Pearls of Wisdom ~ The Devil

6 Haunted Days

This card came up in a reading yesterday, and it hit me hard with it's insights and message. I felt compelled to study and write on it. I respond to this card in such a deeper way than the more common Devil, hoof-n-tail depictions. The images here are really innovative and speak very clearly and personally to me.

There is a woman standing under a full moon, which looks to me like it's sending out ripples of vibrations into the night sky. There is a lush green landscape and a hill/tor and it depicts a woman's face reclined. There is a river winding down the card, and looking closely the source of the water is the Tor womans eye....a river of her tears. I thought of the heartbreak of the Goddess at our disconnect and blindness of the supreme connection and wholeness with All That Is. I just noticed last night as I was intently studying the card that there is what looks to me a small faery (I can almost make out a pointy hat!) running towards the reclined face holding a pearl. It almost looks like he is going to put it in her mouth. Any ideas on why? To transmit the wisdom of the Underworld to the Goddess? It's a very arresting image and I felt a thrill when I discovered it! I want to contemplate more on it's meaning and significance in the context of the card. I would love your thoughts on it!

The snaking river of tears leads us to the front of the card, where a woman stands in front of a mirror holding a pot of marigolds and and a red rose. Next to her is a chest filled with symbols of wisdom and inner riches....scrolls, book, jewels, pearls. A shiny red apple sits nearby. Amongt her feet are fallen brown leaves. A handheld golden mirror lies broken into 5 pieces near her facedown....the mirror of our soul. The 5 shards of glass spell out Devil or Lived, depending on your perspective, like most everything in this card. There is writing curling around the mirror...."Look of your soul mirror". It took me awhile to make it out....maybe it's "Look at your soul mirror."?

She is standing before a huge golden mirror looking at her reflection, it has clawed feet and points of flame coming from the top, where sits an Imp squatting amongst them. There are 3 eyes....a blue, green and black(?) eye. Can anyone think what these could symbolize here? I'm drawing a blank. Winding around the outside of the frame are words: Fear ~ Lack ~ Anxiety ~ Limitations ~ Face your demons ~ Loss ~ Struggle ~ Bondage ~ Pain. This is what the mirror represents, what she sees and feels when she gazes at her image and world within it's illusionary depths. An image of deceit and veil of ignorance. Seperating her from the unlimted bounty, love and richness of the reality of her true connection to the Universe and the Divine.

As she looks in the dark mirror, she sees herself transformed. Her face is haggard and tired. Her body and especially her hips (what woman can't identify with skewed body image?) are larger and wider. Behind her is a huge red brick wall. You can see the moon shining above it distantly, but the wall blocks the view and access to the magical land and the faery running about. Her wrists are chained in metal cuffs with chains going around her neck. She hold a dying purple rose symbolizing sadness, grief and depression. The brown fallen leaves have turned into dead brown vines circling her legs and ensnaring them. Next to her is the teasure chest, but here it is black and empty, with 2 eerie eyes peeping out. The apple is now eaten and rotting.

At the top of the card there are 2 scales, coal being consumed by fire unbalancing the scales. It portrays how your life is burned out and up and consumed by fear and lack. Further down, on each side there are bright flames, or are they more burning coal? It looks like it to me. There is a green and orange diamond backed snake curling around the bowls, in each there is a pearl nestled in the curve of it's tail.

There are plaques with hanging chains next to a potted purple rose and drooping marigold and on the left a red rose and another marigold. Showing the 2 faces portrayed in this card....the face of loss, sadness, grief, negativity and lack. And the face of love, passion, life, positivity and joy. It's up to us what we see in life and our reactions to it and events, what we choose to focus on. Because we can pretty much find either side in any situation when we look hard enough.

There are no runes on this card. The pearls of wisdom are scattered many places around the card. She has a single pearl necklace around her neck and it's untouched in the distorted, illusion reflection, symbolizing to me that no matter how dark and distorted it gets...waiting within, in your center and core is the deep wisdom of the Divine and your higher self. That can't be taken away from you, even admist the fear, pain and ego-centered place she's at. The other pearls are at the top of the scales within their stems, the top of the chain plaques and near the pots on the bottom of the card.

This image and all it's symbols and meanings really make me "get" this arcana in a way I never did quite before. I indentify very personally with what's conveyed here. The meaning and context comes completely alive for me. My disconnect and perceived isolation and seperation from the Divine and All There Is. My attachtment to ego. materiality, obsessing with more & more leads to a very dark place mentally, emotionally and spiritually indeed. Filled with dread, desperartion, greed, feeling confined and trapped, anxious thoughts...the more this happens the harder I try to control it all, the more painful the struggle. A vicious struggle in quicksand.

This Devil card in this deck is very spiritual for me. I'm really looking forward to others thoughts, feelings and ideas about it!

:love: Miss 6
 

Rede Seeker

So much to see here....

Yikes! I didn't notice the Green Earth Spirit before. I checked the other cards in this deck and found a total of 38 (including the Devil) that contain a similar figure. I'll post a list later.

I see a connection between the individual Pearls - even the white circle the dark figure is taking to the Green Earth Spirit looks like a Pearl. In most of the other cards, the Pearls are strung symbolizing accumulated wisdom. The Devil scatters the lessons, the Pearls of Wisdom, we aren't able to connect them...that is a very creepy thought, at least to me. I find it more 'Devilish' than the traditional horned-and-hooved creature. My impression is that the dark figure is taking his/her Pearl to the Earth Spirit for safe-keeping - almost like a squirrel running off with a nut it found and plans to save for another day.

As for the Eyes - I know green eyes represent jealousy. I don't know about the other colors. The moon in the top of the mirror looks like a fourth eye. It also looks like a Pearl.

I think the words on the mirror on the floor read 'Mirror of your soul - Look in'. Try starting at the center of the spiral when you read it.

Any thoughts as to why the flames in the wall sconces are different colors (orange/red and yellow)? Serpents are wrapped around the sconces and dangle down, each holds a single pearl in its tail.

The figure in the mirror has no feet - she's secretive about where she comes from, her personal roots are a mystery. The woman on the other side of the mirror has a bracelet on her left ankle. Is that a key dangling from it? Whatever was holding her back has been severed - similar to the traditional Queen of Swords and her tasseled bracelet. The woman on the other side of the mirror is able to move and she doesn't hide her roots (feet) not even in shoes - she is directly connected to the earth. Perhaps that's why the Green Earth Spirit is crying - the woman is free to move, she has riches, sustenance (the apple), a Soul mirror and even a Pearl of Wisdom but she stands before a mirror and prefers to see herself reflected rather than in 'first-person'. The tear-river looks like it could wash away the Devil-mirror if it could reach it.
 

Sulis

Wow, there's such a lot in this card that I don't really know what else there is to say.

This card reminds me a little of The Devil card in The Spiral Tarot by Kay Steventon where we see The Devil holding up a mirror so that the reader can see 'their true self': http://taroteca.multiply.com/photos/photo/93/31.jpg
I think this version is very well done.

Rede Seeker maybe the flames in the sconces on the walls are different colours to reflect the dark and light pillars on the arches, the left one is darker than the right and is in most of the cards in the deck.

6 Haunted Days I have no idea why the Goddess is holding a pearl near to her mouth - maybe she speaks the truth with 'pearls of wisdom' whilst the 'Devil' or the mirror do not......
I love your thoughts about the river; it does look like a river of tears.
I also have no idea about the three eyes on the mirror.

I think that this is one of those cards that I would benefit from using in meditation, there is just so much to see.

I love this card, I didn't like it at all when I first saw it but the more I look the more things jump out and become very clear.
It's an excellent depiction of how our own fears and insecurities can bind us.
 

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