Marseilles again (Study Group)?

[Moonbow]

Re: Marseilles reading

Hello anyone who wants to do this..........

I said previously that I would post a reading and perhaps all you experienced and budding marseilles enthusiasts can give me your marseilles take on it, (brilliant suggestion Diana). Marseilles decks are completely new to me and I dont want to be influenced at all by RW style so I am following the little white book.

Three card - Mind Body Spirit spread

Q~ What can the Marseilles Tarot teach me?

1. Page of Coins
2. Six Cups
3. Six Wands

Page of Coins - I understand this to mean that wealth is coming my way - but according to the lwb. it foretells a legacy which is not necessarily monetary wealth but could be a benefit of some other kind - actually, remembering the question, this is an excellent card in this position. Maybe its saying to me that Marseilles decks will bring me a wealth of knowledge as well as fulfilment, peace of mind, happiness???

Six Cups - this card seems to appear alot for me lately. The lwb. says this means lasting success and stability. Hmmm.. Could it mean that I will learn how to use the Marseilles cards and will continue to use them (lasting success). Once hooked on them I will be just as enthusiastic as some of you are?? Perhaps that they will become my main reading deck??

Six Wands - 'improvement, progress, material victory' - (lwb again)To me this is saying almost the same as card 2. Perhaps I will find contentment and peace of mind through using this deck - tricky card this one. I would like your views.

Its brief, I know, but I find I cannot yet read these cards intuitively. please tell me your take on these cards.

Moonbow*

 

[Diana]

Okay Moonbow*. I saw your thread earlier today, but I was at work and only had time to read threads, not to answer them.

First of all, I understand why you used the LWB - so as not to get influenced by the RW meanings, but my advice would be this:

Get up from your chair. Go over to the LWB and pick it up. Move over to the nearest waste-paper basket and toss it in without a backward glance.

Done? Good.

I have to warn you that I don't know what a Body Mind Spirit spread is. I have never figured out what that is supposed to mean.

This is how I would read the cards. Other people may have different ways of going about it. Any references I make to the actual pictures are from the Grimaud deck, but most Marseilles decks are very similar, so I hope that will be okay.

Page of Coins. Coins can mean money - but not with a question that is "What can the Marseilles Tarot teach me?" You're spot on when you say the Coin aspect has nothing to do with money but with something else. Now one mustn't forget what a Page is. A Page is always in the service of someone - in the Marseilles, he often serves the Queen (the Knight would serve the King). The Page is humble. The Page is young - he needs to learn and to learn with an open and innocent heart. A Page, to serve his Queen, needs to forget himself and always remember that he is in the service of someone greater than he. But the Page of Coins is not a dreamer like the Page of Cups, for instance. Do you see the intensity with which he looks at the Coin that he is holding up at eye-level? He's a very sharp guy this one - he can't be fooled easily. He's a practical kind of person.

He looks very self-assured - but he is not so self-assured as you think. He is looking to the left - to the past - there is a certain nostalgia here. (We find that nostalgia a little in the other two cards.)

I could go on for a few more paragraphs, but I reckon this is a good enough push start for you, no? So we could say that the Valet of Coins here is to remind you that you with the Marseilles Tarot, you are entering a whole new world - a world for which you will need great respect and you must not forget to remain humble before such greatness.

The Valet of Coins is telling you that you have a treasure in your hand - and at your feet. (He has a Coin in his hand and at his feet, did you notice? That means he's got a good foothold in not only the spiritual realm but the material realm as well.) The Valet of Coins also needs to FOCUS (see again how he fixes the Coin in his hand.)

The Six of Cups. Now Sixes are always related to the Amoureux (VI) (Lovers.) So you've got to remember this - it's very important for all the minors (the connection to the Majors, I mean). It is also related on another degree to le Diable XV (Devil) (15 is 1+5 is 6). But let's concentrate on the relation with the Lovers and forget the second degree. What is a six? A six is hesitation, choice, decision. (It comes between the number five which is the number of Man and the number seven which is the number of Perfection.)

So I would say that the Marseilles is pointing out to you that you need to make a choice. You need to listen to your heart. Do you want to go down this new path? Possibly a rather difficult one - because the path of Love is never easy. But the path of Love is also full of blessings. As this is the Six of Cups (and not Swords, or Coins or Batons), then it is really a card that is asking you to be true to your heart. Not be influenced by other people or by books or by any intellectualism that may impress you too much. You have to choose to go the way of YOUR heart.

See how the flowers are separated in the middle? And do you see the flower in the middle? That flower is your heart...... (look at the 7 of Cups - see what has happened to the flower? ).

Love can lead to such Perfect Harmony.

Six of Batons (They are not Wands by the way - there are no such things Wands or Magicians in the Tarot of Marseilles (althought the Hermit is a kind of a Magician - Merlin - but that is another story).

So we're back with the sixes. Choice, hesitation, doubt and LOVE. But here we're no longer dealing with emotions. We're dealing with something very active. Batons are the most active element of the Tarot. (Batons are the fire element to me - some people see them as air.) If you look at the card, you will see that the flowers are not linked by a stem. They are kind of floating in the air. How can the nourishment circulate? Will they not wither and die?

Yup, they will, if you don't work hard. However, there's a TON of energy in this card just waiting and wanting and willing to be used. It's in the centre where all those Batons are criss-crossing. That energy is yours for the taking - but you have to go and find it, or else it will just stagnate and the flowers will wither and die.

Learning the Marseilles for you will be an apprenticeship (we link back to the Page of Coins here). It will not be as easy as the Rider Waite - you can't just look at a picture and say "oh yes, there's a lady in the garden - she looks happy - and there's a cute little snail on the ground next to her." You're going to have to have a lot of motivation.

If we add up the two Minors (I don't add up Court Cards), we get the number 12. Twelve is the Hanged Man. The Hanged Man sees the world from a completely different angle. Take him out and look at him. Do you see how HAPPY he is? How relaxed he is? 12 is also 1+2 equals 3. The Empress. The Empress is not, contrary to what the Golden Dawn imagined, a Mother. The Empress is the most intellectual of all the Tarot Arcana. She lights up our intellectual path. She is Intelligence and Thought.

There, I have done for now.

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

Diana, I hope one day you will read my cards

 

[Moonbow]

Diana

Thankyou, I have printed this off for future ref. I think I'm beginning to 'get it'. Hard to shake of RW, specially because I still want to read with them as well. As you know my deck could be a little better with the detail but even so I could still see the Page studying his pentacle, and the flower in the six of cups... brilliant, the engergy of the Batons See what you mean about the lwb (thats where I got the Wands from BTW)- how bad of a Marseilles deck!!

Anyone else like to give me their take on these cards?

Moonbow* (I'm so happy...tra..la..la..la..la)

 

[Rusty Neon]

Re: Marseilles reading

Q~ What can the Marseilles Tarot teach me?

1. Page of Coins
2. Six Cups
3. Six Wands

Hi moonbow.

I'm using a Grimaud/Marteau for this.

Valet of Coins:

As someone new (Valet) to the TdM, you have picked up your new TdM deck (top coin) and are wondering what to do with it. You still have your RWS-based decks handy and as part of your experience set (bottom coin).

Sixes:

The Six is about Choice and Decision (Six = VI The Lover). You have two Sixes in your spread. You are thus definitely at a crossroads or a new threshold in your tarot experiences.

Six of Cups:

In the middle of the card is a vine, alongside a left column and right column, each column consisting of 3 cups. One of those columns is your RWS deck(s), while the other column is your TdM deck(s). By using both the RWS and TdM decks, you can enrich (growing vine) your knowledge (Cups) of tarot.

Six of Batons:

The image of the card shows two pairs of wings -- one pair of wings on each side of the card (left and right). Set yourself free and fly. _Choose_ to enjoy the experience and excitement of another approach to tarot.

 

[Cerulean]

I'm doing a mini-hahaha...

Mari's chortling over this:
...I can understand why a lot of Anglo-Saxons do not find the Marseilles appealing, if they order the US Games Tarot of Marseilles (which is the one available on Amazon for instance)....
------------------------------------------
My silly humor substituted the term 'people who mostly rely on Marseilles choices published by U.S. Games'. My sis' first deck was the Tarot Classic--actually a pretty deck among some of their choices, but she preferred other art decks once she got a taste of them.

I've only come to admire the different French and Swiss Marseilles this past year, especially because of the brillant readers here.

But the cockles of my warm collecting heart are still chuckling over finding large card versions of the Visconti that seem as beautiful as the Milanese Brera museum reproductions in calendars and catalogues...so if there's a little room for a minority Marseilles style from an Italian-fan base, I am delighted...

Best wishes and excuse my silly humor,

Mari H.

 

[Diana]

Ross: I'll read your cards anytime! It would be an honour.

Rusty Neon: I like what you said about the two different approaches that Moonbow* can now choose from.

Mari: I chuckled back.

Moonbow*: And we haven't even started talking about the colours! When we start talking colour, then the Tarot of Marseilles really comes alive.

 

[Moonbow]

Thankyou everyone

Rusty Neon

Thankyou so much for replying, this is all becoming so much clearer now, loved what you said about the choices of the sixes and as I said before I can even see this in the marseilles deck that I have. (Hadar - on its way)

Diana, colours! - go ahead I'm raring to go!

Moonbow*

 

[jmd]

I can see that a number of people have already replied, but thought I would post before reading through them... so if I duplicate or contradict others, not to worry

Firstly, mention is made that the spread is of three cards - 'Mind Body Spirit'. I am not sure exactly what this means in terms of the question, so will translate it to refer to one's thoughts and feelings (middle card), what one has to do (right card), and what it is symbolically indicating for a transformation to occur (left card). Also, I will consider that the cards are listed from left to right (though I will describe them from centre, to right, to left).

• 'Q~ What can the Marseilles Tarot teach me?
  
• ​
  1. Page of Coins
  [*][centre] 2. Six Cups
  [*]

  ​

  3. Six Wands​

The sixes I often take to indicate harmony. The six cups shows, in terms of the question, that here will be presented harmonious lessons which deeply quench yet forever make thirsty.

If one looks carefully at the way in which this card is structured - especially if one has Kabalistic interests - it is one of the few cards which seems to suggest the Tree of Life: the two pillars of three Cups each, and the central column clearly indicated, but not with cups. Hence, the card also suggests that one may swing a little from extreme to extreme - from wanting to totally immerse oneself to stepping back with critical mind.

Yet each of those 'swings' is there to correct the excessive disposition towards one side. Remember, not only possibly choices, but inner and harmonious discovery of the Marseille (to relate it back to the question at hand).

The flower arrangement within the central pillar can show that a seed centrally planted (see the centre of the central 'pillar' in, for example, the Hadar) will yield not only rooting-growths which penetrate deep within the firm foundation of the Earth, but also blossom into the light of the Sun's rays - and giving rise to the brilliance of the flower.

As a six of Cups - even if in the 'position' of a specified 'Mind' placement - one's emotions or feeling life is implied. Here, again, the indication is that your feelings for the Marseille will unfold with harmonious - though fluctuating - tendencies.

The Wands or Bastons (which are more staff-like than properly wands) again point to the harmonious tendency in, this time, related to one's thinking (I personally prefer to connect wands or Bastons to Air, and to growth, but growth which is 'fed' by the unseen thoughts sustaining the physical from the spiritual realm).

The position relates to what one may have to do or engage in.

Here look at the image: the tasks are somewhat clearly indicated - an integration of what one brings with what is presented. The 'danger' is in allowing those flowers (whose stems have been cut) to remain unconnected. The task is to bring them back towards the solid firmament from whence they may sprout new roots and henceforth fresh buds.

The two 'side' flowers, which remain connected, suggest to not hesitate and investigate 'side' flowerings, for these may be brought back into the study and integrated further towards harmonious insights.

The Page of Coins is so very interesting. In many ways, in both positions of his arms and legs, he mirrors the Basteleur (Magician). Yet he carries not a wand, but a Coin. Or is it a mirror by which to better know himself? or a globe by which to better investigate either the terrestrial or celestial worlds? Or indeed, is it seed - as that other Coin seems to indicate by its seeming burial within the confines of the Earth?

As ye sow, so shalt thou reap... what not better card to indicate this in its imagery!

_____
...Now to read the other responses ​

 

[Moonbow]

jmd

Many thanks for spending the time to reply to my spread, I have also printed your reading for future ref. My instincts tell me that I am going to find Marseilles studying so enjoyable and I cannot wait 'till we start the 78card/week threads.

Moonbow*