THE TOWER

This is logically the next card after the Devil. It is about the sense of betrayal we feel when our preconceptions are shattered. Traditionally the card is about a death, a sickness, betrayal, treachery; many fortune-tellers regard it as a card of ill omen. But look at it another way.

All of us feel the need for protection from the cold inhospitality of the world. We build defences of some sort or another. We build a tower, strong enough to withstand rain and storms from the enemy with his arrows and gunpowder. We gain security, but only for a price. That price is our ability to move, to grow, to develop. God looks down, and feels that unless he can get us out of the castle, we will just stay there and stay put. So he sends us messages, gives us opportunities, drops little hints. We see them as temptations, or ignore them. In the end, God realizes there is only one way to get us out of the Tower. He 'zaps1 the building with a stroke of lightning, the Tower collapses and we are forced out in the cold. Now comes the moment of real importance.

Will we look at the ruins, bemoan our bad luck, and try to build up the Tower again with the same stones? Or will we realize that this is God's way of saying, 'Get off your fat behind and do some thinking'? The Tower represents the fact that as our illusions are shattered we must grasp the opportunity to grow. That is why I asked the artist to show the Tower as a picture of two children totally engrossed in building their sea-side fort. Only when Reality starts tearing up their picture do the children realize that all is illusion. Will that knowledge drive them insane, or will they grasp the opportunity to make friends with the giant?

So the card is about illusions being shattered. That is why it so often is about death, treachery, illness. When the card appears I see opportunities to be grasped, and illusions about to be shattered, abrupt changes just beyond tomorrow, people and things around the Querent being not what they seem to be. When her husband suddenly runs away with a blonde secretary, will the wife left behind venomously pursue the errant man, or will she apply for a course at the teacher training centre which she always wanted to follow? One cannot tell in advance; only when people are thrown into the deep end of the pool do we find out if they will let themselves drown or struggle to learn to swim.

THE STAR

The Star is about hope and trust. I asked the artist to draw a mermaid as a symbol; perhaps you have read or heard the story of Hans Christian Andersen's mermaid who wanted to become a princess. This undeniably pure young lady (she must be a virgin, seeing as how the relevant half of her is fish) pours water from two jugs into the sea. Behind her is a rainbow, that symbol of hope and promise (think of the story of Noah and the Ark); the bird singing on the orange tree believes in the joy of Nature after the rainstorm (of course it's after a rain-storm, look at the rainbow). Above all this idyllic picture shines the Star, the focus of our longing for the unattainable goal of perfect happiness. A small bird is bringing her a letter.

I feel the Star is essentially about our identification with the rest of humanity. The sea can stand for the human race if it is seen as a unity; each person is just a drop in the vast ocean. As a mermaid, the lady shows she herself is part of the sea. The water in the two jugs is being poured back into the ocean. Each of us is a clay jug of flesh and bones, in which is poured the water of eternal life. When we die, the water is poured back into the ocean; we only 'borrow* the water of the Soul for the duration of our lives.

I feel that the fact that I belong to the ocean gives me trust, the trust from the phrase: 'This too shall pass'. The bird with the letter is a message from friends saying they love me; just as the rainbow is a message from God to say He loves me.

The Star is also about hope, the hope that things will come out all right. Perhaps in the here and now things aren't going perfectly, but up there the star shines; perfection exists in some place in the sky. We might not be able to get there immediately, or perhaps we might never get there, but eventually we or our children will get there. We must be able to, seeing as the star exists for all to see. So, in a sense, the Star can also stand for our vision of the perfect, the Platonic Ideal.

Of course, people who are too full of trust and hope won't take everyday precautions and care. God cares for those who care for themselves. Some people want to trust, desperately so, because that way they can put off the evil moment. They don't want to face evil, or fight it; by looking only at the positive things in life they miss building up the strength to be able to deal with the negative things.

As a personal image, I always think of Anne Frank in her attic in Amsterdam, recording the life of a girl whose life consisted more of promises than events.

THE MOON

She sits by the water and feels, reflects, ponders. She looks at a reflection of the Moon; the Moon shines with reflected light from the Sun. In her hand she holds a withered twig. Lovely as she is, I feel she is alone in the night; to quote Fitzgerald, 'In the depth of one's soul it is always four o'clock in the morning'. The combination of robe, long hair and the surrounding gloom make it difficult to guess her exact form.

The Moon is a symbol of femininity, of passive acceptance. The pool of water is a symbol of emotions and feelings. The reflection is a symbol of unreality, disconnection. Her robe is a symbol of mystery. The leafless twig is a symbol of a living thing that either has come to the end of the circle of life, or is just beginning a new one. The Moon is the last of the Trinity of women so well described by Robert Graves in his The White Goddess; the High Priestess is the Nymph, the Empress is the fertile Mother, and the Moon is the old Hag or Crone, she who buries the dead.

When I see the Moon card, I think of emotional distance, of alienation; it can be insensitivity, coldness or frigidity. It can be the lowest point in a cycle which rises and falls rhythmically. The Moon is about male submission, inevitability of natural processes. It can be a wet blanket, despair, loneliness and depression. Yet the Moon has a tender heart for all those who genuinely love her - think of her as the Queen of Poetry.

THE SUN

The Head of the Household strides across his land to sow the seed which will grow over the year to feed the rest of the family that stands admiringly at the edge of the field. Above all, a benign sun shines. We feel the happiness and the clarity.

The man is in direct contact with the realities of life. He is sowing the seed which he will reap next year for his bread. Not quite the same as filling in forms to check the rate of growth of the interest rate charged by banks on farmers who need to borrow money to buy tractors with which to pull the plough that actually tills the land. The realities of life stand at the edge of the field, admiring his industry and skill. The man walks over Mother Earth, he is handling the wheat. He feels happy and at peace with himself. He may seem somewhat limited to the sophisticated slickers from the big city, but who is to say what constitutes happiness. Nonetheless, it is true to say that such contentment does prevent the peasant from reaching the limits of his potential. But perhaps that is a small price to pay. I see the Sun as a card about the need in people for personal happiness, for contentment, for peace and being at one with their surroundings. They seek, or have found, an escape from the pressures around them. Often they are people who believe that somewhere is their personal happiness, and all they've got to do is find it, and hang on to it. Frequently they seek advice through Tarot readings as to where this happiness is to be found in the fond belief that some wiser person can 'see' their place of happiness and tell them the way. I can only tell them that happiness is something you experience, not something you find.


These 22 Major Arcana cards were lovingly drawn by my mother using my instructions as to what was to be shown on each card. They reflect my personal ideas as to what each card means - they are not "definitive" Tarot cards, although you are perfectly welcome to copy them onto card, colour them in and make use of them to tell fortunes etc. Not everybody has such an opportunity of having personalised tarot cards drawn, and I only had these done to show other people that the meaning of each card is personal to each person who reads those cards. Normally we rely on words to personalise the cards; I was just lucky to be able to also have pictures to show my personal feelings.























JUDGEMENT

This card is about understanding. I found it very hard to find a way of showing somebody understanding anything. I thought about Archimedes watching the bath overflow, and suddenly jumping out, running across the street, shouting 'Eureka'. No, this didn't feel right. There were numerous other images; finally I hit upon the picture of a little girl watching a caterpillar, and suddenly understanding the relationship between caterpillar, cocoon and butterfly.

You know, all of us walk this earth as caterpillars. We eat voraciously, ruining the earth in the process. Then we die, and only after our death are we transformed to butterflies. Which of us really understands the relationship between before and after? All we can do is talk of Life, Death and Heaven.

Perhaps suddenly the little girl has an insight into her own situation. She has to grow through her own childhood, change into the often ugly aspect of the adolescent before becoming a beautiful butterfly.

So I see Judgement as a card about the insight, or lack of it, that people have into themselves; it is a card about the way they understand their place in the scheme of things, their relation with and to other people.

THE WORLD

Miss World stands on the podium, first prize-winner of the competition, watched by her admiring parents. In the background is painted a crown of laurels.  Miss World doesn't ask questions about the nature of the competition, or its purpose. She is just proud that she has won. So are her parents, although I think they look a tiny bit worried as they watch their darling. Perhaps they are afraid that she will be spoiled by all this success, or perhaps they are worried by the possibility that she will not be able to stand defeat when she competes as a teenager in a stiffer competition. Never mind, she's happy just now.

When I see the World, I think of all the people who compete 'because the prize is there'; because they see other people competing, or because they hear other people talk admiringly of people who have won such a prize. I see the card as being about all the things people do because everyone else does them too, or because the Jones do them, or because Mummy/Daddy always says I ought to do them.

So the card is really about happiness in the eyes of the world. If the way other people see happiness makes you happy too, good luck. But be careful that you do not measure happiness only in terms of other people's approval.
 MINOR ARCANA

Those were the cards of the Major Arcana. I think you will realize by now that I see them as illustrations of the illusions we have which prevent us from reaching understanding. Very often we do things for the best of reasons; yet we must realize these reasons are only justifications and that all these good intentions and excuses are only hindrances. That doesn't mean we must become totally selfish and think only about our own development. That is only another illusion, the illusion that by working hard at it, we can further our development, our personal happiness. Perhaps, finally, we realize there is no one way to Nirvana.

Having sauntered slowly through my personal garden of the Major Arcana, we now take a quick gallop through the vegetable garden of the Minor Arcana. Many of my pupils have in the past asked me whether I ever used the Minor Arcana, seeing as how I mostly used the Major Arcana in my readings. Well, I must confess that I am more interested in the puppets than in the strings that move them (I am indebted to Richard Gardner for the simile). The Minor Arcana talks about the events that happen to us, whereas the Major Arcana talks about our feelings, our needs and stresses. I am much more interested in people than in the things that happen to them. But that doesn't mean that everyone should take the same attitude. Obviously, some Querents really want to know about future events..Also, some readers want to know about the Minor Arcana. So here it follows.

The Minor Arcana is composed of four suits. These are called Wands, Cups, Swords and Coins. I like to think of them as representing Fire, Water, Air and Earth respectively. Other writers think differently, so please remember, there is no absolute. When I am using the cards in, say, a Pontoon Spread (see chapter 10 for an explanation) then I like to think of these four suits as representing Spirit (or Energy), Emotions, Intellect and Practicality respectively. Let's discuss these in slightly more detail,

Wands

These are usually shown as sticks with buds, leaves or twigs sticking out from each side at intervals. I see them as something that is going togrow. Perhaps Enthusiasm, perhaps Drive or Determination or Get-Things-Moving. There is a lot of Energy, the feeling that makes people carry on their task in the belief that things will be all right on the night. Wands are tied in with Belief, Hope, Faith, Trust. Think of the Wands as being members of the Sales Department of a large factory; they do a bit of advertising, sales promotion and public relations.

Cups

Think of wine glasses holding the noble liquid that enables us to overcome our inhibitions against showing our feelings. The feelings may not always be nice or genteel or polite, but there they are: both love and hate, passion and indifference. People who don't have emotions are people who suppress them; by keeping them down now they will have to face them later and in a much less honest way.

I think we all have some idea of emotions and what they are; not all of us are clear about why they are necessary and important parts of a human being. If we carry on the analogy started under Wands, we can think of Cups as being the Personnel Department of the company. Funnily enough, many Managing Directors also don't attach much importance to how staff are treated, or, for that matter, customers. As Henry Ford remarked about his precious motor cars, 'You can have any colour as long as it is black'.

Swords

Swords cut, like unkind words. The suit of Swords is about reason, intellect, cleverness, using words rather than deeds; it is about opinions, judgements, attitudes, rationalizations. In our large fac-tory, Swords are the Management, the decision-makers. There is nothing wrong with being a Manager, as long as such a person realizes that he is only a quarter of the whole, no more and no less necessary than all the other quarters.

Coins

Coins (sometimes called Pentacles) are about money, about practicalities. People want to hold things, to know things as being definite. None of this nonsense of ideas, feelings, trends. If you can point to it, or hold it in your hand, then it comes under Coins. We have landed in the part of the Factory where things are actually made: foremen, skilled artisans, floor-sweepers, machines, assembly belts.

From the above we can see that none of them works without all the others. A factory needs workmen and machines, a management, a personnel department and a sales forces. Miss out any one of them, and you'll get extraordinary trouble; the absence of one may cause trouble sooner than the absence of another, but eventually any missing department will cause the company to go bankrupt. Similarly, a person needs energy and drive, awareness and contact with his emotions, a good intellect and lots of practicality to survive.

Each of these suits is divided into four court cards and ten pip-cards. The four court cards are usually shown as a King, a Queen, a Knight and a Page. But some packs show the Page as a Princess, and for the reasons which follow, I prefer the latter arrangement.

In reading Fraser's The Golden Bough (which is very long and repetitious) or Robert Graves' The White Goddess (shorter and more interesting, although perhaps less definitive) we are told about a way of life apparently widespread in the Ancient World. Briefly, at the head of the tribe rules a woman who is the personification of a heavenly Goddess. The most important Goddess to our early forebears was the one governing fertility, the fertility of the soil, of the animals kept for food, and of the human members of the tribe. If the soil was fertile, and animals and humans multiplied, the tribe as a whole survived. So what would be more natural than to make the Goddess of Fertility head of them all? And here on Earth she was personified in the person of the head of the tribe. This is our Queen.

Now, despite any apparent anomalies like the ignorant Trobriand Islanders who didn't know the facts of life (I personally think this ignorance was the manifestation of a taboo upon what was 'proper' to confess to knowing), most early peoples that kept or hunted animals knew very well that having babies needs a fertile mother as well as a fertilizing agency, i.e. a father. But they also observed that after fertilization the father doesn't need to stick around. And, at this point, they adopted an analogy with far-reaching consequences. If, they reasoned, the mother is likened to the earth, then as we can see the earth being fertilized by the seed (of corn), we imagine the mother being fertilized by the father. But, after the seed is put in the ground, it is left there and reappears miraculously the next spring. Very well, in that case, whoever fertilizes the Queen also has to be put under the ground. This is exactly what they did; every year the Queen's lover was killed and buried in order to ensure the fertility of the Queen, the soil and the animals and humans in the tribe. So each year the old King dies, and each year a new King is chosen. The new King is chosen from the promising young men of the tribe, very often after a challenge and mortal combat with the old King. You might see the Knight in the Tarot pack as the up-and-coming King.

Lastly, you may ask, what happened to the children of the Queen, and how was the new Queen chosen? In simple terms, her boy children became ordinary citizens of no importance, but one of her Princesses was chosen to be the next Queen.

The above is a very simplified and perhaps not totally accurate picture of the Matriarchal society. However, it is enough to enable you to distinguish between the different Court cards.

The King is a reactionary force, trying to hold on as long as he can to his short-lived reins of power. He can be obstructive, despotic, autocratic, but also kind, magnanimous and noble. He is at the top now, but will shortly die. He resists change, since any change cannot be but for the worse. The Queen is the long-term conservationist force. She doesn't like changes unless they are clearly for the good of the tribe. But once she knows that it is better she will allow change, although she prefers small changes coming about gradually. The Knight is the onrushing force. He wants to become King, and is impatient, headstrong, energetic. Any change is for the better, since he can only go up. He doesn't know or even think about defeat. He wants revolutionary change.

Lastly, there is the Princess or Page. She represents long-term evolutionary change. Eventually she will succeed the present Queen, and hence she is already contemplating some long-term plans that will be put in action when she reigns. Give her time.

Got all that, so far?Good, now we finally can come on to the pip-cards, one to ten. For these I simply use the nearest brand of numerology, calling ten a zero. Here follows a list you may want to use, if you are doubtful or not energetic enough to find your own:

One: A beginning, unity, the individual and manifestation

Two: Reality, duality, togetherness, the masculine principle

Three: Creativity, evolution, the feminine principle

Four: Logic, divisiveness, structure, materialism

Five: Wholeness, humanity, expression; five is the child of two and three

Six: Progress, development, a turn for the better, synergy; six is the product of two and three

Seven: Stands for stability, influence, integrity

Eight: Continuity, completion of a cycle, preparation for dissolving; eight is two raised to the power of three

Nine: Perfection, and rest; nine is three raised by the power of two

Ten (or zero): Potential, energy waiting to be released

Now all these descriptions of the significance of numbers may seem rather vague, so I think the best thing is to show you how I use the system in practice. Suppose I turn up the seven of Wands; the ideas of stability, influence and integrity are applied to the Sales Department of the Factory. Right, I interpret the card to mean that the Querent has nursed an idea or enthusiasm to the point where the Sales Manager 'buys' the idea and starts putting it into practice; it is no longer a crazy or fantastic idea. Similarly, the four of Coins would be read as logic, divisiveness, structure or materialism applied to the Shop Floor of the Factory; I see the card as a case of gross materialism, of letting money rule the heart. And so on. Later, when we discuss the way cards are to be read in spreads, in combination with each other, you will really start appreciating the apparent 'vagueness' of the meanings for the Minor Arcana.

To sum up this very long chapter, I must again emphasize that the above meanings are my personal ones, meanings which I have gradually evolved to suit my personal background. As I grow older, these may change, sometimes slowly, at other times at great speed. In no way are these meanings accurate, or God-given; they are not revealed knowledge. The only real way to finding the meanings to the Tarot cards is for you to get in touch with your subconscious and develop your personalized set of meanings. These can make use of other people's ideas, they can crib, borrow, steal; but not one is right in the way that can be rewarded by a prize in a quiz. They are only right if you find that they open up new ideas and concepts in your mind. Here endeth the lesson.
        
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