thinbuddha said:
Without memorized card meanings, you end up with a collection of 10 cards per suit that are binary in nature/meaning: they are either active or receptive. How does one differentiate the meaning between any two active cups, or any two receptive swords without memorized meanings?
Hello Thinbuddha,
Sorry for not replying this earlier, but I haven’t seen this thread in a long while.
As Stella pointed out, there is no need for memorization since I treat the pips just as I treat the trumps: I observe the process depicted in the card and find an analogy between this process and a person’s situation. In other words, I look at what is happening in the card, as an energetic imprint, that then gets contextualized by the card’s position in the series, and by the suit.
Lets use an example, but before that, there is something very important I need to point out. Based on what I have been taught, on what I have seen, and on what I have read, the pips can be seen as ATTRIBUTIONS of the majors. It is useful not to mix the whole deck together, but keep majors and minors separated. A pip card will be use to clarify the message coming from a major.
Suppose we have The Fool. There are many meanings we can assign to the Fool, but I am only concerned about the person I am reading the cards for, so, for me the cards points out that this person, my client, is walking towards something. I will acknowledge the fact that my client got the Fool, and no other card, by assuming that this motion forward may not be extent of risks. My client may be walking too happily into something without knowing what it is. His motions can be reckless, or perhaps, necessary even if he is misunderstood by others. Very visual, very simple.
Now, we may want to know what is the Fool getting into. Where is he going? It is for this reason that we draw a pip card to expand this message. We get the Six of Cups. Just as we did with the Fool, lets forget for a second about all the meanings, numerology, astral planes, etc. The Six of Cups depicts six elements arranged into a very particular scene: three cups stand in front of other three, while a very straight floral element stands in between them, separating them. There is order, symmetry, and some sort of stiffness in the scene. There are many things that feel like this image: a gathering of two teams, the beginning of a party in which half of the people doesn’t know the other half, a meeting in which the forces are balanced, a stand-off...
So, the Fool is walking towards the Six of Cups. (It may remember me of Italo Calvino and his Castle of Crossed destinies, so I could see this scene as a drunk man walking into a posh party. But that may be too literal). The sequence is pointing out that my client is walking towards a situation that is totally balanced, stagnated even, and he is going to affect it by breaking out that stillness. This is confirmed because the next card in the Cups series would be the Seven of Cups, in which these six cups will be rearranged to embrace a seventh cup that will come to mediate in between the other six. The suit also gives me an indication: cups are linked to emotions. The fact that my client got the Fool may indicate that he doesn’t knows what he is getting into, but the fact that the Six of Cups is a receptive card reassures me: my client seems to be ready to irrupt into a emotional landscape to revitalize it. The Fool is going to become that seventh cup.
Since the sequence is telling me that my client may be about to walk into a charged emotional situation to play a role as a mediator, the rest of the reading will be directed to understand the nature of this situation, and the role he, embracing the Fool, may play in it. Does he knows what is he getting into? Is he ready for it? It is OK to irrupt in this situation just like this? Etc...
This is, briefly, the way I would work with the pips as images, not just numbers.
I hope it helps,
All the best,
EE
but that's because I don't do kaballah. Not Marseilles enough for me. 
