CELEBRATING LIFE WITH ANCIENT CARTOMANCY

Navigator of Submersibles (Knight of Cups)

Clymela asks the tarot: ‘I am interested in celebrating my life.  Show me my path out of this dreary Neptune reversed period back into the flow of life.’

Dear Clymela, I respond with  a ninefold spread  which is a Petit Lenormand usage. 

   

                                       123

                                       456

                                       789

So I invite you to see how we play tarot by the rules of ancient cartomancy!

We read the cards in the following way:

A. The central card reveals the core of the issue.

B. 1 + 9 with 3 + 7 tell us the shape of the story

C. 2,4,5,6,8 tell us about the internal drive of the situation

D. 1,4.7 is the Past, 2,5,8 is the Present, 3,6,9 is the Future

E. 2,7,9 is what’s in the mind, 8,1,3 is the hidden motivation

F. 4,3,9 is what triggers this in the past. 6,1,7 is what propels this to the future.

The nine cards are:

ONE: 4 Leviathans       TWO: Navig. Submersibles   THREE: 2 Engines

FOUR: 5 Submersibles. FIVE: Navig. Airships            SIX: XIV Spirit Gauge

SEVEN: 6 Airships R.    EIGHT: 4 Airships                 NINE: 7 Engines

There are 3 Airships (Swords), 2 Engines (Wands), 2 Submersibles (Cups) and 1 Leviathan (Coins) with 1 God of the Machine (Major). The issue is a serious consideration about moving back into social life and its full enjoyment, but the manifestation point is dependent upon bringing matters into balance. There are also two Navigators (Knights), which is useful for this question. 2 Fours reveal that the sense of stagnation is merely a rest before gathering.

Naivgator of Airships (Knight of Swords)

A. CORE ISSUE: The Core of the issue shows the Navigator of Airships who represents the freedom to defend the right and the courage to champion the way forward

B. SHAPE OF THE STORY:  You have been careful about how you assert yourself; this has led to your dynamic drive being held up so that you’ve not been able to move forward.

XIV Spirit Gauge (Temperance)

C. INTERNAL DRIVE:  The ability to steer by your instinct lies within you, as we see with the Navigator of Submersibles taking his sighting by the stars. Acknowledging what has been, but not being defined by it (5 Submersibles), you can determine your course (Navigator of Airships) by adapting to the conditions in your environment (XIV Spirit Gauge) and taking the time to assess and consolidate your way forward.

          The feeling of this combination of cards is that there is some hand-made crafting, where you slowly sculpt your place for yourself. It doesn’t involve second-hand or convenience methods, but uses a real artist’s patience to bring together the ingredients by careful steps.

4 Leviathans (4 Coins)

D. PAST:  Something or someone has treated you with less consideration than you deserved (4 Leviathans) and you’ve learned how to be a survivor (5 Submersibles), but the residue of that trouble is still clinging to you and has made you fear you will be on the end of the next refusal. There might even be some sense of replaying trauma (6Airships).

4 Airships (4 Swords)

PRESENT:  But now you are in the right mode, with 2 Navigators to see you through, to consider your course.  By water and air, you discover ways of blending your feelings and your thoughts. Sit down and contemplate the path you really want before you rush off. (4 Airships)

2 Engines (2 Wands)

FUTURE:  The dynamo is powering up (2 Engines) and you can risk moving forward either on your own or even in partnership with another. Two heads are better than one and socially more fun! You know that you can make the best headway by blending both sides of your nature: the side that does things by hand, naturally, and the fair side that can arbitrate and be considerate. (Spirit Gauge) You gain the tenacity to assert yourself or to stand up for others. (7 Engines)

7 Engines (7 Wands)

E. THE MIND & HIDDEN MOTIVATION:  Your thoughts lead you to be careful of how your pave your path, and you have a strong defensive sense that has contributed here to your sense of being stuck just out of the main flow of things. Your own instinctive path is the destiny that can lead you now.

          Your motivation is blent of a fear of being used and sense of your own good ideas. Exploitation can be avoided when you assess mindfully.

F. TRIGGER FROM PAST & PROPULSION TO THE FUTURE: Your sense of purpose, your survival, is upheld up the good ideas that you still have to accomplish: good working practices, persistence and your care for others shape your path forward.

          What propels you on your path is an aptitude to be generous. Whether you volunteer for an environmental charity or support the rights of refugees or displaced persons, there is a strong sense of you working to make things more equitable for yourself and others.

II Aviatrix (High Priestess)

FINALLY. Because there is one reversed card in this spread, I randomly add a card to augment and support it. This card is II Aviatrix (High Priestess), the card of the lone woman with a strong ethical and educational trajectory guiding her wings. What do your dreams, visions and innate intelligence reveal to you?  Examine these and you will find your way forward.

Do You Keep the Challenging Cards You First Drew?

    

9 Airships

SPRING CHALLENGE 

The London launch of Steampunk Tarot: Gods of the Machine was held at Watkins last month.  You can view the talk that I gave with 124C and Major Jack Squares. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa91LuFZT_k&feature=youtu.be

Several interesting questions arose during the question-time afterwards, including the challenge that some of the cards were somewhat dark in their subject matter. This is undoubtedly true as they depict the affairs of the Imperium where war and conflict have frequently arisen. 

In an era when tarot packs now depict topics as various as breeds of dogs to ghosts and spirits, there has been a steady trend for tarot art to become less challenging and more fluffy, comforting or psychologically supportive.   If we look at early tarots, like the Sola Busca or Tarot of the Emperors, the earliest tarot with a pictorial minor, we find quirky, macho images of men at war, serving men at leisure and martial rulers of nobility: they are pretty intimidating.  If we examine early tarot meanings, we find a variety of challenging cards that have become muted over time.  The Swords are largely challenging, the Wands can be disputive or oppressive, the Cups can have an emotional blight and the Coins can be downright hard work.

Every month for the last year, I have sat down and written this monthly blog, but each entry has received few comments and the followers have not been many. Part of this is about the fact that this tarot has not yet published in USA, and that people are as yet not familiar with it, yet I thought I would check this for myself. So I decided, as this is the challenging month February, time of Lupercalia, when cleansing and self-examination are necessary, to ask  ‘Why is no-one reading or commenting on this blog? ’

I drew three cards from the top of three pile cut to represent the answer to this question. These came out on top:

XX Regeneration reversed, Messenger Submersibles reversed, Messenger of Airships

Then I drew three cards from the bottom of the cut, to represent the teaching that guides the top three cards.

XV Cyborg, 3 Submersibles, 2 Airships



Messenger of Airships



The top three are undoubtedly challenging, especially with the first two reversed.  XX Regeneration reversed ( XX Judgement) shows two people emerging from their regeneration capsule, Messenger Submersibles reversed  shows a joyful messenger (Page Cups), while Messenger of Airships (Page Swords) shows the messenger daringly, knife in teeth, about the launch from the wing of her aircraft.

They are saying, ‘You could chose to abandon this association or transform what you have. The spirit messages at this juncture cannot be received while people are overwhelmed. Stay with the challenge of this and find intelligent ways through it.’



                   

                      3 Submersibles



2 Airships

XV Cyborg (XV Devil) shows the part-human, part machine and his dilemma, 3 Submersibles (3 Cups) shows the meeting of three nations to make an alliance, 2 Airships ( 2 Swords) shows 2 rival craft having a truce or parley.

The teaching cards speak of not being limited by the shadow of this challenge. The way in which the Cyborg looks towards the two cards of reconciliation tells me what I need to know: a fruitful alliance is at hand where collaborative energy can meet. I am starting a dialogue which, currently is one-sided, but it won’t stay that way.

It’s interesting that both lines have a major, a cup and a sword. I also note that teaching cards have a 3 and 2, showing that this blog is young and in its fledging years. Cups and Swords say that this reading is about relationship with the principles and discrimination of this pack.

STAYING WITH THE CARDS

When you draw difficult or challenging cards, the temptation is to slide them back into the pack and reshuffle. But by staying with the cards  we first drew, we often find new illumination. So, in the interests of teaching how we might do this, I kept these same cards and reshuffled them, now setting them upright. I also chose, unseen, three new cards to mix into the shuffle. As you can see, the chief tool of this method of staying with your challenging cards is to ask the right questions. Questions are the key to everything.

This time I asked some relevant questions that had arisen from the previous spread:

1. How do I transform this blog?

2. What do the spirits have to say to those who are overwhelmed?

3. How do I stimulate the dialogue with my readers?

We now have three cards answering each question:

1. How do I transform this blog?

8 Leviathans reversed. XX Regeneration, 9 Leviathans



8 Leviathans



9 Leviathans



Two of the new cards are here; 8 Leviathans (8 Coins) shows a welder at work on a machine, while 9 Leviathans (9 Coins) shows two off-duty airmen enjoying their leisure. They show that the undervaluing I feel from doing repetitive work with no feedback is what needs to be transformed. Maybe I need to let go of it for a few months and have a break?

2. What do the spirits have to say to those who are overwhelmed?

9 Airships reversed, 2 Airships, Messenger Submersibles

9 Airships (9 Swords) shows the dreams of an airman of a dirigible disaster, but this card is reversed. Looking at fears and imaginings in the light of day, with the help of dialogue, enables the message to be joyfully delivered. While we entertain fears, we have no dialogue.

3. How do I stimulate the dialogue with my readers?

XV Cyborg, Messenger Airships, 3 Submersibles

Reclaiming wisdom from fear by dealing directly with the needs of the readers, so we meet on the same footing.



XV Cyborg



    AN INVITATION TO YOUR  ISSUES

     So, if you have read this far, then may I request that you send in your issues for reading on these pages?  I can only do one a month. Answers will be publically shown here, but all  personal details will be unidentified. Please message me on Facebook or append your issue here. I will do my best to respond.







How the Hermit's Lantern of Truth Can Become a New Year Beacon

   

Last night before sleep, I was reading one of the wise books of our people, comparing the esoteric understandings that connect the Imperium with our world: ‘Occult tradition teaches us that entering the astral level allows us to create reality out of thought, even to leave behind artefacts for others to find. Beyond the doorway waits the lantern, a gift from previous hermits who have made this journey before him…’ (Rachel Pollack, The Shining Tribe Tarot).

I was moved to draw three cards representing this figure to understand this wisdom better, L’Hermite from the Marseilles Tarot by Alexandre Jodorowsky and Philippe Camoin The Inventor from the Steampunk Tarot, the Hermit from Rachel Pollack’s original Shining Woman Tarot (now retitled Shining Tribe Tarot.) I give these comparisons for the benefit of all who are not yet fluent in the Imperium’s tarot.  The conventional lantern of the Marseilles Hermit has become the glowing sphere of the Inventor in the Steampunk Tarot, while the Shining Woman’s Hermit has a Thoth-headed being with a staff who has to go within to find his lantern.

For all in the Imperium, the Hermit/Inventor is one of the ultimate creative Gods of the Machine, the one whom the ancients of both our worlds understood as Thoth/Tehuti/Hermes.  The kindling of the lantern happens only in the darkness and silence of meditation, which is why the Inventor is shown within his study.  All creation 

kindles in the laboratory of 'the astral plane,' where we receive the imprint of inspiration in our imaginations.

This commentary upon the Hermit card reminded me forcibly of the Guild of Artificer’s Manifesto that governs the whole of the Steampunk Imperium. Parts of this manifesto are read out in the intervals between our work, to keep us mindful of the wisdom that guides us:

The perfection of knowledge collected from the book of nature has ever been at the heart of all professors of the arts and sciences.  The pursuit of whatever gives a clearer light and unmystifies the truth is the lantern by which each lady and gentleman has made their way upon the path to wisdom.  Whatever gives promise of a greater or purer light has drawn inventors, engineers and practitioners of the many arts and sciences to expend their skills and energies to perfect a better beacon by which all beings may walk without stumbling.

                                      - From the Guild of Artificers’ Manifesto

Artificers and creators within the Imperium believe implicitly in the ongoing sacred path of technological and artistic discovery, for what we each create builds upon what has gone before us.  The idea that what each of us creates can become a beacon to others who are not yet born is a very potent one.  The continuity of what is truest within our creative imagination is the very cave we enter when we seek to give of our best for this new year that is beginning.  What lantern of truth burns within you?  Let’s turn to the source of wisdom to guide us onwards into this year. I asked three questions arising from this passage above, on behalf of us all:

What is the light of wisdom?

What is the skill that keeps that wisdom illuminated?

How do we walk without stumbling?

Drawing one card from the Gods of the Machine (major arcana), one from the Leagues (minor arcana) and one from the Legates (court cards), I continue the comparison of cards. The top line are from the Steampunk Tarot, the second line are from Rachel Pollack’s original Shining Woman Tarot  and from the Marseilles Tarot by Alexandre Jodorowsky and Philippe Camoin.

  

1. What is the light of wisdom?  - Cosmic Blueprint (or Shining Woman or the World) The Cosmic Blueprint shows the harmonious interplay of the four leagues that make up the Imperium which is the heart of the Machine itself. By transcending the limits, the light of wisdom can reveal itself as a dancing jewel which is both universal and also deeply activated within each of us.  The Shining Woman and the World both dance as androgynous humanoids, recalling the hermetic wisdom of Adam Kadmon or the Macrocosmic Man that is the archetypal potential of all human beings. While the World shows the four guardians of the universe in the shape of the four holy creatures,  Shining Woman has the whole universe within her so that it can be mediated to all.  In Cosmic Blueprint, this androgyneity and universality is shown in the emblems of Mars, Venus and Earth inscribed on its free-flowing mechanism.

          The Cosmos or Universe is a dancer and the light that it generates is the light of wisdom for us all.

2. What is the skill that keeps wisdom illuminated? – 9 Leviathans (or 9 Stones,  or 9 Coins) 9 Leviathans shows two off-duty companions in their hydrofoil, enjoying the fruits of their personal time.  They refine their accomplishments by relaxing, enriching their skills by exploring their creative abundance.  Shining Woman’s 9 Stones rejoices in the flying of her hawk, an art that takes great concentration and craft, while the 9 Coins is ‘the wish card’ enabling heart’s desire.

          The skill that keeps wisdom illuminated in us is honing our innermost desire in a multitude of ways: by practicing the things that teach us poise, by rejoicing in the abundance of our skills. This makes the circuit to keep us well lit.

3. How do we walk without stumbling? – Lady of Airships ( or Gift of Birds or Queen of Swords) Lady of Airships steers by the winds with precision. She lays in a course and follows it, but if the winds sent her craft about, she can trim her dirigible’s rigging to keep afloat.  As the most outspoken of  the Legates, she doesn’t flinch from facing difficulty and her assessment goes to the heart of things.  She is always honest and astute. Shining Woman’s Gift of Birds is a bird-headed shaman with a flute. When danger strikes, she becomes a shadow dancer who follows her inspiration. Marseilles’s Queen of Swords is incisive in the same way as her sisters.  They each have the self-esteem to believe in themselves and what their senses show them, with unerring inner poise.

          We can walk without stumbling when we heed the truth that the lantern shows us. By pretending obstacles are not there, or by negotiating with them, we will indeed stumble. By raising our lanterns high, we can find our way, create new pathways through labyrinthine dilemmas and walk honestly as best we may.

          May the peace and blessing of the New Year give you opportunity to go within, find your lantern, refuel it and hold it high as we all face the uncertainties and potentials of the months to come!