dodalisque reads for BreathingSince72

[dodalisque]

Hi there. I'm as ready as I'll ever be. Do you have a question?

[BreathingSince72]

Greetings and Well met!

What effect will my studies with EE have on my tarot practice and my life in general?

Thanks!

Victoria

[dodalisque]

EE is a big hero of mine. He pretty much single-handedly changed the whole direction of tarot in English-speaking countries. His online interview with Rachel Pollack - which is reprinted in "En Terex It" - was what persuaded me to move from RWS-type decks to the TdM. I'm really looking forward to doing this reading. Hopefully the spirit of EE will be leaning over my shoulder whispering in my ear. It might take me a couple of days to get to it. Hopefully we will have an opportunity sometime to talk about your experiences with EE. My tarot fantasy has always been to take part in one of those "Bookshop of Crossed Destinies" evenings that he organises occasionally in New York. But I heard he had stopped doing readings now and was concentrating on experiments with language. I suppose I should use either the Dodal or Noblet. I certainly have more experience with the Dodal - majors only - but if this is going to be a minors only reading maybe the Noblet would be better. I'll have a think about it.

[BreathingSince72]

Hi Dodalisque,

I think Charlie Brown said we could stick to minors or use the whole deck. It looks like his reading for Joan Marie utilized the entire deck. This spread is challenging. I laid Charlies cards out last night and still havent written about them.

I would love to share my EE experiences with you. He is a very kind man. I did his pips course and am planning to do his trumps course, then his trumps intensive. I am also planning to get into one of his language courses. I was that girl who carried around a dictionary and, upon discovery of one succulent word, would write entire poems. I was an anagram seeker, so my work with him has really brought me back to my first love. It's like the river is returning to its bed. All of this stuff is right up my alley...I just walked away from my alley for so many years.

I look forward to your reading and would be happen to practice and exchange with you in the future.

Victoria

[dodalisque]

Hi Victoria. Sorry this is so long. The subject is close to my heart and I got carried away. Your question was: What effect will my studies with Enrique Enriquez have on my tarot practise and life in general? So EE is central and should occupy the central column of the reading. His influence radiates outwards. Your life in general will be allotted to the left-hand column and your tarot practise to the right. Row 1, the past, will deal with the time before your studies with him; Row 2 to the studies themselves, which seem to have been quite recent and belong to the present time; and Row 3 to what the future holds.

Very often I find EE's writing and theorising extremely abstract and difficult to understand, so I chose, as an exercise in masochistic self-discipline, to use only the pips for this reading. Using all pips seems very egalitarian for some reason. 40 cards, including the Aces, to represent perhaps the 40 days and 40 nights of Christ's wanderings in the wilderness, since for years, until a couple of weeks ago in fact, the pips had been a total blank to me. The chosen deck is the Flornoy Dodal, which EE has made his own.

From his first appearance on the English-speaking tarot scene, EE declared war on the Golden Dawn, the Rider-Waite deck and its clones, and magic in general: "I suspect that deep down everyone who uses the Rider-Waite tarot wishes they owned a unicorn." "The creators of the esoteric tarot were all either madmen or liars."

He is, first and foremost a poet, an artist with a university degree in design, and has attempted to redefine tarot, concentrating exclusively on the TdM tradition, less as a magical tool than as a work of art - ink on paper - suitable for contemplation. He also uses the language of clinical psychology, linguistics, anthropology, art theory, cognitive science, and so on, all the jargon, to discuss the way it works rather than that of religion and mysticism. I am still undecided where my sympathies lie. To promote maximum scientific objectivity and randomness, and thus align myself with the universe, I closed my eyes to draw the 9 cards

The past: 7 of Swords/Two of Wands/3 of Swords

The present: 6 of Swords/8 of Wands/5 of Wands

The future: 3 of Cups/4 of Coins/10 of Coins

EE has said that when he uses an antique deck, or a photographic reproduction of a 17th or 18th century pack of tarot cards, now stained and battered almost beyond recognition from the sprightly package it once was, that it's "like touching a corpse." Here below, showing the 9 chosen cards, are two prime corpses. The Jean Dodal tarot was printed from carved pearwood blocks in Lyon in 1701. Just two copies have survived, now in museums, one in Paris and the other in London. The cards below are from photographic reproductions of those two decks. On the left is the Paris deck, the Dusserre Dodal (Editions Dusserre), a very difficult deck to find. This copy surfaced in a Japanese-owned corner store in Quebec City. On the right is the London deck produced by Lauren's Retro Repros in an edition of 50.

EE uses almost exclusively the Dodal tarot designed by Jean-Claude Flornoy, who peered through the grime of the two original decks, compared them, and made this clean, precise, best-guess copy of what he saw. The deck on the right below is the Flornoy deck that we will be using to answer your question. The Dodal on the right features another recent version by the Argentinian Pablo Robledo. The dark blue mottling on some of the cards seems to be an attempt to mimic the London deck.

The block of six black cards above the line of three golden cards looks like the curtain going up on a stage.

The past:

This is the time before you began your classes with EE. It addresses perhaps what attracted you to him and what prompted you to sign up online.

EE is represented by the middle card. Energy exploding outwards in all directions from a single point. A spark. The crossed staffs are also combative, pitting two tarot traditions against one another. The extravagant, gesturing upper flower is topped with the familiar jester's cap.

Your day to day life on the left and your tarot practise on the right, both Swords, share the same quality, intellectual. But there are fewer swords in your tarot practise, so it is a haven of relative calm. However, the sword in the middle of the 3 of Swords is trapped. The pommel is resting on the frame of swords, so you have not begun to push yet. You feel stuck and yearn to break free from your established ways of thinking about the cards. The hilt is oddly off centre as though you do not have a completely reliable intellectual grasp on what you want to achieve. The fumble-fingered interlacing of swords at the top of the 7 of Swords - sheer engraving incompetence - perhaps suggests jumbled thoughts. Or perhaps a breakthrough is happening and the mesh of swords is buckling.

The present:

These cards deal with the impact of EE's classes on you and your impressions of him.

8 consists of the solidity of 4 doubled. 8s are monolithic. But this monolith, the 8 of Wands, is made of fire. What you saw from a distance, the 2 of Wands, close up is many more Wands than that. He outlives your expectations. The 6 of Swords indicates that this period of your life is comparatively calm after the stresses of the 7 above. The flower in the centre is flourishing. The six swords could be six guitar strings making beautiful music. The person who carved the design for the 6 of Swords mistakenly tags the card IV rather than VI. So this harmonious 6 wants to be a stable 4. That is, you wish this time could go on forever. The perfect opportunity to concentrate more fully on what EE is teaching.

I notice that, in the card to the right, on starting the classes with EE your tarot style immediately shifts to Wands, following the example of EE's Wands in the middle card. In other words, you adopt his style. On the 5 of Wands there is the same aspiring, restless, odd-numbered wand thrusting upwards that we see on the 3 and 7 of Swords. You are always impatient to keep evolving. But where EE's wands produce flowers, your central wand shows blades, so you are still learning. If we go down to the next row, which deals with the future, we see that your 10 of Coins again matches the suit of EE's 4 of Coins. So his influence on you will extend into the future.

The future:

After all the struggle and excitement - those 6 black cards above - during which you meet EE and come to grips with the information from his classes, the bottom row representing the future is all golden. On the 3 of Cups the raised cup is a toast. The inward-curving heads of the two blossoms on either side of the top cup seem to moving towards each other for a kiss. The red, five-pronged jagged shape beneath the cup looks like a flame, and may mean that things are hotting up. Or at least that there is a growing warmth in your heart. The broad bases of the cups are stable.

The 10 of Coins is abundance. The leaves like arms are distributing your tarot wealth. You and a client are the two central coins sitting face to face, while others wait their turn around the walls of the room. Also your style is now Coins - earthy - based not on the abstract ideas you held in the past on the 3 of Swords, but in the physical reality of the lines and colors on the cards. "Rather than learn meanings, look for messages." EE in the centre as the 4 of Coins is established in the future as having made a permanent contribution to art and tarot. The shield is his badge of honour. The loopy doodle in the centre of the shield looks like the figure in the centre of the World card.

Finally, if we follow the diagonal from top right to bottom left we see that the 3 Swords have turned into 3 Cups. That is, your tarot practise, having passed through the classes with EE, will cause a shift in your consciousness that enriches not just your work with tarot but your entire life.

[dodalisque]

Reading through this I notice that just above the pic of the Flornoy and Robledo decks I say that the Flornoy is "on the right." Of course it's the one on the left. Also, in the section dealing with 'The present', I say that EE "outlives your expectations", whatever that might mean. I think my tired old brain meant to say "exceeds your expectations." It's pretty sad when you can't even get a cliche right.

[dodalisque]

Comparing Flornoy to Robledo. If I'm right, that the distracting dark blue mottling on some of Robledo's cards, is an attempt to reproduce discolorations from the original London deck, I lean towards Flornoy's decision to make the deck look as pristine as the original cardmakers intended. In those days they didn't have the same expectations of precision as 21st century Pixilated Man, so Flornoy has made the adjustment. The clean lines and solid blocks of color of the Flornoy deck must appeal to the mathematician in EE. Flornoy is very French: cool, transparent, understated. Pablo has a bolder, richer, more Hispanic palette.

[Charlie Brown]

I likewise prefer the Flornoy, at least from pictures, but I was surprised by how nicely my reproduction Burdel from Yves read. The lack of, I guess, 'sharpness' if you will, helps see the bigger picture between the cards of the spread. My Grimaud has real strong lines and it can be a bit off putting at times.

[dodalisque]

What do you think of the Japanese ISIS deck? It's so nice to look at.The expressive eyes on some of the characters and the 3D appearance, which I should hate, I find quite appealing. There are bubbles and odd things, like Jodorowsky's eggs, showing up occasionally but they don't spoil the deck for me, and could even be useful in some readings.

[Charlie Brown]

What do you think of the Japanese ISIS deck? It's so nice to look at.

I've not a clue. I always think about getting a Jodo but would rather have a Hader but then I never want to pull the trigger on it.

[dodalisque]

The cardstock for the Hader is thick and almost impossible to shuffle, I find, maybe even a little sticky, and the images have a slightly blueish tinge, but they are beautifully designed. I believe Hader produced the deck himself, which is a pity because it would have been a classic if it had been given professional treatment. Maybe he was deliberately aiming to simulate the original feel of the old cards. The Jodo deck is the opposite. But I like all of them really.

I laid out a few 9 card spreads using a couple of the Yves Reynaud decks - the Madenie is my favorite, especially the first one that is a photographic copy, before he decided to clean it up for the second edition - the youthful, cheerful faces - and you're right, that the softer, more ramshackle appearance of the original decks has advantages over the cleanliness and precision of the Flornoy and Robledo reconstructed decks. It's a more relaxing experience for the eye, and one is drawn subconsciously to consider a different range of perceptions.

Now, thanks to you, that I'm getting a better feel for the pips in the TdM, I'm starting to understand the appeal of Lenormand for the first time. I love the way the cards can be related spatially to one another in a spread, and the fact that not all the cards require the same degree of close analysis. It's a very different experience from reading with the RWS and related decks, more improvisational, more freedom. Reading with both the Lenormand and tarot seems like it would be like trying to learn Russian and Greek at the same time. But I've been studying some of your Lenormand readings and it looks like I've been missing out on a lot of fun.

[Charlie Brown]

The cardstock for the Hader is thick and almost impossible to shuffle, I find, maybe even a little sticky, and the images have a slightly blueish tinge, but they are beautifully designed. I believe Hader produced the deck himself, which is a pity because it would have been a classic if it had been given professional treatment. Maybe he was deliberately aiming to simulate the original feel of the old cards. The Jodo deck is the opposite. But I like all of them really.

Do you have purple box or white box edition? Thicker than Yves decks?

Reading with both the Lenormand and tarot seems like it would be like trying to learn Russian and Greek at the same time. But I've been studying some of your Lenormand readings and it looks like I've been missing out on a lot of fun.

I think it's quite the opposite. Working with Lenormand helped me understand the lean, concise style you may have seen me use in TdM. For me they feel like two sides of the same coin. I don't know if you saw my reading over in the intuitive circle but turning 2 kings and a 6 into the word "teamwork" comes straight out of practicing lenormand combinations.

[BreathingSince72]

I have so many comments, I don't know where to begin. For the record, the first TdM reading I ever did is posted here in this forum. It will be interesting to see how things change over time.

On the Six of swords, you mentioned the error made by the card producer. Jean-Claude Flornoy believes this phenomenon to be the result of additive rather than subtractive numbers. Le Soleil in the same deck is numbered XVIIII, another example of the additive use of Roman numerals. I play guitar, classical guitar, so I found it very interesting that you saw a guitar in the swords. The arc reminds me of the sound hole.

Also, you can strip pips down to a very basic hot/cold, flow of energy sort of thing. Enrique started me on playing cards. (He states that he prefers the Noblet thought I bought the Dodal due to his remarkable use of it and he does write the foreward in the accompanying booklet of the Flornoy version).

Diamonds=Red=Hot or warm=Deniers
Hearts=Red=Hot or Warm=Coupes
Clubs=Black=Cool or Cold=Batons
Spades=Black=Cool or Cold

The number on the card tells us whether the energy is contracting or expanding. You can get some very interesting reads from pips this way.

I cannot say I want to own a unicorn BUT you own my "unicorn" deck, the Robledo Dodal. Pablo is a very kind, and gifted artist who has been working on another Dodal. Initially, he opkanned to get it out in April or May but some things happened and it may be several more months. I would gladly pay a hundred bucks for that deck. I take care a family of four myself so this is saying alot.

I feel like there was a lot of wisdom in your interpretations of these cards. Ultimately, the whole experience will come up all golden. It has already felt like homecoming for me. I do adopt his methods and I do see that in time, I will make them my own, with my own flavor.

My day job is extremely intellectual, if not stifling at times, so my tarot practice is an opportunity to use my mind for play. I get to let gp of regulation and rule and open up to possibility. I a, learning to just look at what is there, which is not hidden. (I do enjoy esoteric tarot but sometimes its nice not to have a mystery).I am definitely buckling the mesh.

I am impatient. I love learning and evolving (prefer to do so immediately) and often have to remind myself that my greatest wisdom came over time. It takes time for head knowledge to become heart knowledge.I realize I have offered some of y feedback backwards, and perhaps out of order, but in the future section you mentioned an earthy practice based inlines and colors. I do use color to interpret cards.

All in all, I think this was a very good read. Thanks for your willingness to do it for me. Hope your Sunday is awesome!

[dodalisque]

Thanks, Victoria. Amazing that you have only been reading with the TdM for such a short time. And with 4 children I don't know how you find the time and the necessary peace and quiet. I thought your reading for Charlie Brown this month was delightful. Very imaginative and convincing. EE must have been taking a shot at Rider-Waite style decks when he made the "unicorn" comment. He wouldn't talk about a TdM deck that way. I read an interview he did with Pablo Robledo and he was very respectful, which is not always the case. I thought he might be critical of Pablo's deck out of loyalty to Jean-Claude Flornoy, but Pablo's dedication to the TdM tradition was palpable and they got along fine. I heard Pablo had taken a few years off to learn how to carve so he could make his own wooden blocks for printing. I wonder if the new edition of the Dodal you mention is going to be an example of that. In the list of decks in your profile I notice Pablo's Flamand Vandenborre. I would have liked to track down a copy of that but apparently it was a limited edition of just 28 decks. Has there been a commercial edition I don't know about or do you have one of those 28? Looking forward to us both reading for each other again. All the best.
Tom

[BreathingSince72]

Hi Tom,

I received deck 29 of 29. I bought it from collectarot.com. Pablo still has some of the Flamand Vandenboore! Shipping from Argentina is very costly but I had a willingness to pay it and buy a few of those Dodal he is making! I appreciate your comments re: my read for CB. It was fun but, like him, I thought I read the wrong thing at first. I do enjoy this.

I actually have five children. Three live at home. My youngest is 7. My oldest is 26. My 26 has the card bug too and I’ve shared some TdM with her and plan to gift her with an EE course. My 7 and I will flip cards from TdM and RWS to make up stories. Her elastic mind and fresh eyes are amazing.

I do look forward to reading for one another in the future.

Victoria

[Tag Jorrit]

. In the list of decks in your profile I notice Pablo's Flamand Vandenborre. I would have liked to track down a copy of that but apparently it was a limited edition of just 28 decks. Has there been a commercial edition I don't know about or do you have one of those 28? Looking forward to us both reading for each other again. All the best.
Tom

There's always the Vandenborre & Dodal that are here and here.

[BreathingSince72]

There's always the Vandenborre & Dodal that are here and here.

You've got some lovely decks there, for certain!