rachel Pollack says that one concept of the Tree of Life is that the second and third sephirot (Wisdom and Understanding) represent the supernal (highest) mother and father, while sephirot four and five are the younger generation parents, and six (Beauty) is the divine son. In Jewish history, Sarah and Abraham are the older parents, Isaac and Rebecca the younger, and Jacob the son. I think in Greek mythology this would be Chronos and Rhea, then Zeus and Hera. Don’t know about a divine son, though.
Haindl used this concept to structure his court cards. The mother and father of each suit are the older generation parental gods, and the daughter and son the younger parental gods. This doesn’t always work, but it is exactly the concept for the Swords Suit (Egyptian pantheon), so I thought I’d start there.
These are quotes from Pollack’s book The Haindl Tarot: The Minor Arcana.
Most people know Nut (sometimes called Mother of the Nile) as the night sky, arched over the Earth, her body filled with stars. Images of Nut can be found very far back, because her legend goes back to primordial times, possibly the oldest goddes in the world. Her image arches over the earth, or she appears upright, on her toes. Haindl painted both figures onto this card. The upright image is actually the same as the arching one, as seen from the inside of a coffin, with her arched form painted on the inside lid. The coffin stands in for the world, and night becomes a symbol of death. Death covers us entirely, the way the night covers the earth. While the Mother confronts us with the fear of darkness and death, she also shelters us. Her presence in the coffin aids the soul’s passage through the chaos of death.
What happens to the sun at night? One Sun myth tells that the Mother eats the sun every evening, he travels through her body and reemrges in the morning. In this card there are three circles moving along the upright figure. Haindl choose three because the night sky is the Goddess as a totality, High Priestess and Empress combined in a single figure.
Haindl used this concept to structure his court cards. The mother and father of each suit are the older generation parental gods, and the daughter and son the younger parental gods. This doesn’t always work, but it is exactly the concept for the Swords Suit (Egyptian pantheon), so I thought I’d start there.
These are quotes from Pollack’s book The Haindl Tarot: The Minor Arcana.
Most people know Nut (sometimes called Mother of the Nile) as the night sky, arched over the Earth, her body filled with stars. Images of Nut can be found very far back, because her legend goes back to primordial times, possibly the oldest goddes in the world. Her image arches over the earth, or she appears upright, on her toes. Haindl painted both figures onto this card. The upright image is actually the same as the arching one, as seen from the inside of a coffin, with her arched form painted on the inside lid. The coffin stands in for the world, and night becomes a symbol of death. Death covers us entirely, the way the night covers the earth. While the Mother confronts us with the fear of darkness and death, she also shelters us. Her presence in the coffin aids the soul’s passage through the chaos of death.
What happens to the sun at night? One Sun myth tells that the Mother eats the sun every evening, he travels through her body and reemrges in the morning. In this card there are three circles moving along the upright figure. Haindl choose three because the night sky is the Goddess as a totality, High Priestess and Empress combined in a single figure.