venicebard said:
Interesting how you define these, Stella. Someone should point out, though, that the baton (this is true of polo sticks too, if one be any good at polo) is for directing the eye,
Here's Jodorowsky:
"The Baton grows in a natural form, it is not manufactured. But it can be selected and peeled" (here I think he is saying that you can MAKE it into a "manufactured" thing, if you want)
"..it represents the force of the nature that grows, the sexual and creative power. What we feel is not invented: the desire is a matter of attraction, a person we like or not. The sexuality is not an energy that is forged, but we can channel it, even sublimate it."
A baton could conceivably be used as a pointer in a classroom, yes. But there is so much more to it.
fire’s sense, and fire’s proper station is the head, spirit’s seat in us.
The thing with elemental correspondences is that they change, from one reading system to another, from one magical system to another. There are many who would argue that a baton would be consumed by fire, but a blade is forged in fire, and that fire is more properly assigned to swords. If I am remembering correctly, Eliphas Levi used some very unconventional elemental correspondences. It's purely a matter of perspective and I have found it best not to become too hung on elemental correspondences when reading Tarot. That's for Waite and his salamander-encrusted King of Wands.
If you are curious, yes, Jodorowsky uses the conventional elemental correspondences. But he says
"Su elemento podria ser al aire.", "Su elemento de referencia podria ser el agua.", etc. In other words, (and I hope I am translating correctly!) "it's element
could be air", etc. - these are suggestions.
Look at Le Monde. There is your key to the whole deck. The lion is the Baton suit, the bull is the Coins, the angel is the Cup suit and the eagle is the Sword suit. The energy travels
counterclockwise (eagle-angel-bull-lion-back to eagle) so in a way we are
both right on that count, it is just that when you diagram it as energy centers on the human body you get something that looks linear that should actually be circular.
It is just that fire or energy is of course present throughout,
Hearts on fire, fire in the belly, fire in the loins, and of course the good old hotfoot, lol....
and it is in the loins that it manifests most concretely—which is natural, since fire is the whole (everything is made of energy, even mass), and the loins, one’s contact with earth when seated meditating, is the level of earthiness or concreteness in the whole (which is man writ large, upright sentience being the door between inner and outer horizons necessary for their interaction, and I know inner horizons exist cuz I gots one).
Well put!
I would say we gots at least one.
But let's not forget the little coiled Kundalini serpent and the place he calls home when he is not travelling up the spine.
The angel has a halo, as does the eagle and the lion. Only the bull has no halo, he is concerned purely with the material. At the level of the loins, the lion, the energy has begun it's ascension, even though it is "below" the belly energy.
There is a very clear correspondence, by the way, between the four elements and the four regions of the torso. For if you note the relation between body and horizon when seated meditating, fire’s sense, sight, is what links us to the horizon without, which is at eye level on the sphere of surroundings (centered atop the head and resting where one rests), whereas what approaches within earshot, air’s sense, represents the thirty-degree angle descending on down from that horizon to end at half its height: so far, fire is at the level of the head, air at the level of the thoracic cavity (descending to diaphragm). Thirty-degrees out from straight down, which is the next sign after what approaches within earshot, is where is placed that which is within reach, which can thus be tasted (provided we reach out to convey it to the lips), this being water’s sense (things must be in solution to be tasted), while straight down is our point of surface contact with earth. And earth’s sense is surface contact or touch, of which smell is simply the most focused aspect (sensing surfaces of individual molecules). Thus we can complete the picture by placing earth at the pelvis, and water just above this, at the abdomen, which means the elements descending from head to loins are in their natural order: fire-air-water-earth (brightness-thinness-and-motion, darkness-thinness-and-motion, darkness-thickness-and-motion, darkness-thickness-and-rest).
All very good information, but it is built on the assumption that elemental correspondences are crucial to reading this deck, and they are not.
Let's go back to Le Monde and the suits. If you have Coins-Bull-Taurus-Earth and Batons-Lion-Leo-Fire, doesn't it follow that the angel should be Aquarius and Cups should be Air, and that the eagle is a higher emanation of Scorpio and therefore Swords should be water? And doesn't that just kind of throw everything OFF?
That may be why, on the upper portion of the card, you have an angel and not a water bearer, an eagle and not a scorpion. They may be telling you not to take this correspondence thing too literally.
Just so, the baton or staff (or polo stick) directs the eye, the clash of swords the ear,
I see Swords as intellect. We are fencing now, are we not? The Batons are peasant instruments, anyone can pick up a stick. It's the great equalizer, on many, many levels.
Swords are more refined.
the cup the tongue, and money the production of the solid and tangible. Knowledge, within, is at the same level as fire, without, a level usurped by desire in fallen Adam (us).
Hmmm, you've bolded "fallen" - are you using it in the sense of "descended into matter/time-space/duality"?
Thinking, within, is at the same level as air, without,
Swords. Lol, sorry, couldn't resist.
and follows the swing of breathing (and in the righteous, the dictates of conscience, which resides in the heart), this level being usurped by feeling in man. Emotion, the doer’s proper contribution to things, is like hunger or thirst, a belly-driven thing,
The belly crushes and digests, it is the will to power, the material arena. Bellies have to be fed. The heart is at a higher level and is capable of selflessness.
while the sensual and tactile itself has its focus in or about the loins, the place of physical conjoining.
Creation and procreation. Batons.
They are true of the part of the elephant that you have touched, I am touching another part. I don't know that anyone has touched the whole elephant, as of this writing.