firemaiden said:
I'm so happy you finally have the German version you so longed for, Namaste.
I love the German deck, but am curious to see the English version. From the one original painting I saw by Margarete Petersen (in an occult store in Berlin), I am pretty sure the English printing is closer in feeling to the original paintings, than the bright colours of the German printing.
The original painting I saw was for the Empress. It was interesting because the painting had so much more landscape all around it that what finally made it onto the card (which is mostly just that odd vagina dentata thing). In the original painting the woman with the vagina dentata, took up only about one-eighth of the entire picture, to show you how much more landscape there was. And the colours, as I mentioned above, were very much more muted and pastel.
Thank you, Firemaiden!
It took some doing and was frightfully expensive, but I think it is worth it, especially since I can place the cards of the two decks side by side, like Dan does, and experience them in a different way. When I first got the English printing, I was a little disappointed, given that I gleaned my first impression of these cards from this extraordinary site:
http://www.lapalmagaleria.info/arte/matrix.php3?basis=tarot&lang=
Now, I admit that each of these decks seems to work differently on my intuition (psyche, even). It's a though, intuitively speaking, they are two completely separate decks. I am not usually one to comment too much on the accompanying LWBs of any tarot, but I have to say that Petersen's text, which accompanies each of her minor arcana, is among the best and most useful I have encountered. Have you found that, too? Or do you just approach your Margarete Petersen intuitively and let the images speak for themselves, without ever turning to the accompanying booklet?
I would give much to see Petersen's actual paintings!
As to the Empress and her gigantic vagina, I am so glad I am not the only person who picked up on that blatant image in this card. I think this Empress could do with a little more background. I find that although the cards are of a good size, they would be spectacular if they were much larger. I know many don't like big cards, but I confess to a partiality to them because of the greater detail and impact that the larger images have on the imagination.
I realize that these cards take time. I only do one card or three card readings with this deck and sit looking at them longer than I ever have for any of my other tarots. I get the sense that these image operate primarily on the unconscious mind, much like a Zen koan. I am taken with Petersen's frequent reference to non-doing, which reminds me immediately of the Taoist concept of wu-wei. What is your take on this?
