Chomp down on the magic mug...

Durant Hapke said:

I find it impossible not to "throw down" my perception that your suggesting the cards personalities are basically "locked," correct?

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My approach is to know the canned meaning just well enough to be familiar with it, but lift off from there depending on what I feel. So, there is a locked meaning, and then there is the meaning beyond that.

My thought was the at the time of a "draw," or a reading, the cards are most resonant with their conventions (perhaps two strong a word), but as their narrative extends into the future, they are free to express themselves in the same manner as you or I, right?

Click to expand...

Convention being a jumping-off point to me. So in discussion, it's the base camp before you tackle Everest, you know? It's helpful to pitch a base camp so a common starting point is achieved.

I would say in a reading that you keep the base camp in mind when achieving the current narrative. A reference point, a place to regroup if you get lost.

If you lock in too tightly, there is no room for intuition and perception and influence from other cards. However, you have to start from somewhere which is a base. Base = basis = Greek and Latin for step or pedestal.

A locked meaning is a base from which you step to what is there to perceive.

I like your term "boyhood powers of imagination" but can't dive off that dock with the Queen and the Page. (p.s. but if it's in YOUR cards I guess that's the step you go toward.)

Durant "I'm listening on the wall" Hapke

Click to expand...

Ooooh yummy, insect illustration. I achieve nirvana before a cup of jasmine tea. I have planned an illustration with a praying mantis for months--you're enticing me into mondo insect illustrative zooming.

For Monsieur Duran(t) Duran(t)...(excuse the punster)

Mr. Durant says:
My thought was the at the time of a "draw," or a reading, the cards are most resonant with their conventions (perhaps too (sp) strong a word), but as their narrative extends into the future, they are free to express themselves in the same manner as you or I, right?

Cerulean jubilantly jumps in:
This works as well as...anything.

It works as well as my creative experiments with finding what convention might be in place...

My pre-Grimaud Etteilla decks just aren't conventional, they aren't even really standardized from decade to decade...variations seem to be what the fashion was...the meanings and order of trumps and courts, etc., their meanings are printed on the card and the patterns seem to vary quite a bit.

Getting back to your happy example of a page...to a queen...

A page may be a princess or a youth---or in some decks, an end collective spirit of the suit (aka Princess of Disks in the Thoth deck)...or my Celestial Tarot, she is a beautiful emblem of the season....The Queen may be an evolved page or princess, or a receptive entity or perhaps a combination where elements coincide (Air of Water).

However the page speaks to both the audience and the reader at that moment in time always seems to matters the most, though. I know I enjoy looking back based on how in the past the convention of that particular deck...how might the conventional 'tradition' of the deck being used might have been read...but really, the moment the page plops on the table and "speaks to the eyes," whether as a fante or princess, or youth---that seems to me the most important. That the card can speak or ignite the threads of conversation and using a 'convention' of 'what might the card usually signify' to start the talk...that's fine and dandy to me.

But in the end, how the meaning of the card evolves and signifies meaning to reader and audience participant really is what matters.

Please pardon if my conversational jump-in is not in sync with the musings being explored.

Regards,

Cerulean

a break through?...

Brothers, and Sisters,

Rocking leave this Royal thread alone?

That was the plan, but it seems, as is often the case, the cards have their own agenda.

Night before last, I was reviewing my note cards (of past tarot card notes), and reading over a bit of my scribbling regarding the Queen, and Pages affair, when I was struck by a question (instigated by the Q of Cups, it seemed, or at least it felt like it bubbled up on her behalf).

So, am bringing it, as it came across quite shrill.

It goes a bit like this:

The normal way of life is you grow up, are attracted to a person physically (sexually), and that lust helps fuel the love investigation, cement the developing relations, and compels the couple to enter into some form of relationship (formal, or otherwise).

However, what appears to be the question here is what about when this is all reversed?

Apparently the Queen and Page met when young, there's a substantial enough difference in age to be an issue but nothing alarming (perhaps half a dozen years), but they fall in love anyway, and for all the right reasons call it something else -- a special friendship perhaps -- but largely it's bottled up, and secret (and the sexual components are completely side stepped -- physical contact is out of the question, null, and void).

Years go by, the age taboo evaporates, and the pair stumble into one another (or perhaps shuffle into one another is more accurate) to pick up right where they left off -- this time of course, the physical components are appropriate and Jack bird rocking -- They find bliss, and become an exclusive club of two.

However, the secret nature of their connection stays in place as it's to much a part of who they are, and it has always just worked for them.

So it seems to me that this may be a bit of a metaphor: Stay with the truth long enough, and its dividends will be payed to those who participate in trusting, and believing most completely.

However, for others -- the larger world perhaps -- it will remain off their radar, and unknown.

So, should either the Page or Q care? Should one of the members of that exclusive club of two concern themselves about those outside when they are enjoying the happiness that comes with membership?

Right on, then, so how important is it to you that others see value in the tarot?

This will require more contemplation, but the community here is so rock star full of insight, I didn't feel like waiting for my thoughts to all settle in, and jell.

Durant "from malarky clarity can be carved" Hapke

Putting Time in a (leaky) bottle

<<It's been spinning in my noggin that these questions of past, present, and future, have little, if any real meaning in regards to the 78, given many of the notions bubbling up out of the fog of quantum mechanics.>>

Well. Found this mind-warping time travel physics news nugget just this morning: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19875410/site/newsweek
Article titled, aptly enough, Putting Time in a (Leaky) Bottle


<<I think the Page might still be in the peanut butter and jam on Wonder bread phase of life.>>

Perhaps. But the Page, in another aspect for me, is the excitement of love when it's fresh, and young. I remember that mode -- running around with this newfound immensity, golden and heavy and reality warping, running around offering it to anyone who struck my fancy, overcome by the marvels I had to offer but still obsessed with the fact that they were MY marvels, MINE to give, transformations *I* could conjur, and that I had to hold that Cup to *someone's* lips was the obsession, the goal, the reason. I bore the cup, but I had no clue what it held -- all sorts of crazy funk came pouring out...talking fishes, and them some. All I knew was, I wanted in, and I needed someone to let me bring it -- not much room for thoughts of what came next, or what said someone might bring on me, or that in some curvy realms I was just not welcome.

how does the Queen play in, then? Well. I imagine that excitement, that rush, that naivete ("holy shit! a talking fish! hello, mister fish! what's up with you? won't you be my neighbor?") -- crashing to a halt upon encountering the Queen -- now he's a little fish in a big, big pond -- and crashing Her Concentratyness' party...at least at first. Maybe it takes her a second. Maybe she rewards a little persistence ("I don't feel anything. This is bogus." Thrity minutes later, though...). But dig how those energies vibe...she turns him on to worlds he's never even considered...he brings a smile to her lips and a smartass minnow to the splashpool.

I think it was Umbrae said the Page knows about creating out of entropy..? That would be a motion of egress or emergence, then? The opposite of the top-down structure a Queen would represent? Queen of Cups rules by managing latent currents (thinking on the fly here, these are uncharted grottoes) He's a little chaos bomb, while she's humming the end of that trippy bjork song, "can you spot a pattern...." Heh. I like it. Major reciprocal world rocking is about to ensue.

<<So, should either the Page or Q care? Should one of the members of that exclusive club of two concern themselves about those outside when they are enjoying the happiness that comes with membership?>>

Jack bird no! I've known a few young men and older women duos...they seem to crave something from each other -- something found and lost, or something promised and not found -- do a little covalent bonding and have a hell of a good time -- but then, after a while, their respective orbits pull them back out to their different spins. I know a couple couples who have "stood the test of time" (what?), but each of them are Ultra Science Nerds and get off on the mutual world tunneling. Not all of us are so sturdy of will. Sometimes a good romp in one's mirror self (old vs young style...I like your mirror/symbol hypothesis by the way) is totally appropriate -- granted that the Page is stout enough not to turn junkie, the Queen is (I don't know her well enough to say what this would be for her), and expecting that their tight little circle will open in good time.

sweet, sweet time.

sailin the sea of marrow

brujaja

you have brought it...

Popping brujaja,

You are on to it here!

brujaja said:

Jack bird no! I've known a few young men and older women duos...they seem to crave something from each other -- something found and lost, or something promised and not found -- do a little covalent bonding and have a hell of a good time -- but then, after a while, their respective orbits pull them back out to their different spins. brujaja

Click to expand...

Right Jack bird on!

Though my hunch is this secret relationship is timeless -- at the end of the day, when left to be true to it's self, it is pure and transcendental love.

I suspect this is why I can't keep it off my mind, can't keep it out of my head, it hints at the supposition of "soul mates," a concept I don't buy into (my life is as yet void of any experience that would confirm that such a thing exists), but the underlying truth of such a mechanism might in deed be found here, or something very much like that.

Your action is highly thought provoking, I'll ponder on.

Durant "my fish winds with a key" Hapke

<<Though my hunch is this secret relationship is timeless -- at the end of the day, when left to be true to it's self, it is pure and transcendental love.>>

pure and transcendental love. just letting that phrase echo around in the skull for a minute. the first question that rings out: does pure and transcendental mean timeless? i don't know. at that pure and transcendental level, sure -- the place where time flows all ways. But to experience it here, to have bodies capable of such experience, and identities to be/love/ed...these require time, and so are subject to endings and beginnings. How many endings and beginnings might be contained within a relationship as complex as "soul mates?" The relationship spans them all...it's not without time, it, like, *contains* time. channels it? a necessary ingredient to get the juicy savor goin.

so tasty, it has to be a secret? so weirdly powerful and outside the scope of acceptable society that it's secret by nature?

<<Right on, then, so how important is it to you that others see value in the tarot? >>
I see what you mean by this now. Me and tarot do our dance -- two and only two to tango, but you can't dance without music. Life in the world and all the other relationships I have inform our private dance. Sometimes I do readings and people don't really "value" the tarot. I don't take it personal. Others I know are totally into it -- and our familiarity lets us groove in totally other ways, riffing little moves together on the side. Still, at the end of the day, my interpretations are mine and my friends' are my friends'...interpretation filters through experience, after all. Tarot's a powerful tool, a wyrd and wonderful ally -- but it's not everyone's crucial key.

But does that make the Page of Cups the diviner, and the Queen of Cups the divinely patterned interface between us and chaos (tarot, or what have you)?

No wonder you can't get it outta your head -- it's you and your relationship with tarot itself!

right on!

Have you noticed some pages age..and some queens never do...

...odd, there are pages, such as sons and daughters, that age, and their mothers, aunts or card reading friends that I've known for so long...almost never do...cannot understand why, but it's like time in a bottle for some...perhaps tarot-ing souls have the secret that Dorian Gray never had.

Time can stand still for those who keep their hearts young.

In another thought, there's some young born old, almost like they were the King of Swords from day one, and it takes a lifetime for them to grow into their elder selves. Others have to go through the Page, Knight and Queen stages and when they become Kings, perhaps they reflect back on the best of all the stages they been through. The card language and symbology is a pretty shorthand and decorative treat--but it may be just my likes, not everyone's. So it's okay if card things are not of interest to many.

Here's another thought for you, good sirs and madams: astrologically speaking, there may be someone who is your exact match or exact opposite in almost every way--are they your soul mate to complete you--or are they your evil twin? Or are you their evil twin? On the other hand, maybe the stars are wrong...

Would worlds collide or would the stars dance to see such fun? Would your dog laugh and would your dish run away with a spoon?

What do the cards say when that person is in your life? When the Knight of Pentacles rides into mine, there is a wind and heartbeat that no one ever seems to see in the card; and yet that is what it means to me. It doesn't matter in real life though, if the stars were right or wrong or the cards need to be scattered to the winds...people find the right heartbeat without these things being aligned. Tools like stars and cards might be just to second-guess and add pretty trimmings to what works for you.

A fish in your cup, like a bird in the hand...what does that mean to you?

I enjoy the pretty thoughts,

Cerulean

Best wishes and thanks for magical musings,

Cerulean




I'm doing storylike explorations into the thoughts

wind it up, and throw it in...

Brothers, and Sisters,

Rock on you card inspecting insight spoolers!

Cerulean,

Cerulean said:

"... your dish run away with a spoon?"

Click to expand...

Yeah, yeah, yeah! -- The way it was always meant to be -- and the way "it is" for each pair.

What a ride -- awesome really. Very rich, I feel Jack bird lucky to be taking it all in.

For now, I've got a bit of a picture that seems to be dialed into clarity (though still washed with the occasional wave of static).

At his core, this page is a romantic provocateur.

A driven dream chaser who trusts completely in his pursuits -- top of the list? Right on, the heat of the queen.

In fact, she truly is his, but life has set them on different tracks, and slightly out of sync in time, so they mostly share a glance -- a knowing nod of the head -- and a relentless hunger each for the other.

At times they find themselves alone -- luscious stitches in time which arrive far to infrequently, but boil with passion, and lust.

In these heady moments, the queen gives balance to the page, and he in turn reminds her of her beauty, and inner strength, along with providing a big blast of bliss.

"Someday I'll drink all I want?!"

Yeah, Page dude, someday...

The queen? She knows what time it is, knows the power she can wield not just with the page, but many.

She is caring, insightful, and luxuriously charming... But that page... "I can't shake him -- that offbeat spark -- logic be damned."

It's all a Jack bird secret, so bring it on.

Bring it like the best thing you'll ever put in your mouth -- and swallow.

Nice.

So, I did this bit of scribble to commemorate the action -- kind of a "Q&P Love Clan Banner."

http://www.duranthapke.com/tarot/Q&P_HEAT.jpg

About the wind up fish? Yeah, it's the power of the queen, baby.

Durant "what a saga" Hapke

Winding the Queen Machine...

Brothers and Sisters,

It's a Jack bird dream-fest out and about here lately, but the spin is of a different direction.

The Page finds himself alone with the Queen of Cups scrying mug, and though curious, he keeps his hands occupied with lighting a smoke (short little Camels, non - filter of corse).

As he blows out his match, a faint tinkling -- a melodious harmonic -- drifts from the mug, followed by an insistent ticking.

"Stop the seduction please," the page enjoys another drag, "my heart is spoken for."

And he leaves the thing alone...

For...

Oh...

About one minute more.

Then he tiptoes over, tilts up the lid, and ventures a quick glimpse inside.

"What a marvel..."

A whirling intricacy fills him with wonder.

http://www.duranthapke.com/tarot/Q_of_CUPS.M1.jpg

"What a marvel indeed!"

So, the mug is a complex mechanism of some variety?

An interdimensional music box, or a contrivance capable of spinning golden strands of time...

Interesting.

The Queens crown is strangely square, don't you agree?

I wonder what the source of this shape is?

Apparently the Page is not a "boy toy" for the queen after all, rather, she is a mechanized magic pleasure mistress for him?

And the fun the pair has with that wind-up fish?

Breathtaking.

Have been toying, like the Queen, of seducing my own Jack bird Tarot... Interesting, but such the commitment.

Durant "three of wands" Hapke

Brothers, and Sisters,

Bring it.

So, I was out with "Hot K" last night, toasting and getting all aroused about the days past, and those yet to come. She's quite the provocateur, and a big giant monster promoter of growth, and experimentation -- what a way to burn up an evening, what could be better?

We orbited about a mad cap constellation of subject matters, but after a fire eating pair of tequila tanks (hand me my helmet), touched down on the topic of my ever expanding studies of the seventy eight, and the present state of my perspectives and/or understandings of the pathless path.

"Bring the next round please, Mr. Bartender, you have a bottle of Thype Ale by chance?"

So, I was relaying bits and pieces of knowledge I've been soaking up here at AT (the "deep well of learned optimism" I called it), and she was all down with listening and percolating, and launching guided missiles of inquiry.

"No, HK, there is no coffee card, but, perhaps there will be one day..."

At any rate, she was asking me to give her the skinny in a single blurb, "what would be the tarot tag line?" she asked.

So I pondered, and played along -- here's my action, this is what I came up with:

Tarot: An Odyssey of Nimble Inquiry, Insight, and Intuition.

"Not bad," she giggled, "sign me up!"

It's sort of rocks my vibe on the 78.

Quite a challenge, yes?

Please share your notions.

Durant "it's more then ink and paper" Hapke

PS -- While working the pull down bar, I got round to scribbling the ever popular, and illusive "Jack bird," my notion of it at least:

http://www.duranthapke.com/tarot/jack_bird_tarot.jpg

Bring out your funky art monkey, and give him room to draw.

Scribble, baby, scratch and spin.