Legend; The Arthurian Study Group - The Judgement

[Lyones]

It seems to me that at the end, Arthur is resigned to his fate, and yet he still feels there is more to do "on the other side" - to heal. The 3 hooded figures on the boat in Judgement reminded me of the 3 fates from Greek mythology and also the girl, woman, crone - simple choices have unexpected outcomes, and even making no choice at all brings us to some kind of finality.

Even with the death barge signifying coming to a close, the sprite blowing the horn heralds the advance of something significant to come, and Morgan stands patiently waiting and watching. The mist is like a veil, hiding Avalon, hiding the future, as it parts the crossing from one world to the next begins, and only when Avalon is actually reached, would he see the shore. If indeed Arthur and Morgan were enemies, this would also signifiy the peace-making, restitution, resolution, the acceptance of both parties and Arthur's acknowledgement of Morgan's healing talents, kinship, the religion he'd forsaken.

Arthur is running out of time when he makes this journey ... the sense of urgency ... and yet he knows the way of the universe - if time overtakes him, there is little he can do. He knows what he is leaving behind, but does he truely know what awaits him? He does not see death as the end - only as the beginning of something different, something to look forward to - whatever has gone before is of no consequence - although it is what has brought him to this place.

[WalesWoman]

Perhaps I jumped to conclusions, thinking it was Morgan Le Fay on shore. Before beginning this study, or any sort of study, my first feelings were of some sort of reunification...being greeted by a loved one who had gone on before.
For some reason I thought of Guinevere, but I don't know if she was Arthur's love or they simply had a marriage of convenience that didn't turn out that way. That doesn't make sense either because she would have been in a nunnery, being Christian rather than waiting at Avalon.

Nimue is the High Priestess, this person doesn't look like her either...tho' from the stories I've read, Nimue was more of a free lance operator and not part of the priestess community. So my guess is, since she was also Merlin's love and downfall, that this was why she has such a high standing, the "mate" for the Magician. I'm confusing myself here I think, too many stories and so little "facts"

So it could be an accolyte, drawn to the call to recieve the aspects of the maiden, matron and crone of the High Priestess, the secrets of renewal and regeneration, the cycles of life and death and the knowledge yet to be revealed.

[Lyones]

Originally posted by WalesWoman
Perhaps I jumped to conclusions, thinking it was Morgan Le Fay on shore.

Originally posted by RedMaple
Are we all agreed that this is Morgan on the shore, for she is also one of the Queens in the boat. Is she Crone and Maiden at once here? Or is this a young priestess welcoming the dying king to Avalon?

This is a confusing one, I must admit - I associated Morgan's attire from the Moon to this one of Judgement and presumed it was her - Anna-Marie Ferguson does seem to keep her characters in costume for continuity, and I think the other reason is that The Keeper of Words says there were 4 healers (Nimue and the 3 queens), there are only 3 figures on the boat. However, I'm keeping an open mind here, as you say RedMaple, it could be one of the priestesses.

Originally posted by Sophie-David
I had thought I was drawn to this deck for an expression of masculine energy, but I find the card images very ethereal, the colours subdued and the people's complexions spectral, as if the scenes were viewed under the light of the full moon. So in fact this deck seems to serve the needs of the internal expression of the High Priestess, the entity I call Sophie. The discipline of using the cards to stimulate archetypal dreams was not consciously planned but just "seemed to happen" - but how appropriate for a deck which seems so lunar!

Welcome Sophie-David

Perhaps it's the misty, dream-like colours that get the intuitive juices flowing and that's why we're drawn to this deck for reading. Although I love bright colours, I find them a little 'jarring'. With this deck, everything seems to mould and flow so nicely into everything else.

Originally posted by Sophie-David
In the Moon card, I personally identified with the web symbolism in the card, the trees, the reflection of the trees, and the web tracery on the moon, all focused in Morgan, her hands reaching into the web of the trees, her dress dipping into the web reflection in the pool. I see this web as extending from the pool of the unconscious, to the consciousness of the land, to the super-conscious or divine of the moon. This is a web of integration, a matrix of feminine connectness and relatedness conjured up by Morgan. All things in the three realms are accessed by her, or as the book says (page 101) "the combined energies of intuition, imagination, and intellect".

Oh, I really like that idea! It reminds me a little of a card from the Sacred Circle deck, litterally called The Web - the definition states that everything we do in life reverberates along the web we weave in life, each decision and action have a reaction "like ripples moving out from a stone thrown into a pond", and with Morgan, that would certainly be the case - what she is doing is going to be felt somewhere else and affect her and those around her.

[RedMaple]

I've been reading in the Keeper of Words, and there are supposed to be four women in the barge with Arthur - Nimue, and three Queens - The Queen of Northgalis, the Queen of the Wasteland, and the Great Queen Morgan le Fay. Arthur lays his head on Morgan's lap, so she is not standing, but sitting or kneeling in the barge, so it is hard to see her.


Ferguson says that Avalon represents youth and immortality, and that Arthur was given over to Morgan and her company of 9 women, so this young woman is probably one of the 9 priestesses of Avalon. Ferguson also says that Morgan was seen as the Great Goddess incarnate.

I like the idea of healing, of reconciliation with the Goddess, for we all go back to her eventually.

I like thinking of this as a leaving one life and starting another. How would this differ from the transformation of the Death card in a reading?

[Sophie-David]

Hello RedMaple

Thank you also for your kind encouragement.

Originally Posted by RedMaple

Beautiful, deep insights, eloquently told. Thank you so much for posting. I wondered about your name, Sophie-David. Is David the singer?

This is a bit of a tricky question. Yes, David is the singer, in that I have found that singing is a wonderful exercise in realtime integration, combining body, emotions, mind (especially mathmatical analysis), and spirit. Since David is the integrating self, and my actual name (the ego self) then yes, I am the singer. But the singer is definitely an expression of Sophie, the spiritual self, particularly in my tenor range. And in the baritone range an expression of Eirian, the reflection of the Empress, the creative self.

Probably more than you needed to know. But if not there are more details in the Spirituality Forum, http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=34897, but I just realized you are not a subscriber. There is also material in the New Member Forum at http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=34615, in the Astrology Forum at http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=34754 and at my web site.

Originally Posted by RedMaple

Thanks for this insight. I've been struggling with the silvery-grayness of the cards. There is something in me that still responds to the deep colors we love as children. But yes, under moonlight, a lunar deck. Thanks for helping me to see!

In general I would prefer more intense colours also, which was part of the attraction to the Connolly. But Legend is evidentally for a specific purpose.

Originally Posted by RedMaple

The ecstatic pose, of head thrown back and arms raised, is common to both grief and joy, and works well in this card, for there is an element of both, I think.

Yes, that's true too, the pose could denote grief, as could the filligree of flames.

[Sophie-David]

Originally Posted by RedMaple

Ferguson says that Avalon represents youth and immortality, and that Arthur was given over to Morgan and her company of 9 women, so this young woman is probably one of the 9 priestesses of Avalon. Ferguson also says that Morgan was seen as the Great Goddess incarnate.

I like the idea of healing, of reconciliation with the Goddess, for we all go back to her eventually.

Hi RedMaple
I can't help but wonder if the waiting figure in gold is the Goddess herself.

Originally Posted by RedMaple

I like thinking of this as a leaving one life and starting another. How would this differ from the transformation of the Death card in a reading?

I see the Fool's Journey as containing several deaths and rebirths, as the ego repeatedly surrenders to the story, consciousness expands and then the ego reintegrates the new material. For me this death/rebirth cycle occurred in the Fool, Magician, High Priestess, Hierophant, Lovers, Hermit, Wheel of Fortune, and most strongly and finally in Hanged Man/Death. For me, Hanged Man is the ultimate selfless sacrifice that leads to the most complete ego Death, resolving into the balance of Temperance.

I see the Fool's Journey as arranged in three octaves of seven notes each, perhaps as body, mind then spirit. Magician through Chariot is the initiation of the soul's apprentice or Fool, Strength through Temperance being the path of the soul's journeyman or Champion, Devil through World revealing the ascent of the soul's adept or Regent. In this final octave, having surrendered all and grown in wisdom, the Regent begins to be entrusted with new power and is thus able to encounter the highest forces (archetypes) of the cosmos as she/he ascends into the final integration within the inner World. So I see the final transformation of Judgement as one of the spirit.

In readings, perhaps it is a question of emphasis: Death focuses on the ending and transition, where Judgement highlights the transformation and rebirth.

Cheers
David

[WalesWoman]

Maybe this is straying a bit here, but one thing that struck me in this discussion of color...though I've never been to England...I do live in the land of rain and fog and trees. This deck feels like that, cool, misty, most often gray, subdued, so any reds or yellows sort of jump out at you.

Watercolors are a perfect medium to capture this feel of the land. Water is the medium of intuition. So it's no wonder that this deck stimulates intuition!

Sophie-David, I notice you live in BC, so you can probably identify with this as well, if you are anywhere near the coast. Maybe even more so, since I'm betting you have more leafy trees than we do, a few hundred miles further north.

So back to Judgement, the barge is medium, our body perhaps, Arthur,the wounded, dead consciousness, or the parent within us, the three priestesses, can also represent our unconscious, ego and superego, or the changes and transformations that come with age and experience, as well as past, present, future, emerging from the mists of denial and confusion, rising above emotions and carried along by intuition.
The sprite blowing her horn, could well wake the dead. This really is rising from emotion, or rising out of emotion into the air, so that it becomes a mental action being called for. Sometimes I see this as my ship coming in or a wake up call.

[Sophie-David]

Hi WalesWoman

Oh, dear, I just promised myself I was going to bed, but just had to respond to your wonderful post.

Yes, I agree, "Watercolors are a perfect medium to capture this feel of the land. Water is the medium of intuition. So it's no wonder that this deck stimulates intuition!" I was admiring your watercolours at your web site earlier.

I have lived in England as a child, and now live on the west coast of Vancouver Island, in a temperate rainforest that comes right down to the Pacific Ocean. Lots of water, and the ocean is incredibly full of goddess energy. Yes, all evocative of the intuitive too!

Your exegesis of Judgement sums it up perfectly!

But I really must go to bed - I'll regret staying up so late in the morning!

David

[Lyones]

Originally posted by WalesWoman
Watercolors are a perfect medium to capture this feel of the land. Water is the medium of intuition. So it's no wonder that this deck stimulates intuition!

... and ... this got me thinking ... I had a quick flip through my deck and counted 40 cards that do not depict water (or may, but it can't be seen clearly), which leaves us with 14 of the Cups suite (6 of which do not actually show water, but it is signified by the cups, so I left them in as 'water cards') - the remainder of the cards have water in them (24 cards) - around half the deck has the intuitive/emotional signature of water, 10 of which are Major Arcana (I did not count The Horned One - because I can't see if the frog is in water or not, nor the 9 of Pentacles urn and cup, nor the High Priestess - although she is intuition, I could see no water).

Originally Posted by Sophie-David
I found a picture of the Sacred Circle Web, which is equivelent to Justice, here: http://www.tarotpassages.com/sacredcircdw.htm That deck looks intriguing...

Thanks David, yes it is most intriguing, one of my favorite 3

Originally by WalesWoman
The sprite blowing her horn, could well wake the dead. This really is rising from emotion, or rising out of emotion into the air, so that it becomes a mental action being called for. Sometimes I see this as my ship coming in or a wake up call.

Yes! ... and I guess it could relate to people with musical talents ... or you might not be able to hear something you need to because of the noise. I also like to think of it as realising the truth, recognising, being clear about where you are going.

Originally by RedMaple
I like thinking of this as a leaving one life and starting another. How would this differ from the transformation of the Death card in a reading?

Good question! ... what about:
With Death we have total change, a situation we may not want to accept nor go through, an extreme of dying to the "old" way of life, which can be a bit scary. Judgement feels more accepting of consequenses - without fear, looking forward - exciting even, being able to make positive decisions to see you through a change, deciding which path to take, taking the past and making it part of the future, improving what you already have. Judgement has more of a continuance about it - immediate movement, or natural conclusion, where, although things are happening with Death there seems to be more of a juncture where things end, sometimes abruptly and other things begin to grow, sometimes very slowly, a replacement more than the renewal of Judgement ... ? Very interesting question RedMaple, I'm looking forward to hearing other peoples views on that.

[Sophie-David]

Originally Posted by Lyones

... and ... this got me thinking ... I had a quick flip through my deck and counted 40 cards that do not depict water (or may, but it can't be seen clearly), which leaves us with 14 of the Cups suite (6 of which do not actually show water, but it is signified by the cups, so I left them in as 'water cards') - the remainder of the cards have water in them (24 cards) - around half the deck has the intuitive/emotional signature of water, 10 of which are Major Arcana (I did not count The Horned One - because I can't see if the frog is in water or not, nor the 9 of Pentacles urn and cup, nor the High Priestess - although she is intuition, I could see no water).

Good Morning, Lyones

That's an interesting study. Makes me wonder about how other decks would compare in their elements. One would think that a large majority of cards would contain earth, and not many with fire...

Originally Posted by Lyones

With Death we have total change, a situation we may not want to accept nor go through, an extreme of dying to the "old" way of life, which can be a bit scary. Judgement feels more accepting of consequenses - without fear, looking forward - exciting even, being able to make positive decisions to see you through a change, deciding which path to take, taking the past and making it part of the future, improving what you already have. Judgement has more of a continuance about it - immediate movement, or natural conclusion, where, although things are happening with Death there seems to be more of a juncture where things end, sometimes abruptly and other things begin to grow, sometimes very slowly, a replacement more than the renewal of Judgement ... ? Very interesting question RedMaple, I'm looking forward to hearing other peoples views on that.

Yes, Lyones, I think you have put this well, replacement vs. renewal. Personally I'm not sure that I would see any difference in fear levels between the two, but that would depend on one's maturity - some might fear judgement a lot more than death!