Debra
Part II
The first important thing I learned from Bill’s perspective on tarot is the simplest. The cards are for a game that replicates life in microcosm. You start with what you’re dealt; there are rules for how to proceed; luck enters in as well as skill; what happens to others affects you and vice-versa. Tarot’s complex images, especially significant to the period when it was created, cry out for story-telling. It mimics life, it creates infinite possibilities for “what comes next” and for explanations of why.
A tarot deck is a sit-down-with-friends version of your whole life as it might have been or might yet be.
This connects the card game: “what happens next, and what can I do about it?”
and fortune-telling: “what happens next, and what can I do about it?”
So that’s the first lesson. The time spent playing a game parallels the time of our lives.
The second lesson Bill also describes in his blog, and this I have a bit more trouble accepting. This is the non-linear nature of ... the deck, the story, the life we lead. I’m a linear thinker. When I see something “symbolic,” I want a story, in language, of what the symbolism is—where it comes from, what it means, please begin at the beginning and go through to the end in an organized fashion. I need tediously explicit explanations of everything, sorry, that’s the kind of thinker I am.
Bill suggests that for some communication we are immersed in a sea of symbols; this gives a sense of what’s going on without the linear narrative. I *feel* this to be true of some art forms (dance, and abstract expressionist painting). But for Bill’s cards, and the Marseille tradition that underlies it, I have a harder time.
For example, I know what a Marseille deck looks like, I have some. But....
Why does the Fool have a dog?
Why is there a bird on the Star card?
And while we’re at it:
Why are there 52 cards in a regular playing card deck...and 52 weeks in a year? Why 78 in tarot?
Here’s where the conceptual background of Bill’s deck comes in, and where I feel I’m treading on thin ice. Next post.
https://nopotatopress.wordpress.com
The first important thing I learned from Bill’s perspective on tarot is the simplest. The cards are for a game that replicates life in microcosm. You start with what you’re dealt; there are rules for how to proceed; luck enters in as well as skill; what happens to others affects you and vice-versa. Tarot’s complex images, especially significant to the period when it was created, cry out for story-telling. It mimics life, it creates infinite possibilities for “what comes next” and for explanations of why.
A tarot deck is a sit-down-with-friends version of your whole life as it might have been or might yet be.
This connects the card game: “what happens next, and what can I do about it?”
and fortune-telling: “what happens next, and what can I do about it?”
So that’s the first lesson. The time spent playing a game parallels the time of our lives.
The second lesson Bill also describes in his blog, and this I have a bit more trouble accepting. This is the non-linear nature of ... the deck, the story, the life we lead. I’m a linear thinker. When I see something “symbolic,” I want a story, in language, of what the symbolism is—where it comes from, what it means, please begin at the beginning and go through to the end in an organized fashion. I need tediously explicit explanations of everything, sorry, that’s the kind of thinker I am.
Bill suggests that for some communication we are immersed in a sea of symbols; this gives a sense of what’s going on without the linear narrative. I *feel* this to be true of some art forms (dance, and abstract expressionist painting). But for Bill’s cards, and the Marseille tradition that underlies it, I have a harder time.
For example, I know what a Marseille deck looks like, I have some. But....
Why does the Fool have a dog?
Why is there a bird on the Star card?
And while we’re at it:
Why are there 52 cards in a regular playing card deck...and 52 weeks in a year? Why 78 in tarot?
Here’s where the conceptual background of Bill’s deck comes in, and where I feel I’m treading on thin ice. Next post.
https://nopotatopress.wordpress.com