January 2020 – IsleVue

The Empress Aphrodite Pandemos Feature Image

The Empress of Light, Aphrodite Pandemos

January 31, 2020February 7, 2020 John Iacovelli Empress, Major Arcana

Of the first seven major arcana, two represent the dual aspects of Venus; and one other represents the eternal question of what to do about her? Waite described the Empress as “the woman clothed with the sun, as Gloria Mundi and the veil of the Sanctum Sanctorum.” The High Priestess is pictured in front of the Sanctum Sanctorum, and is the representative of the mysteries in the darkness behind it. So to visit the realm of the High Priestess, Waite seems to say, you go through the Empress. This opposition of light and dark qualities directly relates to the neoplatonic view of the two natures of Venus. There is, according to Wikipedia, an “earthly Aphrodite Pandemos, representing carnal love and beauty, and the heavenly Aphrodite Urania representing a higher and more spiritual love.” Waite’s Empress is very Roman, as we shall see; but then, what else would we expect from a man writing at the height of the British Empire? The RWS Empress is inextricably tied to the material world.

Tarot

Tarot Reversals – The Sevens

January 28, 2020February 7, 2020 John Iacovelli Netzach, Reversals, Sevens

We shouldn’t be surprised that seven is a “pivotal” number as far as the minor arcana are concerned. After all, Netzach, the qabalistic influence, is represented by the right foot. The pivot is best exemplified by the Seven of Swords: our thief hot-foots his way out of enemy territory. He has turned into the home stretch of his high-risk, high-gain military, spying, thieving, or whatever-it-is operation. But we don’t know the outcome yet. He doesn’t see his way out just yet, and we don’t see what’s next, either. With the Seven of Swords, as with the others, we’re frozen in time at the point of the pivot. And the perspectives—upright/reversed—can be described as the view from within and without the pivot.

Tarot

Tarot Reversals – The Fours

January 17, 2020February 7, 2020 John Iacovelli Fours, Reversals

To a certain extent the Fours of the RWS deck can be said to deal with the results of abundance. How best to celebrate abundance other than as part of the community? That is the question that is answered by the Four of Wands. Or how to deal with the ennui of non-stop abundance? That would be the Four of Cups; our wastrel appears to have been the Kardashian of his day. How to deal with the problem of keeping that abundance when you’re a miser? This we see in the case of the Four of Pentacles. The seeming outlier here is the Four of Swords. It’s important not to claim a rule or order when perhaps there is none, so I shall not claim that this card focuses on abundance, as the other three do. Although… we could look at the Four of Swords as an example of the man who has successfully dealt with an abundance of activity in life. He now rests in peace, fondly remembered by the community. Community appears to be the unifying “perspective” in the Fours’ reversals; for it seems to be the community’s view that applies to the reversed meaning in each. What goes around comes around, they say. We could even place the four figures on a mini-Karmic-Wheel-of-Fortune, which is as good an organizing principle as any.

Tarot

Tarot Reversals – The Threes

January 3, 2020February 7, 2020 John Iacovelli Reversals, Threes

As far as Waite and Colman Smith’s tarot goes, the threes can be said to be about well defined, sharp moments that require growth before they can happen. For wands, it is that precise moment when a plan turns into execution. For swords, the moment after the beloved walks out the door, when the lover feels the piercing of his or her heart. For Pentacles, it is the moment the former apprentice realizes that now, now, he is a master artisan. And for cups: well, the harvest is in, it’s time to enjoy the wine. The “sharpness” of those moments can be of both pain and growth. In this it is apparent that Binah, the third sephira on the kabbalistic tree of life, which some say represents the womb, has influenced Waite and Colman Smith. But we’ll leave the details to the one page guides, though, and concentrate on reversals in this post. In the first post in this series on tarot reversals, we introduced the idea that relationships between the divinatory meanings (as defined by Waite in the Pictorial Key to the Tarot) of the upright vs. reversed minor arcana can be interpreted as a change of perspective. In the threes we see that moment, from these two perspectives.