Sorry I haven't posted much lately - but I've been working very productively on the actual designs for the Seven Stations deck. Deciding what arcane symbols to include on the label for each card led me into several lines of thought. (FWIW, on each card label I included Hebrew letter, Chakra, Astrological Sign and Elemental Dignity as well as color and graphic treatments indicating Path and Station for each.
YES, I love this! It's kind of the whole purpose of this deck!
[/QUOTE] First today, I want to talk about the Elemental associations again. Lots of people know lots more on this subject than I do, but I'm going to use the Seven Stations perspective as an excuse to learn more about it.
Apparently there are a couple variations historically in which elements are assigned to which cards. I'm using the set referenced earlier described by Thierens in 1930. It has one variance from the (excellent) thread here on AT:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=188924
As I looked along each path for a pattern of elements, there were maybe a few elements that showed up more than others for each path, but nothing seemed to stand out. Let's start here instead: I'm looking at triads of cards - the three Arcana in each Station, one for each Path. Let's see if a pattern emerges.
Origin/Root station- Magician=Air, Priestess=Water, Empress=Earth
Inspiration/Sacral Station- Emperor=Fire, Hierophant=Earth, Lovers=Air
Power/Solar Plexus- Chariot=Water, Strength=Fire, Hermit=Earth
Turning Point/Heart- Wheel of Fortune=Fire, Justice=Air, Hanged Man=Water
Transformation/Throat- Death=Water, Temperance=Fire, Devil=Earth
Epiphany/Third Eye- Tower=Fire, Star=Air, Moon=Water
Destiny/Crown- Sun=Fire, Judgment=Water, World=Earth
I think I DO see a pattern here. We should note that no duplications of elements appear in any of the triads - that is, each set consists of three different elements. The elements MISSING from each triad almost look like they're starting to form a pattern too:
Path 1 (-Fire), Path 2 (-Water), Path 3 (-Air), Path 4 (-Earth), Path 5 (-Air), Path 6 (-Earth), Path 7 (-Air)... so the four missing elements are distributed equaly amongst the first four Paths, and then a pattern of Air, Earth, Air, Earth, Air.
The one variance I'm looking at is Judgment, which some sources (primarily Case) list as "Fire" but many astrologers associate with "Water." I'm going to go with the latter simply because it fits the pattern I'm seeing here.
I'd love it if somebody who knows more about all this would chime in here, since I know little about the subject of Elemental dignifications. I know that basically, cards are sometimes interpreted based on their ruling elements to be "opposed," "friendly," or "neutral" to each other.
ETA: I See Rodney had begun to delve into this in THIS POST:
http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=1189564&postcount=36
Aside from needing to read up more on this, I did begin to speculate how these elemental interactions may tie in to my recent perspective of (Path 1 card) NEEDS (Path 2 Card) TO accomplish (Path C card).
I'm not seeing any immediate connections with this pattern of Elemental Rulers yet... but thinking it over led to another idea which I'll outline in my next post.[/QUOTE]
The thing is, I don'tpersonally understand why people do elemental dignities, because to me, some cards can have elements like the moon being water, but others can be a mix or for like the fool, no elements.