La Lune (the Moon) - how may it be read?

Kwaw, what an equisite post!

One I will reread from time to time.


Thank you.

terri

Mre questions about La Lune

The Moon is one of the 22 major arcana to which we attribute qualities which seem almost personal but she is an object in real life not recognizably human as 14 other cards in the major arcana. Carl Jung said that archetypes represent the contents of the collective subconscious, I was thinking this morning about that and what it means that some are recognizably human and some are not. And then for an interesting few moments my mind went to Umbrae’s recent beautiful post about the Earth being alive.

Anyway, back to the connection between the Moon and La Papesse which is logical to make if you have learned the Golden Dawn system which explicitly associates the High Priestess with the Moon. Does the Marseille tradition actually do that in the same way? Would it not be possible to connect Moon with Enpress, Strength and the other feminine archetypes as well in some way, What is it about Moon which makes us think automatically of High Priestess, or La Papesse?

La Papess reflects the breath of God as enacted by le Bateleur in Christian hermeticism. She is profoundly still and silent to enable her to do this. She would also then reflect la Luna, the collective unconscious but the Christian hermeticists don’t mention La Papesse at all in relation to the Moon.

There is probably quite a simple answer to the question in my second paragraph. If anyone could answer, I’d be most appreciative.

Moongold said:

In its symbolism, the Marseille does not so directly connect the Moon with II La Papesse as do the later Tarot decks. In my Marseilles La Papesse is simply a woman. There is no Moon in her image, unless one counts the jewels on her headdress. I wonder in fact, if the designers of the first Marseille ever made the connection in the way that we do now. In one way this is interesting because it invites all of us, male and female, to confront the stereotypes, the ancient constructions in a slightly different way.

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What an absolutely beautiful post, Moongold! Thank you for the Yeats poem, too.

I connect the Moon and the Papesse intimately, but not because there is a moon in the Papesse card - nothing so obvious (as befits both cards). Rather, I see the light of the moon as a veil, which both reveals and conceals, like the veil of the Papesse.

Do you know that in Arabic, there are different words to say full moon, and crescent moon? The Moon features very richly in Arabic literature and, of course, symbolism - the Crescent Moon, the Hillel, is the symbol of islam.

Moongold, good question in your second paragraph.

I browsed through Sedillot's La Papesse. She relates La Papesse astrologically to La Lune. My translation of what Sedillot says:

....La Papesse finds her correspondence in the qualities and flaws of La Lune. Her understanding emanates from her feelings and sensations and are not the work of analysis or logic. She "knows" because of her intuition and not because of her reason. These definitions could equally be applied to qualities of the sign of Cancer, another water element. This sign speaks of the past, of memory.

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terri

I vaguely remember allusions to both in Meditations on the Tarot. Perhaps someone more familiar with that work can comment on the connections made therein. I don't remember reading it in Letter II, but seem to recall a reference re La Lune.

roppo said:

Well, traditionally the Moon has been associated with strange ideas and conceits, may I be permitted to post here my latest wild guess.

Recently I pondered on the d'Este cards; the Diogenes-Sun card especially took my heart. As far as I know Diogenes appears nowhere but on the d'Este. Where did he go?

With the question in my mind I browsed and consulted some books till I found a very interesting thing. My Radom House Dictionary shows a picture of crayfish with its Latin name "Cambarus diogenes". Later I found the hermit crab family is called "diogenes". I am no etymologist and have no idea how these sea-creatures were called in 16th or 17th centuries Europe. Some one with definte knowledge would be greatly welcome!

I am under the impression that in early cards the astronomical three, Star & Moon & Sun, are interchangeable in their designs. If the crayfish of Marsaille is another figure of Diogenes, then the dogs might be easily explained; the philosopher is often depicted with his canine friends.

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Very interesting Roppo, Diogenes is most often associated with the Hermit. As for the dogs, don't forget that Diogenes nickname was the 'dog', the word 'cynic' being derived from the Greek for 'dog-like'. In the only contemporary reference to Diogenes [Aristotle's Rhetoric], Aristotle does not mention him be name, but just as "The Dog".


"Dogs, too, especially streets dogs, live in accordance with nature. Independence, simplicity, the ability to adapt themselves to changing circumstances, an absence of inhibition with respect to their feelings and their physical needs, indifference concerning where and how they live and what they eat, absolute honesty, freedom of speech - for they bark whenever they please and at whom-ever they dislike - these are some among the virtues or strengths that characterize the canine army, and these are precisely the traits that Diogenes and his Cynic descendants admired and found worthy of imitation. Why, then, should he have taken offence when the Athenian rabble, unable to understand his mode of life, chose to call him a Dog?" quote from

http://users.otenet.gr/~ziggy/diomice.htm

Although usually associated with the Hermit, we may also associate the Hermit's lantern with the Moon, as with the poet Derek Walcott:

quote

Homecoming: 10

New creatures ease from earth, nostrils nibbling air,
squirrels abound and repeat themselves like questions,
worms keep enquiring till leaves repeat who they are,
but here we have merely a steadiness without seasons,
and no history, which is boredom interrupted by war.
Civilisation is impatience, a frenzy of termites
round the anthills of Babel, signalling antennae
and messages; but here the hermit crab cowers when it meets
a shadow and stops even that of the hermit.
A dark fear of my lengthened shadow, to that I admit,
for this crab to write "Europe" is to see that crouching child
by a dirty canal in Rimbaud, chimneys, and butterflies, old bridges
and the dark smudges of resignation around the coal eyes
of children who all look like Kafka. Treblinka and Auschwitz
passing downriver with the smoke of industrial barges
and the prose of a page from which I brush off the ashes,
the tumuli of the crab holes, the sand hourglass of ages
carried over this bay like the dust of the Harmattan
of our blown tribes dispersing over the islands,
and the moon rising in its search like Diogenes' lantern
over the headland's sphinx, for balance and justice.

end quote from "The Bounty", by Derek Walcott

"... note Crab, a very ill-bred dog, of course, is barc [bark] spelled backward." Shakespeare IV.4

Kwaw

kwaw, what a marvelous post!

The references to the "dog" are so wonderful. Also the passage from "The Bounty" .... and then, "crab" spelled backwards...as "barc."

I was so touched by the whole post, it will stay with me as I read this card.

I love dogs. A characteristic I love about them, is that they will often go off by themselves when they need to be away from people...sometimes when sick, or when things get too hectice...or scarey.

My dog goes into her "crate" which we only leave out since, I believe, she goes there when she wants to be left alone. People who are leery of using crates for dogs don't realize that they are animals who are comfortable in a den or dark place or "cave."

terri

Roll away the Stone

In the d'este Sun card Alexander stands before Diogenes who is sitting in his barrel, the story goes that Alexander says to Diogenes, "Name anything you want, and I will give it to you." To which Diogenes replies , "Then stand aside, you are blocking the Sun." Bearing in mind the association of Alexander with the Devil [hence is frequent portrayal with horns], to me this brings to mind the answer to the Devil who promises him the world, "Get behind me Satan".

If we assume this Diogenes reference has been subsumed in the Marseille deck in the picture of the Moon then I would say the picture of the Moon is almost certainly meant to represent a Moon eclipsing the Sun [as Alexander eclipses the Sun]. As the dark of the moon lasts for a period of three days I consider it highly likely that the Moon card references the entombment of Christ, who rose again on the third day. As I mentioned in connection with the attribution of the 19th letter Kuf, there is a connection here with the Metatonic cycle, the basis of the Hebrew calendar, the basis for the prediction of eclipses, but more relevant here also the basis for the date of Easter, that celebration of Christ's death and resurrection which falls on the first SUNday after the full Moon. The symbolism of Easter and the metatonic formula would explain the numbering 18/19 and the sequence Moon/Sun.

In Christian cabalistic astrology Christ is prefigured in the constellation Orion, the Prince of Light. In myth Orion, by accident or design according to differing versions, is killed by Goddess of the Moon. Perhaps then the two dogs are the two hunting dogs of Orion, howling in lamentation at the death of their master, and in accusation at his murderer the Moon.

Anyone interested in the possible connections between diogenes, dogs and the card the fool might be interested in the thread here:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?p=425939

Kwaw

old history of the moon

I was guided to this thread by a long-time AT poster. It is meaningful to me to look at this card and reflect (that word!) on what has been posted, especially the Yeats poem a little while back.

http://www.republika.pl/tareau/karty_jpg/ksiezyc.jpg

Pocono Platypus: Of course, we never see the OTHER side of the Moon. And certainly those who conceived the Tarot would never have imagined that any human being could actually FLY AROUND the moon.

And yet... the other side exists.

Welcome to this thread.

Has the other side a female face? for like others it bothers me that this female emblem was drawn with a male face.