'Understanding the Tarot Court' Study Group #1

Happy to be joining in! This looks like a great study group and I've ordered the book.
My significator is the Queen of Swords. I'm the right age, gender, and a Gemini. Sometimes I am the Page of Wands or Swords too...my inner child, who still shows up quite often even though I'm 37 and have two kids.
My nemesis....I'm going to say King of Pentacles too...except the funny thing is, I married him! Yes, my husband is Japanese, engineer, Capricorn...my opposite in every way, and our relationship has alaways been challenging, but after 14 years here we still are, learning from each other.

I chose the Knight of Pentacles to represent me. My nemesis is the King of Swords.

I immediately eliminated the Kings and the Pages. The Kings remind me of someone with lots of power, both physically and mentally. He's the guy that can go out to the battle and lead his men to total victory. He commands the respect and attention of his populace. These characteristics don't gel with who I am. I don't like being a leader and I don't consider myself a strong person physically.

The pages remind me of young children who are infused with the spirit of enthusiasms, innocence, and child-like wonder. To them, the world is their oyster and a playground to be explored. I don't relate to that as being much older, I don't have that degree of enthusiasm and wonder about the world anymore.

I like the queen because she represents calmness and warmth. However, as a guy, I don't like being represented by a femalre character. That leaves me with the Knights. I don't like the knight of swords because he appears to aggressive; the knight of cups because he appears to passive; and the knight of wands because he appears to bright. I guess then my card is the knight of pentacles. His horse is still. He is well protected by his armor, and the pentacle appears to float in his fingers. The pentacle appears like a magic orb that he can throw into the enemy from a distance.

My nemesis is the King of Swords. He seems like a very uptight and serious guy who can't ever let loose. His sword appears as a barrier to connection and intimacy.

What a wonderful group! Why didn't I find it before?

I only have the one deck so far - Spiral. In it, I identify with both the Princess (Page) and Queen of Swords. The Princess is so very much the girl I used to be. All of the Swords court are friends with me, even if they seem harsh sometimes. I'm harsh too.
I also get on fairly well with Wands - I see my mother as the Queen of Wands, and my father in the Knight. I have a lot of respect for the Wands court, and sometimes wish I could be more like them and less swordy.
Cups I'm not so great with. The Princess (Page) is ok, because I've nothing against imaginative kids, but I sometimes get very impatient with the Knight and Queen. The King's all right, but I'm not entirely sure I trust his judgement.
Pentacles are probably the most foreign to me. It's odd, because I'm a Virgo and told I should use Queen of Pentacles as a Significator for that reason, but I've always found what this suit represents to be horribly boring. Again, the Princess I can tolerate, and the Knight I respect for his hard work, but the Queen sometimes turns me right off for being so concerned with material things. The King I respect for his success, but will never see eye to eye with him.
So I guess my nemesis is probably the earth couple: the Queen and King of Pentacles. And they'd probably kick my ass, because they're normal and reasonable and comfortable in the world. I have the Swordish tendency to remove myself from it.

bumping for a friend

I know I'm coming late to the party but hey, I'm going to gamble that you guys'll have me anyway!

This is the stream of consciousness reporting on how I approached this exercise. First task, choose your significator, easy, right? Well, the first difficulty is typing because I had tarot cards all over my keyboard, seeing as how they wouldn't all fit on the bed.

Moving the cards aside.

So I'm developing a twenty step program on how to find my significator:

1) choose my favorite decks that I feel like working with
2) sort the top eight decks into courts, pips and majors
3) flip through all the courts to see if any feel yummy
4) pick Prague, Petersen and Thoth
5) go through Thoth trying to ignore titles, seeing which pictures appeal to me
six) ditto for Prague
7) ditto for Petersen
8) compare the three piles, eliminating any cards that weren't chosen in all three
9) only I couldn't bear to eliminate any, so I ended up adding any that weren't chosen by all three, so all have the same. Oops!
10) Well, I'm down to eight cards!

Great system, eh? Now I only need another 10 steps to get me down to a single significator card, any ideas?

Okay, I decided that this is silly, I'm not trying to map all the complexities of my personality. After all, we each have all of the courts in us, right? We are all multiple. Old news. The job is to choose one, a predominant aspect of ourselves. So I went ahead and picked the Princess/Page of Wands, because I'm hoping to become the Queen of Wands but I still have some growing up to do. Ta da!

I picked Queen of Swords for my nemesis just because I hate her. Sorry, no offense to the Queen of Swords people on the boards, I love you guys! Its just that the Petersen Mother of Feathers is a very, very scary card (one huge eye watching you, lidless and relentless) and so is the Thoth (she's holding Holofernes' head, ew!)

That's my oh so rational approach. On to the next exercise...

Thanks for this study group, Rhiannon. It's just what I need. And thanks to Rhiannon & Gardener for bumping so I could find it.

I'm using the Hanson-Roberts for this exercise. By looks I'd go with the Queen of Cups. Blondes like totally have more fun, duh! I took the Myers-Briggs test once upon a time and came up with her too. Unfortunately, the most similar quality we have is getting over emotional. I wear my heart on my sleeve, and I cry at EVERYTHING! Weddings, funerals, birthday parties, Shrek 2!

Nemesis is such a harsh word. I don't want to offend anyone who identifeis with the Queen of Swords, but she and I are not great friends. She seems like an off "with her head", "shoot first, ask questions later" type. She seems cruel and I can't help but think about "back stabbing" and "cutting remarks". I know, the sword imagery is tainting my opinions, but I think she'd scare me even without it. She seems like the type of person you won't ever get a read on. Like she keeps her emotions deeply hidden.

Peace,
April

I finally got the book! So here goes.


1,2) eliminate at least half the court cards: I removed the entire Cups royal family since I am definitely not comfortable in the world of emotions, and the Pages because of their youthfulness. That left one more to eliminate. I chose the Knight of Pentacles because he appears very slow moving.

3) compare the remaining cards until you have only one left:

knight of wands (the horse seems to be in control of the knight)
queen of wands (cat - sorry, I'm a dog person)
king of wands, king of pentacles, king of swords (main focus here seems to be leading others, not me)
queen of pentacles (appears very focused on her denier, again not me)

It came down to the Queen of Swords (who I expected to win) and the Knight of Swords, but I chose to keep the Knight because he is physically active, in control of his horse and ready to use his sword to defend others and to right wrongs!

So, my significator is the Knight of Swords!

4) For my nemesis, I had to pick the King of Cups. An emotional leader with both hands full and sitting on a heavy throne floating over water.

Interestingly, since July when I started pulling a daily draw, the Knight of Swords and the King of Cups were 2 out of the 3 most pulled cards (the third card is the 2 of cups).

Using the standard Etteilla/Waite/LWB meanings combined with Myers-Briggs, I think I'm mainly a Page of Coins, attaching to him a "respect for knowledge, studious, etc." My nemesis would be the King of Swords, attaching to him a controlling, supervisor --type personality.

Yay! More guinea pigs... I mean... people! Thank you Maria for reviving this group. I'm going to post exercise #10 and maybe I'll get around to completeing some of the exercises I've skipped. Enjoy all!

Rhiannon -

You have another guinea pig. I'm having a terrible time with Court Cards!

As a significator I've chosen the Queen of Swords for myself. I used to choose the Queen of Pentacles simply for the physical description and the fact that I am an earth sign (Capricorn)...but the Queen of Swords describes more of my experiences in life so far and how I deal with people. Most people anyway.

My nemesis would have to be the King of Pentacles. The financial things about this guy just don't match mine.

I hope I'm not too late for this study.