Let me propose you all - a "game".

smleite

I would like to make you all a proposal. Let’s play a game that, I believe, does not belong to the Tarot Games and Fun forum. I cannot imagine doing it with decks other then Marseilles, but that, I admit, is a personal limitation. So, feel free to tell me this thread doesn’t’ belong to this section.

It is about looking to Tarot in a “reversed” way…

I once called Le Bateleur something like “the great illusionist”, mostly because he stands for number one, and thus for unity, and I see this “unity” as being exactly what separates us from Wholeness. I will not explain it here again, but I tried to do it in this thread: http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=28304

Lets look to those 22 Major Arcana as representing veils that obliterate reality from us, instead of considering them to be answers or solutions. Of course, once a veil is removed, you find an answer in the very spot, but the point of this “game” I suggest is to focus on the veil.

Now, try to see La Papesse presenting us Tarot as a book of veils. Who better than her? Having passed through Le Bateleur, we are already immersed in this world of delusion, and are ready to face and study veil after veil.

Our “quest” doesn’t have to follow any order. We can simply try to identify the veils (the illusions) every card presents us, and then discuss them or not.

I will point a veil, to begin with. Arcane VI, L’ Amoureux, presents us with several riddles, from the identification of the characters to the plural “hidden” in the French title, but I think that the true delusion is in that lovely Eros pointing his arrow to the lovers (or whatever they are). Human love is an illusion; the true romance is between each one of us, the lovers, and Love itself. The true romance in this card is between L’ Amoureux and Eros.

Could we discuss this?

Silvia
 

Fulgour

I would be very interested in participating in this.
After all, Le Tarot is no more literally its images
than Hamlet is a history of Denmark...
 

Fulgour

XIII

La Morte : The Dead Women

What about this?
 

Diana

I want to play too. Will need to find some quality space to do so. Just wanted to say that I love your idea, Silvia and I will be back.
 

punchinella

Smleite this is a lovely idea. Although I haven't been around much lately, this thread just 'grabbed' me . . .

Because L'Amoureux is such a riddle, it strikes me that there are several more veils which could be elaborated upon if I didn't have to go to work now :eek: (The riddle cuts many different ways, that is. Obviously. :) )
 

smleite

Punchinella, I missed you!

It takes time to fully enjoy this “game”, doesn’t it? I am now going to think about Fulgour’s riddle…
 

smleite

Fulgour, I like your riddle a lot. If the Arcane is unnamed, you will give it a name “at your own peril”. La Mort, of course…

I once wrote this about The Unnamed Arcane in another thread:

“(…) About the skeleton: the limits of human life are the mother’s womb, and the grave. Both can be seen here, I think – death is generally accepted as being female, and the earth which “she” revolves is a symbol of the largest of all “mother’s wombs”, were life is continually irrupting from apparently “dead” material. And in the skeleton’s pelvis, the “space” where internal organs should be appears to be emphasized, perhaps to point out the place of a uterus… or am I seeing too much? Any initiation, of course, is a kind of death, for we must die to this world in order to born into another”.

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=22920

Now, my own very “free” translation of a wonderful commentary on the nature of women, by St. Odon, Abbot of Cluny, 10th century: “Physical beauty doesn’t go beyond the skin. If man could see what is under the skin, the sight of woman would revolve their hearts. If we cannot stand touching, with the point of a finger, a spit or a portion of manure, how can we desire to embrace a bag of excrement?” (I suppose the nature of man, or at least the nature of a holy man, as Odon certainly was, is far different from the nature of women). Anyway, the skeleton was used, in art, as a way of depicting the transitory nature of beauty - mostly female beauty, of course. A skeleton would embrace a young woman, or she would appear next to an old lady and the figuration of death, just to advise (man, I suppose) about the short duration of physical charms.
 

Fulgour

La 13

Tarot's unnamed Arcane appears not to be Mr. Death,
but the skeletal presentation of a female, with an apron
and headscarf... and she isn't actively doing anything ~
just passively handling her scythe, like an old broom.
 

punchinella

more on VI L'Amoureux

smleite said:
Lets look to those 22 Major Arcana as representing veils that obliterate reality from us
Cupid's arrow points to the young & "attractive" woman on the card's right--or, to the bond between her and the similarly attractive man at the center. This arrow would appear to indicate that love exists between these two individuals, and not between him and the older, more aggressive woman opposite. But perhaps this Cupid-love is the illusion; perhaps it represents intoxication, infatuation, a fleeting thing compared with the attachment and devotion of the older woman, possibly a discarded lover or mother, someone whose history is long & whose passion runs deep. In reality, the young woman stands sinister in relation to the man; the older woman, conversely, stands to his right, sustaining and supporting him even as he rejects her. The arc of Cupid's arrow is the rod from which this veil is thrown, obscuring vision and clouding judgment.

(Smleite, my thoughts are never as deep as yours, but I do so want to "play"-- :) )
 

Fulgour

Cupid or Cosmic Fury...?

VI L'Amoureux

To our left we see one sent to call by La Papess,
now come to remind the young man of Wisdom's
charms (and obligations). The fair maiden there
to our right may well be coming from Mistress
L'Imperatrice ~ after all, the show must go on...