Questions about the "Bardic origin of Tarot" theory

venicebard

I guess I should be carefull what I wish for. At the rate of two hours a day at the library, it should take me about two weeks to respond just to the first day's 'haul'.
le pendu said:
But it is also based on evidence of its deep antiquity: an obvious relationship to Phoenician and other alphabets, and the epigraphic advances of the second half of the 20th century (pioneered by Barry Fell) showing that ogam consaine (the consonants-only 15-letter form of ogham) and an early version of an alphabet called Tifinag were used by Low-German speakers in the early 2nd millennium B.C.E.
- HUH? Okay... That is a LOT to take in.
Do you not realize, M. Robert, that if it were not, then the theory would be a rather shallow one, say, on a level with 'pick alef to be Fool or Magus, either one (it doesn't matter), then dive in'? I will be glad to take things point by point, but please don't expect me to oversimplify the problem just for 'PR'.

[Edited to add:] Please see below before responding to this, as I acquiesce in the end to said 'oversimplification'. Thank you.
Obvious relationship to Phoenician and other alphabets
- Really? Says who besides you?
Well, I'm sure Robert Graves would, but frankly I do not know of anyone else on earth (though such may exist) that has engaged in the line of research and piecing-together of things that I have, and that over a rather long period (beginning in 1972). (Robert Graves has been utterly slandered by academia, evidently, but fortunately I do appreciate his contribution.)

The argument in full is quite involved; but I can give enough pointers to inspire some confidence, I think. Wikipedia's version (of Phoenician letters) will do, though I would prefer to use the northwestern Semitic alphabet (early Hebrew and Moabite-stone alphabets) whence it derived (but 10 minutes' searching on the web produced nothing, so I shall not send 'good time after bad').

The Q (qof) is clearly fruit-with-stem in early Hebrew, fruit-sliced-through in Phoenician: Semitic roots starting with qof are quite rich in words meaning 'to cut' and include both words meaning 'fruit harvest', Irish Q or quert being the apple.

The only two things tzaddi could be a picture of (and my whole argument rests on them being pictures) are a battle ensign twisting in the breeze (attached to its staff) or a chair tilted backwards, and the former (the more likely) relates directly to the meaning of straif the blackthorn (Ss), whose name is interpreted by Graves to be the same as our word strife (based on how he viewed its significance, though Keltic derivation of words is often overlooked by modern scholarship, based on the Anglocentric bias of the OED): blackthorn is called 'mother of the wood' (la mere du bois [sp?]) in French because it is the vanguard of the forest in taking back land from tilling that has been left fallow.

Beyt is a conical headdress: this could be either the mitre of the high priest or a warrior's helmet. In the first instance, it relates directly to beth the birch in that this tree has a white bark, symbolizing purity or blessing. In the second, it relates to beth's bardic number, 5, which is the number of Mars and signifies (I finally figured out, but you certainly are free to disagree) that the Martial ideal is a mother defending her young: birch's month is the first in the calendar and signifies (by its diminutive size and white purity) the birth of the sun-hero, which is why (I surmise) in the Greek and (our) Latin B it has the shape of a pregnant torso in profile.

Dalet can be interpreted as the jib of a vessel, which relates it to the root meaning of the oak, its compass (or domain): a jib swings, as does the 'door' dalet, and indeed the oak reaches out horizontally more than all other trees in the alphabet.

Outta time this segment already, so:

to be continued.
 

venicebard

le pendu said:
. . . great.. let's start at that simply level.
I realize at this point that this letter-by-letter approach was probably not what you were seeking to invoke, so I shall leave it for now and return to it hopefully at another juncture, once the more general topics have been addressed.
Berry Fell
- Who? Why should I trust him?
He is virtually the founder of modern American epigraphy (having established the American Epigraphic Society), and his work has been backed up and expanded upon by many others in the field. The only reason academia rejects him is that American archeologists are told they do not have to know any ancient European languages, and they are loath to 'retool'. But the cheap techniques such 'enforcers' as the Smithsonian Institute use are transparent. For example, they will declare a find as a 'forgery' ignoring the fact that the language allegedly forged was not deciphered till long after the 'forgery' was found. And all ogham inscriptions in the New World are dismissed as 'plow markings' in spite of the fact that they spell out coherent sentences in Semitic or Keltic. Numismatic finds are also dismissed, this despite the fact that they are not random, as would fit their contention they are the spillings of numismatists, but rather adhere to a pattern quite in keeping with the intercourse between old world and new suggested by the various inscriptions. (If you require it, I shall gather up names of other scholars who have found similar evidence, to show Fell is not alone.)
Ogam Consaine
- Huh?
I explained this already, I thought. Ogham has four groups of five letters each, one of which is vowels: in the early Bronze Age, the fourth one, the vowels, were not used in inscriptions.
Tifinag
- Huh?

used by Low-German speakers in the early 2nd millennium B.C.E.
- Really? Is this accepted by scholars? Even if so.. so what does this have to do with the Ogham and the tarot?
When you say 'accepted by scholars', you seem to imply they are a single monolith. Academia has its prejudices, I have mine: my strongest one is to go where the evidence leads, not where academia says it is acceptable to go.
I strongly suggest leaving all of those other relationships out of the equation at this point, and focus instead on showing me the clear relationship between the standardly accepted meanings of the Ogham and the Tarot. Unless of course, part of your theory also requires discarding traditional meanings and creating your own.
Umm, okay.
The latter was brought to North Africa --
-HUH?
Do you really think I am making these things up?
. . . by the Nordic ancestors of the Berbers, seemingly, who were part of the confederation called 'Sea Peoples' that attacked Egypt,
-Huh?
Am I to give no historical background?
. . . were defeated, then settled in Libya to become, later on, the seafarers that took Egyptian vessels around the world and eventually established a dynasty.
-Huh?
Yes, near the end of the 2nd millennium B.C.E. (look it up). The dynasty came a bit later, and I forget what it was numbered, so forgive me aready (if I go to the stacks every third question, this will take a millennium.
In Libya, Tifinag itself was only slightly modified (and survives to this day) but also gave birth to (or at least strongly influenced the shaping of) the Libyan alphabet, some characters of which are identical to Tifinag.
-Huh? What's this got to do with the Ogham and the tarot?
Okay, so we'll go with tunnel vision for a while (no insult intended).
Another chief source for bardic tradition is the original runic Futhark of 24 characters,
-I thought the Runes were Norse? What's THIS got to do with it? Your suggesting a relationship between Runes, Ogham and Tarot?
There are many connexions between Norse (i.e. Germanic) and Keltic religions: Scandinavian Fro and Keltic Bran/Vran, Sc. Loki and K. Lugh, Sc. Frigga and Keltic Brigit . . . . The runes are a valuable key in fleshing out the bardic view of the letters, but if we must leave them behind for now, so be it.
. . . whose shapes and names are an invaluable addition to what can be surmised about the tree-alphabet, that is, about the significance of its individual letters.
-Says who? As far as everything I've read the two are not related.
Yes, those (mostly) who have written on the runes are not only unaware of the connexion but would (and do) resist any such notion, based, though, not on the evidence but on their Germano-centric interpretation of runes. The argument I can present (much of which I have already on this site), however, is of greater depth than any I have seen published in many decades, and all I have of earlier work in the field is extensive notes, some of which were taken before I realized I was onto something and thus instituted strict scholarly procedure (they would not now be available, I imagine, anyway).
-What? Okay, you're talking about runes here. But what makes you so sure they ever had tree names associated with the other letters> As far as I know.. many of the runes are related to gods.. (Ing, Tyr, Thor), and to weather (Isa, Hagalaz), and other features of the Norse world.. why do you assume that they were once all related to trees.
Assuming for a moment that an extensive argument cannot be made (which of course it can and I would be glad to do), why do you think the two that do have tree names are phonetic equivalents of their counterparts in the tree-alphabet: how would you account even for that one fact if there were indeed no relation between the two?
That's yet another point that you have a lot of work to do to prove . . .
(to you)
. . . and, as far as I can see, is not in agreement with authorities on this. So I can't accept it and it needs to be left out of the basic presentation.
Okay. Yes, now I definitely see the problem with all I have posted before.
For example, the first rune, F, shows a stalk with two upturned branches (which Latin F levels out): this is because F is fearn the alder, tree of the Corn Spirit, called Bran (Vran) in Brythonic (British Keltic), Fro or Frey (or Freyr) in Scandinavian, Kronos in Greek (and KRShNA, evidently, in India, though there his erotic side, prominent in Scandinavia, has eclipsed his Corn-Spirit origin).*
-Hmmmmm. LOTS of stuff to take in here... but what sticks out strongly is using Freyr for this rune.. when traditionally, Freyr has always been associated with the rune Ing (at least as far as I have ever seen in the many rune books I've read).
Yes, there is a name that unites the Ng rune with the F rune: Yngvifreyr, or Inguifreyr. Indeed it forms an important pivot in my own argument. But if there were no connexion between F and Freyr, why does his name begin with F? Yes, I realize that in Keltic it becomes V or B, and indeed I see Frigga (wife of Odin, but not as central a figure as Freyr/Fro) as equivalent to Brigit. But really: is it that obscure a notion?
All of the above paragraph would require a lot of research for me to confirm or argue the point, and I'm not inclined to do so just because you say it is so. To group Kronos with Freyr, and to make the other relationships seems to me to be some pretty wild claims. Again, this really can't be used as evidence until you have a LOT of convincing material to back up these relationships. Even once this is done, I'm still wondering what the hell I'm doing looking at Greek, Indian, and Norse mythology when supposedly I'm studying Bardic (Celtic) Mythology and the relationship between it and the Tarot?
Yes, okay, we'll drop it (for now, as I presume you would be open to such investigations once the threshold has been passed?). But my whole point is that the bardic was a widespread tradition -- to back up which I have assembled an astronomical amount of evidence -- else why would I consider it of any but provincial importance?
*F is numbered 8 in bardic tradition,
-is that standard?
I believe it is page 299 of The White Goddess that gives the numbers by which bards referred to the letters in medieval Irish literature (I'll double check this), the only confirmation of which I have been able to find (since I lack Graves's sources) is that one listing of letter-order in the book The Barddas of Iolo Morganwg (published by Weiser), another much slandered (and admittedly uneven) source, conforms to this same numbering.
. . . just so, KRShNA is the 8th avatar of Vishnu
-that's a huge leap, why are we talking about Hinduism?
We aren't any more.
The extensive discussion -- spattered with flaws (mostly personal prejudices of his) but nonetheless rich in information -- in Robert Graves's The White Goddess
-I've not read it, but as far as I understand it, it is famous for being mostly imagination with a bit of folklore, and not considered reliable for scholarly research. No?
There is much in it that is speculation, and much in it that is scholarship: it seems to me the immaturity is on the side of those who reject the latter because they are unable to distinguish it from the former. But once one becomes accustomed to his style, the two are readily separable. I myself have had to correct his speculations on certain letters, so why does anyone think I am quoting him as Gospel or something? I approach him as I approach all mavericks: with a healthy dose of skepticism but also the desire to find out if he can tell me anything. Anyone who is not completely overcome by his own ego (as are scholars with an axe to grind) will find he can tell them a great deal.

Once again out of time, but you can be sure that . . .

I'll bi back.
 

venicebard

le pendu said:
In other words.. do I really have to reject everything that I've learned about Ogham, Runes, and Tarot to go along with your theory? If so... you've got a huge challenge ahead that will require you to build up your theory piece, by accepted piece.

Or.. is there some BASIC standard that we can work with here? Is there a list of the celtic tree alphabet meanings that you AGREE with? If so, can we then look at the relationship between that list and the tarot?

Maybe we can start here:
Three column table.
Column One: Tarot Card
Column Two: Traditional Related Celtic Alphabet Letter (source?), with meaning.
Column Three: YOUR Related Celtic Alphabet letter, with meaning (assuming there is a need for a third column)

Really, I'm trying to convey how this "sounds" to me, and to try to help you present this in a manner that is understandable to others.
I bow to your perspicacity (sp?). I shall embark upon said course first thing Monday, 'G-d willin' an' the crick don't rise'.

Thanx for the giving of your time (all of you).

VB.
 

jmd

I think part of the problem (or at least from my perspective), Venicebard, is that even if your view of the development of the various alphabets is entirely correct, there is still something that appears too vast a chasm between that and its connection to not only tarot as it is, but how it appears to have arisen: ie, in late mediaeval proto-renaissance Europe, in lands steeped in Christianity, even if divided amongst warring religious factions.

Let's take it from that time backwards for a second.

Let's assume for a short while that the earliest decks were created with a conscious awareness and intent of either Greek, Roman or Hebrew alphabet (the three being sources that may be at least considered given that those three were in use by the educated of the time). Even if an anterior connection can be made between those alphabets and Phoenician, or Ogham, or Runic, or Egyptian demotic or hieroglyphic, or whatever one cares to choose, that is quite distinct to these latter's connection to tarot.

On what basis can we even begin to accept that those alphabets, many of them not contemporary to tarot's own naissance, can be said to be connected?

If the postulate is that tarot antedates these times, and is therefore itself pushed back hundreds or thousands of years, then on what basis is that made?

So I suspect that part of the underlying problem in all this is not even so much Ogham, or Runes, or Tree lore... nor whether or not Graves's research contains much that is of value, but rather something far simpler that prevents serious considerations of your theory: the apparent incongruity - or rather, the anachronism - between the times and places for the alphabets suggested and the apparent birth of tarot itself.

This does not preclude someone from presenting as insights their own reflections that bear on ways by which the two, in their modern form, may be seen to reflect either psychological dimensions or spiritual models of existence - but the converse does not hold: just because there may be common insights that may be gleaned from each does not mean they are intrinsically, nor were in the past causally, connected.
 

tmgrl2

firemaiden said:
Does commonality of meanings really imply origin?

I'm with you, Paula!

Perhaps "commonality of meanings" does, in fact, CONFUSE the search for finding origin....and, at some levels, the web of life itself connects somewhere to everything else. Dig deep enough and go back far enough...

And....

Well....you see where this goes.

terri
 

tmgrl2

jmd said:
This does not preclude someone from presenting as insights their own reflections that bear on ways by which the two, in their modern form, may be seen to reflect either psychological dimensions or spiritual models of existence - but the converse does not hold: just because there may be common insights that may be gleaned from each does not mean they are intrinsically, nor were in the past causally, connected.

This, jmd, says it for me in a nutshell. The reflections we make on origins, connections, models....are

Reflections....

Again, commonality doesn't necessarily mean causality.

I read, with interest some of these well thought-out and researched positions, but seem to generally have trouble when conclusions are drawn ....


terri
 

Rosanne

I guess I am one who has followed along with VB's research, as I am interested in Alphabets and Abjads. I can see a general thrust in explaining philosophical stances throughout the years- why Tarot looked like it was Egyptian for example, or astrological almanacs for Phoenicians, or Ezekiels Wheels. It just reminds me that Monopoly before it was made into a boardgame(the possibility of Monopoly always existed), was not the reason that London's landmarks where named what they were.
There is a natural way things are- like elements in our world, or the planets, or signs we call letters- like www for water and sometimes the way we describe life converges in different schools of explanation. That does not make everything of the same school. Tarot -like maybe, but not a long line of descent that can be followed. ~Rosanne
 

le pendu

Hi venicebard,

I DO appreciate your taking the time to help me understand this. I suspect part of the reason I might have a difficult time comprehending this is that I am not knowledgeable when discussing alphabets. I enjoy Tarot history, but am out of my element when we consider Kabbalah and other early alphabets. I'm probably overly pragmatic, even when looking at Tarot, it's usually comparing what is right before me, rather than abstract thinking, where I am most comfortable.

This is the gist of what I am gathering so far:
1. "Bardic" is not necessarily "celtic", but (according to you, of course) a much wider spread "tradition".
2. This tradition, to some extent, is captured/reflected in the Ogham, and other early alphabets.
3. It is Pictorial in these alphabets. The letterforms are graphic representations.
4. No one remaining alphabet, in itself, completely retains the original accurate representations
5. But by comparing and contrasting these alphabets, the "essential" system can be reclaimed.
6. The tarot itself is another tradition that reflects this system.

How close is that?

I'd still really appreciate it if you would develop a table (or some other easy to understand presentation) as a starting point. I need a basis to build from, and sincerely, am attempting to understand.
 

venicebard

Sorry for the delay: the library was closed Monday (Columbus' Day, as if no-one ever heard of the ancient Libyans!), and their computers off-line Tuesday and Wedensday.
le pendu said:
This is the gist of what I am gathering so far:
1. "Bardic" is not necessarily "celtic", but (according to you, of course) a much wider spread "tradition".
2. This tradition, to some extent, is captured/reflected in the Ogham, and other early alphabets.
3. It is Pictorial in these alphabets. The letterforms are graphic representations.
4. No one remaining alphabet, in itself, completely retains the original accurate representations
5. But by comparing and contrasting these alphabets, the "essential" system can be reclaimed.
6. The tarot itself is another tradition that reflects this system.
. . . and thus adds its '2 cents' in the reclaiming process.
How close is that?
Bingo on all counts: spot on.

Now let me explaing my method, briefly, first by responding to JMD and Melanchollic:
Melanchollic said:
If I'm reading all this right, it sounds like VB just took Levi's old Astro-Alphanumerical theory and switched Hebrew with Ogham.
I have no way of knowing if I would have been directed to the subject without the failure of several before me to solve the problem of the concurrence of the number of trumps with the number of Hebrew letters. When I encountered Graves's theory of a hidden or secret two letters Aa and Ii to go along with its already doubled Kk (Cc, or Q) and Ss (variously s, st, or z?), and tentatively confirmed it by noting that his Ii, mistletoe or loranthus, coincided with yod's hovering above the line (growing from a tree, not the ground), that Phoenician qof was quert the apple (sliced fruit or fruit with stem), and the ease with which the mystery of the numbering beyond 16 was solved (Graves gives 0-16), the game was afoot.

jmd said:
I think part of the problem (or at least from my perspective), Venicebard, is that even if your view of the development of the various alphabets is entirely correct, there is still something that appears too vast a chasm between that and its connection to not only tarot as it is, but how it appears to have arisen: ie, in late mediaeval proto-renaissance Europe, in lands steeped in Christianity, even if divided amongst warring religious factions.
But if the tradition (of the letters) was flourishing in medieval Wales and Ireland, then contact with the same milieu in which Tristan (especially in the Languedoc) and Arthur (more in the north, but spread initially by the family of Alienor of Aquitaine) flourished would have been inevitable. And it is precisely in Provence-Languedoc that Kabbalah first differentiated itself from the older strata: mutual influence between Judaic and Keltic currents right there in the region that later produced Tarot de Marseille, the standard form of tarot if any such existed.

Although the more obvious heresies were persecuted out of existence, you cannot tell me that something as insightful as the bardic corpus could not easily have persevered in the undercurrent. It seems to me the tarot itself testifies to how it survived: their essentially Gnostic doctrine did not exist for the purpose of challenging the status quo outwardly but inwardly, by simply using the symbolic language of the times to express a deeper truth. This is how I see it, anyway.
Let's take it from that time backwards for a second.

Let's assume for a short while that the earliest decks were created with a conscious awareness and intent of either Greek, Roman or Hebrew alphabet (the three being sources that may be at least considered given that those three were in use by the educated of the time). Even if an anterior connection can be made between those alphabets and Phoenician, or Ogham, or Runic, or Egyptian demotic or hieroglyphic, or whatever one cares to choose, that is quite distinct to these latter's connection to tarot.
The connexion is to the evolution of the tradition: my contention is that the more we trace the current of letter-tradition amongst these various strands, the more we make up for the fact that we are not direct recipients of the tradition in any of its forms, except a frayed Keltic form and Judaic form in which the backdrop of the picture -- its context -- has faded from view.

Thus one can see, for instance, in the development from Scandinavian Tifinag to the later Libyan alphabet, that the latter used the sun symbol (circle with dot at center) for B, the first month (begins at winter solstice), to represent (one surmises) the birth of the sun-hero, whereas the earlier, much more northern system used it for the S of spring (aligned with aries-taurus), this because north of the Arctic Circle that's when it appears. Both alphabets, then, indicate the last month, R (the 13th month, ending at winter solstice), by a circle without said dot at its center, this for the depleted sun that returns for a re-charge.
So I suspect that part of the underlying problem in all this is not even so much Ogham, or Runes, or Tree lore... nor whether or not Graves's research contains much that is of value, but rather something far simpler that prevents serious considerations of your theory: the apparent incongruity - or rather, the anachronism - between the times and places for the alphabets suggested and the apparent birth of tarot itself.
Then trouble your mind no more. For this is certainly not my hypothesis. My hypothesis has always been that it was the confluence merely of two known strands of a once more widely spread set of teachings (with local variations, of course, but demonstrably related is my point): Hebrew esoteric tradition, already flourishing in the land of the Troubadours, and insular Keltic poetic tradition, whose Tristan was part of the central inspiration behind Courtly Love, if deRougemont is to be at all believed.

Both these had the sacred alphabet, only each remembered only part of the original story. If little ol' me can see much of the original story by putting the two together as they survive today -- at an even more decayed stage -- then there is little doubt Jewish sages and trained British bards could have accomplished this. And I maintain that without the renewed impetus this implies, it is difficult (as scholars have shown, by their inability to do so) to explain either tarot or Kabbalah. With it, there is a chance we explain both.
 

venicebard

Statement of my method

To understand what I am trying to convey, one must stop thinking purely in terms of scholarliness (as important as this is) and think more in terms of fittingness. It is pattern recognition that holds the key, as sometimes the profundity and harmonious resonance of the pattern revealed can trump the weak (but at least existent) evidence that forms its basis, by showing something was there the whole time.

The Hanged Man calls forth the oak on a very fundamental level as well as a deeper symbolic one. For to hang someone, one looks for the quality of limbs reaching out from their trunk: this is the quality best exemplified physically (of all the trees of the alphabet) by oak, D or duir, which just happens to be numbered 12 in bardic. Add to this Graves's proposal that oak's summer-solstice placement (middle or 7th month) symbolizes the end of the reign of the heroic waxing year or oak-king marked by his sacrifice (upon an oak).

In this is a mixture: scholarship (the numbering of letters discussed on pp. 295-6 of TWG) -- somewhat uncertain because not footnoted, but corroborated, at least, by one other source (The Barddas of Iolo Morganwg, also somewhat uncertain in and of itself) -- combined with an hypothesis on the part of Graves -- the 'twins' hypothesis, wherein solar twins (waxing and waning year) compete for the heart of the moon goddess -- combined with simple observation (tree lore and common sense).

The first few months are clear in their meaning: B is birth, L is learning, N is negation of learning and newness of direction, F is his (the hero's) chieftainship (aries the head, the top of the round), and spring's springing forth from F (seen as springing forth from spring's vowel, O, it is O-F-S-H, or 4-8-16-0) show the hero (vegetation, the Corn Spirit) 'sacrificing himself in his flower': he flowers, then disappears leaving only our perception of the heroic in his wake (fathering further generations by scattering pollen, so to speak).

Now even without the other layers -- Semitic, scientific, and so on -- a clear case can I think be made. But understand that by setting aside its context -- Kabbalistic concepts and stipulations (Sefer Yetzirah especially), other alphabets besides the Keltic, and implications of scientific sophistication -- I will be showing only what set me forth on this quest in the first place -- the pointer pointing to greater things -- and that I myself would consider anyone completely swayed by this alone to be a bit credulous (easily swayed).

In other words, my feeling of certainty surrounding this theory is based on all of its implications and relations with regard to a greater picture both epigraphic and physico-chemical -- and poetic -- coupled with the prejudice I started out with, namely that the ancients and very-ancients were not the utterly knowledgeless boobs they tend to be branded as by moderns (see, for example, the book Hamlet's Mill).

Consider also that the numbering of letters, dependent as it is on Graves and Morganwg, is clearly an aspect of the symbolism, that is, makes sense symbolically -- as discussed by Graves (though he later [TWG, p. 378] turns to a purely theoretical numbering as of more personal importance to him) and augmented by me (as when we associate the birth of the sun-hero in B-birch with the number 5 in counting the digits of each limb of the newborn). This simplicity -- tendency to direct relevance requiring no fancy theorizing but only human observation -- was surely what kept the tradition (quite intricate when seen in its entirety) intact at all over the vast epochs through which it survived (and the centuries since its virtual demise).

Now: to get anywhere at all, we will need the following ingredients. I will list them, then we can discuss their solidity or lack thereof if you wish, then put them together into a simple argument that does not depend on atomic numbers, Tifinag, and particle physics . . . (at least ostensibly, though to me the deeper reality is still is floor or ground).

1. The tree-letters in their Gravesian form (TWG, chapters X and XI).

2. The numbers said to have been used to refer to them in Irish medieval literature (TWG, pp. 295-6).

3. The idea that the consonants make the months of a calendar that begins at winter solstice (waxing of days) and is divided into an upper or heroic side (winter-spring) and a lower or satiric side (summer-fall), complete with the implications this has with respect to the human form: spring being up towards the head, summer a blossoming out like the breasts, and so on.

4. Orientation of the above human implications with one's environment, inner and outer, in which forward is one's line of sight towards other and back is back towards (or within) self.

5. The trumps of the Tarot of Marseilles.

[to be continued]