Learning to Love the Pips

It seems that for many people the pip cards are a big stumbling block to reading with a full TdM deck. I'm curious – what about them turns you off? Do you think you can't read without a picture to free associate on? Do you think you need to use numerology and that feels too mechanical? Do you believe you need to memorize key words? Do the images just leave you cold? Something else?

What do you think it would take to get you over your inhibitions?
If you've learned to feel comfortable with the pips, what helped with that?

I'm asking because I'm trying to design a class to help people with this particular block. I have some exercises people can do themselves on my Tarot-Heritage website, but I'm trying to come up with some fun, interactive things to do in a group.

I love the pips and often do readings just with them because my intuition and creativity are freed up when my attention is not fixed on someone else's visual interpretation of the card. Besides, it breaks my heart to see how in French and Italian books the pips are shoved into a few pages in the back, or ignored altogether, like a poor relation the author is embarrassed to be seen with. I'd like to see an American TdM reading style evolve, where every card, no matter how insignificant, has an equal voice in the deck. Affirmative Action for pips!!

My favorite is the Pips as Trumps method. It makes sense to me from a philosophical perspective, but I would rather not go into that now.

I'm also a fan of the Pips as Trumps method. When I was just starting to delve into pips, they didn't make sense exactly for the reason you've mentioned - no picture. They're generally too abstract and repetitive, and looking at the images alone, you can hardly say anything except 2 Wands or 10 Coins.

However, it's different now. First of all, the Pips as Trumps method has really assembled the pips into a solid and meaningful system for me. And now, I'm learning to read the pips as patterns/symbols rather than emotional/intellectual scenes, partly inspired by Enrique Enriquez's visual rhymes, partly by my own free associations.

And yes, I'm totally with you for the new free Pip movement!

I'd love to learn to "love" those pips!

After many attempts to memorize keywords, create minor-major relations, associate pips to rws meanings, and dabble into numerology and the theology of arithmetics, i found my guiding light in the small booklet by Mr. Lee Bursten. His approach to the pips fit me like a glove and i'm not looking back. I still like to explore and gain perspectives from other methods, but his simple storyline in numbers is perfect for me.

Here's a thread I started a while back in which I explain his (and my) way to the TdM minors:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=195984

I like the pips as trumps idea because you aren't bringing anything in from the outside. But I think getting a keyword for each pip should just be the start. For me, each pip card is a little packet of energy, each with its own wave length. When I turn a card over I try to let the card smack me in the face with its energy, then see what pops into my mind as a result.

The story-telling method is great fun. Lately, I've been seeing the batons as light swords and the cups as synchronized swimmers. I think I'll make up a story about a synchronized swimming team attacked by a horde of light sword wielding pirates. Then I'll end with the 10 of Coins where they all make friends and go out for pizza

I know it sounds radical, but I think that I learned to love the pips the day I dismissed numerology completely and started "scrying" into the pictures for details, as if they were conceptual representations. I believe this is what gave me the confidence I needed with pip cards. After that I was able to add extra layers of meaning by using numerology and Bursten's storytelling method (and a bit of the Pips as Trumps method, too, but not too much).
I think this is because I first learned to read tarot based only on what I saw, even with my first Majors only Marseille deck. Now I think that an approach which is only visual could be confusing at first, so having a keyword or two in mind wouldn't hurt.

Eremita90 said:

I know it sounds radical, but I think that I learned to love the pips the day I dismissed numerology completely and started "scrying" into the pictures for details, as if they were conceptual representations.

Click to expand...

This is what I was trying to say, but you did it much more elegantly. I'm trying to think of ways to give students an experience that will shift them into "scrying" with the pips.

I agree that it helps to start with some sort of framework. My framework rests on the fact that the pips and court cards are arranged in a hierarchy. I see each suit as an area of interest: work, money, love, power; and with each higher card you have more of whatever is represented. As you go up the court ranks, each one has more power, authority and wisdom than the ones below it.

I also see a battle between odd and even cards. The odd-numbered cards try to extricate themselves from the preceding even-numbered card and create a new reality, while the even cards try to drag the odd cards back to safety or stagnation.

BSwett said:

After many attempts to memorize keywords, create minor-major relations, associate pips to rws meanings, and dabble into numerology and the theology of arithmetics, i found my guiding light in the small booklet by Mr. Lee Bursten. His approach to the pips fit me like a glove and i'm not looking back. I still like to explore and gain perspectives from other methods, but his simple storyline in numbers is perfect for me.

Here's a thread I started a while back in which I explain his (and my) way to the TdM minors:

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=195984

Click to expand...

I'm a big fan of Lee Bursten's system, too. It's so simple, but it works so well. It just feels so right. I may take other things into account when I do a reading, but I always start with the Lee Bursten method. It's easy to remember, too.

Hi Sherryl

I agree with you on this point. In fact, there are so many layers of meaning that are possible in the pip cards that I'm always excited when one shows up.

1-Visual or "conceptual" level
2- Numerological level
3- Correspondence with the Major Arcana
4- Unfolding of a process (like in the storytelling method)
5- "Hierarchical" level (the one you're talking about)

The list is not meant to be exhaustive, of course, and could go on.

This is also what makes the pips so confusing, I believe, even when one is not a total newbie. I also think that the method you are talking about could sometimes be used "backwards", which is something I derived from my reading of Plotinus. His idea was that there is an absolute principle, the "One", which emanates the following, progressively less perfect layers of reality. So in some contexts a two of wands may be more powerful than a ten, because it's closer to the ace, the principle, while the ten could stand for "exhaustion" of the principle represented by the ace. This is not necessarily a bad thing: while the two may be "more" in terms of energy, it may also mean that such energy is still latent, just a barely unfolded potential, so much still needs to be done. After all, I think the two methods are opposite only apparently.

Finally, I feel the same way about odd and even numbers, although unlike, say, Jodorowsky, I wouldn't want to understand even numbers as feminine and odd numbers as masculine: personally I see it as kind of stereotypical . But yes, considering whether a card is odd or even adds an extra layer for me too (as if we hadn't enough )

Mat