Revelations Tarot--Wheel/World & Seasons

[Thirteen]

I'm lovin' this deck but I've got one bone to pick with the creator: In both the Wheel and the World cards of the Revelations Tarot he has the typical foursome of Fixed Zodiac signs, symbolizing Earth, Air, Water and Fire. Namely: Taurus (Bull), Aquarius (Man), Eagle (Scorpio) and Lion (Leo).

Okay, so far so good--these are traditional, and in his description of the World Card he *affirms* that they do, indeed, stand for those Zodiac signs; that they're not just there to symbolize the four elements. He goes on to say, however, that "The lion head" stands "for summer...the angel...for spring...the bull...for autumn...and the eagle for winter...."

Wait a minute! Hold the phone. That don't make no sense! I mean, if we're in the Southern half of the world, then, yes, the Bull/Taurus IS Autumn (April/May)...but then Leo/Lion (July/August) is WINTER! And if we're in the Northern Half of the world then, yes, Leo is Summer...but then Taurus (April/May) has to be spring! And last I looked Scorpio was October/November and THAT is autumn, while Aquarius is January/Feb which is Winter.

In fact, these signs were deliberately picked by the Golden Dawn folk for their tarot decks because they come at times of the year which, in old Pagan terms, mark those seasons. Scorpio appears around the same time as Halloween, which celebrates the last great harvest of Autumn. Taurus comes at with May Day, a greater Celebration of Spring there never was! How can these be ignored?

Now I don't, frankly, mind if he wants to make Cups/Water stand for Winter and Pentacls/Earth for Autumn--there's always been controversy over which element is which season. But when you connect those elements to particular Zodiac signs, how can you possibly ignore when those signs appear in the calendar year--and which season they appear in?

I don't think I'm going to pay much attention to the book on this score. It's one of those problems so many Tarot Deck authors seem to have--they play fast and lose with the Zodiac signs. Anyone else troubled by this?

[abarrach]

I just recently bought this deck and haven't really looked at the details yet. But after reading this post, I looked at the Wheel and World cards.

There is something else that I noticed... in the Wheel card, he flipped Taurus and Leo! You can't just reorder astrological signs at your leisure!

Let me play the devil's advocate here and find a useful interpretation for this mistake. Compared to a traditional deck, it is the signs at the bottom of the card that have been swapped, which happens to be the reverse side of the card in the Revelations deck. If you look at the character on that side of the card, he seems malevolent and mischievous, and may have wanted to cause chaos by exchanging the two fixed signs on his side of the card. It could be interpreted as things being misplaced. Again, this is not a justification, merely a way of using what's available if it's important to the reading.

In the World card, the artist rotated the signs 180 degrees from the traditional positions, but that doesn't bother me really. At least they are in there relative astrological order.

As for the seasons, there is really no excuse for getting Taurus and Scorpio wrong, other than that the artist has no concept of western astrology.

[zachlost]

This is taken from http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~rywang/...8/parable.html (thank you Google)

A number of disciples went to the Buddha and said, "Sir, there are living here in Savatthi many wandering hermits and scholars who indulge in constant dispute, some saying that the world is infinite and eternal and others that it is finite and not eternal, some saying that the soul dies with the body and others that it lives on forever, and so forth. What, Sir, would you say concerning them?"

The Buddha answered, "Once upon a time there was a certain raja who called to his servant and said, 'Come, good fellow, go and gather together in one place all the men of Savatthi who were born blind... and show them an elephant.' 'Very good, sire,' replied the servant, and he did as he was told. He said to the blind men assembled there, 'Here is an elephant,' and to one man he presented the head of the elephant, to another its ears, to another a tusk, to another the trunk, the foot, back, tail, and tuft of the tail, saying to each one that that was the elephant.

"When the blind men had felt the elephant, the raja went to each of them and said to each, 'Well, blind man, have you seen the elephant? Tell me, what sort of thing is an elephant?'

"Thereupon the men who were presented with the head answered, 'Sire, an elephant is like a pot.' And the men who had observed the ear replied, 'An elephant is like a winnowing basket.' Those who had been presented with a tusk said it was a ploughshare. Those who knew only the trunk said it was a plough; others said the body was a grainery; the foot, a pillar; the back, a mortar; the tail, a pestle, the tuft of the tail, a brush.

"Then they began to quarrel, shouting, 'Yes it is!' 'No, it is not!' 'An elephant is not that!' 'Yes, it's like that!' and so on, till they came to blows over the matter.

"Brethren, the raja was delighted with the scene.

"Just so are these preachers and scholars holding various views blind and unseeing.... In their ignorance they are by nature quarrelsome, wrangling, and disputatious, each maintaining reality is thus and thus."

Then the Exalted One rendered this meaning by uttering this verse of uplift,

O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim
For preacher and monk the honored name!
For, quarreling, each to his view they cling.
Such folk see only one side of a thing.

Jainism and Buddhism. Udana 68-69:
Parable of the Blind Men and the Elephant