How cool that a classic Enrique 3 card reading has swum up out of nowhere: Star/Hanged Man/Moon. They must have been summoned by the original question from "cjxtypes" (Cindy) requesting the group's general feelings about the suit of Wands/Batons. That would explain why the action in each card in the reading is framed by an upright baton. There are two living trees to the right and left of the Star woman. These trees have been chopped down and their limbs cut off to create the gallows for the Hanged Man. Where the limbs have been cut the sap is still wet, and red like blood. In the Moon card the two towers must contain structures made from the dried timbers. As we move from left to right across the three cards, the energy in the wood gradually drains away. There is also a progressive stiffening. This is just as we would expect, because the first card must refer to Batons II/III/IIII; the second to Batons V/VI/VII; and the third to Batons VIII/VIIII/X.
In the Star card, which refers to the early cards in the suit, it is morning. The Morning Star dominates the dawn sky and the first bird is starting to sing. The naked woman is pouring water into the river in an act of unending generosity. In fact she is the actual source of the river. So in the early cards of the suit we have the innocence of a new day and so much abundant energy that we can afford to share it.
The Hanged Man card is an image of retention, of energy held in check. His body is vertical like the hands of a clock at noon. Human hands have shaped the previously living trees into a device designed to establish control over others and to punish. So in the middle cards in the suit the exercise of power has become an enemy of our basic humanity - turned its qualities on its head. The Hanged Man's hair is like the Sun, flanked by the Stars and Moon, but it is being submerged underground, and his hands are tied behind his back so he cannot give.
In the Moon card it is night. The crab in the water and the two dogs are less than human, straining upwards, constantly craving a source of light that is millions of miles away. The two towers must be at war, or perhaps they are guarding a pass, blocking our way forward. The fat part of a droplet of water is at the bottom, so the Moon must actually be sucking moisture from the Earth. Perhaps we see the crab so clearly because the lake has been drained almost dry. How different from the Star card. So in the later cards of the suit the initial overflowing of loving energy has become transformed into spiritual dryness and fixed attitudes of confrontation.
That's the general drift of the suit of Batons for me but I'm not sure how I would relate those feelings to specific details in individual cards in a reading. This seems easier to do in Cups and Coins, the "red" or "female" suits, since the suit symbols are not repetitively connected in the same basic shape in every card, but divided into unique, symbolically suggestive arrangements by the leaves and flowers. But you need to be as imaginative as Enrique to squeeze much juice even from this. The network of batons does gradually become more fixed and interwoven as the suit progresses, and the vegetation gets less luxuriant - disappearing altogether on the VIIII. But in a reading, if there is only one Baton card, then what is there to compare it to? "Less" or "more" have no meaning.
Maybe the mistake is to expect a colourful array of meanings from a Marseilles minor card, as you can in a reading using the illustrated minors of the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. The minors have a humbler function in the Marseilles. But maybe that's as it should be, and a strength. When I read with the RWS I tend to make very little distinction between a Major and Minor image. They are all equally appealing to the eye. And equally anodyne. Maybe the way to read with the whole Marseille deck - if you feel as if you need to - is to split it into Majors, Minors, Courts and come at the same question from three angles. I'd be very interested to know what methods people have worked out to use the whole deck. I'm still struggling. It's not such a problem if you ascribe meanings (from numerology, astrology, cabala, etc) to the minor cards. But if you're just working from the visual appearance of the cards, as if they were paintings in a gallery, which I find the most convincing and powerful method of reading cards for others, then it's a bit of a conundrum. It's comforting to hear Enrique still occasionally scratching his head over this one.
