nisaba
The Tarot community is abuzz, at times, with quite strenuous argument about which Major Arcana card is 8 and which is 11 - Strength or Justice. I can see the argument, which originated in the Order of the Golden Dawn only about a century ago, for having Justice as 11 and Strength as 8, but the "story" of the Major Arcana works as well or better for me with the traditional system of having Justice as 8, and Strength as 11, where it fortifies the soul before moving onto the tribulations and instability of the Wheel of Fortune.
Granny Jones is obviously an Old School Girl, too - she has reverted to the system that lasted half a millenium. She didn't revert to the original mythic image of Hercules and the Lion that characterises the earliest decks, though - in her image she is quite modern.
We see her in her rocking chair, grooming her Siamese cat, who has grown to lion-like proportions. Interestingly, in her left hand she holds a mirror up to the observer: we are meant to put ourselves into that scene, to know ourselves. The cat has a look of alarm or surprise on its face, and it is clawing her lap. And here is how Strength is represented in this card: every cat-owner will know the feeling of a loving cat kneading their knees with sharp and quite painful claws, and will know that you can't show your pain if your animal is demonstrating love to you. So we all "grin and bear it", we all tolerate the skin-deep pinprick-discomfort for the sake of the happiness of our animals.
That requires a certain amount of mental discipline, which is what this card is about. Ideally in a modern society where most punishments are non-violent in intention, there is no reason to incorporate violence in our daily lives - I understand there are many people, perhaps a whole substratum of society that disagrees, but this study group is not the place to argue the point. So we no longer have the need of Hercules' brute muscular strength to enforce the rule of law, or even the rule of lore.
But every society is going to need quiet, inner grit, and that is what we see here: Granny lovingly grooming her cat and smiling through the pain, resisting the urge to push the cat off its lap because it really does need grooming. This card is about tolerating what you have to tolerate for the higher good, about pushing through personal barriers and boundaries to accomplish a worthwhile outcome rather than giving up at the first sign of difficulty.
The rocking chair speaks to me of repeated cycles of effort, repeated tests, reminiscent of the initiatory trials often encountered in folk stories, teaching-fables and fairy stories, where the protagonist is set a number of tasks, often tasks that earlier people have failed to carry out, in order to advance, or to win the prize.
As I have discussed elsewhere in this blog, Granny's choice of clothes on her alter-ego that wanders through the deck reflects her spirituality: the pilgrim's hat of the eternal spiritual seeker, the red, black and white of her skirt and apron reflecting the Triple Goddess (white for the innocence of the Maiden, red for the creative power of the Mother, black for the wisdom of the Crone), and the purple of her shawl reflecting the connection between the spiritual and physical worlds. And lastly but not least, the bobbing corks on her hat, while not reflecting Australian fashion as it really is, certainly reflects an inner-world perception that the world has of Australians, as wearing corks on their hats, and points to her strong nationalism, her sense of place and her loyalties. Of course, in a card dealing with inner strength she will draw attention to that which she feels strongly about!
And what about the knot in the tail of the cat? Over the years I've spent with this deck, I've come to see it as an expression of two different things, depending on the card and to some extent the individual reading: either it can be like kids crossing their fingers behind their back to make a lie look okay to themselves or crossing fingers for luck (as cats don't have fingers), or I can see it - and in this deck usually do see it - as a tension, the kind of involuntary muscular tensing most of us have when we anticipate pain. Hey, even positive pain - I've made one blood donation for every card in the Tarot deck so far and I don't intend to stop, and in the course of my life, the pinprick of a needle entering a vein is a very small pain indeed, measured up against the good it can do. Yet I always tense for it. So does the cat - he doesn't like being brushed very much.
And every time I see it, that mirror in her left hand echoes the words of Jesus, paraphrased here: That which I can do, even the least among you can do also. We can all rise to the challenge, to any challenge. We just have to be prepared to believe in ourselves and to try.
Granny Jones is obviously an Old School Girl, too - she has reverted to the system that lasted half a millenium. She didn't revert to the original mythic image of Hercules and the Lion that characterises the earliest decks, though - in her image she is quite modern.
We see her in her rocking chair, grooming her Siamese cat, who has grown to lion-like proportions. Interestingly, in her left hand she holds a mirror up to the observer: we are meant to put ourselves into that scene, to know ourselves. The cat has a look of alarm or surprise on its face, and it is clawing her lap. And here is how Strength is represented in this card: every cat-owner will know the feeling of a loving cat kneading their knees with sharp and quite painful claws, and will know that you can't show your pain if your animal is demonstrating love to you. So we all "grin and bear it", we all tolerate the skin-deep pinprick-discomfort for the sake of the happiness of our animals.
That requires a certain amount of mental discipline, which is what this card is about. Ideally in a modern society where most punishments are non-violent in intention, there is no reason to incorporate violence in our daily lives - I understand there are many people, perhaps a whole substratum of society that disagrees, but this study group is not the place to argue the point. So we no longer have the need of Hercules' brute muscular strength to enforce the rule of law, or even the rule of lore.
But every society is going to need quiet, inner grit, and that is what we see here: Granny lovingly grooming her cat and smiling through the pain, resisting the urge to push the cat off its lap because it really does need grooming. This card is about tolerating what you have to tolerate for the higher good, about pushing through personal barriers and boundaries to accomplish a worthwhile outcome rather than giving up at the first sign of difficulty.
The rocking chair speaks to me of repeated cycles of effort, repeated tests, reminiscent of the initiatory trials often encountered in folk stories, teaching-fables and fairy stories, where the protagonist is set a number of tasks, often tasks that earlier people have failed to carry out, in order to advance, or to win the prize.
As I have discussed elsewhere in this blog, Granny's choice of clothes on her alter-ego that wanders through the deck reflects her spirituality: the pilgrim's hat of the eternal spiritual seeker, the red, black and white of her skirt and apron reflecting the Triple Goddess (white for the innocence of the Maiden, red for the creative power of the Mother, black for the wisdom of the Crone), and the purple of her shawl reflecting the connection between the spiritual and physical worlds. And lastly but not least, the bobbing corks on her hat, while not reflecting Australian fashion as it really is, certainly reflects an inner-world perception that the world has of Australians, as wearing corks on their hats, and points to her strong nationalism, her sense of place and her loyalties. Of course, in a card dealing with inner strength she will draw attention to that which she feels strongly about!
And what about the knot in the tail of the cat? Over the years I've spent with this deck, I've come to see it as an expression of two different things, depending on the card and to some extent the individual reading: either it can be like kids crossing their fingers behind their back to make a lie look okay to themselves or crossing fingers for luck (as cats don't have fingers), or I can see it - and in this deck usually do see it - as a tension, the kind of involuntary muscular tensing most of us have when we anticipate pain. Hey, even positive pain - I've made one blood donation for every card in the Tarot deck so far and I don't intend to stop, and in the course of my life, the pinprick of a needle entering a vein is a very small pain indeed, measured up against the good it can do. Yet I always tense for it. So does the cat - he doesn't like being brushed very much.
And every time I see it, that mirror in her left hand echoes the words of Jesus, paraphrased here: That which I can do, even the least among you can do also. We can all rise to the challenge, to any challenge. We just have to be prepared to believe in ourselves and to try.
