Tarot Haiku

[Pen]

The Artist's Inner Vision Tarot

1) Princess of Coins: She wears her treasures
2) The Moon: To captivate the full Moon.
3) 6 of Wands: She wills; he follows...

Oh dear, I need another line...

The world tumbles in ruin...

[dodalisque]

1) Princess of Coins: She wears her treasures
2) The Moon: To captivate the full Moon.
3) 6 of Wands: She wills; he follows...

Oh dear, I need another line...

The world tumbles in ruin...

No, it seems complete already. We don't need to know what happens to him. But since the 6 of Wands woman is looking back over her shoulder you should be allowed to draw another card to discover what she is looking at. Another 7 syllable line would make a symmetrical haiku quatrain. Or perhaps, having captivated the full moon, she senses danger and is fleeing from it: "Then flees in terror"? But your tendency is to follow the moon not flee from it. So maybe the jewel glinting on her forehead is the moon, and as she flits across the sky her slaves follow.

[Pen]

dodalisque wrote: No, it seems complete already. We don't need to know what happens to him. But since the 6 of Wands woman is looking back over her shoulder you should be allowed to draw another card to discover what she is looking at. Another 7 syllable line would make a symmetrical haiku quatrain. Or perhaps, having captivated the full moon, she senses danger and is fleeing from it: "Then flees in terror"? But your tendency is to follow the moon not flee from it. So maybe the jewel glinting on her forehead is the moon, and as she flits across the sky her slaves follow.

Thanks for your thoughts and suggestions. The girl in the third image was taken from The Storm, a painting by Pierre-Auguste Cot.

Her expression is subtle - not fear but more like interest - she knows she's not in danger and she has her smiling lover by her side. He has been removed to create the card and she's been given a flaming torch, which (for me) changes the dynamic of the painting. Click on the cards to enlarge the image - now it seems (to me, anyway!) that her look takes on confidence and determination (I'm sure the artist has changed those eyes!) and a suggestion of 'follow me'. I couldn't ignore the way her new surroundings seemed to be falling around her, hence the fourth line: 'The world tumbles in ruin...' It would be interesting to draw another card to see what she's looking at, but for me it seemed clear that she's making sure the Moon is following and cares little about the chaos and destruction around her.

[dodalisque]

for me it seemed clear that she's making sure the Moon is following and cares little about the chaos and destruction around her.

Yes, he is intent on her but she is more interested in the coming storm. Perhaps she even more interested in not allowing him to glimpse her calm strength. It might damage his pride and scare him off. His arm is around her and he is arrogantly assuming, the way men do, that he is the one in control and that he is stealing her away. But she is matching his stride and is completely self-possessed. The opposite is true on the TdM Judgement card, in the Dodal at least, where the woman is looking at the man and man is looking at the angel: his eyes on "higher things". Or maybe the psychology of the two images is more similar than I first thought: in the painting the man is idealising the woman in the same way that the TdM man idealises the angel. Both the men are forgetting themselves. The woman in both cases is more worldly, maybe, more grounded. I had never heard of Cot (Cult of Tarot?) but technically the painting is amazing. That diaphanous drapery - how the heck do you do something like that with paint? The man in the picture is as naked as his sexual motive. The dazzling drapery thinly veils her intentions. She is what is lit, what fascinates us, not the guy with the hunting horn, wearing a rude animal skin, buried in shadow. Can't resist throwing in the last verse of Bob Dylan's "Shelter from the Storm":

Well, I'm livin' in a foreign country but I'm bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

[Pen]

dodalisque wrote: That diaphanous drapery - how the heck do you do something like that with paint? The man in the picture is as naked as his sexual motive. The dazzling drapery thinly veils her intentions. She is what is lit, what fascinates us, not the guy with the hunting horn, wearing a rude animal skin, buried in shadow. Can't resist throwing in the last verse of Bob Dylan's "Shelter from the Storm":

Well, I'm livin' in a foreign country but I'm bound to cross the line
Beauty walks a razor's edge, someday I'll make it mine
If I could only turn back the clock to when God and her were born
Come in, she said
I'll give ya shelter from the storm

Dylan was spot on, methinks.

I'm not an art historian, so I'm not sure how they painted diaphanous drapery back in 1880, but I know artists used glazes then, so I'd guess that the figure was painted nude before transparent glazes with small quantities of white paint added were applied over dry or fairly dry paint, with extra touches/layers for the folds.

The figure in the painting is indeed fascinatingly lovely, the horn and animal skins definitely symbolic. Love the symbolism in those old paintings.

[Parzival]

Justice, Hermit, Wheel through Light Seekers Tarot

Smile upon Justice
Delighted, look to the stars
Jig over the Wheel

(let go of Poe's woes)

[dodalisque]

Dylan was spot on, methinks.

I always liked Philip Larkin's put-down of Dylan as "probably half-baked". "Baked" of course also being a synonym for "stoned". His lyrics don't always make a lot of sense but you can't expect the same kind of precision from a song lyric that you do from a poem. So Larkin is being unfair, as usual, though hilarious. You can't really compare song lyrics to poems, they are different animals. A song lyric almost always sits so flat on the page compared to an actual poem. Without the benefit of rhythm and melody poems have to generate their own music. I think Joni Mitchell said that "the melody in music is the metaphor", or something like that. But perhaps poetry has become too academic, the domain of dry-as-dust intellectuals. Maybe most of the real talent has followed the money into pop. Another matter for the devil's advocate section, probably the devil's advocate section on a different site!

[dodalisque]

X

[Pen]

I think the first is truer than the second - they seem in opposition to one another. It reminds me of that saying by Gombrich, " An artist doesn't paint what he sees, but sees what he paints". Now I've seen your very analytical reading, I'm unable to see or conjure up anything else. Next time you post one of these I might try not looking at your reading and see what I make of it - it might be an interesting exercise.

Not sure about the truth of the second set of three - the first part is definitely true but, to me anyway, 'ordinariness' doesn't feel like a shared intensity...

[Pen]

The Artist's Inner Vision Tarot

1) Prince of Swords: The sword is one key
2) Magician: That will unlock the portal
3)10 of Wands: To a burning world

[dodalisque]

Not sure about the truth of the second set of three - the first part is definitely true but, to me anyway, 'ordinariness' doesn't feel like a shared intensity...

Peace can be a very intense experience, maybe the most powerful, so I guess I was trying to equate peacefulness with ordinariness, but you're right, it's a bit of a stretch. "The most mundane tasks take on a sacred quality when they are performed with your total involvement," as the author says about this card, which incidentally is a pretty interesting distillation of the ideas behind the 8 of Coins.

That would be fun to see what you came up with if you waited until after you saw the cards to read what I wrote. Or I could post a few pictures of the cards before I attempted them. Yes, maybe I'll do that. It's harder than it looks. I just had to give up on some of the 3 card combinations that appeared.

[dodalisque]

1) Prince of Swords: The sword is one key
2) Magician: That will unlock the portal
3)10 of Wands: To a burning world

Yes, it fits. I wonder what other keys open the portal. What an interesting deck. I read that it is a collaboration between 26 different artists. Surprising since there seems such a unified feeling to the images. I was wondering if you had any cards in there.

[Pen]

1) Prince of Swords: The sword is one key
2) Magician: That will unlock the portal
3)10 of Wands: To a burning world

Yes, it fits. I wonder what other keys open the portal. What an interesting deck. I read that it is a collaboration between 26 different artists. Surprising since there seems such a unified feeling to the images. I was wondering if you had any cards in there.

I do like this deck - it's beautifully presented in a lovely box with a detailed book and a bag for the cards. I haven't any cards in it though.

[Parzival]

Three-Set Tarot Haiku From Three Decks


Look forth with new eyes (F00l, Byzantine),
Amazed by Art and Music (THREE OF GARDENS, Japaridze),
Create your own way (CHILD OF MUSIC, Blake Tarot).

[Pen]

I found the three cards online - lovely! The words can stand alone, but somehow I always crave the images...

[Pen]

Artist's Inner Vision Tarot

1) Princess of Wands: A wordless challenge
2) The Sun: Unconquerable power
3) Hanged One: Dare to wave the flag

[dodalisque]

1) Princess of Wands: A wordless challenge
2) The Sun: Unconquerable power
3) Hanged One: Dare to wave the flag

Is the "wordless challenge" a sort of Gandhiesque satyagraha? Is the inherently moral force of spiritual silence the "unconquerable power"? We usually think of countries as having flags but this haiku seems to be turning silence itself into a country worth defending. With all the flag waving going on at the moment on all sides I like the idea of waving a flag for genuine inner Peace as distinct from a mere political stalemate. It seems at first glance like it could be a political poem, and the Sun card could be the "unconquerable power" of a nuclear explosion, but it's actually a poem about spirituality. Though I could be projecting my own ideas onto the poem and reading it wrong.

[Pen]

dodalisque wrote: Though I could be projecting my own ideas onto the poem and reading it wrong.

You can't really read it wrong - I like ambiguity and the idea that nothing is concrete and the reader can bring something to the haiku.

[dodalisque]

Cult of Weimar Tarot (Joan-Marie, 2020)

9 of Coins / Hermit (IX) / Page of Cups

Being worshiped gives
Even those who "Come in Peace"
A ravenous thirst

or,

Dictatorships put
The flag in flagellation
The pain in champagne

(or maybe, The sham in champagne)

or,

Choose now! Will you be
A model of restraint or
A boozy floozy?

[dodalisque]

Cult of Weimar Tarot (Joan-Marie, 2020)

Wheel of Fortune (X) / Knight of Swords / Last Judgement (XX)

Stop their little game
By daring to make a stand
And revealing all

or,

"Come join the party."
"Nice of you to invite me...
And I brought some friends."

or,

Summoning the dead
Can be dangerous, makes you
Jump out of your skin!

[dodalisque]

Cult of Weimar Tarot (Joan Marie, 2020)

King of Cups / Ace of Coins / 10 of Wands

Think spoonerisms!
All bontricutions will be
Ratefully greceived

or,

Weight: on all 3 cards -
Food, money, work all jangling
Around in my head

or,

Pawn the cutlery,
We need every penny
To ease our burden

[Joan Marie]

I really like all of these haikus you wrote with Cult of Weimar. Seems like it lends well to interesting thoughts!

Dictatorships put
The flag in flagellation
The pain in champagne

This reminded me of something I heard recently,
"We put the Hospital in Hospitality."

[Pen]

The Artist's Inner Vision Tarot

1) 6 of Coins: She is an icon
2) 7 of Coins: Her face a map etched by life
3) Queen of Cups: Deep as the oceans

[dodalisque]

1) 6 of Coins: She is an icon
2) 7 of Coins: Her face a map etched by life
3) Queen of Cups: Deep as the oceans

Her paintbrushes seem to be her compass.

[Pen]

The Artist's Inner Vision Tarot

1) 4 of Swords: Do not be born yet
2) The Tower: The old order is falling
3) The Empress: Sadness in her eyes...