I wanted to practice reading a tableau, and since school let out early today in anticipation of the impending Midwestern snowstorm, I laid one out.
The querent is a young man coming to terms with his mother’s remarriage. He is suffering from strange experiences that he fears might be
hallucinatory, and he is understandably concerned about his mental health. He is seeking clarity about his situation and is looking for a way forward.
Reading the corners outlines the situation for us quite simply: A conflict involving three people, including his mother and the man who is not his father, is leading to a destabilization of the household (III Epées, Reyne and Cavalier of Epées, IIII Coupes). Very generally, the most repeated numbers are V and VI, suggesting that themes of conflict, choice, and decision-making are important here. Almost one-third of the cards are Batons, which speak to the themes of warring passions and impulses. We see all of the Queens and half of the Knights, but no Kings. When we consider the subject’s recently deceased father, this absence is salient.
The young man is signified by the Cavalier of Batons, reflecting his impulsive, romantic nature. In Jodo’s cyclical view of the suits, the Knights venture from one suit to the next; in the case of Batons, towards that of Swords, which the young man finds to reflect his recently-interrupted stint at university. Dealing with family affairs has supplanted his academic pursuits, but part of him longs to return to that world. Looking at the significator’s cross, we see his mother hanging over his head. Her remarriage makes him feel as if by replacing his father, she has also replaced him. This fear is echoed by the maternal hand over her belly: should she have a child with her new husband, he will be replaced indeed. Below him is the VII Batons: he is like the rod in the center, entangled by competing motivations and emotions, rendered motionless by indecision. HIs head is turned away from the stable emotional landscape promised by the VIII of Coupes because he can’t help but fixate on the series of disturbing phantasms that have lately come to obsess him. Note that Le Diable holds his strange wand, mirroring that in the Cavalier’s hand. This mirroring suggests the young man’s departed father might be at the center of this mental unrest.
If we consider the knighting cards of the significator, we have the VIIII Batons, Temperance, and the Reyne de Coupes. The VIIII of Batons suggests that his sense of immobility may be near the tipping point to action. The queen of cups might speak of another woman in the drama, perhaps the young man’s on-again-off-again love interest. This is interesting for two reasons: the Queen of Cups is strongly associated with water, an influence towards which the young woman is also strongly drawn. Also, see how she stares at the sealed chalice. She may think she knows what lies within, but can she ever be sure? Temperance–the central card of the tableau, and thus the pivot of the situation–speaks of the struggle of balance. Logic and emotion, love and hate, reality and illusion: all of these struggles are entangling the subjects of the drama at hand.
The cards that mirror the significator are the V Coupes, the As de Batons, and the VIII Batons. Graphically, the V Coupes in this deck suggests a triad at the bottom from which sprouts a plant that replaces the three cups with only two: from the family triad, after the remarriage there is no longer a place for the querent. Of course, fives are also about union and disunion, and this underscores this sense of rejection. The emotional fallout of this situation has fueled the spark of discontent (As de Batons) into a unified resolve to do something about it (VIII de Batons).
But what? If we read the knighting cards of the VIII de Batons, we see two possible approaches: the path of Temperance or the path of Le Bataleur. Let’s consider both.
Temperance has her back to L’Imperatrice: she is choosing to ignore family and her mother and focuses instead upon the VII Deniers, upon establishing her own way in the world. The V Batons below her suggest marshaling her desires, closing her unbridling passions in a fist of resolve. Above her is the VI Epées. The swords of mind here become an enclosure that protects and nurtures the flower in their middle, representing a return to the cloistered halls of the University, where his sensitivity was turned towards the rigors of academia. Perhaps this would be the more balanced course?
The Bataleur is an itinerant mountebank. If Temperance is the path of taking the high road, of getting out while the getting is good, the Bataleur is about doubling down and fighting dirty. The Bataleur is about putting on a show, but sometimes you need to make sure you know where your wallet is while you’re watching his tricks. The knighting cards of le Bataleur are again the As de Batons and the VIII Batons, as well as the VII Deniers and l’Imperatrice. Above the As and the VIII suggested an initial impulse and a considered resolution to act; perhaps here they are similarly linked, a simple reproduction of a complex state of affairs, perhaps involving the mother (Imperatrice) turning her back while someone tries to pull a fast one (VII Deniers, which is in turn knighted by the Cavalier d’Epées, the stepfather). Hmmm. Also something about pouring going on here, with Temperance in the middle. I wonder if the young man knows anyone like the Bataleur that could help him to put on this show.
There are two ramps that are worth reading here: going up to the young man, and going up to the Devil. Just quick reading from the bottom up: from the stable household of the X Deniers, a conflict caused by destructive desires (see the clipped buds and leaves in the card) has led his mother to turn away from what she should have cherished (l’Imperatrice is turned away from her shield), putting the young man in the situation he is in. If we continue to read le Diable as the departed father, we read up that a trick, the depravity of which is hidden from his wife, has caused the tangled circumstances which led to his situation (e.g. being dead).
I could go on, but I should just point out that in tableaux, the horizontal matrix is time, the vertical is that of success, or position in the completion of a situation. As we can see, the querent is nearly at the top of his game. Things are going to get sorted. Alas, he is also near the end of his time; all the way at the edge of the tableau, and the rest is silence.
and I was amazed when I saw the cards for Daenerys! dragons and eggs!
