tedglart
Wands
Hi Sherryl. That's a good point about the highly debatable and inconsistent colour schemes in various decks. That would explode my idea about the yellow "joints" implying mental discipline. Like you I have some difficulty accepting the precise application of meanings to specific colours that we find in Jodorowsky's book, but I do like Enrique Enriquez's assumption of a poetic connection between objects of the same colour in a reading. It's another aspect of the language of repeated motifs that allows the cards of the Marseilles tarot to "talk" to each other in a way that is absolutely unique to this deck.
I like your idea of the way the joints decorate and draw attention to the batons, advertising their power. The batons would look more plain and perhaps less authoritative without the joints. Since they split up the batons into 4 sections I wonder whether they might have suggested to a medieval culture the moral direction provided by the 4 gospels, as well as the 4 elements that make up the 4 suits. There are 3s and 4s everywhere in the deck - triangles and squares - the Holy Trinity, and life on Earth? I'm not sure how this connects with the joints on the spokes of the Wheel of Fortune, which only divide each spoke in half. Any ideas about those spokes? There are lots of 2s in the deck as well - couples, man and woman, horses, jars, Sun and Moon, etc. Without the joint the spokes would no longer suggest a unity achieved by two separate entities. I also wonder about the barrel shaped object - which must have a name that escapes me at the moment - at the centre of the Wheel of Fortune where the handle is attached. Of course it looks like the axle of a cart. Maybe that's the only reason for it. But the way it is rendered as a small circle at the centre of a large circle seems significant somehow. Again, I wonder how it would effect our feeling about this card if the barrel was missing. Are there any other barrel-shaped objects on the deck? Or does it look like a big version of the coin in the Magician's right hand, or Coins in general. Earth = Fixity? The planet Earth is round and is at the centre of a spinning zodiac. In his left hand the Magician holds a baton. On his card the two objects - baton and circle - are disconnected, but brought together on the Wheel of Fortune. And "fortune" reminds me that there is gambling apparatus on the Magician's table. Perhaps there is suggestion that the "chance" represented by the Wheel of Fortune is not gambler's luck but something ordained.
Hi Sherryl. That's a good point about the highly debatable and inconsistent colour schemes in various decks. That would explode my idea about the yellow "joints" implying mental discipline. Like you I have some difficulty accepting the precise application of meanings to specific colours that we find in Jodorowsky's book, but I do like Enrique Enriquez's assumption of a poetic connection between objects of the same colour in a reading. It's another aspect of the language of repeated motifs that allows the cards of the Marseilles tarot to "talk" to each other in a way that is absolutely unique to this deck.
I like your idea of the way the joints decorate and draw attention to the batons, advertising their power. The batons would look more plain and perhaps less authoritative without the joints. Since they split up the batons into 4 sections I wonder whether they might have suggested to a medieval culture the moral direction provided by the 4 gospels, as well as the 4 elements that make up the 4 suits. There are 3s and 4s everywhere in the deck - triangles and squares - the Holy Trinity, and life on Earth? I'm not sure how this connects with the joints on the spokes of the Wheel of Fortune, which only divide each spoke in half. Any ideas about those spokes? There are lots of 2s in the deck as well - couples, man and woman, horses, jars, Sun and Moon, etc. Without the joint the spokes would no longer suggest a unity achieved by two separate entities. I also wonder about the barrel shaped object - which must have a name that escapes me at the moment - at the centre of the Wheel of Fortune where the handle is attached. Of course it looks like the axle of a cart. Maybe that's the only reason for it. But the way it is rendered as a small circle at the centre of a large circle seems significant somehow. Again, I wonder how it would effect our feeling about this card if the barrel was missing. Are there any other barrel-shaped objects on the deck? Or does it look like a big version of the coin in the Magician's right hand, or Coins in general. Earth = Fixity? The planet Earth is round and is at the centre of a spinning zodiac. In his left hand the Magician holds a baton. On his card the two objects - baton and circle - are disconnected, but brought together on the Wheel of Fortune. And "fortune" reminds me that there is gambling apparatus on the Magician's table. Perhaps there is suggestion that the "chance" represented by the Wheel of Fortune is not gambler's luck but something ordained.