Questions about “Explaining the Tarot”...
I have been enjoying very much “Explaining the Tarot” the translation of the tow earlier texts on the tarot we know, brought to us by Thierry de Paulis, Ross S. Caldwell and Marco Ponzi.
I did a short interview to Ross and Marco for my website, but I still have some more questions. I decided to post them here since I think it cold be interesting for other people to participate in the discussion and bring their own questions to the ‘table’.
Reading both, Piscina’s and Anonymous’s discourses, it seems to me that they have a very similar understanding of the four suits. The only suit in which they somehow diverge would be the suit of Batons. There is, still, a common idea of batons as scepters, symbols of power and control, and tools for chastising. But while Piscina would simply see them as primal weapons, less ‘evolved’ than swords, Anonymous links them to literature: “in order to represent their honour and greatness, the fact that only they could punish and castigate, they had macs brought ahead of them”. In a way, Piscina sees them as rough, while Anonymous sees them as symbols of a power -that of wisdom- that is more evolved than brute force.
The other three symbols, Cups, Coins and Swords, have quite straight-forward explanations, and I was wondering if the convolutedness* with the wands emerged from that alleged misreading of the Mameluks’s polo sticks we have hear about so many times.
Do you, Ross and Marco, have any thoughts on the matter?
Thanks in advance!
EE
* A convolutedness I very much appreciate and enjoy, BTW.