Tarot Symbolism

20:18:13 o'clock BST

With sweetness and much delight, from her sweet bosom the papesse drew forth her paps, so soft and beautiful, and placed it in his mouth. Her milk is truly virginal, the nectar of spiritual life, through which death meets its defeat. "Dear sweet son", she said, "regard the breast, with which I nursed you well." Hers is the milk of paradise, that sustains the Christian soul, and flows like streams into the mouths of sufferers in purgatory.

Let us embark on a journey of the heart, as pilgrims of love along the milky way...

As mothers milk is life to the new born infant so water, wine...the blood of christ, is as the milk of spiritual eternal life of the second born in Christian mystical theology... and Jesus our God becomes Mother, as St. Bernard wrote:

"Suck not the wounds, but rather the breasts of the crucified. He shall be as a mother to you, and you as a son to him....So you, Lord God, are the great mother."

Pope is papa, father, the feminine suffix gives us papesse, female or feminine father...from whose 'pappe' (paps) is sucked the wine, blood, milk of spiritual life. Christ and Mary, father, mother, bride and bridegroom are all conflated in a complex of antithetical associations the paradoxical union of which can only be found in the eternal and infinite...

"Christ, my mother, you gather your chickens under your wings; this dead chicken of yours puts himself under your wings."

As Mary is the breast or pappe on which Christ sucked human life so the church is the pappe from which the soul sucks upon eternal life...

(Now really..was medieval somatic symbolism ever so... graphic?)

Imagery and language is inverted to represent the union of the paradox or end of duality and return to the one in the eternal and infinite.

...but I'm a beer drinker meself

...i Venga, Kwaw, toma una cervezita y relajate, creo que tu tienes sed despues de todos tus palabras sobre el Salvator y de Virgen!

Mea Culpa!

La sed para el infinito es sed para la leche del padre, la gran madre. Mi sed, nunca satisfecha e infinita, bebidas de la pezón eterno.

"English is the language ofbusiness, French, the language of diplomacy. German is the language of soldiers, and Italian the language of love...

...but Spanish is the language to speak of God."

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00:02:57 o'clock GMT

The Number Six ~ VI LAMOVREVX ~ :

“Augustine does not use cupiditas and caritas to distinguish lust from love; he uses them to distinguish two loves. Both count as amor. The point is critical if we are to understand Augustine properly. Cupiditas is not a yielding to blind lust. It is human love seeking fulfillment—happiness—in a sphere that does not and cannot provide fulfillment, the sphere of mortal and transitory things. Since these things are subject to loss, they leave us vulnerable to loss and our love for them unavoidably tinged with fear. The social consequence . . . is that person is set against person, each perceiving the other as a threat to self; and the personal consequence is a demeaning of the self. Augustine’s cupiditas is not mere lust. It is a rendering of the hopeless fragility and desperate outcome (both for self and for society) of love’s search for fulfillment where fulfillment cannot be found. Certainly this love is flawed, morally, as ‘the root of all evil’; but it is to be understood, all the same, as nothing less than love: love loving the wrong thing and thus love entangled in the web of unhappiness that it has spun for itself.

“Caritas, too, is a rendering of love, a love no less intensely passionate than cupiditas. In this case, of course, love seeks fulfillment where it can be found. Its object is not subject to loss; and its love, therefore, is untouched by fear. What is distinctively human—the soul with its capacities to think, to reason, to know—is not demeaned, but brought out of its emotive subjection to lesser things and realized in its full value: knowing is the mode in which this love attains it object. And this love does not set person against person, but rather joins person with person in the common bond of shared love for a shared object. Thus caritas is distinguished from cupiditas as love fulfilled from love unfulfilled, not by any diminishment of passion or of pleasure. In fact, just because caritas is love seeking and attaining the object that does afford human happiness, it would be more than strange if it lacked all intensity in its seeking and all pleasure in its attainment.

“If we do not see, then, that Augustine converted the question of happiness into a question of two loves—two loves differentiated, not first in the lover, but first by the loved—we are in danger of misconstruing what he meant both by cupiditas and by caritas, and we are in danger, too, of misconstruing the cultural and theological tradition within which we still largely, if often unwittingly, delineate our own notions of human love and human happiness, for that tradition was decisively shaped by Augustine and the Augustinian view of love.”

Augustine Today, published by Eerdmans ($12.99), edited by Richard John Neuhaus.

 

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23:45:16 o'clock GMT

“This pardoner had hair as yellow as wax…
…No beard had he, nor ever should he have,
For smooth his face as he'd just had a shave;
I think he was a gelding or a mare.”

In part of Chaucer’s Pardoner's tale three hazard players in search of Death meet an old man who, like the wandering jew, death cannot take:

An old man, and a poor, with them did meet.
This ancient man full meekly them did greet,
And said thus: "Now, lords, God keep you and see!'
The one that was most insolent of these three
Replied to him: "What? Churl of evil grace,
Why are you all wrapped up, except your face?
Why do you live so long in so great age?"
This ancient man looked upon his visage
And thus replied: "Because I cannot find
A man, nay, though I walked from here to Ind,
Either in town or country who'll engage
To give his youth in barter for my age;
And therefore must I keep my old age still,
As long a time as it shall be God's will.
Not even Death, alas! my life will take;
Thus restless I my wretched way must make,
And on the ground, which is my mother's gate,
I knock with my staff early, aye, and late,
And cry: 'O my dear mother, let me in!
Lo, how I'm wasted, flesh and blood and skin!
Alas! When shall my bones come to their rest?
Mother, with you fain would I change my chest,
That in my chamber so long time has been,
Aye! For a haircloth rag to wrap me in!'
But yet to me she will not show that grace,
And thus all pale and withered is my face.
"But, sirs, in you it is no courtesy
To speak to an old man despitefully,
Unless in word he trespass or in deed.
In holy writ you may, yourselves, well read
'Before an old man, hoar upon the head,
You should arise.' Which I advise you read,
Nor to an old man any injury do
More than you would that men should do to you
In age, if you so long time shall abide;
And God be with you, whether you walk or ride.
I must pass on now where I have to go."
"Nay, ancient churl, by God it sha'n't be so,"
Cried out this other hazarder, anon;
"You sha'n't depart so easily, by Saint John!
You spoke just now of that same traitor Death,
Who in this country stops our good friends' breath.
Hear my true word, since you are his own spy,
Tell where he is or you shall rue it, aye
By God and by the holy Sacrament!
Indeed you must be, with this Death, intent
To slay all us young people, you false thief."
"Now, sirs," said he, "if you're so keen, in brief,
To find out Death, turn up this crooked way,
For in that grove I left him, by my fay,
Under a tree, and there he will abide;
Nor for your boasts will he a moment hide.
See you that oak? Right there you shall him find.
God save you, Who redeemed all humankind,
And mend your ways!"- thus said this ancient man.
And every one of these three roisterers ran
Till he came to that tree;

[url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pardoner's_Prologue_and_Tale"]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pardoner&...ologue_and_Tale[/url]

The tale in full in modern english:
[url="http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/gchaucer/bl-gchau-can-pard.htm"]http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-ete...au-can-pard.htm[/url]

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23:37:47 o'clock GMT

... to rejoice is thine in arts gymnastic, and in fraud divine. ..

quote:
And from thence the spirits fled to the lower regions where the great Lucifer asked them why so many had fled the light. Thereupon a demon named Azarus arose and explained why they had fled. “But”, he added, “if you have the strength to obey me, I shall overturn them to forswear God and love yourself.” “And what will you do?' Lucifer asked. “I shall set up”, Azarus replied, “in the towns and the encampments and the villages the bishopric of the gambling house, and for bishop a veritable cheat. On the night of the Nativity more people will come to our church than to God’s. Our parishes will be the tavern, the tavern keeper our priests, the wine cellar our chapel, the cellarman our chaplain. Our sacristy will be the house bank, dice made of animal bones our holy relics, the cards our images, the bench our altar, the playing table our holy paten, the goblet of wine our chalice, a gold coin our host, the dice will be the Missal, whose pages are the cards and triumphs.”
end quote from:

http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Sermones_de_Ludo_Cum_Aliis

In relation to the similarity between images of the bateleur at his table and priest at his altar; we may perhaps recognise the preacher's veritable gaming cheat as mock bishop, whose bishopic is set up as an inversion of that of the Christian.

Alciato (1543) calls the card caupo, an innkeeper (who is to our preacher the mock priest):

“queis caupo propinat Omnibus”

“the tavern keeper toasts (or passes the cup to) all.”*

(Perhaps much later image of the Della Rocco ‘bagatto’ card, a cobbler with a glass of wine in his hand, is somehow related to this?)

As the Bishop (or Priest) of Hazard (after which our preachers demon Azarus is named), I am reminded of C. de Geblin’s description of the bateleur:

A la tête de tous les Etats, il indique que la vie entiere n'est qu'un songe, qu'un escamotage: qu'elle est comme un jeu perpétuel du hasard ou du choc de mille circonstances qui ne dépenditent jamais de nous…

At the head of all the States, he indicates that life is but a dream, a vanishing act: that it is like a perpetual game of chance or the random encounter of a thousand circumstances beyond our control…

Ref: Andrea Alciato, "[Parergon] Juris libri VII posteriores" (Lyon, Sebastian Gryphus, 1543), bk. VIII ch. xvi (pp. 72-73). Ross Caldwell has placed the segment on line here: http://www.geocities.com/anytarot/alciato.html


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23:32:56 o'clock GMT

Hermes/Mercury was god over dice; and Apollo it is said granted him the gift of divining by dice. He was also the god of gymnasts (like 'bateleurs' types of 'tumblers').

"Hermes, draw near, and to my prayer incline, messenger of Zeus, and Maia’s son divine; prefect of contests, ruler of mankind, with heart almighty, and a prudent mind. Celestial messenger of various skill, whose powerful arts could watchful Argos kill. With winged feet ‘tis thine through air to course, O friend of man, and prophet of discourse; great life-supporter, to rejoice is thine in arts gymnastic, and in fraud divine. With power endued all language to explain, of care the loosener, and the source of gain. Whose hand contains of blameless peace the rod, Korykion, blessed, profitable God. Of various speech, whose aid in works we find, and in necessities to mortal kind. Dire weapon of the tongue, which men revere, be present, Hermes, and thy suppliant hear; assist my works, conclude my life with peace, give graceful speech, and memory’s increase." - Orphic Hymn 28 to Hermes.

quote:
"Each of the 21 points of the dice consecrates you to the devil. These 21 points are the steps to hell. Every dice has six faces, six rooms where are these steps, and they signify 21 games of chance named after demons."
end quote from:

http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Sermones_de_Ludo_Cum_Aliis

The terminology of the dices faces as 'rooms' reflects how the preacher (in which he probably is not the originator but following a common trope) uses the dice, its faces and pips as 'memory' places.

The concept of dismemberment, recollection and re-membering may also connect with the concept of memory and pedagogical theories of the time.

"Moreover, I cannot fall in love with something which I do not see. Others, others are those who have captivated my soul. To you others do I address myself, you gracious, gentle, soft, tender, young, beautiful, delicate beings, blond tresses, white cheeks, rosy faces, delicious lips, divine eyes, breasts of enamel, hearts of diamond; with your help so many thoughts I put together in my mind, so many affections I collect in my soul, so many passions I generate in my life, so many tears I shed from my eyes, so many sighs I emit from my chest, and so many flames I spark from my heart; to you O Muses of England I address myself, inspire me, help me, scold me, enkindle me, prompt me, make me flow, and turn me into sweet juices, and make me resemble not a small, delicate, formal, short, succinct epigram, but an ample and copious vein of long prose, flowing grand and bubbling; and let my currents go forth not as from a narrow pen, but as from a wide canal. And you, my Mnemosine [goddess of memory], hidden under thirty seals, and closeted inside the gloomy prisons of the shadows of ideas, sing a little in my ears."

Giordano Bruno THE ASH WEDNESDAY SUPPER (LA CENA DE LE CENERI) Translated with an Introduction and Notes by STANLEY L. JAKI

"Intricate chains of stories, woven together in the activities of memory, are a characteristic medieval habit of mind that is not accidental, nor the manifestation of some time-spirit or 'mentality'. It was learned in school fromtexts like the Psychomachia. Like a tuning fork, the textual trope reverberates in the culture made personal memories of those who read it. So a reader's memory, not confined to worries about 'the author's intended meaning,' is freed to roam its memorial symphony, 'gathering up' harmonies and antithesis in the compositional activity which Hugh of St. Victor described as 'meditation,' the highest kind of study, that "takes the soul away from the noise of earthly business" (such as grammatical commentary) and "renders his life pleasant indeed" who makes a practice of it. Intrepretation can then become a form of prayer, a journey through memory like that Augustine took with his mother Monica, by means of which, at moments, the soul seems to
recollect beyond itself, to find out God's own sweetness."

"The Craft of Thought: Meditation, rhetoric and the making of images,
400-1200" (Cambridge University Press 1998) by Mary Carruthers, p.148.

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19:54:51 o'clock GMT
My hustler is a plastic whore
Waits on the couch for night to fall,
Anticipates the morning flesh
The need, the rush, the sticky mess.

My cowboy lives on campbells soup
And for a treat an oxo cube,
His p-stained silks I sell as prints;
They sell real well the more they stink.

My camera films him while he sleeps;
His portrait fills the wall filled screens.
I watch the people watching watch
His eyelids dance to unseen dreams.

My killer wants her fifteen minutes,
She doesn't like to be unnamed.
A voice from fames high altar says,
"Each moment shall be infinite."

My body, bloodied, bullet tore,
Waits on the floor for death to call;
Anticipates the flesh mourning
for touch, a taste, a sound, its stench.

My sight, light undimmed caresses;
My star unset maintains its rise.
My life reborn fortune blesses;
The moon, the sun, become my eyes.

My wigs, my scars, my pallid hues,
My small editions, mass produced;
Judge with grace my worldly views and
Wave by buying my snakeskin shoes.


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12:33:04 o'clock GMT

In The Power of Women's Hair in the Victorian Imagination Elisabeth Gitter writes:

"When the powerful woman of the Victorian imagination was an angel, her shining hair was her aureole or bower; when she was demonic, it became a glittering snare, web, or noose."

While Gitter is speaking here of Victorian imagery of the Golden haired woman in painting and literature; the Victorians themselves were drawing upon "a well established literary tradition with roots in ballads, fairy tales, and Teutonic and classical myths."(Gitter) So it is too possibly a reference that might be found in tarot produced in an earlier period, to the upright Justice may be seen as a protective or sheltering angel, to the wicked a demon; whose power it is to weave together the fabric of peaceful social existence.

The Golden haired woman "used her hair to weave her discourse: immobile, she used her hair at times to shelter her lovers, at times to strangle them. But always…the grand woman achieved her transcendent vitality partly through her magic hair, which was invested with independent energy: enchanting - and enchanted - her gleaming tresses both expressed her mythic power and were its source…"

"…Gold hair is a motif in many ballads and fairy tales, in which it is not merely a synonym for blond hair but a symbol of something precious and powerful or sacred. Belonging to the gold-hair tradition…are the folktales about the tangle haired Frau Holda, the benign witch who oversees spinning and who rewards virtuous girls with the gift of combing pearls and precious stones from their hair.

"Through Frau Holda, who tangles both hair and flax, the female arts of hair combing and spinning or weaving are connected: her association with both suggests that just as the comb untangles the woman's hair, so the heckle smooths the flax; the strokes of the comb mirror the movement of the shuttle of the loom. The sister arts of spinning and combing are also linguistically connected:kteis and pecten, the Greek and Latin words for 'comb', mean the heckle for combing wool and reed for weaving. Both meanings, considered with the third meaning of…female pudenda, evoke the ultimately sexual and female power to weave the family web, to create the fabric of peaceful family and social existence."


Kwaw
Quote from:
Elisabeth Gitter The Power of Women's Hair in the Victorian Imagination PMLA, Vol. 99, No. 5 (Oct., 1984), pp. 936-954.

Originally posted Tarot Study Forum thread,

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18:01:37 o'clock GMT

Elemental and astrological attributions vary from school to school and individual to individual. It is not neccesary to consider any of them correct or wrong. I use whatever attribution the designer of the deck used [if any/known]. With a non-specific deck such as marseille use your own preference or favourite school or one of your own.

For Marseille I sometimes use:

Batons = fire
Denier = earth
cups = air
Swords = water

and:

Kings=Cardinal signs/houses
Knights = fixed signs/houses
Page=Mutable signs/houses

I imagine these on the old fashioned square type chart and the Queens [apparently a western innovation] I place in the centre where a persons name, date, time and place are usually recorded; so identifying queens with time, space and being, or year, world and soul as it is termed in the SY. {see fig.1}

The basis of the arrangement I made is to do with the ascendant/descendent axis and midheaven/nadir axis being taken as symbolic of the Sun [symbol of kingship] at sunrise, noon, sunset and midnight and the relationship of such to the four kings of the wheel of fortune [who will rule, does rule, has ruled and has no rule]. And the relationship of the knights to the fixed signs [forming an X on the standard wheel format] to the relationship with the four kerubic animals of the World card and their relationship to the four apostles/gospels being symbols of the spread and establishment of the word throughout the four corners of the world [thus related to knights as travellors and messengers].

In figure 1 I offer the diagram as model and example, upon which anyone is obviously free to move the pieces around as they see fit. In figure 2 is an adaption of the figure made by JMD on the aeclectic forum for example, which alternates the positions of king and knight, and uses symbols of the elements rather than suits, elemental attributions to suit signs being various in different systems, replace the elemental symbols with the suit sign of your own choice.

In my variation for example, with swords as water, the queen of swords 'crowns' the king of swords in cardinal 4th house/cancer, her sword perhaps emphasising the protective qualities of cancer, a version of the crabs 'pincers'. The 4th house is also signicator of the end of things and the grave, fitting in perhaps with the traditional association of the Queen of Swords with widowhood. The blade denotes surgery and there is a delight in sharing a cup of tea or coffee with friends to compare and compete with relish one's diseases and operations. Being water there is the powers of in depth analysis, as well as instinctive insight and perception, a clannish type of morality, with differing codes of honour expected of and for those in the family and those outside of it. The element of water also fits in well with the traditional association of swords with sorrow. The association between air signs and analytical skills is IMHO over emphasised, if not a gross exageration or total misrepresentation. The two most analytical signs after all [scorpio and virgo] are water and earth.

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02:13:42 o'clock BST

The hebrew word Tzadiq [righteous, just] is an old name of Yesod, to which in some old sources is attributed the 'moon', suggesting a reasonable 'fit' with the continental attribution of the card 'moon' to the letter Tzade [through correlation of the name of the letter to the word]. Though the attribution of the moon to Yesod is non-standard in Jewish Kabbalah, following the widely accepted redactions of the Gra, this attribution was retained in some of the more obscure schools of mainly Christian Cabalah and Hermetic Qabalah. In Jewish Kabbalah, of the Lurianic/Gra tradition, the moon may be either attributed to Chesed or Malkuth [as Tzadiqim are also attributed to Chesed this also is possibly a connection between Tzade and the moon, but in relation to Malkuth also to the letter Qoph]. Qoph [or kuf] also has lunar symbolism:

quote:
The most fundamental significance in Torah of the number nineteen, the ordinal value of the kuf, is the nineteen-year cycle of the moon in relation to the sun, the basis of our Jewish calendar. The moon represents the female figure, the secret of the sefirah of malchut ("kingdom"), personified by Eve (Chavah = 19, as above). The sun represents the male figure (the bestower of light, whereas the moon is the receiver of light), and in particular the sefirah of yesod ("foundation"; yesod = 80 = 8 · 10, chet times yud = chai), as personified by Adam.
end quote from:

http://www.inner.org/hebleter/kuf.htm

Kuf is said to be made of the letters Zayin [lovers in GD] and Resh [Sun in GD] and contains the 'mystery of the crown', of which it is said that Zayin represents a woman of valour, the 'crown' of her husband [adam - the sun, letter Resh in GD]. Of this 'mystery' it may be worth noting in trying to decipher it that one of the hebrew words for 'crown' aterah is both a name for Malkuth and for the corona of the phallus [attributed to Yesod]. Thus we have Kuf - zayin, resh; Moon, lovers, sun; Eve, the crown of her husband, adam.

The letter Kuf has the astrological attribution Pisces, consignificator of the 12th house, thus the end of the zodiacal and diurnal cycles, by analogy to the moon corresponding to the end of the lunar cycle; the dark of the moon under which cloak, as under the canopy of the bride and bridegroom, the sun [resh] and moon [kuf] conjoin in mystical union [lovers-zayin].

In ancient descriptions the 12th house was:

"... called the House of Evil Daemon, because it injures the
emanation from the stars in it to the Earth and is also declining, and the
thick, misty exhalation from the moisture of the Earth creates such
turbidity and, as it were, obscurity, that the stars do not appear in either
their true colours or magnitudes." -- Tetrabiblos, III.10 (Loeb p.275)

As the shape of the letter Kuf too suggests the shape of the back of the head and neck, so some modern astrologers have described idea of the 12th as:

"being like the back of our head; more easily seen by others than by ourselves. That's why it's a mystery to the 12th house person himself, but not to other people."

A time then for serious reflection, or to seek and listen too the objective advise and opinion of others.

Magically the dark of moon period is traditionally the best time for rites of invisibility and 'deceit'. It is traditionally the time for evoking the fith fath (pronounced fee fah), the lying spirits of celtic mythology and friends of the thief who operates under the cloak of darkness. From the similarity in sound and meaning there may well be a common root among the words fith fath (feefah), fibber and thief; and also with the Goetic demon Furfur, the lying spirit. One of the reasons for evoking the fith fath was to obtain the magickal powers of Glamour. Basically a power to deceive people to either see what is not there, or not to see what is. Pisces, consignificator of 12th house, is both the 'fall' and 'detriment' of Mercury, trickster and god of thieves.

The most prevalent of magickal glamours in myth are the tales of invisibility and those of the old crone who, casting of her ragged cloak reveals herself to be a beautifull maiden. The symbolism is quite literal, as with most type of traditional spell. Dark of moon provides the cloak of darkness in which one becomes invisible; it is also the transitional stage between the waning moon (the Crone) becoming the new moon (the Maiden). A time to cast off the darkening cloak of the past to start anew.

Working with the fith fath is reputed to be dangerous in that who they wish to deceive most are those that call upon them. The tales of Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune walking around the streets of London in fantastic garb in the believe they were invisible comes to mind, the only ones being deceived were themselves [perhaps]. And this element of self-deceit may also relate to the 12th house association with self-undoing in that one is led to make errors through a false perception about how others see you, or how you see them.

There is the possibility of confusion and being subject to irrational fears, suspicions, paranoia.

In mundane astrology the eclipse is usually interpreted in terms of catastrophe and disaster, in natal astrology in terms of the individual though it is not always negative, in artists, writers and musicians it can indicate a time of great inspiration and creativity. But good or bad, it is usually indicative of a period of dramatic change or transformation. Mystically it is viewed as forming a hole in the sky, a gateway of ascension between heaven and earth, a tunnel within which the soul of the mystic may be called upon to do battle with monsters, to suffer the dark night of the soul, before ascending through into the light to commune with the gods.

Very interesting Roppo, Diogenes is most often associated with the Hermit. As for the dogs, don't forget that Diogenes nickname was the 'dog', the word 'cynic' being derived from the Greek for 'dog-like'. In the only contemporary reference to Diogenes [Aristotle's Rhetoric], Aristotle does not mention him be name, but just as "The Dog".


"Dogs, too, especially streets dogs, live in accordance with nature. Independence, simplicity, the ability to adapt themselves to changing circumstances, an absence of inhibition with respect to their feelings and their physical needs, indifference concerning where and how they live and what they eat, absolute honesty, freedom of speech - for they bark whenever they please and at whom-ever they dislike - these are some among the virtues or strengths that characterize the canine army, and these are precisely the traits that Diogenes and his Cynic descendants admired and found worthy of imitation. Why, then, should he have taken offence when the Athenian rabble, unable to understand his mode of life, chose to call him a Dog?" quote from

http://users.otenet.gr/~ziggy/diomice.htm

Although usually associated with the Hermit, we may also associate the Hermit's lantern with the Moon, as with the poet Derek Walcott:

quote

Homecoming: 10

New creatures ease from earth, nostrils nibbling air,
squirrels abound and repeat themselves like questions,
worms keep enquiring till leaves repeat who they are,
but here we have merely a steadiness without seasons,
and no history, which is boredom interrupted by war.
Civilisation is impatience, a frenzy of termites
round the anthills of Babel, signalling antennae
and messages; but here the hermit crab cowers when it meets
a shadow and stops even that of the hermit.
A dark fear of my lengthened shadow, to that I admit,
for this crab to write "Europe" is to see that crouching child
by a dirty canal in Rimbaud, chimneys, and butterflies, old bridges
and the dark smudges of resignation around the coal eyes
of children who all look like Kafka. Treblinka and Auschwitz
passing downriver with the smoke of industrial barges
and the prose of a page from which I brush off the ashes,
the tumuli of the crab holes, the sand hourglass of ages
carried over this bay like the dust of the Harmattan
of our blown tribes dispersing over the islands,
and the moon rising in its search like Diogenes' lantern
over the headland's sphinx, for balance and justice.

end quote from "The Bounty", by Derek Walcott

"... note Crab, a very ill-bred dog, of course, is barc [bark] spelled backward." Shakespeare IV.4

In the d'este Sun card Alexander stands before Diogenes who is sitting in his barrel, the story goes that Alexander says to Diogenes, "Name anything you want, and I will give it to you." To which Diogenes replies , "Then stand aside, you are blocking the Sun." Bearing in mind the association of Alexander with the Devil [hence is frequent portrayal with horns], to me this brings to mind the answer to the Devil who promises him the world, "Get behind me Satan".

If we assume this Diogenes reference has been subsumed in the Marseille deck in the picture of the Moon then I would say the picture of the Moon is almost certainly meant to represent a Moon eclipsing the Sun [as Alexander eclipses the Sun]. As the dark of the moon lasts for a period of three days I consider it highly likely that the Moon card references the entombment of Christ, who rose again on the third day. As I mentioned in connection with the attribution of the 19th letter Kuf, there is a connection here with the Metatonic cycle, the basis of the Hebrew calendar, the basis for the prediction of eclipses, but more relevant here also the basis for the date of Easter, that celebration of Christ's death and resurrection which falls on the first SUNday after the full Moon. The symbolism of Easter and the metatonic formula would explain the numbering 18/19 and the sequence Moon/Sun.

In Christian cabalistic astrology Christ is prefigured in the constellation Orion, the Prince of Light. In myth Orion, by accident or design according to differing versions, is killed by Goddess of the Moon. Perhaps then the two dogs are the two hunting dogs of Orion, howling in lamentation at the death of their master, and in accusation at his murderer the Moon.

Anyone interested in the possible connections between diogenes, dogs and the card the fool might be interested in the thread here:

1,10,100 - A doggy tale

In renaisannce art the lamp was used as an emlem of Diogenes the Cynic, nicknamed 'The Dog'. If we associate the Hermit with Diogenes 'the dog' then we have a tryptich of dog cards:

The Lunatic - aleph = 1
The Hermit - yod = 10
The Moon - qoph = 100

The letter Aleph is also attributed to the constellation Orion, hunter of the Bull [taurus] and Hare [Lupus], lover of the moon goddess Artemis/Diana, accompanied by hunting dogs [canis major and minor]. In the Book of Job and Amos the Hebrew word Kesil [KSYL] is used for the constellation Orion. Kesil [KSYL] also means Fool.

KSYL – Orion, Fool

Job 9:9 - Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south.

Job 38:31 - canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion?

Am 5:8 - Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night: that calleth for the waters of the sea, and poureth them out upon the face of the earth: The LORD is his name

The word KSYL Orion also means fool, stupid fellow, dullard, simpleton, arrogant one. And is used 70 times elsewhere in the bible [psalms, proverbs and ecclesiastes] to mean such:

KJV (70) - fool, 61; foolish, 9;
NAS (70) - fool, 35; fool's, 2; foolish, 6; foolish man's, 1; fools, 23; stupid, 1; stupid man, 1; stupid ones, 1;

KJV = King James Version
NAS = New American Standard

According to some the 'dog' on the fool card is not a dog but a hare, this too would fit in with the identification of the 'fool' with the constellation Orion, which is pictured with a hare at its feet, representing the constellation lepus. If it is a hare then we can still consider the dog present, if off picture, as we know the hare is running from Orion's hunting dog canis major, Sirius.

The phenomena of the eclipse is described in Biblical Hebrew by the word Qadar [Qoph, daleth, resh] which means to blacken or darken, as in phrases such as "the sun and the moon shall be darkened". It also means 'mourn'.

A word for dogs, jackals, hyenas is 'Ay' which literally means 'howling' from a hebrew root meaning to cry out in grief, lamentation and despair. This is parallelled in one of the latin words for 'dog' queror which also means to bewail in lamentation.

The word ay is used in Isiaih 13:22 and 34:14 when prophesying the destruction of Babylon:

"Jackals will howl in their fortified towers and wild dogs in their palaces."

The words 'wild dogs' in this passage is the word tannim in Hebrew, which has also been translated as dragons, which in connection with the ecliptic symbolism of this card might suggest that the two dogs also reference the dragons head and tail, the lunar nodes and their relationship to eclipses in the 19 year metonic cycle.

The pool in which diogenes dwells, whom we imagine telling the moon [Alexander the two horned?] to "move aside, your blocking the sun", may in Latin possibly be a lacuna or a lacus:

Lacuna = a hole, empty space / pond, pool / deficiency, loss
Lacus = a hollow / lake, pool, pond, trough, tank, tub.

The idea of a hole would fit in with the mystical concept of the eclipse forming a hole in space, a gateway to the heavens through which the mystic can ascend (or the divine drawn down); on the other hand the crafish in a tank or tub fits perhaps the idea of diogenes in his barrel.

The Man in the Moon

If moon is woman then the Man-In-the-Moon takes on an obvious sexual connotation that was found in literature and plays:

Anon. Arden (IV.2.22-29):
FERRYMAN: Then for this once let it be . midsummer moon,
but yet my wife has another moon.
FRANKLIN: Another moon?
FERRYMAN: Aye, and it has influences and eclipses.
ARDEN: Why then, by this reckoning you sometimes play the man / in the moon.
FERRYMAN: Aye, but you had not best to meddle with that moon
lest I scratch you by the face with my bramble-bush.

Shakes Midsummer Nights Dream: (V.1.250-252)
MOON: All that I have to say, is,
to tell you that the lanthorn is the moon; I, the man i' the moon;
this thornbush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.

Munday Huntington (VIII.173-74)
FITZ: By this construction,
she should be the Moon, / And you would be the man within the Moon.

There are several different images of the man in the moon, would you say this one recalls our favourite lunatic, ill matto?

http://www.inconstantmoon.com/map_near_mans.htm

The eclipse of the Sun, the conjunction of the Bride and Bridegroom, mixed as it is here with the concept of lamentation, calls to mind that part of the Osiris/Isis myth of the magical conception of Horus to Isis when she was in mourning [and perhaps there are parallels with the immaculate conception, the gateway of heaven between two pillars?]. I don't see this card primarily as being about 'horror and madness', but of initiation and rebirth, the realization of the illusionary nature of death and temporal time; a hierophany in which through the continuity of life the eternal is glimpsed.

"She carried the box back to Egypt and placed it in the house of the gods. She changed herself into a bird and flew about his body, singing a song of mourning. Then she perched upon him and cast a spell. The spirit of dead Osiris entered her and she did conceive and bear a son whose destiny it would be to avenge his father. She called the child Horus, and hid him on an island far away from the gaze of his uncle Seth."

There is to me much that reflects both dark and light aspects of the Moon in the Marseille Luna. Firstly, if as I believe this image does reflect the appearance of an eclipse [which as an image is perhaps more apparent in some decks than others], then we have in one image a symbol of both night and day; an aspect also reflected in their being a dark and a light dog, the moon hounds thus reflecting the fact that the Moon appears both during the night and during the day. The towers too can be seen as symbols of east and west which combines with what has already said in previous posts as to how we may see in this card the transience of temporal time, and thus not only of the transience of our sufferings but our joys also: as it is said, "This too will pass". So the Moon has 'swallowed' the Sun but it will emerge again'reborn' from the other side of the moon in its passing. But not only do we have the rebirth of the Sun, a solar eclipse can only occur during the three day period of the dark of the Moon, from whence the crone re-emerges as the maiden. So both Sun and Moon reflect the concept of rebirth and renewal. In the heavenly moon, the moon hounds of terra firma and the moon water creature we may also have a reference to the triple aspect of the moon having rule over the celestial world, the terrestrial and the underworld [artemis/diana; demeter and proserpine/hecate?].

Yes the card speaks of grief, of sorrows and lamentation; but that does not mean our vision should be limited by the confines of our temporal existence. The card to me reminds us of the continuity, the cycle of life; that death is not the opposite of life. For life, being eternal, is singular not dual and thus has no opposite. Yes there are sorrows and grief, but when you look down into the grave don't let your gaze remain fixated there as a profane worshipper of death, look up unto the vast eternity of heaven and remember, this too will pass.

I keep an aquarium, and though it is about 14 years since I last had any I have kept crayfish in the past, never more than one at a time as they are territorial and cannibalistic. One has to be careful of removing any leftover food after they have eaten as they hoard food [and thus may be said to symbolise foresight, prudence] which can pollute the tank. In respect of hoarding there is a hoarding behaviour pattern among some people, usually older adults living alone but not always, that has been given the name diogenes syndrome, though I think this is related to the philosopher, not the hoarding habits of the crayfish. I think the crayfish quite fascinating, and they can have quite beautiful colours, and once settled will feed from the hand [though they tend to move around mostly by a slow walk, they can swim backwards quite fast if startled].

Anyway, besides the possible reference to the hermit philosopher diogenes in the choice of crayfish, there is much else it may be said to symbolise as has been stated in the discussion of the crab. Though not a crab they are both crustaceans and come under the rulership of the moon, and much of what the one symbolises applies to the other.

One aspect I don't think has yet been mentioned, but which I feel reiterates the concept of renewal and rebirth as symbolised in some of the other imagery, is that a crayfishes leg will grow back if it lost through injury, thus too may symbolise regeneration; also as it grows it periodically sheds [molts] its outgrown shell [upto around 15 times in two years, 'out with the old, in with the new']. More than once I thought my crayfish had died only to realize it was the molted shell I wa looking at. After molting it is left with a very soft shell that leaves it very vulneralbe for the three days it takes for it too harden sufficiently to offer it protection, a time period recalling the three days of the dark of the moon.

Written by kwaw93 Link to this entry | Blog about this entry |  Add to del.icio.us |  digg this This entry has 0 comments: Add your own

00:36:04 o'clock BST

Samael and AYIN - King over Anger*

Ayin corresponds to the tarot trump 'The Devil' in the English Hermetic tradition. In the Sefer Yetzira [SY - Gra redaction] the letter Ayin corresponds to the kingship word meaning Anger [RVGZ].

The kingship word RVGZ  [Anger] we can perhaps relate to the concept of Satan as provocateur, who 'leads men astray, and goes up and 'arouses anger' in the Lord.**

In Jewish tradition Samael 'the wicked, head of all the Devils, chief of the tempters, serpent in the Garden of Eden and chief adversary/prosecutor' is identified with the office/personification 'Satan'. He is the angelic archon of the planet Mars and attributed to the fifth sephirah on the pillar of severity.

Mars is exalted in Capricorn, attributed to the letter Ayin in the SY, and to the card 'The Devil' in the GD tradition. Capricorn is also ruled by Saturn [which again, like the serpent, is identified with both Satan and the Messiah in kabbalistic literature], and is thus associated with both the Greater and Lesser 'malefics' in traditional astrology. The Devil looks 'cross eyed' in one of the Marseilles pattern decks [Hadar], which is an interesting coincidence in light of the fact that Samael [the great Devil of Jewish tradition] is described as 'cross eyed' in the Zohar.

Mars [the 'lesser malefic'] is exalted in Capricorn [ruled by Saturn, the 'greater malefic']. Capricorn therefore [attributed to the letter 'Ayin' (one of which meanings is 'eye') in the Sepher Yetzira]], through its association with both malefics, would seem an appropriate attribution of the 'Devil' card. Added to this is the association of the sign with the goat, which in both Christian and Judaic myth and folklore was an image associated with evil.

Concerning 'eyes' the 'Angel' of Mars is Samael, who was for Jews in the Middle Ages the principle name associated with the great Devil and his dominion. He was said to be the demon of blindness, and Ayin means 'eye', forming an associative connection. Among Gnostics, he was called the 'Blind God' and 'God of the Blind'. Among the Ophites a 'blind angel' who is evil and satanic, and called the 'blind dragon'. Among the Sabians of Harran Mars itself was called the 'blind master', interesting that the Angel of Mars shares the attribute of blindness here, and in Jewish lists of Angels Samael is also attributed to Mars. [See: Origins of Kabbalah, Gershom Scholem, page 295].

Of Capricorn and Satan it may be of note that there is in Jewish tradition a connection between Satan and Goats as there is in Christian, for example Isaac the Blind wrote:

"He who lives with herds of sheep, even if it is in high mountains and desert wastes, which are uninhabited, has no need to fear Satan and the evil powers, for no evil spirit rules among them. But he who lives among goats, of him it can be said: that even when he is surrounded by ten houses and a hundred men, an evil spirit rules over them." [Scholem, p. 297]

Satan is nonetheless considered an aspect of God and is considered in respect to 'The left eye of God' that looks downwards. The left being connected with the North as the source of evil, Satan himself being called the Spirit of the North [or may be translated alternatively as 'North Wind']. The root of the name Satan is also connected to the root for 'downwards'. The eye that looks downwards is said to be looking into darkness [hence may be considered 'blind'? As with Samael?].

In Jastrow is given an example of the word HRGIZ in the phrase "hadst thou no other means to 'provoke [thy creator to] anger' than through me, making me an object of worship?"

In the tarot trump the devil we see him set upon a pedestal, a high place, symbolic of idolatry.

In kabbalistic morality Anger is an instrument of the 'evil inclination', akin to idolatry, a sin defiling both body and soul. In anger the neshamah leaves the body and is replaced by a 'strange god', an agent of the 'other side' [evil].

Quote from Zohar:
'This is the meaning of "He tears his soul in his anger" {Job 18:4}. He tears and uproots his soul in his anger, and allows an alien god to take its place. Hence it is written "Desist from a man whose soul is in his anger", that is, one who tears and defiles his holy neshamah in his anger, "whose soul" is exchanged for "his anger."
"For he is accounted a high place." That man is accounted an idol, and whoever associates with him or speaks with him, associates as it were with a real idol. Why is this? Because idolatry actually exists within him. And moreover, he has uprooted celestial sanctity [his neshamah, soul] from its place, and idolatry, an alien god, has settled there instead.' End quote from Zohar 182a-182b.

Notes:

* Ayin - King over RVGZ (Sefer Yetzira - Gra redaction) meaning [source-Jastrow]:

a. - Excitement, anger [out of divine anger comes mercy; he began to curse his son's anger], commotion, trouble [the trouble of Joseph came upon me].

root: RGZ [b.h. RGG] to be unsteady, restless, to be agitated.

b. Hif. HRGIZ - to stir, excite, incite to anger, provoke [how long will you sin and 'create anger'; at all times let a man 'stir up' his good inclination against his evil inclination; Satan comes down and leads [men] astray, and goes up and 'arouses [the Lord's] anger', takes
permission and takes life; hadst thou no other means to 'provoke thy creator to anger' than through me, making me an object of worship?

c. - To be excited, fear [Samuel was frightened, lest it be the judgement day, and I feared myself.] Nif. NRGZ to be excited, to quarrel; Pi. RGZ to rage; RGZ, RGIZ to tremble, to be agitated, angry; anger, wrath, trembling, fearful.

** Taking a one to one correspondence between the TdM tarot sequence and Hebrew letters, with the fool considered first in sequence and attributed to the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet Aleph, then the Devil corresponds to the Hebrew letter Ayin - King over Anger.

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