MAAT - I don't get the Devil--Do you?

[magpie9]

I just got the MAAT, and it's wonderful. But I totally don't get the devil..the picture is arresting, a woman on hands and knees giving birth to light..it's beautiful. It's meaningful, it's the winter solstice --But how does it relate to the Devil?
You know, Old Cranky. Or our bad habits, or negitive thinking, or addictions, or how and where we lie to ourselves, or even (gasp) true evil.

But This?
I have read the entry in the book. I have thought about it. I have slept on it. I have hauled out my copy of the Blue Moon Majors, and their little book. (Same concept, different art, if you're curious) all of them have been no help.

So what am I missing here? do you understand this? If you do, please share. If you don't please post anyway, help me not feel like an idiot! I mean, I thought I had some kinda grip on the Devil concept in Tarot...and now this??
Horrors!

All kidding aside, does anyone understand this? I want to be able to use this deck, Devil and all.

[.traveller.]

Could you post a link to the card? I don't have the deck but I am interested in this non-devilish devil card.

[Barbaras Ahajusts]

This sounds painfully beautiful.
But can you imagine giving birth to that kind of light???

The pain before a new season can be entered into? The change in the body. Giving into the angonies of the overwhelming contractions? ARGG!!

And on an even more agonizing thought, What about the actual birthing of this season? Since its Winter, I have a image of the abominal snowman. Owie.

Kinda sums it up, huh? Enduring one season to reach the next. Accepting what must happen before starting anew?

You know, I'm looking forward to Winter, just to beat this Texas heat, but ahm not gonna go into labor over it! Kinda messes with my expression, "Don't give birth to a cow, get over it!" LOLOL

Barb

[Rosanne]

I can see the connection. The Winter Solstice is the Pagan holiday celebrated after the ending of the old year. The day after the length of sunlight begins to increase day by day. Some people call this solstice 'The Sun is reborn'. It is the start of transformation- the return of life and Springtime. Unusual for me as I am used to more traditional depictions of the Devil. It would be a cold dark day to give birth alone- in fact a Devil of a task methinks.~Rosanne

[magpie9]

Here's the devil jpg from Julie's site. Do you see what I mean?

[Aoife]

Originally Posted by Rosanne

I can see the connection. The Winter Solstice is the Pagan holiday celebrated after the ending of the old year. The day after the length of sunlight begins to increase day by day. Some people call this solstice 'The Sun is reborn'. It is the start of transformation- the return of life and Springtime.

In certain traditions winter solstice eve is known as The Night of the Mother, as She is about to give birth to the Sun King, after which She returns to her virgin state.

Maybe this is stretching it but...
In pregnancy the woman subsumes her own needs, locked in a relationship with the foetus, the needs of the foetus taking priority. At birth the umbilical cord is cut.

Also thinking about.... how women have been demonised, how womens bodies and reproduction have been controlled by patriarchy.

Could this be about woman's right to choose... and that in choosing to subjugate her needs to that of another, the 'chaining' a potentially productive thing? Is this not a passionate and powerful thing - the energy of the devil? There are echoes of The Lovers [15... 1+5 = 6. The Lovers]

This is a challenging re-rendering of the Devil card.... fascinating.

[greycats]

"Covered all over and dripping with sin. I've seen some bad things but I never dreamed / that he'd be wearing blue jeans."

I think those are the lyrics; I may have a few words wrong. Anyway, the Devil WAS a woman in that song.

The devil card in both the Maat and the Blue Moon tarot is, IMO, heavily ironic. The Big Three religions in the West [Christianity, Judaism and Islam] have an enormous preoccupation with and investment in the sex=sin equasion--that's how I read Cuccia-Watts. "Here's the result of sex," she says. "Here's that Devil."

It's a Pagan perspective.

[Simone]

Looking at the card, it seems to me she is not only giving birth to light, but a real baby.

And that triggers some thoughts of my own:

Incarnation and the "slavery" of the flesh... the physical body is restrictive, needs maintenance, is subject to being fed, can't travel around like the spiritual body was used to, will get taught how things are impossibl, kind of brainwashed...

I don't think about sin in this picture, I think about emprisonment and slavery... dependance.

Does that make sense?

[babyJo]

magpie9,

I did have a look at this deck and it is this card that put me off from ordering. I don't know why but I too..really don't get it.

SO you are not alone

~Jo ~a tarot student

[psychic sue]

Hmm not a traditional image I grant you, but I agree its about the slavery of the flesh. The sheer struggle of the material life - making ends meet, and also about the pleasures of the flesh - the animal instincts. Being born into the low vibration of this world but striving for spirituality. The choice is ours.