Having read half of this thread today - my head hurts!
Sooo many ideas, thoughts, arguements, things to learn. This is why I have been avoiding TdM - and what I wish to avoid most about learning the TdM, because the pips just dont make sense unless you ADD something to the meaning that is not obvious in the cards.
But... I had a moment. If this has already been illustrated/thought out/already published by someone else, I do apologise (great minds think alike!). What if we keep completely to the cards?
For example..
7 of coins in my Grimaud could have been arranged in many ways, however it has been put as (bottom to top) 2 - 1 - 2 - 2. So, perhaps we could read the story of the card.
Now this can depend on intuition as well.
A) 2 coins, and then one is lost, there there is hint of a loss or a feeling of losing out on something. However, there grows something bigger and better as from that loss, perhaps a poor harvest or pruning sort of thing, comes a stronger overall foundation, as the 2 rows of 2 reflect 4, a stronger and better.
So... could feel good, then upset that something has gone, but that deadwood having gone produces a stronger more balanced concept...
OR
B) We have a triangle (2 +1) and a square (2+2) = reflecting how something other tries to come in, is actually a good contribution, rather than becoming heavy and chaotic.
This concept also then allows the cards to be read by the placement of the flowers, their flowering process etc as well. They are the accents to the overall message.
However, the message can change depending on intuitive interpretation.
OR maybe I am going nuts with these TdM's already.
I know that it doesn't completely work in that the wands.. sorry batons.. (must get used to call them batons) and the swords tend to be formed by a balance and then the adding of something in the centre. However, the batons (see, said batons that time lol) can have either 1 or 3 wands in the centre. And sometimes, just the sheer nature of having 10 swords all cooped up together in one card can create a feeling of oppression, or perhaps the healing crisis point (height of fever say) before the right road can begin...
Or maybe I'm talking rubbish
*shrug*
But, I guess I like the concept of Dee and his skrying a lot. So for me the pips are like the speculum, able to gaze into it and see stuff unfolding, see shapes form or vines twist and change. Because of my love of Dee and those of his stream, I can't see why that perhaps wouldnt been 100 miles off a possible viewpoint of a Renaissance type who tried to read the playing cards of Tarocchi.
(PS if I am talking rubbish then please tell me where Im going wrong
)
ETA - that I have only just thought of how that whole A or B can depend on which way the card is. As the coins are pippy, I have no idea which is 'upright' or 'reveresed'.
Argh, I need a lie down. I really am just rambling. Sorry to upset the tidy thread with my ramblings.