I just got completely mad (again)

I just got completely mad.

Well, yes, I just got completely mad and started filling pages and pages with my personal thoughts on Tarot and numerology. I should better say “tarot and numbers”, because I am not really doing numerology, just rambling about the subject. I think I will post about a number now and then; today I start with zero, one and two.

Le Bateleur is number one. Is there anything before him? I believe there is. In fact, this young man is looking back to it, as his eyes turn to his right side, over his shoulder. In numeric terms, does this mean that “zero” is presented in Tarot? I think it is, as a concept.

The graphical representation of zero is in itself the development of a concept: zero is the representation of its central point. Let’s imagine it right from the “beginning”. God, the principle of all things, or whatever you might want to call it, is pure and unlimited potency – graphically, can only be fairly represented by a single point – the same is saying that IT cannot be represented, because there is no way to represent a single point. But we need something to work with; so this “dot” we usually think of will have to do. Now, the “dot” expands (its potential takes form – or, better yet, takes forms), and the first result of this movement is graphically represented by a circle. Because a circle is the best possible material representation of a single point, and that is exactly what we have now: the result of the expansion of that primordial point is, after all, the image, or the representation, of itself. It is a first step towards materiality, but there is still no duality present. In fact, this circle, this image of the primordial point, or this “zero”, numerically speaking, is the proper symbol of a paradisiacal state of the soul – unity, togetherness with God, in an already “manifested” state.

This means, first of all, that at a certain point, and for a certain reason, the primordial Point decided to manifest in such a way that materiality as we “know” it was created (although time and linearity, such as the notion of “decision” and “action”, don’t belong here). Mystics usually refer to this first movement as God feeling an urge to “know Himself”, or to be able to see His own reflection – and this reflection would be matter (and man). Anyway, once started, this divine plan is inexorable.

By the way, the fact that “zero” is never represented as a perfect circle, but rather as an ellipse, is explained by the need to present movement with this image: the two sides represent ascent and descent, evolution and involution (this latter explanation was taken from a web side, but I lost the reference). It sounds coherent to me. Zero is not unchangeable and immobile, as the “Point” was (the immovable motor), since it derives from a movement that will never (?) stop. His very existence is the demonstration of its changeability.

But zero does not behave like a wheel; its movement is made essentially up and down, and we can even wonder if the tensional nature of this movement won’t be the very cause of this circle-like concept braking in two parts – its upper and lower halves symbolizing Heaven and Earth, and all that derives from that first differentiation - the birth of duality.

One

Here comes “One”, or Le Bateleur. We can observe the tensional movement of “zero”, as a symbol of the first manifestation of God, in Le Bateleur’s hat, depicting the lemniscate, the symbol of infinity, and also an obvious visual representation of a tensional duality being born, like if a sphere had just been thorn and pulled till its two halves started separating.

So, the circle fractures itself from within, divides itself in half along a perfect line that obviously stands as the graphic representation of number one. “One” is a fracture, the first, the greatest, the more painful of all wounds, the wound of separation from God, the blade of Saint Michael the Archangel expelling Adam and Eve from Paradise, the primal birth / death pain ever felt, a wound from which we are all still trying to recover. With it comes two – each number, and each step of the way, has in itself the next one, and every step can be traced to the very first one, or to God. When the perfect circle fractures, one (the fracture) and two (the two halves) are born together.

Le Bateleur is a juggler, a magician, and an illusionist. What is the illusion he refers to? He is the illusion – “one”, or “oneness”, is an illusion, because “oneness” is not unity. It is a fracture. “One” is the fracture, not the whole being: “zero” was the whole being, but he belongs to another world, and Tarot cards refer to THIS world, that is why they start with One. One lays between two severed halves, both uniting and separating them, as thin and unreal as a shadow, but still there. In it, the two halves of Plato’s primordial creature, the androgyn, live their drama – the drama of being so close, and yet so far. And what is really there to keep them apart, besides an illusion? Separation is, again, an illusion, and the greatest illusionist of all sustains it; and here, we could wonder whether this is God or the Devil – or are they one? Better yet, are they… One?

It is our ego, another manifestation of One, that maintains the delusional veil of separation in place, and gives it the solidity of a concrete wall, with its fear. A fear that is exactly born out of separation, and is the best instrument, as everyone knows deep inside, of the devil. What, THE DEVIL?

Here, I think we must analyse the meaning of a few terms. Tarot is, above all, a recollection of symbols (and, I hope so, a coherent and meaningful one). The word Symbol, or "Symbolon", derives from the Greek word symballein, literally "to throw together". A symballein was a piece of wood, porcelain, etc., that would be broken in two pieces, then used by two individuals (friends, parent and child, etc.) that were about to be separated for a long time, and would eventually need something to recognize each other when reunited. Many times a symballein was put around the neck of an abandoned baby, so the child’s parents would be able to proof their bond to her should they needed to, in the future. A symbol is, therefore, a way of recognition, and the sign of a broken but repairable unity. And what is the opposite of symballein? You got it – diabolein, the Devil. Therefore, the Devil is supposed to separate in such a way that no reunion is possible, thus keeping man forever away from God, and alienated from his true spiritual nature. The Devil is the illusion, the ego, the fear that bounds us to the conviction that separation is real. But how could it be? Haven’t we seen that every single step of Creation is linked to the previous one and derives, in all aspects, from it, and thus, in an uninterrupted chain, from God? The fracture of separation, symbolized in One, is the greatest of illusions, and Tarot doesn’t lie about it – there he is, Le Bateleur. (Tarot also offers its symbols as a bridge to recover lost unity, as all true symbols are, but that is another question).

Fear keeps us from shredding the veil of separation / duality, that veil presented by The Papess. After all, we (or a part of us) are the veil, and who is ready to shatter himself in pieces, even in face of such a promise of fulfilment? That’s all it is, says the devil – a promise, how can you be sure about it?

Two

“Two” is The Papess. The two severed halves of the Cosmic Egg, made fertile by the masculine fracture symbolized in One, giving birth to Three. She is forever giving birth, like Meister Eckhart’s God: From all eternity/ God lies on a maternity bed giving birth/ The essence of God is birthing (Meister Eckhart, 13th century). Matter is so created, and it is created sacred and pure – another “secret” hidden (and revealed) in Tarot, when we understand that the French word monde, as in Le Monde, meant, in medieval times, pur (pure), as the opposite of immonde, or impure (thanks for your dictionary reference, Diana). The pureness and sacredness of this primal manifestation of God as matter is symbolized by Paradise, from which man is then banished. Why? Because the divine plan never stops, and its development inevitably implies such painful exile of the soul.

Silvia

It gets continually harder to write about this elusive, delicate and complex subject in English. I wish I could do it in Portuguese… please forgive me for the increasing imprecision of my discourse - and, if you really want to connect with this wonderful world of Numbers, please, please, try to SEE them, and to see them transforming and evolving, and don’t just read (this, or any other text).

Three

But just a moment before, as one and two made their appearance, Three, or The Empress, was also born, symbolizing all the material elements of the universe (only with three points can we form a plane, and here the “plane” of existence materialize). In Genesis, the third day was the day when earth rise up out of the water; the material world was then created.

Three is similar to zero, or Wholeness (or holeness, thank you, Imagemaker) in the fact that its geometrical representations – three intercepting lines - allow to enclosure a space. It is not the round, perfect, paradisiacal and even infinite (an enclosed infinite…) space in zero, but it is the first material reflection of it. Therefore, Three is a reflection of Zero, and like it a symbol of completeness and achievement, although in a different level. That is why it expresses most complete systems we know: the Holy Trinity, time (past, present, future), the Being (body, mind and soul), and so on. Three is the symbol of God’s perfection and wholeness, as is present in this world. But in the primordial circle every “part” was equidistant from the centre, and had its perfect place, and worked together with all others to maintain its perfect order and position; in a triangle, every angle lives in perpetual tension with the others, constantly moving and causing the others to move - we cannot change the amplitude of one without forcing the others to adjust. Three belongs to this world – a three-dimensional one – and is so bound to be simply an imperfect reflection of its archetype.

With Three, a different series of numbers begins. Three is the first number with some important characteristics:

Three is the first number that results from the addition of the previous ones.

Three is the first number that can represent a geometrical figure.

Three is the first number that embodies our three-dimensional level of existence – this world. It is the first number of materiality, as said above - the first number whose geometrical representation allows to enclosure a space.

Three is the “son”, the fruit, the creation, the child born from the fracture of Unity, from the tensional relation then established between One and Two. As their child, as THE CHILD, Three is masculine AND feminine; the triangle is able to represent both, displayed upright (a male symbol) or inverted (a female symbol). They form the geometrical decoration in the Empress’s collar band (Marseilles decks, needless to say?).

"One" was simply a conceptual line, nor vertical nor horizontal; it developed into a vertical line only after the birth of Three, because before matter verticality and horizontality didn’t exist. But when Three was born, it become the ground where One spread its roots, allowing its movement to be defined as a vertical aim towards a Heaven that was finally conceived as being “above”. With Three, Two is conceptualized as mother, feminine, earth, down, and, unfortunately, inferior and even evil, whereas One is defined as father, masculine, heaven, up, superior, good. This is the true fruit, or result, of duality…

That should be why Le Bateleur’s table has three legs; the triangle is the vivid image of the vertical line firmly placed above a stable ground ( _|_ ), graphically depicting the first movement of solidification of the Spirit, and the first consequence of the primordial fracture – the painful, tensional opposition between One and Two, between masculine and feminine, our bodies and our souls, etc. But, if here the two sides of materiality are set apart, here they will be eventually reunited…

Three is the synthesis of One and Two, and therefore Three IS synthesis in itself. With it, no concept is pure anymore. Here the (perfect) masculine concept of One turns into a “feminine-masculine”, the upright triangle, where verticality is grounded in matter, and the (perfect) feminine concept of Two turns into a “masculine-feminine”, the round uterus represented as an inverted triangle, the ancient and well-known symbol of the feminine. For many, this would be a favourite and immense field of study – the ever-present representation of the feminine, and of several Goddesses all over the world, through the use of an inverted triangle – probably one of the reasons why The Empress has been considered by many as The Mother.

The Empress is the child – but yes, she is the “child mother”, in a certain sense, because she represents matter, and as such she stands as the second “motherly” move of the Being, giving birth to all creations of materiality. The Papess and the Empress remind me of those beautiful medieval, renaissance and baroque paintings, depicting Saint Anne teaching the Virgin Mary to read – the divine mother with an open book in her lap, teaching its also divine mysteries to her divine daughter, and also mother-to-be. The triangle, a geometrical from present also in The Empress’s sited shape, is undoubtedly a form from which matter can be generated; since ancient times it is stated that the triangle allows to generate all other geometrical figures, and is therefore present in all of them, as can be seen if we draw straight lines form their angles to the exact centre. The generational quality of Three is certainly due to its two polarities; Three is “self-fecundating”.

But Three is also the son, that masculine child so many goddesses present on their laps, trying to make us realize they (mother and child) share the same mystery, and are inseparable in their essence.

Their re-union will be made here again, in Three, but in another level, as always. Curiously enough, the more complex a geometrical figure is, or the more distant that figure is from the original circle, the more it resembles it… The triangle, the first material image of the circle (the first enclosed space after the circle), is also the figure that is more distant from its round perfection. Then we have the square, then the pentacle, then the hexagram, and so on… each closer to the circle, its origin and its end.

So, Three is a first step. The first of many steps that will lead the Spirit very far from home, and also back home. The first attempt of the Being to surpass the original fracture, the result of an effort to create something new, exterior to itself, that could be able to solve its dilemma. “One” was self-sufficient; it was the walker and the way to walk; every step along the path that it was lead directly to itself. “Two” lived in relation – each one of its halves lived in relation to the other, aspiring to unite once again. It seems to me that Three is bound to be the number that represents those aiming for something exterior to them, like a triangle pointing in the desired direction, like hands united together in prayer, like the shape of a pyramid or the pointed pinnacle of a church.

Silvia

Thank you so much for starting this thread again, Silvia (and Diana, for whatever part you had in reconstructing it)

Your English is amazingly well "spoken."
I am printing, marking and following this thread ...


I have been reading so many sources since I started studying Tarot. Many of them give me bits and pieces of the number correspondences. You have beautifully incorporated the progression of the numbers into a visual narrative that, I am sure, will stay with many of us as we read the Tarot. As I read your words tap into so much that is within, but not as well organized so as to give so many "word pictures."

No comments to add on the posts so far. Just wanted to say "thank you" and keep the rest coming. We await.

terri

Ditto to all that tmgrl2 said I'm so glad I didn't miss the chance to print this thread. Blessings, galadrial

Thank you Silvia!

These posts are quite thought provoking. I have them printed out and they sit by the side of my bed because I need to keep reading them. Definate food for thought and the sort of posts that I will come back to several times, I am sure.

You are right, we should all try to SEE the numbers and think thats why I like your threads - they build pictures in my head! I know they are your pictures but I am glad for the starting point.

Your English is amazing, I appreciate these threads must be hard for you but they are beautifully written.

I would love to add to them but I just dont feel able to yet ... maybe one day.

Thanks again.

I'll check your other thread when you get to the Moon...

...because this lovely dance of words is soothing and charmingly woven.

Another author who also charmed me with his dance of images and tarot majors is Gareth Knight, whose take on the lobster from the Moon card, emerging from the pond turned into a dance of images that I can not forget...he turned one emerging sea beast into a parade of lobsters dancing the quadrille and waving the prominent claw as so many flamelike spears.

Cheers to your imaginative takes!

Cerulean

Thank you, Silvia and thank you to Cerulean for bumping!