Lunatic Tarot - The World

Need help with the symbolism of this card..

Kinda new here.This is my first post hehe. Anyway, I got my first Tarot deck just a few days ago and I'm puzzled over the picture of 'The World' in the Lunatic Tarot Deck. It doesn't really seem to match any of the symbolism of other typical World Cards so I'm a bit confused.

The card can be viewed here:

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/lunatic/

It's the one at the bottom left. Any suggestions?

Welcome Lunatic.Luv

I'm afraid I don't have this deck so cannot help specifically with that card but I would suggest doing an Advanced Search, searching for Lunatic as a title. It brings up a few pages about this deck. Most threads seems to be either in Tarot Decks or Reading Exchange.

Moonbow* said:

Welcome Lunatic.Luv

I'm afraid I don't have this deck so cannot help specifically with that card but I would suggest doing an Advanced Search, searching for Lunatic as a title. It brings up a few pages about this deck. Most threads seems to be either in Tarot Decks or Reading Exchange.

Click to expand...

ah alright then. I'm a bit relieved that I'm not the only person who's stumped over this picture.

I had to read your post twice to realize you said it was bottom left. seems more like a queen of wands to me than the world. I could make a joke about how her corset barely holds her globes. Untie that corset and show someone the world...

okay, okay, i'm working with the imagery here. That's all i got is her boobs are the world.

One of the strangest pictures I've seen yet. I can't seem to make out the symbolism in this card.

The World card is of a woman sitting on white grass. A dark staff stands crookedly on her left with three coins dangling from it - three on one side, one on the other. The woman wears some old fashioned clothing: (a recurring theme in Lunatic) an ornamental dress with many dangling jewelry, a necklace of a cross, and a sort of hood over her head. The woman seems to be staring at you through the picture with this strikingly sad look on her face.

I'm kind of new here so I blame my confusion on my noobie-ness. I also posted this on another place but they instructed me to put it here hehe. Any suggestions?

The picture of Lunatic's THE WORLD can also be viewed here:

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/lunatic/

Clones can be problematic

Nytebugg said:

I had to read your post twice to realize you said it was bottom left. seems more like a queen of wands to me than the world.

Click to expand...

I agree. When I looked at that card, I thought she was Queen/Wands or some other Wand card.

Lunatic, although the Lunatic deck is a lovely deck, there's always a problem when a new reader learns tarot from a modified clone. What I mean by this is that while some of the images correspond to the Rider-Waite symbolism, the artist has taken liberties with others. Riffed on them, or forgotten about them entirely. As you do not know the source material, it may be harder for you to figure out what the artist had in mind when they went the way they went.

It's much easier to go from the source deck (learn Rider-Waite) into clones than backwards (from clone to source). That said, it's certainly not impossible to start with a clone. Let's take your World card, for example. In the Rider-Waite, the world is a dancer in a Yoni shape. This indicates the cycle of birth and death, of orbits and spinning, of knowing all the steps. Thus, a card of wisdom, completion, travel, etc. It is a cosmic dancer.

The artist for your World Card has a woman settled on the grass with hints of "forest" garb like the animal-pelt cap. In RW, the dancer holds TWO batons, symbolizing balance, wands of creation (related to the magician's wand of creation), etc. But your lady in the grass only has one. It looks to me like the artist decided that the World Cup should be a Shaman/Earth Mother avatar. More connected to Planet Earth as grass, animal, female, nature then cosmic dancer.

This still relates nicely to being able to travel (single staff as walking staff) and be at home anywhere. I'm not sure she connects as well to the completion/graduation/cycles feel of the dancer. The dancer speaks of cycles, while this World card speaks of rest. Completion leads to rest rather than to a new cycle. But there you go.

As you see, she's easier to figure out (or so I think) if you know something of the source card on which she's based and what that was all about.

Full reply in Using section where you originally posted this, Lunatic. But here's my take on that World Card:

In the Rider-Waite (this deck being a modified clone of that deck), the world is a dancer in a Yoni shape. This indicates the cycle of birth and death, of orbits and spinning, of knowing all the steps. Thus, a card of wisdom, completion, travel, etc. It is a cosmic dancer.

The artist for your World Card has a woman settled on the grass with hints of "forest" garb like the animal-pelt cap. In the RW, the World Card is a dancer holding TWO batons, symbolizing balance, wands of creation (related to the magician's wand of creation), etc. But your lady in the grass only has one. It looks to me like the artist decided that the World Cup should be a Shaman/Earth Mother avatar. More connected to Planet Earth as grass, animal, female, nature then cosmic dancer.

This still relates nicely to being able to travel (single staff as walking staff and wand combined) and being at home anywhere, connecting with all. I'm not sure she relates as well to the completion/graduation/cycles feel of the dancer. The dancer speaks of cycles, while this World card speaks of rest. Completion leads to rest rather than to a new cycle. But there you go.

I personally don't have set meanings for what I see in the images/sybolism of any one card. I prefer to let them speak to me anew each time and to try to see somethign different each time. Also of course the question (and manya other things) affect what you see in a card.


All that aside, it's a very interesting deck. The best I can do to answer your question is to tell you what I see in the card now, at this moment in time, with no question in mind.

So...bottom left hand card huh? ...

Ok lots of grass at the bottom of the image, but it is totally white and not green. Let's say grass = nature. White = purity. This might say to me that the nature of the world we live in is pure. The world iteslf is devoid of judgements or negativity. We sometimes perceive these through our mind and our thoughts, but they are not part of the real nature of the actual world/universe. It is a perception we add in, but a false one.

Very low cuts shirt. I call those shirts that are barely hanging on jokingly "sneeze shirts" with my bf. It's like one good sneeze and you're out...LOL

Anyway, where was I...? Low cut shirt? The World is ready to "bare it's chest" to you and show you all its innermost secrets. As we know in Tarot, the world is always there ready to tell us almost anything we could ever ask with our cards.

The low cut shirt also could indicate caring and nurturing as a woman cares for an nurtures her children/babies with her breasts. This could be saying of the World that we are its children and it cares for and looks after all always. Sometimes it may have to do things to us we don't like. Like when a mother has to give us some bad tasting medicine. But the nature of the universe is to look after us and it only does what is best for us.'

The bare shoulders could say the the World/Universe shoulders our burdens more than we know. It protects us.

And there seems to be a Wand in the image. Which says to me that the World/Universe has granted us the right and the ability to create whatever we want in our lives. And that when what we want to create actually si good for us and in our own best interests we can count on the World to be there behind us every step of the way.

The hat again says that the World protects us.

That is what I see in that image at this moment.

But I would still add in the basic meaning I have for the World card as well. And mesh that with what I see in the image. My basic meaning for the card is the height of an experience, the best version of it that could possibly be. Sometimes in relationships it says that the person thinks the world of you. Sometimes that they see you as the perfect/ideal man or woman.

Babs

The first thing I thought of when I saw this image is that the woman is "on top of the world"- literally, sitting on top of the globe. This might indicate that she feels very confident and in control. She's "King of the World!" kind of like Leo DiCaprio in Titanic. At least, that's what I get from this image.

Obviously, the world is the very last card, a card that represents completion and self mastery (also enlightenment). So feeling confident and in control of her life imagery in this card makes sense.

I'm new too, and only have the Universal Waite deck....hope this helps somehow.

PEACE

I have no idea how the World figures into that particular image at all. This looks like one of those decks that says it's tarot, but it's a bunch of pretty pictures on cardboard and basically unreadable.

It would help if the person who created this deck explained why they did what they did and how they see the World... since no one else seems to be able to fathom their interpretation.