Sophie
The thread on the phallus across the Papess’s chest, which also referred to the vulva-shaped plant between the Bateleur’s legs, gave me some food for thought. The discussion reminded me of a famous painting that hangs in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
In 1866, Gustave Courbet painted an explicit close-up nude showing the open legs of a woman and what used to be called her pudendum. He called it L’Origine du Monde – here is a link (warning, it is explicit): http://www.artchive.com/artchive/C/courbet/origin.jpg.html
It is a realistic canvas, not in the least an idealisation of woman, and to my eyes, very powerful and beautiful, all the more because of its title, which is an intrinsic part of the painting and our response to it.
I started to think about our sexual characteristics and how they relate to the notion of origin. It’s a cliché – but a useful one – to say that the Tarot is a mirror. If so, it must also be a mirror for how we originated and in turn create. And origin always brings us back to the beginning. I think the first three Major Arcana of the Tarot give us the key to the “origin of the world” – quite literally in images of sexual characteristics, which are also echoed in all the threes in the Minor Arcana – 3 being the number in which male and female unite, therefore where “origin” truly occurs.
Let me go through this a step at a time:
I – Le Bateleur: he is the point of departure, the spark. A juggler, a trickster, a pea-under-the cup magician, a journeyman, a young man of spirit and energy. Between his legs, a small plant shaped like a vulva – a vesica piscis.
Next comes II –La Papesse: she is a woman who looks easy with herself, ceremonially dressed. Traditionally represents knowledge and gestation – she could be Hildergarde of Bingen, Mary Magdalen, Mother Church, Mother Goddess. Mother and grandmother. Across her breasts, hidden as though part of her cape, a large penis, almost a joke penis or a dildo.
This shows the first two Arcana that carry the most potent symbols of humanity, sexuality and reproduction, but switched round – La Papesse brought closer to masculinity, and Le Bateleur given a small vulva as a reminder of his own origin.
Those two together bring us to III-L’Imperatrice. This card is not only the next in sequence, it is also the sum of the first two. Man and woman. What we have here is a most active and creative woman, her legs wide open, between which we can easily guess a vagina. When the starting point and the gestator unite, we reach the moment of union, of origin – the quantum leap which creates the world. L’Imperatrice therefore is not a pure female archetype –rather she represents the culmination of male and female (male as he relates back to the vagina from which he sprang). She is the moment of all possibilities of creation, the fertilised origin.
Her possibilities are explored throughout the Minor Arcana threes, in evolving order:
- III de Bâtons: three staffs – firm, ardent, penetrating, active. Two and One in full action. Pure instinct of origin, indistinct, unshaped. Fruit is hinted at in the lateral leaves. This is the creative moment before matter and spirit, before thought and feeling.
- III d’Epées: three swords, two curved, one straight between the two, in the perfect shape of a vesica piscis, a vulva, with more than a suggestion of penetration by a bright red sword – penis. This is the Origin of the World imagined by Courbet – the moment when thought creates, when consciousness originates and expands. All origin follows from here, but does not yet exist – no feeling, no matter, no spirit.
- III de Coupes: three cups arranged in a form of triangle, two below, one at the peak. No more vesica piscis, but two long buds shaped a little like phalluses, and two hearts – a smaller, a larger, as though expanded in a mirror: sexual, undifferentiated origin, touched by consciousness, transforms into emotion. Above the hearts, two pomegranates embrace the top cup (for a great discussion of pomegranates on this forum, and a link to an article about pomegranates – see: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=37962&page=3) - pomegranates being another attribute of origin, regeneration and sexuality, more symbolic than representative. The hearts are a curved version of a vulva, an emotional expansion of a vagina penetrated by the cup - Creation is Origin fertilised and transformed by Love.
- III de Deniers. Here at last we have the birth of matter and spirit. A baby’s head has dilated the vagina and is peaking through red heart-shaped vines – love and pain mingled. From instinct, to thought, to emotion, creation becomes actual matter and spirit. For the birth of a baby is also the birth of its spirit, evoked by the small, still immature sky-blue leaves on the vines.
So here we have the journey of Origin, which is the journey to the birth of matter and spirit – this is the Empress’ great secret, her power.
From the birth of matter, matter must grow and stabilise, take its place in the world - the great meeting of III-L’Imperatrice and IIII-L’Empereur. 1+2+3+4 = 10 – the number of the tetraktys, the perfect number of the Pythagoreans, which explained the whole of the universe, and a blueprint for creation.
We have one more path to follow, one more road for Origin: where, do one, and two and three meet?
VI-L’Amoureux, of course
But that's another story...
In 1866, Gustave Courbet painted an explicit close-up nude showing the open legs of a woman and what used to be called her pudendum. He called it L’Origine du Monde – here is a link (warning, it is explicit): http://www.artchive.com/artchive/C/courbet/origin.jpg.html
It is a realistic canvas, not in the least an idealisation of woman, and to my eyes, very powerful and beautiful, all the more because of its title, which is an intrinsic part of the painting and our response to it.
I started to think about our sexual characteristics and how they relate to the notion of origin. It’s a cliché – but a useful one – to say that the Tarot is a mirror. If so, it must also be a mirror for how we originated and in turn create. And origin always brings us back to the beginning. I think the first three Major Arcana of the Tarot give us the key to the “origin of the world” – quite literally in images of sexual characteristics, which are also echoed in all the threes in the Minor Arcana – 3 being the number in which male and female unite, therefore where “origin” truly occurs.
Let me go through this a step at a time:
I – Le Bateleur: he is the point of departure, the spark. A juggler, a trickster, a pea-under-the cup magician, a journeyman, a young man of spirit and energy. Between his legs, a small plant shaped like a vulva – a vesica piscis.
Next comes II –La Papesse: she is a woman who looks easy with herself, ceremonially dressed. Traditionally represents knowledge and gestation – she could be Hildergarde of Bingen, Mary Magdalen, Mother Church, Mother Goddess. Mother and grandmother. Across her breasts, hidden as though part of her cape, a large penis, almost a joke penis or a dildo.
This shows the first two Arcana that carry the most potent symbols of humanity, sexuality and reproduction, but switched round – La Papesse brought closer to masculinity, and Le Bateleur given a small vulva as a reminder of his own origin.
Those two together bring us to III-L’Imperatrice. This card is not only the next in sequence, it is also the sum of the first two. Man and woman. What we have here is a most active and creative woman, her legs wide open, between which we can easily guess a vagina. When the starting point and the gestator unite, we reach the moment of union, of origin – the quantum leap which creates the world. L’Imperatrice therefore is not a pure female archetype –rather she represents the culmination of male and female (male as he relates back to the vagina from which he sprang). She is the moment of all possibilities of creation, the fertilised origin.
Her possibilities are explored throughout the Minor Arcana threes, in evolving order:
- III de Bâtons: three staffs – firm, ardent, penetrating, active. Two and One in full action. Pure instinct of origin, indistinct, unshaped. Fruit is hinted at in the lateral leaves. This is the creative moment before matter and spirit, before thought and feeling.
- III d’Epées: three swords, two curved, one straight between the two, in the perfect shape of a vesica piscis, a vulva, with more than a suggestion of penetration by a bright red sword – penis. This is the Origin of the World imagined by Courbet – the moment when thought creates, when consciousness originates and expands. All origin follows from here, but does not yet exist – no feeling, no matter, no spirit.
- III de Coupes: three cups arranged in a form of triangle, two below, one at the peak. No more vesica piscis, but two long buds shaped a little like phalluses, and two hearts – a smaller, a larger, as though expanded in a mirror: sexual, undifferentiated origin, touched by consciousness, transforms into emotion. Above the hearts, two pomegranates embrace the top cup (for a great discussion of pomegranates on this forum, and a link to an article about pomegranates – see: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=37962&page=3) - pomegranates being another attribute of origin, regeneration and sexuality, more symbolic than representative. The hearts are a curved version of a vulva, an emotional expansion of a vagina penetrated by the cup - Creation is Origin fertilised and transformed by Love.
- III de Deniers. Here at last we have the birth of matter and spirit. A baby’s head has dilated the vagina and is peaking through red heart-shaped vines – love and pain mingled. From instinct, to thought, to emotion, creation becomes actual matter and spirit. For the birth of a baby is also the birth of its spirit, evoked by the small, still immature sky-blue leaves on the vines.
So here we have the journey of Origin, which is the journey to the birth of matter and spirit – this is the Empress’ great secret, her power.
From the birth of matter, matter must grow and stabilise, take its place in the world - the great meeting of III-L’Imperatrice and IIII-L’Empereur. 1+2+3+4 = 10 – the number of the tetraktys, the perfect number of the Pythagoreans, which explained the whole of the universe, and a blueprint for creation.
We have one more path to follow, one more road for Origin: where, do one, and two and three meet?
VI-L’Amoureux, of course
But that's another story...
