Margarete Petersen - Reversals

CompassRose

Oh, wow. That's all I've got to say to this. Of course, everyone else probably already knows.

Have you turned your cards upside-down? These cards are MADE to be turned upside-down! Turning them is not a reversal; it's a further revelation -- new images, shifts, a whole different perspective, things suddenly revealed. It's two decks in one.

I've always been one of those reversal chickens before. This makes me happy -- finally, a real reason to think about reversals, to look at them seriously, at what they have to offer, as more than "picture wrong way up."
 

firemaiden

ooh! say more, say more! examples! descriptions!
 

galadrial

Wow! You are so right. And I didn't already know; I don't use reversals as a rule.
I drew the 10 of Pentacles today (Zehn der Munzen) and I just now turned it upside down. Suddenly the diamond seems like it's falling out of the labyrinth (I didn't connect them directly before), and a previously indeterminate shape at the top becomes a floating face at the bottom. Could the face be my mirror image floating in the unconcious, perhaps representing my intuitive faculties? And the diamond could be diamond conciousness (not a concept I know a lot about, actually, but I've heard it described as reaching a new place of clarity, insight or awareness and being free from confusion or doubt) that occured as the result of my labyrinth journey (that journey coming to an end since this is a 10). As a reversal, perhaps this would be telling me that getting in touch with my intuition and reaching a place of mental clarity are necessary before I can travel back out of the labyrinth and carry my insights out into the world, ie: to manifest them materially, thus sharing my wealth, or to have the clarity to realize that wealth already surrounds me.
Thanks for pointing this facet of these wonderful cards out to me!
 

CompassRose

Sorry; I didn't mean to post this and leave it dangling. I was so excited about it I wanted to share with everybody right away (even though it was an insane hour of night) and then I spent yesterday running 5Ks, nearly getting sunstroke and boiling my radiator dry on the 401 highway...

Anyway, I was shown it as A. and I were going through the cards again (only maybe my third or fourth time through after getting them). He had the deck, and was leafing through them, and I was looking at the cards he handed to me. He got to Die Herrscherin, The Empress, and said, "Of course, it makes more sense this way up," and flipped it over.

The Vagina Dentata, or perhaps simply the striated vaginal channel, becomes very clear, and the seated figure is now the clitoris, between spread thighs. Then, looking at it again, the shape is a diagram of the womb, with the two dropletted leaves at the top the ovaries and the drops releasing eggs. The landscape surrounding it shifts, with the shapes on what is now the right becoming very clearly bare bones; on the right, it is fields vanishing to trees, rather than the deep forest.

Let's see. The next that is particularly striking:

Rad des Lebens, The Wheel of Fortune.
On first look, this is one of the most beautiful Wheels I've seen. The rainbow circle, with the serene face at the top embracing it, and the beautiful female figure curling gracefully round the right, make it brilliant and expressive. Turned, it is altogether a darker card. The screaming face now on the right is very clear. On the top left, a plummeting figure emerges from the blue waves. The serenity of the face now at the bottom is lost in the brightness, which now suggests inferno rather than radiance. And while, upright, the motion of the card seems to me very much to be spiral, turning counter-clockwise (emphasised by the female figure), reversed it is turning both ways. The main motion is still counter-clockwise, into the now-inferno, but here and there bright figures fight the mainstream (the resting female figure is now one of them) and head clockwise with their arms outstretched. Down near the chin of the reversed face now at the bottom, I also now see the head of an animal... like a dog, or a wolf.
 

September Pixie

just bumping to remind others to take a look at their cards reversed! :) This may actually be the only deck I will read with Rx cards!!
 

GryffinSong

I know this is an old thread, but I just got this deck today, and see exactly what you all mean! I've never been fond of reversals, but in this deck I might start using them. Thanks for pointing that out. Are any of you still using this deck? I love how easy it is to see things intuitively in the cards, and that goes for upright or reversed.