My new found love of the TdM
I have taken on this style of decks out of a sense of need to be free of the extra. It is a bit of a Tarot cleansing. My new fascination with the deck has come into full stride as I had a couple of hours on a long road trip.
Last Saturday night I was on the way home from a theme park a couple of hours away. To save on gas I rode with my sister and her family. But in the late hours and in the dark on the drive home I had a break through.
As the kids slept, my sister slept and my brother-in-law listened to a football game faintly on the radio I tried in vain to fall asleep. Since I couldn't sleep I started to consider the suits. I started out with Cups. I know what I normally associate the suit with but I thought what else could it mean?
Sense I work as a bartender I began to think of the cups as goblets. I then thought about wine and how it is considered liquid food. From there, I thought of food as nourishment. How can the suit of Cups illustrate the many different needs in my life that need nourishment? How can the Cups represent how I get nourishment and how I help to nourish others?
Next was the Suit of Wands. Wands, Rods, and Staves all seemed warlike and I wasn't crazy about that association, especially since there is the suit of Swords. I then consider wands are made of wood. Lumber is a form of wood. Lumber is used in construction. Then it hit me. How can Wands represent the building that I do in life? The lattice work on the Wands suit got me to consider the process, effort and resources that are all part of the building process.
The suit of Swords came easily as a representation of what I am willing to fight for and defend. The awesome question, "What is my knightly quest?" This is a powerful illustration of how I direct my efforts to right the wrongs of the world. This can show how I help the poor, serve the king, and rescue the fair maiden. Sure it can be cheesy if done poorly but I know that we as people often forget that each day is a battle to do the right thing and stand up to the darkness in life.
The Suit of Coins, which I am so used to thinking of as Pentacles, came to a new perspective. This is the spending of my life. What am I giving away? What I have given away? What am I getting back for it? Am I making good investments? Am I throwing away, spending or investing? What will I have to show for all my work when I am done?
Each of these four ideas worked in my head, then I started to look at the idea of numerology and how it could fit in to this pattern. I will spare you but I came up with a matrix that could work. Now was it something that was limiting or could it work in different types of questions. Work, Romance, Spiritual? I think it will. I am in the process of still finding out the details but during this quite time in the back of a mini-van I found a way that was unique and personal for the cards.
The reason I love the TdM is the freedom that no one who can tell me that it will not work. The TdM doesn't limit me from applying these meanings to the cards. I don't know if I will stick with it forever, or go back to my already memorized meanings, but I have the freedom to give it a try.
Just a moment with what I am learning in my IDS.
Onyx.
Maybe if I approach the deck as a 'non-reading' deck I'd be able to overcome my hesitations. Anyway, enough of that.....I'm going to focus on the Thoth for now. But thanks again for the info.
