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dodalisque reads for Rachelcat
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Participants in the June Tarot de Marseille Reading Circle: Use this space for your readings and interactions. Have Fun!
Participants in the June Tarot de Marseille Reading Circle: Use this space for your readings and interactions. Have Fun!
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dodalisque
- Sage
- Posts: 622
- Joined: 25 May 2018, 22:11
dodalisque reads for Rachelcat
Hi Rachelcat, nice to meet you. As Joan Marie points out in her introduction to this month's spread, you probably don't need to think up a question. It lends itself to a general reading about the state of your life at moment. But If you have a specific question or a particular area of your life you would like me to focus on then please let me know. It may take me a few days to get to your reading but I'll send it along as soon as it's done. All the best.
Re: dodalisque reads for Rachelcat
Hi! Nice to meet you, too! I think a general reading with this spread would be good for me. I'm curious to see what will come up!
Thanks very much!
Thanks very much!
Please join us in This Week's Deck!
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
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dodalisque
- Sage
- Posts: 622
- Joined: 25 May 2018, 22:11
Re: dodalisque reads for Rachelcat
The deck I am using is the Flornoy version of the Vieville tarot which was originally made around 1650 in Paris, the same time and place that saw the creation of the Noblet deck. Only one copy of the deck has survived to the present day. Probably due to a printing or engraving error, or possibly because it was a pirated deck traced from an existing copy, several cards in the original deck are printed laterally reversed ("backwards"), as in a mirror image.
Flornoy's deck gives us two versions of the 22 Vieville trumps. One is the laterally reversed version; the other is the one we see below, which transposes the images to more closely resemble the familiar French TdM cards. In this way Flornoy attempts to keep two groups of tarot enthusiasts happy: 1) those who wish to see an exact reproduction of the printing mistakes on the original surviving deck; and 2) those who wish to see the deck as it was supposed to have looked.
Some of the cards show images that are unfamiliar to those of us who know the French TdM designs, and seem to have more in common with the Belgian tradition. The Moon (XVIII), Sun (XIX), and Tower (XVI) cards below fit into this category. There are no titles at the bottom of the Vieville trumps but the numbered order of the cards is the same as in the French decks.
I suppose I am talking so much about the deck because I have so little to say about the cards in the spread. A 3 card general reading seems virtually impossible to me. It feels like trying to create a horoscope for someone when all you know about them is their Sun sign. There are just too many vagaries. But here goes...
*** How do you honor your inner feminine? - Judgement (XX)
To begin with, what exactly is the inner feminine? I suppose usually it is associated with qualities like emotional openness and receptivity, empathy, gentleness and love, nurturing, and a connection to the unconscious, including our subtle higher spiritual centres. In other words the suit of Cups. But in the tarot, the suit of Coins, the world of the body and Mother Earth, is also linked to the idea of the inner feminine.
The Moon card in the Vieville, instead of featuring the harsh dreamlike unpeopled landscape of the French TdM tradition, shows a woman seated under a full moon spinning with a spindle and distaff, which was designed to hold the unspun fibers of flax or wool, keeping them untangled and thus easing the spinning process. You can just make out the little spindle in her right hand close to the ground. She embodies traditional feminine domestic skills, and perhaps the virtues of patience and hard work, but also reminds us of the 3 Fates of Greek mythology - Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. Clotho spun the “thread” of human fate, Lachesis dispensed it, and Atropos cut the thread, thus determining the individual's moment of death.
So the image on the Moon card acknowledges the role of the feminine in our biological mortal existence, and in the processes of birth and death. The distaff is resting against her stomach, directing our attention to the womb. This makes us think of family history and ancestry. In fact, look, there's a thriving family tree right next to her. The way she is delicately pinching the thread between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand forms a circular shape that is part of a gesture still used today in our own culture to mean "excellent" or "perfect". The other three fingers held close together perhaps suggests that her labors are sponsored by the three-person godhead of Christianity, or the Triple Goddess - Maiden, Mother and Crone - who stands for unity, cooperation, and participation with all creation, while in contrast male gods represent dissociation, separation and dominion over nature.
In books about the tarot the Moon card of the French TdM tradition is usually interpreted to be about dreams and the world of the unconscious, but we sometimes forget that the body is also part of the unconscious. Its complex processes are certainly not controlled by our conscious masculine intelligence. In the Middle Ages the Moon, our closest neighbor, the one nearest to the Earth and therefore the nearest to all that is mortal in us, was thought to be the home of the newly dead, of ghosts, and of spirits beginning their climb back up the "ladder of the planets", to eventually pass beyond Saturn, the furthest outpost of the material universe, on its journey back to the world of pure spirit.
Though we should not make the mistake of equating the inner feminine with members of the female gender, since hopefully all men contain their own inner feminine, it is undeniable that a lack of respect for the qualities listed above results in women in our society being perennially and disastrously undervalued. Our culture seems quite starved of the inner feminine these days.
Having said that, the Judgement (XX) card in this spread seems to be recommending that you personally need to be quite loud in trumpeting your assurance in the life-giving power of qualities associated with the inner feminine. Interestingly, the Archangel Gabriel, who traditionally blows the trumpet on the Day of Judgement, was known as "the left hand of God". The left hand is usually associated with the feminine unconscious, and the woman on the card is holding the distaff in her left hand.
The little family below, symbolic of the whole human family, are climbing up out of their coffins and seem to be applauding. Perhaps the image suggests a role for you in broadcasting, announcing your message to a wider public. Of course what I would really like to hear is that you play trumpet in a jazz band. The glorious feathered wings of the angel possibly suggest that your appearance, the way you dress, should be colorful and brilliant to enhance the dramatic urgency of your message. The angel is awesomely powerful but not necessarily angry. That is a quality associated with the inner masculine.
***How do you honor your inner masculine? - The Sun (XIX)
Men and traditional masculine qualities are indisputably to blame for a lot of our world's current problems, so it feels odd to be asked to find a way to "honor the inner masculine", but we should not forget that the inner masculine is as valuable as the inner feminine to our total experience as human beings. We need the intellectual capacities of the mind - the suit of Swords - and the active ambitious drive represented by the suit of Wands, to push forward projects and bend events to our will. Even the ability to fight is an important skill, as much as we may wish this was not the case.
It seems likely that Pamela Colman Smith was influenced by this Vieville Sun card when she came to design the images for her RWS deck. But her naked vulnerable little baby with its arms open wide, joyously celebrating under a beneficent Sun, is quite different to the prancing headlong charge we see here. The man's nakedness I think is meant to symbolise fearlessness rather than vulnerability. The Celts and Britons who fought the invading Roman armies would fight naked and it freaked the Romans right out.
The Sun on this card has a cruel, indomitable, cynical expression but the man below is calmly confident and is not carrying a weapon. His mission is demonstrate a willingness and readiness to fight, and to press onward in mankind's evolutionary struggle. His glorious streaming flag shows us how fast he is moving. Interesting that the flag is red and green, the same colors as the leaves on the tree on the Moon card. That is, both feminine and masculine consciousness are fighting on the same side.
The prancing horse is in stark contrast to the quiet modesty of the woman on the Moon card. So when I earlier suggested that the Judgement card recommends that you indulge in loudness and display, it seems as though you are being advised to borrow masculine qualities to promote feminine qualities. The flag on the horse's flank is the same one attached to Gabriel's trumpet. The cross itself represents the union of the horizontal world of the Sun card and the vertical world of the Moon card, the meeting point of historical time and the timelessness of the spiritual world.
The Wheel of Fortune is card X and Judgement is card XX - X also being the Greek letter "ch", the first letter of Christ's name - so the two sides of the reading are intimately related to one another. Judgement might be thought of as a higher expression of the principles symbolised by the Wheel of Fortune. The latter traditionally represents Luck or Chance, while the former is associated with Divine Grace. If you think about it for a second, it is mind-bendingly difficult to actually distinguish between the two concepts.
But what on earth could the Wheel of Fortune possibly have to tell us about honoring the inner masculine? Perhaps the key is to understand how ramshackle and fragile that impossible object looks. Life is Fortune's Wheel, that is, in the custody of the goddess Fortuna, like the spindle in the right hand of the woman on the Moon card, not a means of attaining fame and fortune, nor a game that any mortal being ever wins in the long run. The king at the top is not even sitting firmly at the apex of the Wheel but seems to be sliding off to the left.
The card is telling us that we can honor the inner masculine by being prepared to accept success and failure with equanimity and humility. As much as the man on the Sun card wishes to race in a straight line to glory, we have no control over who is turning the Wheel by that handle on its right hand side. We can best express our inner masculine by acknowledging that a godlike masculine conviction of our personal power and potency is an illusion, and that we have no real control over success and failure. "Be intent on action, not on the fruits of action," as it says in the Bhagavad Gita. Those who put more emphasis on enjoying the fruits of their actions are often compared to misers. Perhaps the ultimate message of the Sun card here is one of giving generously of your energy and talents to others. The Wheel on the same side of the reading as the masculine Sun card and the round turning spindle on the feminine Moon card again illustrate a cross-connection between the two sides of the reading.
*** What will bring these two aspects into greater harmony? - The Tower (XVI)
In the Belgian tarot tradition to which the Vieville belongs, the card that is called La Maison Dieu in the French TdM, and The Tower in the RWS, is usually titled La Foudre, or The Lightning, and depicts a tree being struck by lightning. But in the Vieville there is no obvious lightning bolt and the shepherd below tending his flock seems to be marvelling rather than showing fear. His sheep provide the wool on the distaff held by the woman on the Moon card, and I notice there is a masculine ram mingling with the flock. The Sun or Moon overhead certainly seems to be obscured by clouds, and brings to mind the Cloud of Unknowing that obscures the face of God.
This provides a very fitting symbol for a mysterious unification of the feminine and masculine. Whereas La Maison Dieu brings to mind the story of divine punishment over man's arrogance for the building the Tower of Babel, this card is more reminiscent of the story from Luke:2 of the angelic annunciation of Christ's birth to the shepherds "tending their flocks by night" outside Bethlehem. The multi-colored spheres falling around him are familiar to us from La Maison Dieu, where to me they carry a suggestion of the noise of shattered silence. On the Vieville card the spheres seem more like the sound made by the descent of snow. Christ's nativity is traditionally celebrated at Xmas so the similarity to snow may be precisely what was intended.
La Maison Dieu and the Tower card are usually images of violent destruction, the breaking of old structures in preparation for a newer more fluid way of being. The annunciation to the shepherds is also giving notice of the new dispensation promised by the birth of Christ, so perhaps the two cards are at root not that dissimilar. But to me the emotion on the Vieville card is a gentler more compassionate one of wonder and amazement.
The notion of service to others that I talked about in the commentary on the Sun card is alluded to in the relationship between the shepherd and his flock. The shepherd too has a humble role that nevertheless, much to his surprise, grants him astonishing satisfaction. These are the attitudes you should carry forward with you in order to bring your inner feminine and masculine into harmony.
Flornoy's deck gives us two versions of the 22 Vieville trumps. One is the laterally reversed version; the other is the one we see below, which transposes the images to more closely resemble the familiar French TdM cards. In this way Flornoy attempts to keep two groups of tarot enthusiasts happy: 1) those who wish to see an exact reproduction of the printing mistakes on the original surviving deck; and 2) those who wish to see the deck as it was supposed to have looked.
Some of the cards show images that are unfamiliar to those of us who know the French TdM designs, and seem to have more in common with the Belgian tradition. The Moon (XVIII), Sun (XIX), and Tower (XVI) cards below fit into this category. There are no titles at the bottom of the Vieville trumps but the numbered order of the cards is the same as in the French decks.
I suppose I am talking so much about the deck because I have so little to say about the cards in the spread. A 3 card general reading seems virtually impossible to me. It feels like trying to create a horoscope for someone when all you know about them is their Sun sign. There are just too many vagaries. But here goes...
*** How do you honor your inner feminine? - Judgement (XX)
To begin with, what exactly is the inner feminine? I suppose usually it is associated with qualities like emotional openness and receptivity, empathy, gentleness and love, nurturing, and a connection to the unconscious, including our subtle higher spiritual centres. In other words the suit of Cups. But in the tarot, the suit of Coins, the world of the body and Mother Earth, is also linked to the idea of the inner feminine.
The Moon card in the Vieville, instead of featuring the harsh dreamlike unpeopled landscape of the French TdM tradition, shows a woman seated under a full moon spinning with a spindle and distaff, which was designed to hold the unspun fibers of flax or wool, keeping them untangled and thus easing the spinning process. You can just make out the little spindle in her right hand close to the ground. She embodies traditional feminine domestic skills, and perhaps the virtues of patience and hard work, but also reminds us of the 3 Fates of Greek mythology - Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. Clotho spun the “thread” of human fate, Lachesis dispensed it, and Atropos cut the thread, thus determining the individual's moment of death.
So the image on the Moon card acknowledges the role of the feminine in our biological mortal existence, and in the processes of birth and death. The distaff is resting against her stomach, directing our attention to the womb. This makes us think of family history and ancestry. In fact, look, there's a thriving family tree right next to her. The way she is delicately pinching the thread between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand forms a circular shape that is part of a gesture still used today in our own culture to mean "excellent" or "perfect". The other three fingers held close together perhaps suggests that her labors are sponsored by the three-person godhead of Christianity, or the Triple Goddess - Maiden, Mother and Crone - who stands for unity, cooperation, and participation with all creation, while in contrast male gods represent dissociation, separation and dominion over nature.
In books about the tarot the Moon card of the French TdM tradition is usually interpreted to be about dreams and the world of the unconscious, but we sometimes forget that the body is also part of the unconscious. Its complex processes are certainly not controlled by our conscious masculine intelligence. In the Middle Ages the Moon, our closest neighbor, the one nearest to the Earth and therefore the nearest to all that is mortal in us, was thought to be the home of the newly dead, of ghosts, and of spirits beginning their climb back up the "ladder of the planets", to eventually pass beyond Saturn, the furthest outpost of the material universe, on its journey back to the world of pure spirit.
Though we should not make the mistake of equating the inner feminine with members of the female gender, since hopefully all men contain their own inner feminine, it is undeniable that a lack of respect for the qualities listed above results in women in our society being perennially and disastrously undervalued. Our culture seems quite starved of the inner feminine these days.
Having said that, the Judgement (XX) card in this spread seems to be recommending that you personally need to be quite loud in trumpeting your assurance in the life-giving power of qualities associated with the inner feminine. Interestingly, the Archangel Gabriel, who traditionally blows the trumpet on the Day of Judgement, was known as "the left hand of God". The left hand is usually associated with the feminine unconscious, and the woman on the card is holding the distaff in her left hand.
The little family below, symbolic of the whole human family, are climbing up out of their coffins and seem to be applauding. Perhaps the image suggests a role for you in broadcasting, announcing your message to a wider public. Of course what I would really like to hear is that you play trumpet in a jazz band. The glorious feathered wings of the angel possibly suggest that your appearance, the way you dress, should be colorful and brilliant to enhance the dramatic urgency of your message. The angel is awesomely powerful but not necessarily angry. That is a quality associated with the inner masculine.
***How do you honor your inner masculine? - The Sun (XIX)
Men and traditional masculine qualities are indisputably to blame for a lot of our world's current problems, so it feels odd to be asked to find a way to "honor the inner masculine", but we should not forget that the inner masculine is as valuable as the inner feminine to our total experience as human beings. We need the intellectual capacities of the mind - the suit of Swords - and the active ambitious drive represented by the suit of Wands, to push forward projects and bend events to our will. Even the ability to fight is an important skill, as much as we may wish this was not the case.
It seems likely that Pamela Colman Smith was influenced by this Vieville Sun card when she came to design the images for her RWS deck. But her naked vulnerable little baby with its arms open wide, joyously celebrating under a beneficent Sun, is quite different to the prancing headlong charge we see here. The man's nakedness I think is meant to symbolise fearlessness rather than vulnerability. The Celts and Britons who fought the invading Roman armies would fight naked and it freaked the Romans right out.
The Sun on this card has a cruel, indomitable, cynical expression but the man below is calmly confident and is not carrying a weapon. His mission is demonstrate a willingness and readiness to fight, and to press onward in mankind's evolutionary struggle. His glorious streaming flag shows us how fast he is moving. Interesting that the flag is red and green, the same colors as the leaves on the tree on the Moon card. That is, both feminine and masculine consciousness are fighting on the same side.
The prancing horse is in stark contrast to the quiet modesty of the woman on the Moon card. So when I earlier suggested that the Judgement card recommends that you indulge in loudness and display, it seems as though you are being advised to borrow masculine qualities to promote feminine qualities. The flag on the horse's flank is the same one attached to Gabriel's trumpet. The cross itself represents the union of the horizontal world of the Sun card and the vertical world of the Moon card, the meeting point of historical time and the timelessness of the spiritual world.
The Wheel of Fortune is card X and Judgement is card XX - X also being the Greek letter "ch", the first letter of Christ's name - so the two sides of the reading are intimately related to one another. Judgement might be thought of as a higher expression of the principles symbolised by the Wheel of Fortune. The latter traditionally represents Luck or Chance, while the former is associated with Divine Grace. If you think about it for a second, it is mind-bendingly difficult to actually distinguish between the two concepts.
But what on earth could the Wheel of Fortune possibly have to tell us about honoring the inner masculine? Perhaps the key is to understand how ramshackle and fragile that impossible object looks. Life is Fortune's Wheel, that is, in the custody of the goddess Fortuna, like the spindle in the right hand of the woman on the Moon card, not a means of attaining fame and fortune, nor a game that any mortal being ever wins in the long run. The king at the top is not even sitting firmly at the apex of the Wheel but seems to be sliding off to the left.
The card is telling us that we can honor the inner masculine by being prepared to accept success and failure with equanimity and humility. As much as the man on the Sun card wishes to race in a straight line to glory, we have no control over who is turning the Wheel by that handle on its right hand side. We can best express our inner masculine by acknowledging that a godlike masculine conviction of our personal power and potency is an illusion, and that we have no real control over success and failure. "Be intent on action, not on the fruits of action," as it says in the Bhagavad Gita. Those who put more emphasis on enjoying the fruits of their actions are often compared to misers. Perhaps the ultimate message of the Sun card here is one of giving generously of your energy and talents to others. The Wheel on the same side of the reading as the masculine Sun card and the round turning spindle on the feminine Moon card again illustrate a cross-connection between the two sides of the reading.
*** What will bring these two aspects into greater harmony? - The Tower (XVI)
In the Belgian tarot tradition to which the Vieville belongs, the card that is called La Maison Dieu in the French TdM, and The Tower in the RWS, is usually titled La Foudre, or The Lightning, and depicts a tree being struck by lightning. But in the Vieville there is no obvious lightning bolt and the shepherd below tending his flock seems to be marvelling rather than showing fear. His sheep provide the wool on the distaff held by the woman on the Moon card, and I notice there is a masculine ram mingling with the flock. The Sun or Moon overhead certainly seems to be obscured by clouds, and brings to mind the Cloud of Unknowing that obscures the face of God.
This provides a very fitting symbol for a mysterious unification of the feminine and masculine. Whereas La Maison Dieu brings to mind the story of divine punishment over man's arrogance for the building the Tower of Babel, this card is more reminiscent of the story from Luke:2 of the angelic annunciation of Christ's birth to the shepherds "tending their flocks by night" outside Bethlehem. The multi-colored spheres falling around him are familiar to us from La Maison Dieu, where to me they carry a suggestion of the noise of shattered silence. On the Vieville card the spheres seem more like the sound made by the descent of snow. Christ's nativity is traditionally celebrated at Xmas so the similarity to snow may be precisely what was intended.
La Maison Dieu and the Tower card are usually images of violent destruction, the breaking of old structures in preparation for a newer more fluid way of being. The annunciation to the shepherds is also giving notice of the new dispensation promised by the birth of Christ, so perhaps the two cards are at root not that dissimilar. But to me the emotion on the Vieville card is a gentler more compassionate one of wonder and amazement.
The notion of service to others that I talked about in the commentary on the Sun card is alluded to in the relationship between the shepherd and his flock. The shepherd too has a humble role that nevertheless, much to his surprise, grants him astonishing satisfaction. These are the attitudes you should carry forward with you in order to bring your inner feminine and masculine into harmony.
Re: dodalisque reads for Rachelcat
Thanks for the info on the deck. Does it have minors? What do the swords look like? I like the differences to the usual TdM, especially the Tower!dodalisque wrote: ↑29 Jun 2019, 22:36I suppose I am talking so much about the deck because I have so little to say about the cards in the spread. A 3 card general reading seems virtually impossible to me. It feels like trying to create a horoscope for someone when all you know about them is their Sun sign. There are just too many vagaries. But here goes...
And I think you’ve done quite well considering I didn’t give you anything to go on!
Yes, good call that the Moon refers to more conventional ideas of the unconscious AND embodied unconscious, especially when considering the feminine. Even though I’m past the age, don’t forget feminine cycles and timing. We really wish we could have some control over that!dodalisque wrote: ↑29 Jun 2019, 22:36*** How do you honor your inner feminine? - Judgement (XX)
In books about the tarot the Moon card of the French TdM tradition is usually interpreted to be about dreams and the world of the unconscious, but we sometimes forget that the body is also part of the unconscious. Its complex processes are certainly not controlled by our conscious masculine intelligence. In the Middle Ages the Moon, our closest neighbor, the one nearest to the Earth and therefore the nearest to all that is mortal in us, was thought to be the home of the newly dead, of ghosts, and of spirits beginning their climb back up the "ladder of the planets", to eventually pass beyond Saturn, the furthest outpost of the material universe, on its journey back to the world of pure spirit.
Sorry, not a trumpet player! But I’m going to get back to seriously working on a tarot project when I’m on vacation next week. I can definitely see the project as trumpeting the feminine values of divination and “spooky stuff” with flamboyance. I don’t need to hide my light under a bushel. Something that has kind of grown out of this project is my fascination with archangels and especially Gabriel and art depicting the Annunciation (but not the Last Judgment). Mary was considered “only a vessel,” but without a mother, there isn’t going to be any baby, miraculous or not. I definitely see Judgment as a positive card. It’s time to take this project and my life in general, and my creative feminine side, to the next level. And do it in style! It’s probably helpful to distinguish angel activity in Judgment. Gabriel is the messenger, announcing that things are going to be a lot different starting now. Michael is the judge, who you don’t want to be on the wrong side of. He could be the angry one . . .dodalisque wrote: ↑29 Jun 2019, 22:36Having said that, the Judgement (XX) card in this spread seems to be recommending that you personally need to be quite loud in trumpeting your assurance in the life-giving power of qualities associated with the inner feminine. Interestingly, the Archangel Gabriel, who traditionally blows the trumpet on the Day of Judgement, was known as "the left hand of God". The left hand is usually associated with the feminine unconscious, and the woman on the card is holding the distaff in her left hand.
The little family below, symbolic of the whole human family, are climbing up out of their coffins and seem to be applauding. Perhaps the image suggests a role for you in broadcasting, announcing your message to a wider public. Of course what I would really like to hear is that you play trumpet in a jazz band. The glorious feathered wings of the angel possibly suggest that your appearance, the way you dress, should be colorful and brilliant to enhance the dramatic urgency of your message. The angel is awesomely powerful but not necessarily angry. That is a quality associated with the inner masculine.
Yes, I’m loving the similarities and differences you point out in the Moon and Sun.dodalisque wrote: ↑29 Jun 2019, 22:36***How do you honor your inner masculine? - The Sun (XIX)
His mission is demonstrate a willingness and readiness to fight, and to press onward in mankind's evolutionary struggle. His glorious streaming flag shows us how fast he is moving. Interesting that the flag is red and green, the same colors as the leaves on the tree on the Moon card. That is, both feminine and masculine consciousness are fighting on the same side.
The prancing horse is in stark contrast to the quiet modesty of the woman on the Moon card. So when I earlier suggested that the Judgement card recommends that you indulge in loudness and display, it seems as though you are being advised to borrow masculine qualities to promote feminine qualities. The flag on the horse's flank is the same one attached to Gabriel's trumpet. The cross itself represents the union of the horizontal world of the Sun card and the vertical world of the Moon card, the meeting point of historical time and the timelessness of the spiritual world.
Yes, more similarities! Hmmm, giving generously of energy and talents ties in with the project idea, as well as using masculine qualities (swordsy and wandsy) to accomplish a feminine task. And I’m seeing be open to the wheel. In a writing project, sometimes I am typing away and write something very cool, and I wonder where that came from. Let the inspiration happen!dodalisque wrote: ↑29 Jun 2019, 22:36The Wheel of Fortune is card X and Judgement is card XX - X also being the Greek letter "ch", the first letter of Christ's name - so the two sides of the reading are intimately related to one another. Judgement might be thought of as a higher expression of the principles symbolised by the Wheel of Fortune. The latter traditionally represents Luck or Chance, while the former is associated with Divine Grace. If you think about it for a second, it is mind-bendingly difficult to actually distinguish between the two concepts.
But what on earth could the Wheel of Fortune possibly have to tell us about honoring the inner masculine? Perhaps the key is to understand how ramshackle and fragile that impossible object looks. Life is Fortune's Wheel, that is, in the custody of the goddess Fortuna, like the spindle in the right hand of the woman on the Moon card, not a means of attaining fame and fortune, nor a game that any mortal being ever wins in the long run. The king at the top is not even sitting firmly at the apex of the Wheel but seems to be sliding off to the left.
The card is telling us that we can honor the inner masculine by being prepared to accept success and failure with equanimity and humility. As much as the man on the Sun card wishes to race in a straight line to glory, we have no control over who is turning the Wheel by that handle on its right hand side. We can best express our inner masculine by acknowledging that a godlike masculine conviction of our personal power and potency is an illusion, and that we have no real control over success and failure. "Be intent on action, not on the fruits of action," as it says in the Bhagavad Gita. Those who put more emphasis on enjoying the fruits of their actions are often compared to misers. Perhaps the ultimate message of the Sun card here is one of giving generously of your energy and talents to others. The Wheel on the same side of the reading as the masculine Sun card and the round turning spindle on the feminine Moon card again illustrate a cross-connection between the two sides of the reading.
Here's Gabriel again! This definitely speaks to me, but I’m not sure I can put it into words. I guess it’s just that, as you said, things are going to be different from now on, so get with the program! I’m very glad this is a kinder, gentler Tower! Your message of bringing the feminine and masculine ways of creation together to help people is just what I need right now. Satisfaction in doing a humble but necessary job. Works for me!dodalisque wrote: ↑29 Jun 2019, 22:36*** What will bring these two aspects into greater harmony? - The Tower (XVI)
This provides a very fitting symbol for a mysterious unification of the feminine and masculine. Whereas La Maison Dieu brings to mind the story of divine punishment over man's arrogance for the building the Tower of Babel, this card is more reminiscent of the story from Luke:2 of the angelic annunciation of Christ's birth to the shepherds "tending their flocks by night" outside Bethlehem. The multi-colored spheres falling around him are familiar to us from La Maison Dieu, where to me they carry a suggestion of the noise of shattered silence. On the Vieville card the spheres seem more like the sound made by the descent of snow. Christ's nativity is traditionally celebrated at Xmas so the similarity to snow may be precisely what was intended.
La Maison Dieu and the Tower card are usually images of violent destruction, the breaking of old structures in preparation for a newer more fluid way of being. The annunciation to the shepherds is also giving notice of the new dispensation promised by the birth of Christ, so perhaps the two cards are at root not that dissimilar. But to me the emotion on the Vieville card is a gentler more compassionate one of wonder and amazement.
The notion of service to others that I talked about in the commentary on the Sun card is alluded to in the relationship between the shepherd and his flock. The shepherd too has a humble role that nevertheless, much to his surprise, grants him astonishing satisfaction. These are the attitudes you should carry forward with you in order to bring your inner feminine and masculine into harmony.
Thanks so much for the lovely reading. It's very helpful and motivating to me. And thanks for using the lovely deck. I'm now going to investigate it further!
Please join us in This Week's Deck!
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
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dodalisque
- Sage
- Posts: 622
- Joined: 25 May 2018, 22:11
Re: dodalisque reads for Rachelcat
Thanks for your generous feedback. It sounds like you're gearing yourself up for an important project. The Flornoy version of this deck is Majors only and, as far as I know, is still available on his website. But there is an exact photographic reproduction of the entire deck, Majors and Minors, published by a place in France called Editions SIVILIXI at: www.editions-sivilixi.com, by someone called Patrick Coq. I bought the deck a few years ago online so I hope he's still in business. When I get my camera set up on Thursday I'll post some pics here so you can see the Minors and Courts, which are also deliciously messy and strange.
I wish I knew more about the Vieville. That was the first time I tried to do a reading with it. My own reading style is very much derived from Enrique Enriquez, so I find the Dodal cards, especially the cleaned-up Flornoy version, are better at talking to each other, by means of repeated motifs, than the Vieville. But I still love the loose, ragged quality of the artwork. I tend to prefer the Type I decks for that reason. More jazzy. Type II decks seem more like classical string quartets. The semi-abstract Type I decks seem to give more leeway to the imagination. But I go back and forth.
I wish I knew more about the Vieville. That was the first time I tried to do a reading with it. My own reading style is very much derived from Enrique Enriquez, so I find the Dodal cards, especially the cleaned-up Flornoy version, are better at talking to each other, by means of repeated motifs, than the Vieville. But I still love the loose, ragged quality of the artwork. I tend to prefer the Type I decks for that reason. More jazzy. Type II decks seem more like classical string quartets. The semi-abstract Type I decks seem to give more leeway to the imagination. But I go back and forth.
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dodalisque
- Sage
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- Joined: 25 May 2018, 22:11
Re: dodalisque reads for Rachelcat
Thank you so much for the pics! I've already been haunting the site, trying to decide if I want to spring for shipping from France. I think I'm leaning toward yes! But we'll see.
Thanks again for exposing me to this interesting (and tempting) deck!
Thanks again for exposing me to this interesting (and tempting) deck!
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Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
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dodalisque
- Sage
- Posts: 622
- Joined: 25 May 2018, 22:11
Re: dodalisque reads for Rachelcat
I was looking at the 2 of Coins, traditionally the card that advertises the names of designer of the deck and the maker of the cards, and I notice that part of the "S" band holding the two coins together is conspicuously blank. Not even any flowers or leaf decorations. Maybe that supports the idea that this deck is printed "backwards" because it was traced from an existing deck of cards, maybe pirated, and they didn't want to duplicate the name on the original deck so they blanked it out. The original engraver of the woodblocks would have carved the images backwards so that they came out the right way round on the cards. But the carver of the deck we possess would not have had access to the original blocks so traced the images from a set of existing cards and then re-carved a new set of blocks from that tracing. I haven't read that theory anywhere but it kind of makes sense. Anyway, I'm glad you like the Vieville.