Marseilles Seekers Thread (Third Exercise)

EnriqueEnriquez

Dear all,

You did great. I am still waiting for everybody to post their exercises -and there is no real rush. Even so, I can see how the objectives of the exercise have been accomplished. The important thing here was to stretch our analogical muscles a little bit by actually tracing analogies between the pips and these events that have us consulting the cards at any given time.

To summon this exercise up I would like to quote painter Anselm Kiefer again. Since we are following the tradition of the image makers, no one would be better suited to give us inspiration than one of the greatest image-makers of our time. Just as we see the tarot as poetry, Kiefer sees painting as philosophy. His work is based on Jewish mysticism, the Kabbala, Astrology, Alchemy and gnosticism -examples in the web are abundant- and I find this little passage from an interview very eloquent in regard of our work here:

“The most interesting fact about constellations is that they are completely arbitrary. When we look up to the heavens we are always in a position to see new and different pictures. We can invent them millions of times, over and over again. And this demonstrates once more the many different layers of the Mythical. And of arbitrariness in a positive sense, which allows us to invent constellations as we see it fit... This brings us back to the beginning, where we said that there is no generally valid overall meaning-nothing per se. We must all create our own meaning. An artist creates a meaning and it is possible to associate this with constellations, which are images arbitrarily drawn by human beings.”

I would like to insist in the convenience of having someone -it doesn’t have to be Satori- collecting all meanings in one single list. I don’t mean an Excell sheet, but simply copy paste, so we can have all the imagery you have associated with each one of the pips listed together. This will help us relativize the intrinsic value of each one of these images since, as Stella pointed out, a pip will look today like something and tomorrow like something else, based on the context and the question we are working with.

I am really happy with your results, and very inspired by your latest comments.

Thanks!

All the best,

EE
 

SilentBreeze

Finally got though all of the cards.

4 cups – decorative table
7 wands- helicopter
6 cups- two teams playing dodge ball
9 cups – war zone (people shooting arrows at each other)
3 coins- a mask
7 swords – a nest
1 sword – piñata being knocked down
10 wands- tangled jewelry
1 wand- acid rain and an umbrella without a top
1 coin – one of those chocolate coin candies
8 wands- weaving/ making a carpet, writing on parchment
2 wands- X on a treasure map
2 cups- watching a dolphin show
2 swords – tying a shoelace
10 coins- playing roulette
4 wands- crutches
8 cups- people working in cubicles
4 swords- getting a tattoo
10 cups- a dance (with the DJ at the top)
8 swords- fancy hairstyle
6 wands – people celebrating on both sides of the world
1 cup – a fancy birdhouse
2 coins- a roll of film
5 swords- stretchers
6 swords- stain glass window with flower design in the middle
5 coins- magic carpet
6 coins- plates at a dinner table
3 cups- two people having the same idea
4 coins- a shield, a coat of arms
10 swords- one of those kitchen knife holders
8 coins- magic bean stock
9 wands- changing room
5 cups- board game
7 coins- gumball machine
3 wands- team huddle
7 cups- growing taller
2 wands- turtle hiding in its shell
9 coins- hidden room
5 wands – hanging up a picture
9 swords- shuffling and dealing cards

For some reason It's harder for me to come up with words for wands and swords rather then coins and cups.
Also some of them, I had no idea why they reminded me of a certain thing, it just brought certain picture to mind, even though thats not what they looked like directly.
 

Hooked on TdM

EE: I'll let you know tomorrow if I can do it. I'm just waiting to get my wrists braces. Hopefully I can go and get them tomorrow and then I won't have to worry about watching what I do on the computer... If I have them, I can do it.. but I will have to let you know tomorrow afternoon for sure.

Hooked
 

EnriqueEnriquez

Hooked on TdM said:
I'm just waiting to get my wrists braces.

Wrists braces??? What happened to you?!!!

I hope everything goes well.

Best,

EE
 

EnriqueEnriquez

SilentBreeze, you did beauifully!

SilentBreeze said:
For some reason It's harder for me to come up with words for wands and swords rather then coins and cups.

Yes, I understand what you are saying. Both Swords and Wands sequences have this contractive sound that builds up along the sequence making each card almost indistinguishable from the others. The crescendo is very sustained, but not as eloquent as we see it happening in Cups and Coins. In both Swords and Wands there is always a binary pattern that we can define as “flower-no flower”.

This is natural because, as we have seen before, Swords and Wands contract while Coins and cups expand. Imagine all the pips are basically the same ‘material’, a material that we can see as akin to wax. When you put wax in a mold to solidify, you get a candle. Candles may be tall, short, thick or thing, but they always look like candles. That is the way our Swords and Wands function. But if we melt wax, it will become very vital, and it will create all kind of different shapes on the ground. This is the way out Coins and Cups function.

SilentBreeze said:
Also some of them, I had no idea why they reminded me of a certain thing, it just brought certain picture to mind, even though thats not what they looked like directly.

Good! When we look at the image and we see it looking like something, we have an analogy. When we look at the image and we see it representing some other thing, we have a metaphor. In other words, a pip will either paraphrase something (analogy) or stand for something (metaphor). Both representational strategies are useful for us.

Thanks!

EE
 

Hooked on TdM

Bad news, no wrist braces today. My money hasn't come through yet. UGH.

It's nothing really major EE. I went to the doc thinking I had arthritis in both my hands and walked out with carpal tunnel in both my hands, much to my surprise. So I need to be in wrist braces for three weeks and if there's no improvement, they'll send me for testing to see if surgery will help. I'm technically not supposed to be on the computer without them so.. SHHHHH don't tell anyone. ;)

If no one else offers and I get those damn braces in a timely manner, I will still be up to the task! :)

HoT
 

Satori

So, I did try to collate the lists today...but I couldn't figure out how to get it all nice and neat in the Excel sheet.

Can anyone tell me how to create a table??? Or better yet, does someone want to volunteer?
 

firecatpickles

I thought EE said don't worry about doing a spread (i.e., Excel) sheet?
 

firecatpickles

I've been thinking...

I could very easily crunch this into an Excel file, anyway.

However, I need everyone to edit their lists this way and only this way so it will automatically format for me. (Lark, I have already included yours in the file yours so you don't have to do the following :) ).

First, change all instances of the pip names to:

swords
cups
wands
coins

In other words, do not use the word "of" or French, Spanish, etc. words

Second, off-set your lists with commas only. Very important: do not include any other form of puncuation such as periods, dashes, quotation marks. Commas only.

Please see my post as an example here: http://tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=1523803&postcount=32

Thank you
 

Satori

So I just gave a Marseille reading, the first since I started studying the EE method! The recipient was quite happy with exchange, but I felt a let down. I didn't feel like I really saw enough in the pips!!! We've been doing this exercise with the pips and I just didn't see any of the things we all have been talking about.

I was pretty disappointed in myself. I really wanted to have revelational moment, and see something really profound, even slight profundity. But no.

In fact the card that stood out the most, that I read the best, was the Star. No surprise there. The human card, the one we connect to....and it was a jumper, not even dealt! And in fact my sitter gave me an insight into one of the pips. The VIII of Swords. She said at first railroad tracks, but then she said it looked like the two halves of a brain. That her right and left brain were coming together. And she was very heartened by that. And I just smiled and said that is so great! And I'm thinking....I didn't read that, she did, good job Satori. LOL.


And as for the Pips list, I'm not sure I can do it. Will see how my schedule plays out, but right now, I have some really busy days ahead. My Dad comes home on Saturday, so we are bracing for his return.

Tonight though, we are going out to eat at an Italian restaurant to celebrate our anniversary and birthday. Both my husband and I were born today, in 1962. My hub is three hours older than me. So tonight we celebrate!