10 of disks is a paradox

sworm09

Hi folks,

In my adventures to further understand this deck, I've been doing divination with it quite frequently. The 10 of Disks popped up and it was at that moment I discovered how slippery this bugger is. On one hand it puts forth themes of culmination, finality, and inertia but then at the same time it seems to represent a void of sorts waiting to be filled. Uncle Al says that this is "a hieroglyph of the cycle of regeneration".

I guess the confusion comes from how something so concrete can be so void at the same time. This card evokes both fullness and emptiness at the same time and knowing Crowley's 0=2 equation, I guess that makes sense?

Is there a way to reconcile this so that it makes sense? Or am I barking up the wrong tree? This card feels like a revolving door.
 

ravenest

What wonderful analogies in your last two paragraphs :)

A ten represents Malkuth; coming down the Tree of Life, Malkuth can be seen as 'rounding buoy' before we go back up. The analogy applies as well on an Hermetic model where the Sphere of Earth is central and 'rising back' through the Spheres is the journey towards perfection.

In many cases we seem to need to 'lap the buoy' a few times as there is a multitude of lessons to be learnt in Malkuth / World / 10 ; there is your 'revolving door'. The disk, being Earth multiplies this as it holds a similar position elementally.

The 'inertia of circulation' when it starts to rise or travel outward is the 'new territory' ; the "void to be filled" . It is indeed a "a hieroglyph of the cycle of regeneration".


... " Barking up the wrong tree" ... <chuckle> no ... its the right tree ... there IS something up there :)
 

Aeon418

In many cases we seem to need to 'lap the buoy' a few times as there is a multitude of lessons to be learnt in Malkuth / World / 10 ; there is your 'revolving door'.
Lapping the buoy is a good way of putting it. But I might be tempted to go a step further and say the lapping is the continual process of the incarnation of our own inherent deity.

The astrological attribution of Mercury in Virgo makes me think of John 1:14, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us".

Mercury - the Word - incarnated in Virgo - the flesh. No wonder this card is symbolic of the accomplishment of the Great Work.
 

Zephyros

If we look at the Tree as a model of creation, then the Ten of Disks, Malkuth in Assiah, is the real, solid world. It is the culmination and end result of all the processes set into motion higher up. However, that's also the beginning of everything, since the end result has a power in itself to animate, interact with itself and to create new things, infinite diversity in infinite combinations.

All the Tens share this regenerative quality. The Ten of Swords, for example, may point to the complete breakdown of the pure idea of the Ace, but when that happens, it leads to the beginning of that idea becoming actual, in the Ace of Disks. Although the Ten of Disks is the last card, it still has that quality, except more of it, since it is the fulfillment of the Ace of Wands four worlds up.

Notice how this card is special in that the disks are very obviously coins, something you don't see in other cards, at least not this blatantly. Well, money is well and good, but it's only a beginning in itself. Although everyone works for money, its real worth is what you can buy with it, what you can create with it.

Something that might explain this further is actually contemplation of Adjustment, and reading the passages about it. Every reaction is an action in itself. The action of the Fool causes a reaction in Adjustment, who in turn births another Fool. This can also be applied to the ideas of putrefaction put forth in Death.
 

sworm09

Ahhh ok! This stuff opens up another connection! It makes me think of the statement about how Kether is in Malkuth and Malkuth is in Kether...I understand one half of that now in that the emptiness in the 10 of Disks is Kether-like in its own right.

Aeon, are you suggesting also that this says something about us? I thought about your comment while doing the Qabalistic Cross, connecting the "up there" to the "down here". I guess by extension that means that we, as manifest, physical beings that have to eat, poop, and sleep share that quality of "empty fullness" as well. It gives me the feeling that this card is speaking of physical incarnation as well as a return to the void from which we came.

Closrapexa, I've got to really do some thinking to see the Ace of Wands--->10 of Disks connection. Somewhat superficially I can see how one eventually yields the other, but I struggle to understand the Aces in general. All I can say about the Ace of Wands is that it's that card that gets the ball rolling.

ravenest, yes! Rounding buoy sort of describes the feeling! Revolving door was the first thing that came to mind, and now wheel is sort of the analogy that's sticking. I guess that's why Crowley made his Pentacle suit into Disks....they go round and round.

The mental digging that I'm going to have to do to fully put all of this into perspective will be fun :D
 

ravenest

... I guess that's why Crowley made his Pentacle suit into Disks....they go round and round.

" the Disk is a whirling emblem. Naturally so; since it is now know that every Star, every true Planet, is a whirling sphere. The Atom, again, is no more the hard, intractable, dead Particle of Dalton, but a system of whirling forces, comparable to the Solar hierarchy itself." - BoT
 

Aeon418

Aeon, are you suggesting also that this says something about us? I thought about your comment while doing the Qabalistic Cross, connecting the "up there" to the "down here". I guess by extension that means that we, as manifest, physical beings that have to eat, poop, and sleep share that quality of "empty fullness" as well.
Connecting it back to your performance of the Qabalistic Cross is very perceptive. But it's important to remember that the physical being that eats, poops, and sleeps isn't the real you. The real you is that thing "up there" that you are trying to bring down into manifestation in Malkuth. It is the initial seed Yod of the tetragrammaton flowering in Heh final.
James A. Eshelman said:
The enduring copulation of Yod (the Father) with Heh-final (the Daughter) is also the continuous pouring of yourself (your will, your fire: everything you are) into what you have conceived - your Malkuth ("Kingdom"), field of action, or dharma.
In Tarot terms it is the original force of the Ace of Wands flowing outwards through the other minor cards in sequence until it manifests in the 10 of Disks.
 

Eremita90

I've struggled with the tens, particularly with Cups and Disks, for most of my career as a tarot student, and even now, but I think the key, as you all are saying, is the motto "Malkuth is Kether after another manner". I know it is almost impossible to pin this concept down and every representation would be inadequate, but in my mind there is this image of a beautiful cherry tree (Ace of Wands) whose fruits potentially contain infinite other cherry trees, which at the same time potentially contain infinite other trees and so on. At first (though it is not quite right to say "at first", as it implies time) there is Kether, the cherry tree, and nothing outside of it; then (again, it is wrong to say "then") there are Kether and its cherries (the road down the Tree of Life), so we have two elements, which is to say, a duality; and finally, at some point there is Malkuth and nothing outside of it (the Ten of Disks), because all the potentiality of the cherry tree has been carried out. We have travelled from a "higher" form of unity down to a duality, to a "lower" form of unity. But the very moment this lower unity is perfected, it ceaceses being lower, for the concept of lower implies a higher (and a duality), and thus we are back to Kether.

I know it is really confusing, I know the analogy is not perfect, I know there are even some points of it which are quite wrong or misleading, but this is the closest image I can conceive to the feeling of eternity I get when comparing Kether to Malkuth. I think I derived this image from my understanding of Plato, Plotinus and Proclus, with a teaspoon of Aristotle here and there. I don't even know if that in my mind is the right "concept"; what I know is that if I read Crowley with this idea in my mind, it quite makes sense.
 

ravenest

The seed is a good analogy. One can see the seed of a cherry as Kether. The seed sprouts and grows into a tree, fulling its ultimate purpose and experience - malkuth ( yes. I am a 'materialist' :) ) in the production of another seed.

The first seed is Kether, it produces a tree and that tree produces a seed which is the Malkuth of that tree, in relation to it. But by itself the seed is a Kether of a new tree - in relation to the potential inside it.

- works for trees , but not really for tarot cards.
 

Eremita90

It is interesting that you managed to bring clarity to my vision with less words than I used in my post :D