Ludy Lescot - The Four Aces

MaineGirl117

Ace of Pentacles

I always find myself staring at her pearl choker. It is gorgeous and I´m sure it´s very valuable. "Pearls bring out purity, honesty & integrity, plus feeling of beauty, dignity and calm. They both symbolize and stimulate femininity, feminine wisdom & charity"

http://therapeuticreiki.com/blog/power-of-pearl/

Her pearls are pink: "Pink pearls work especially well for the heart chakra, besides the solar plexus chakra."

Oh this is interesting! I hadn't even looked up the symbolism of the pearl, but it seems well placed here. I know the pearl necklace for the RWS Empress was symbolic of the 9 planets, but I couldn't see the association here. I wonder then, if the emeralds in her facemask have added significance here too.

This whole card reminds me of an excellent book: The Sacred Prostitute by the Jungian psychologist Nancy Qualls-Corbett (Inner City Books 1988). I think this quote from the book could be about our Sacred Priestess, the Ace of Pentacles:

" Whatever she undertakes, she does so with confidence, without regression, submissiveness or feeling of inferiority to a patriarchal system (which would mean returning to her father´s house). She neither has to compete with men nor adopt masculine qualities, that is, identify with the animus. The woman who has come to know the presence of the masculine power within is her own authority and stands constant to her feminine nature. She may not be able to change the patriarchal system which surrounds her, but, more importantly, she doesn´t allow the system to change her."

Oh Hemera!! This is a perfect description of our lady!

That she is not interested in the coin that is being flipped in front of her symbolises the fact that she is not allowing the system to change her. She is not doing anything for money.

The common phrase "money cannot buy happiness" comes to mind here. Without love, money is only a means to an end - and here she's saying you cannot buy love, the most valuable commodity on earth (I think :) )

This gives me a whole new way to look at this lady - strong, confident, in her own right independent, working in the confines of society, but not afraid to stand out or stand up for herself/her beliefs. Her loyalty cannot be bought for trinkets for they mean nothing to her. (isn't that funny that our suit for 'materialism' starts/ends with a lady not interested in tangible momentos??? What does that say about the rest of the suit???)
 

MaineGirl117

Ace of Cups

I always think she looks like a teenager who has got braces too big for her mouth and who is mirroring herself and trying to be very´ Femme Fatale´ but not being very succesful at it :D

There´s the duality theme again! I never thought we could find that in so many cards! I didn´t notice that the other Dolphin is gold and the other one is silver. It does bring the Sun and Moon into the picture.

No, it doesn´t have much soap opera kind of love. But (whenever I´m able to forget the teenager with oversized braces) she does have a lot of feeling and passion. So much so that it´s almost scary..

In the light of day I'm taking another look at her headband, and there's definitely another metal or two (the 7 beads on wires around her forehead) here that I hadn't noticed last night. Is that copper in the middle? In alchemy they talk of converting copper, lead, tin and iron into gold. Could those be the elements that make up her facemask, with the gold being the cup??

Also, the fact that all the shells and the dolphin are pointing towards 'salt'water, I did some checking and found that salt, water and sulphur are the three 'ingredients' to the great work. This would be a combination of the cups/wands suit which symbolizes transformation of elements (I may not be wording this well). Salt is also symbolic of the white phase we mentioned earlier under the Ace/wands comment. Here, the hand doesn't have a glove, but it does have a white cuff.

Also very interesting, have you looked at the water drops in this card? They don't look like they're falling, they look like they're rising !!! What's that all about?

Slightly off topic to this post, but I'll insert this here just to follow my thought process; could the red hair in the pentacles be an indicator of the 'red' phase??
 

Hemera

Also very interesting, have you looked at the water drops in this card? They don't look like they're falling, they look like they're rising !!! What's that all about?
Yes, I noticed this earlier but then I forgot! Maybe it just shows that there´s magical stuff going on? Things are not what they seem?

Slightly off topic to this post, but I'll insert this here just to follow my thought process; could the red hair in the pentacles be an indicator of the 'red' phase??
Yes...I think in a way it is reading a bit too much on the card. But on the other hand I think we have already gone rather far into the murky waters of Alchemy with this whole deck and it just seems to fit so why not :D
Reading "rubedo" into the picture would mean the Pentacles would be the highest suit, wouldn´t it? It is usually the last one of the suits, so yes..why not?!
Swords would have to be the beginning, the "nigredo" what with the sbc (stabbed baby card) and the Sword in the stone. Pulling that sword from the stone would start off the Hero´s Journey. Yes, that fits. The Swords would lead to Wands (with the black "nigredo" glove in the Ace, handing over the staff?) and that would make the Wands either "albedo" or maybe "viriditas" (green)? Would that fit? So, where would the Cups go in this succession?
The Cauda Pavonis-phase (Peacock´s Tail) is actually blue-green in color just like the Cups!
(From your link above, post #15)

ETA: I just remembered that for a primarily Intuitive person (like us? :) ) the Pentacles, i.e. the Jungian "Sensate" function is often the last of the four functions that is owned and incorporated in life. So that would also fit to the picture that our Pentacles represent the highes suit that comes after all the others, wouldn´t it?
 

MaineGirl117

Yes, I noticed this earlier but then I forgot! Maybe it just shows that there´s magical stuff going on? Things are not what they seem?

Yes...I think in a way it is reading a bit too much on the card. But on the other hand I think we have already gone rather far into the murky waters of Alchemy with this whole deck and it just seems to fit so why not :D
Reading "rubedo" into the picture would mean the Pentacles would be the highest suit, wouldn´t it? It is usually the last one of the suits, so yes..why not?!
Swords would have to be the beginning, the "nigredo" what with the sbc (stabbed baby card) and the Sword in the stone. Pulling that sword from the stone would start off the Hero´s Journey. Yes, that fits. The Swords would lead to Wands (with the black "nigredo" glove in the Ace, handing over the staff?) and that would make the Wands either "albedo" or maybe "viriditas" (green)? Would that fit? So, where would the Cups go in this succession?
The Cauda Pavonis-phase (Peacock´s Tail) is actually blue-green in color just like the Cups!
(From your link above, post #15)

I think the Swords suit would be the 'initiation' stage of The Great Work described here : Essentially it is the state where you go into your unconscious as well as the collective unconscious and recognize all the supressed emotions and thoughts we've had including lust, murder, fear, hate etc.. only by recognizing them can we begin to 'purify' or 'rectify' them. This is also the initial stages represented by lead, hence all the grey tones??

Wands (Nigredo) would come next;
Cups (Albedo; which could include the Cauda Pavonis-phase (Peacock´s Tail))
Coins (Rubedo) with the element of gold being expressed

Now the question arises: would the Ace of Pentacles then be the last card of the series, as she is the only one who has the red hair and perhaps gone through the entire process??

ETA: I just remembered that for a primarily Intuitive person (like us? :) ) the Pentacles, i.e. the Jungian "Sensate" function is often the last of the four functions that is owned and incorporated in life. So that would also fit to the picture that our Pentacles represent the highes suit that comes after all the others, wouldn´t it?

I'll have to look into this a little bit more before responding, but I am inclined to agree with you here :)
 

Hemera

Ace of Cups - a very literal interpretation

I got the Ace of Cups this morning as the card of the day. It only struck me at the Eye Doctor´s check up appointment that this was what the card was talking about! The Eye doctor (or nurse) kept dropping all kinds of liquids to my eyes and then the eye microscopes and other instruments were just like the metal headband in that card. I had such metal bands on my forehead on several occasions! (No pictures of dolphins there though. At least I think so :p ) Weird. I almost got goosebumps when I realized the similarity of my situation and that card this morning.


One thing that really puzzles me about this card is the water that seems to rise instead of falling down. I have not come up with any explanation yet.
 

MaineGirl117

Rain drops rising = HUMIDITY!!!! (or water vapor)

No seriously, I'm looking around the area where I applied for a job, and whenever I do a draw to describe the place, this card comes up.

Also, this particular place in the US has a lot of caves with crystal/rock formations - lots of moisture dripping down, but due to the increased levels of humidity in the area (closed cavern, hot southern state) it creates an endless cycle of moisture.

A-ha! :D
 

La Force

Ludy Lescot - Ace of Cups

Rain drops rising = HUMIDITY!!!! (or water vapor)

No seriously, I'm looking around the area where I applied for a job, and whenever I do a draw to describe the place, this card comes up.

Also, this particular place in the US has a lot of caves with crystal/rock formations - lots of moisture dripping down, but due to the increased levels of humidity in the area (closed cavern, hot southern state) it creates an endless cycle of moisture.

A-ha! :D

I noticed this the first time I looked through the deck, at first I found it to be odd, pondered it for a bit, then this evening I thought I would read your posts about the aces to see if you had mentioned it or not. And you did.

My thoughts about the raindrops, makes me want to turn the ace Rx, then she would become the hanged man, then I thought hmmm the Moon card and the Sun card in the TDM decks, hmmm we may need to go hunting for rabbits in the TDM area, shhhh don't get caught. lol

the moon card (dew) that dogs are lapping it up, think the bible 40 days and 40nights in the dessert and they lived off mana that fell from the sky during the night, and in the morning they would eat it. I did some research on this and in today's sorta theroy well it's a take it or leave. it's called Monoatomic Gold you may want to do your own research on it. anyway I see this in the card, nothing more to say, it's all well said already.

My personal experience with Monoatomic gold, talk about opening up your third eye it goes wide open, wow talk about perception and awareness, you see thing like what his name in the Matrix movie when everything slows down, yet your moving fast, dodging bullets. lol I personally stopped taking it only because I had a really bad dream, I was being chased by some dude in a boat and I couldn't get away, I was like a rabbit running and hiding. lol so I ok that's enough. I really noticed that when I stopped taking, how dumb you actually are to your environment and clarity of things. what I am saying you will notice and I mean it when stop taking monoatomic gold. the difference is wild, and get this it's not drug. surprise, now isn't that mess up.
 

Prasomchai

Ace of Coins

For me this card reflects the matter of choice in affairs of the heart, of personal choice unaffected by external influences. In my readings it has related to one whose choices had been driven by family expectations, and another whose choices had an underlying socio-economic component. The card also suggests that the potential for such choice is powerful at that moment.
 

kaushalyaandfrank

I have a feeling that to understand this cups suit, we may have to delve a little bit into the myth of the Holy Grail.

Does anybody else think that this beauty may be showing a bit of age here? Just curious, not that she isn't lovely :) Out of all the Aces, she seems to be the only one who is actually looking at the item being held by the hand or of the suit.

No gloved hand here, and her cup doesn't appear to be over-flowing with water despite the downpour. Her headress does have two dolphins entwined, but did you notice that one is silver and the other is gold??

Also, dolphins are christian symbols of resurrection, but they also share this symbol with greek mythology with the dolphin being the bearer of souls to the Islands of the Blessed.

Dolphins are also a lunar AND solar symbol (repeating theme here from the Ace/Wands card!)



Dolphin Symbolism Link

The other interesting tidbit about the dolphins is the greek work delphi ... is she, perhaps, considered to be an Oracle?

So what can we say of this Ace? Is she looking for everylasting life? Is she the keeper of these rejuvinating waters? Is she an oracle or would be initiate? Is she concerned with bringing the souls of the departed home? I'm not sure which way to take this Ace...she just doesn't imbue me with the typical love and promise you'd get from this suit.

The water of life is all around us.

Looking at the other quotes in the suit, mostly concerning emotions and happiness, this quote may be a reminder to us that the spark of the emotions lies in our every experience. This may explain why the drops flow upwards, they are the 'water of life' and are everywhere if we can only see them. Then the card may be an indicator that the water of life is prevalent at this time.