[WalesWoman]

Originally Posted by Red Maple

I think flexibility is good, but so is tradition. It grounds me to have this geography of correspondences and directions. ( Although, lately I've been switching the water to East and air to the West, since where I live the ocean is to the East. This doesn't seem to mess things up as radically as changing the elements with the suits, though.)

Geography too? I'm on the West coast, straits, a few more islands and Canada to the east and Pacific to the west. I'm glad I don't have to deal with directions for the elements, or is there something else I'm missing?

Don't tell me, next will be the seasonal correspondences...those can be a real riot. I think I've heard of every element/seasonal combinations there is and still haven't figured out which one to go with.

I think what I am going to do, whenever possible is ignore elemental correspondences with this deck...just read the cards. My mind is just not wanting to think about anything more complicated than what I will cook for dinner and that is a real stretch for the imagination... I must be having a *"man" moment. LOL I'm blaming the moon for brain drain.

* this is in reference to some discussion of the lack of water/emotion in the Emperor. (Basically when a woman asks a man what he's thinking and he says nothing...it is true. Honest, I read that in the book, "What you see is what you get" written by a man for women, so we would finally understand them) And David said so, his very own self. http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread...140#post425140

[Sophie-David]

WalesWoman, I knew I shouldn't have told you our secret!

Originally Posted by RedMaple

I'm just learning the Celtic Wisdom, and it does mess with my internal spiritual geography to put the suits in different places than I'm used to, but I will give it a try, picturing the geography as Ireland.

I think flexibility is good, but so is tradition. It grounds me to have this geography of correspondences and directions. ( Although, lately I've been switching the water to East and air to the West, since where I live the ocean is to the East. This doesn't seem to mess things up as radically as changing the elements with the suits, though.)

RedMaple, I notice from another thread that you've been cutting the captions off your Celtic Wisdom cards, heh heh

I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who puts water in the East - and I have at least one whole continent between me and the eastern oceans, but just three blocks west of me is the open Pacific. Some people are never satisfied! I put it down to indoctrination with European imagery when I was growing up in England. Based on my personal Journey to the East (Herman Hesse), the ultimate land of the east, of the feminine soul, is the South Pacific Islands, approached through India, China and South-East Asia.

When I started learning the Tarot from Eileen Connolly's Tarot: A New Handbook for the Apprentice I had been doing a lot of dream work, and of course also had Sophie in consciousness, so I actively personalized Eileen's Tarot imagery into what would actually fit with my internal experience, as follows, clockwise from the East:

Cups: Spring, East, Water, Soul, Feeling, Chalice

Wands: Summer, South, Fire, Spirit, Intuition, Crosier

Swords: Autumn, West, Air, Ego, Thinking, Cross

Pentacles: Winter, North, Earth, Body, Sensation, Host

Having expounded this fine bit of dogma, I recognize that by next year I may have thrown it all out the window, and that's fine too. Change is Life, Life is Change!

Cheers
David

[Amashelle]

Now I feel like I'm reviving an old and long rested issue, but you know when you get that feeling that you just have to blurt out your opinion, too? Well, I get that all the time, so here I go:

The first elemental association I ever really paid attention to was in the gilded Tarot companion, which says wands and swords are identified as fire OR air, and I took this to mean that you could use it as a personal preference choice once you got to know your cards, or as a variable that must be decided with respect to each reading. Certainly with the guilded tarot there are symbols for both in both suits.

So when I FINALLY tracked down Legend, I didn't have any trouble at all with Ferguson's choices. I think the bottom line is that we should rely on our own intuition, as we do with everything concerning the cards.

Sorry again to drudge up such an old debate! Just wanted to add this in.

[MissEntropy]

Maybe I'm just the oddball since Legend was the first deck I have really worked with and studied but I find it makes more sense to me for Swords to be Fire as Fire is needed to temper/create swords. Spears make more sense to me for Air as you can throw them through the air. Maybe I am just being too analytical but this is more logical for me than the traditional Swords=Air and Wands=Fire.

[SA12]

I'm so glad I found this thread! lol I love this deck -- it's beautiful and it was my first deck, once upon a long time ago. However, since I've been using rws, I've forgotten that swords = fire (which def makes sense thinking of Iron age Celts!) and wands = air...I picked up my Legend deck a couple weeks ago and have been unwittingly adhering to rws conventions. Sooo, if we subconsciously have been adhering to the rws convention, is this screwing up the reading -- or is it ok as long as there's 'intuitive agreement' about the elements prior to reading?

[MissEntropy]

Originally Posted by SA12

. Sooo, if we subconsciously have been adhering to the rws convention, is this screwing up the reading -- or is it ok as long as there's 'intuitive agreement' about the elements prior to reading?

Not a clue ! I rarely, use my RWS and I bought Shadowscapes over a year ago and it is still in its plastic wrap. My other first deck was The Witches Tarot (I lost it during a move) and if I remember correctly, it too had Swords=Fire and Wands=Air.

To be fair, I'm pretty set in my ways regarding which element belongs to Swords and Wands. I just instinctively identify Swords as being active, about movement, and potentially destructive with Spears/Wands being watchful and therefore much more cerebral and therefore flighty. When I think of destructive forces hurricanes (water) earthquakes (earth) and forest fires (fire) come immediately to mind. I only think about tornados (air) with prompting.

Just my two cents.