how do you read a card when the depiction deviates from conventional meaning？

I normally like how creators put their personal vision into the image. In this way the meanings multiply like metonyms and synonyms evolving around the original keyword. But sometimes the creator's own interpretation deviates so much from what I am familiar with, to the extent that I don't know whether I should rely on the conventional meaning any longer.

Just a quick example---8 of rods in Anna K as depicted as "message." She mentions herself that her picture of the card is a bit off the beaten path, because the meaning as "message" has occurred as such in her own reading.

Perhaps this is not an accurate example, as there are other cases when the creator's image goes so far as to contradict the conventional meaning. What do you normally do in this kind of situation?

mydearruby said:

I normally like how creators put their personal vision into the image. In this way the meanings multiply like metonyms and synonyms evolving around the original keyword. But sometimes the creator's own interpretation deviates so much from what I am familiar with, to the extent that I don't know whether I should rely on the conventional meaning any longer.

Just a quick example---8 of rods in Anna K as depicted as "message." She mentions herself that her picture of the card is a bit off the beaten path, because the meaning as "message" has occurred as such in her own reading.

Perhaps this is not an accurate example, as there are other cases when the creator's image goes so far as to contradict the conventional meaning. What do you normally do in this kind of situation?

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I've wrestled with this myself. And the answer I've come to, I think works in both the cerebral Jungian sense and in the more esoteric sense. It depends entirely on how we view the image and the understanding and insight we ascribe. If the prescriptive information given by the artist works for you, the it works. If you traditionally view the card differently or if the card suggests other notions based on what you see, it works. In the end the exegesis is coming from/through us as readers--whether we see it as a result of the unconscious, intuition/higher mind/cosmic energy etc, it's whatever system carries meaning for us.

Basically, in brief, I ditch artist meanings if they don't jive for me.

It's like all art: music, lit, beaux arts, once it is created the artist an no longer influence what we derive from it. Each encounter is personal and subjective.

mydearruby said:

What do you normally do in this kind of situation?

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I do what I do in every reading: I look at the image and notice what I think and feel on that one occasion. Even with a standard RW deck, every tie you look at any card, you're going to get different things from it. I really wouldn't worry about it.

mydearruby said:

I normally like how creators put their personal vision into the image. In this way the meanings multiply like metonyms and synonyms evolving around the original keyword. But sometimes the creator's own interpretation deviates so much from what I am familiar with, to the extent that I don't know whether I should rely on the conventional meaning any longer.

Just a quick example---8 of rods in Anna K as depicted as "message." She mentions herself that her picture of the card is a bit off the beaten path, because the meaning as "message" has occurred as such in her own reading.

Perhaps this is not an accurate example, as there are other cases when the creator's image goes so far as to contradict the conventional meaning. What do you normally do in this kind of situation?

Click to expand...

Great question! I also have that concern with the Anna K. I've kind of come around to attaching the traditional meanings to the image in that deck. In theory. I haven't used the deck much lately, partly because of this very card! So, I've decided to see the messenger in the image and think of the speed with which he travelled to deliver the message. There are ideas in that message, moving swiftly. So, we have the meanings of movement, swiftness, ideas, and we can even attach the old-fashioned meaning of the countryside if we think of the countryside the messenger would have travelled through to deliver the message. Of course, the image or idea of the 8 of Rods can suggest other things in the moment, but I've had to think this through in order to be able to contemplate using the deck. Call me anal, but it's bothered me!

ETA: I think this particular card has bothered me because I find the artist's definition so limited, so specific. Other decks obviously have their own versions of cards, but this one really got to me! I like illustrated minors to be less dictatorial.

Not too long ago, we had a discussion here on the boards which might contain some answers also for your question. The connection between "core meanings" or "traditional meanings" (often that's another word for "RWS meanings") and the depictions on different decks, sometimes it's obvious, sometimes difficult, and when they're not the same, what do you read? The card before you or the card you learned by heart when reading Bunnings, Pollack, Green, Huggens, Louis...

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=253888

I'm a very visual person and I always read what I see in front of me. I see the core meanings as part of the card's context, together with its association, but I always listen to what the card in question has to tell me, its colours, symbols, composition, figures, expressions...

JylliM said:

In theory. I haven't used the deck much lately, partly because of this very card!

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Same thing for me! Especially when others cards in Anna K are almost all "dogmatically" faithful to the RWS. There are certainly decks describing 8 of wands as "message," such as Journey to the Egypt. In that card there are even no visual hint at all that can connect "message" to "swiftness." But given that Journey to the Egypt has a lot of peculiarities and its own system of lunar cycle I won't be bothered that much. For Anna K as a RWS clone, it is indeed a deviation, to the degree that every time I used it, I unconsciously or consciously prayed I won't draw 8 of wands hahah...

Nemia said:

I see the core meanings as part of the card's context, together with its association, but I always listen to what the card in question has to tell me, its colours, symbols, composition, figures, expressions...

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I like the idea of connecting one's background knowledge to intuitive free association! That takes years' training and experience...

What about the case where the "accumulative knowledge" of a card and a specific visual depiction cannot meet at all? By this I don't mean those decks with their own systems or the decks that too idiosyncratic to be read at all---I mean something that falls into the middle between these extreme situations. For example, 5 or swords in Mary-El portrays a woman holding a baby sounded by five owls. There are nothing in this image that can evoke of anything close to compromised victory. Only to add to my confusion, I cannot match the image with what Mary White suggests herself in the companion book!

In this type of scenario should I follow my intuitive impression of the image, or the companion book, or my "accumulative knowledge,"or a sequence that combines the three interpretations? (obviously the three are in battle for me now.)

Perhaps for seasoned reader it is a not a problem at all, but, I am still struggling to learn=)

I don't really see the 8 of Wands in the Anna K to be any more difficult to read. In fact, I think it's easier to read compared to the usually 8 Wands flying through the air. At least with the Anna K, there's something there to make a context for the Wands, right? You get a more clear message that this is a message you're receiving from someone. The 8 Wands flying through the air by themselves don't "speak" of a message, really.

The decks I enjoy the most sometimes are the Lo Scarabeo decks. When I wasn't very experienced yet, I couldn't make heads nor tails of them and the little booklets were usually not much help. Now I just love them. There's so much in each image that sparks intuition.

Coming back to add that what I did when I wasn't very well-versed in the cards was to go back to a Rider Waite deck, even though I didn't like it, and learn all I could about that basic deck, because so many of the decks I did like were based on it. Once I learned with that one I branched out into other decks that stuck fairly closely in symbolism to RWS. Having learned to use those, then I branched out still further and got used to using the traditional meaning I'd memorized as the key to reading cards that don't stick close to the RWS.

For instance, the Universal Fantasy by Lo Scarabeo. Now, that's a deck that strays so far from the original that I was used to that I couldn't see similarities in a lot of the cards. If I did a reading for somebody who was dealing with a potentially dangerous situation that they might need to protect themselves from but they didn't know how to go about it, I'd use the basic meaning but use the image in the card as well. The figure in the 7 of Wands card is standing and looking into the distance toward some dragon-looking winged beasts circling around a place that looks like a castle carved into a stone mountain. He's holding what looks like a weed eater on steroids----7 blades that undoubtedly get pretty lethal if they're spinning, so he could raise that over his head to chop up the winged beasts who tried to get at him while he navigated toward safety below the blades. The message I'd give the sitter, since the 7 of Wands shows someone holding enemies at bay, would be to use whatever he had at his disposal to stave off the enemy till he could get around the obstacle.

A closer look sometimes shows they're not so different

Each time I get a new deck, I go through it card by card. I look at the image, and I think of the conventional meaning. Almost always I can match them up. Almost always...I'll get back to that. Example, that Anna K. image (seen here: https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/4b/4a/41/4b4a4198107ec869bdc36141215e879b.jpg). Here is the conventional Rider-Waite meaning:

That which they signify is at hand; it may be even on the threshold. Divinatory Meanings: Activity in undertakings, the path of such activity, swiftness, as that of an express messenger; great haste, great hope, speed towards an end which promises assured felicity

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Let's talk another look at Anna K.'s image: the Woman's almost literally on the threshold of some undertaking. And given the messenger's gauntlets and all, it looks like she's being handed this by a fast horseman. Some swift decision has already happened; one that required this messenger to get this to her ASAP. And look at her face: there's a smile—she got great hope, and she seems to believe that this is a good message, not a bad or dire one. She's eager to read it and "act." So. Spot on Anna K. IMHO, she captured EXACTLY the conventional meaning. I mean, I totally understand that some images make you go "Huh? How did they come up with that for this card?" But a lot of the time, we don't bother to really examine the image or the conventional meaning. On the surface they don't seem to jive, and so we assume they they're not the same or even similar. But often, if we do take the time to really think about image/meaning, the picture turns out to not be that off the mark.

I did say "almost" though, didn't I? There is one that I've yet to figure out. 5/Pents conventional meaning is: a crisis that upsets material security (health, home, etc.), also destitution, and often "outsider" status. Which is why it can relate to someone having a mistress, because the mistress and the affair puts the couple outside of society. Here is the Secret Tarot's picture for the 5/Coins: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/346495765062972439/ Hat's off if you can tell me what this card has to do with the conventional meaning of the 5/Coins.

mydearruby said:

I normally like how creators put their personal vision into the image. In this way the meanings multiply like metonyms and synonyms evolving around the original keyword. But sometimes the creator's own interpretation deviates so much from what I am familiar with, to the extent that I don't know whether I should rely on the conventional meaning any longer.

Just a quick example---8 of rods in Anna K as depicted as "message." She mentions herself that her picture of the card is a bit off the beaten path, because the meaning as "message" has occurred as such in her own reading.

Perhaps this is not an accurate example, as there are other cases when the creator's image goes so far as to contradict the conventional meaning. What do you normally do in this kind of situation?

Click to expand...

What I do personally is to always follow my intuition. For me my set meanings for a card are only at best a guideline, a hint to where the answer is to be found but they are not the actual answer in and of itself.

For me what I FEEL inside me that a card is saying at any given time is the most important part. That is what I follow first. If the card meaning I generally have for a card is at odds with what I am feeling a card is telling me, then I ignore the set meaning and follow my intuition.

Sometimes too the answer is found uniquely in the card image, not in the set meanings we may have for the card. I remember once I asked the cards what I could do to relax in the best way ( was feeling a bit too stressed at the moment.

A card came up with the image of a woman having a bubble bath. I was like "ok, message received." And I went off right away and had a bubble bath. And it was the best thing the cards could have told me. I felt worlds better afterwards. But that answer was not in my "meanings" for the card. It was uniquely in the card image.

Cards have all kinds of ways to talk to us, traditional or not. That seems to be my answer, to just follow what comes to you as what the cards are trying to say. You don't have to be used to a particular card meaning. You just have to trust your innermost feelings and follow them. And the more you do, the more the lead you to the best answers. Intuition improves with usage.

Babs