firecatpickles
Satori, I think we cross-posted. Read my post just before yours 
Just need everyone to edit their lists for consistency and ease of formatting.
Just need everyone to edit their lists for consistency and ease of formatting.
Marseilles Seekers Thread (Third Exercise)
Hooked on TdM
KK: my list is edited for ya.
Thanks for doing this! Sure saves my wrists at the moment and Satori's confusion. LOL
HoT
Thanks for doing this! Sure saves my wrists at the moment and Satori's confusion. LOL
HoT
firecatpickles
Hooked, I cannot enter your data in the spreadsheet because it doesn't fit the format.
stella01904
Beans, have you seen mine? I'd have to do it over. I didn't do it card by card, (At least one other person didn't, either) and I used semicolons for a reason - there was other punctuation necessary, and the semicolons indicated the main separations.
Now, I enjoyed the exercise and I would do it all over again, card-by-card-with-no-semicolons, except that:
A) The weekend is almost here and I have to work a long hours on the weekends
and
B) I'm on a public computer at the library, which closes early on Friday and Saturday, and is closed all day Sunday. So by the time I got mine all fixed it would be next week sometime.
Suggestion: Do a "lead-in", i.e.:
"Swords: this&that, thisthisthat; this&that, thisthisthat; this&that; etc.
and then:
Ace: this&that, this&that, this&that, etc.
II: this&that, this&that, this&that, etc.
...and so on. See what I mean?
That is, if it's okay with Enrique. I mean, I think it can get done without making a major production out of it. Keep it fun.
Now, I enjoyed the exercise and I would do it all over again, card-by-card-with-no-semicolons, except that:
A) The weekend is almost here and I have to work a long hours on the weekends
and
B) I'm on a public computer at the library, which closes early on Friday and Saturday, and is closed all day Sunday. So by the time I got mine all fixed it would be next week sometime.
Suggestion: Do a "lead-in", i.e.:
"Swords: this&that, thisthisthat; this&that, thisthisthat; this&that; etc.
and then:
Ace: this&that, this&that, this&that, etc.
II: this&that, this&that, this&that, etc.
...and so on. See what I mean?
That is, if it's okay with Enrique. I mean, I think it can get done without making a major production out of it. Keep it fun.
firecatpickles
Maybe I can do two spread sheets. One with the card-by-card meanings and another with suits only.
stella01904
Here are Cup associations from Hook and myself pasted together:
Candlesticks, lanterns, hourglass, planters, urns, goblets, ceiling lights, stackable Tupperware, wheels with axles, lamps, flowers, X-mas trees, stools, trophys, foozeball guys, human shape, bridge, fish, gravestones, statues, potluck dishes. peeled oranges; pumpkins/gourds; garlic pods; trophies; vases; bowls; hollow organs (heart, lungs, stomach); locket/jewelry receptacle/place for something precious; filled pastries; balloons; balls; bags; candleholders; incense burners; urns; lamps; potpourri burners; flower buds; pyramids (base); pots; planters; pedastals; any receptacle (sink, toilet, wastebasket); faceted gems (base); crystals (base); anything waisted or nipped in the middle: dress, wasp, spider...;
All that would be needed would be to edit out the dupilcates, like "candlesticks" and "candleholders" and get the punctuation consistent. No spreadsheet necessary.
ETA: Unless you just loooove messing with spreadsheets!
Candlesticks, lanterns, hourglass, planters, urns, goblets, ceiling lights, stackable Tupperware, wheels with axles, lamps, flowers, X-mas trees, stools, trophys, foozeball guys, human shape, bridge, fish, gravestones, statues, potluck dishes. peeled oranges; pumpkins/gourds; garlic pods; trophies; vases; bowls; hollow organs (heart, lungs, stomach); locket/jewelry receptacle/place for something precious; filled pastries; balloons; balls; bags; candleholders; incense burners; urns; lamps; potpourri burners; flower buds; pyramids (base); pots; planters; pedastals; any receptacle (sink, toilet, wastebasket); faceted gems (base); crystals (base); anything waisted or nipped in the middle: dress, wasp, spider...;
All that would be needed would be to edit out the dupilcates, like "candlesticks" and "candleholders" and get the punctuation consistent. No spreadsheet necessary.
ETA: Unless you just loooove messing with spreadsheets!
EnriqueEnriquez
Satori said:
No reason to feel down. If the person was satisfied with the reading then you did good. It is always about the other person, not about ourselves.
Even so, I understand what you are saying. You took a Ferrari for a test drive and got a bunch of red lights in a row.
We get what we get. Some times the messages in the cards are very simple: “Yes”, “No”, “feels right”, “feels wrong”. And we have to work with them. That is our bottom line: defining rhythms and turning them into messages. Some other times you get to see very interesting things and you experience very deep insights. The powerful part of all this is that we can’t control it. That’s what makes it so exciting, and new, every time.
Satori said:
I tend to think that a magician isn’t a person who create miracles, but a person who is able to detect miracles and point them to others. I have had lots of readings where a card that has seemingly nothing to do with the reading just pops out, or falls on the table, and it ends up being the whole point in the reading. For me, that is the tarot’s magic.
Satori said:
Ah! See? You already gave her something she couldn’t have gotten from a storefront reader. You created the space for her to experience the tarot. The first thing to learn from it is how anybody can get insights from the pips. The idea of the pips being ‘non-illustrated’ is a myth. The tarot is a visual oracle, and our traditions don’t use it as a visual object, but as a mnemonic device. We work in the opposite direction. I love when people becomes actively involved with the cards!
A few anecdotes come to mind:
- There was this girl who wanted to know if going to Northern Iraq to work would be safe. I asked her to take three cards, as usual, and when I turned the third card over I noticed she had taken two cards instead of one. I asked her to choose one of these two and she pointed to the one on top. I took the second card, now definitively rejected and put it aside. The reading suggested struggle and discomfort, but no imminent danger. When the reading was clear, I told her: "You know, all of this is a metaphor. When you picked your cards something peculiar happened: you took two instead of one. Just as the cards are a metaphor of the situation, I would see that action having metaphorical consequences, so, I think we should take a look at that card you choose by accident." She agreed, and the card was The Tower.
I love when that happens!
So I told her: "as it happened on the table, your life over there will have you always in the vicinity of danger. I asked you to choose a card, and The Tower got stuck to it. I asked you a second time which one you wanted, and you were certain in that you wanted this other one. Once you are there, stick you your instinct. Don't second guess your hunches, and don't lower your guard."
I am certain that she will never forget that reading. Nor I will! If you think about it, I simply comment on what the cards were saying without words.
- I showed the Noblet to my kid’s Karate sensei, explaining how I look at it. She spent a while looking at the cards. Now and then she would point at one card and say: "I know who this person is in my life!" Then she told me "I have had some enlightening experiences in my life, and I can see how this images can prompt one." I have never experienced the tarot like this. Can I have this images?"
I wasn't even doing a reading.
- A few weeks back I had a girl who comes quite often for readings. I like her a lot. She is a musician, very interested in many things, and very interesting. But she is going through lots of very hard stuff. At the end of the reading, she pointed to La Papesse and told me she always felt very represented by that card. Then she said: "I am leaving tomorrow. But I needed to look at this image. Yesterday I was at the Metropolitan Museum, looking at the medieval paintings. There is no red like medieval red, no blue like medieval blue... and this cards have these colors. There cards feel the same. I needed to come and look at them before going to deal with all my stuff abroad."
I told her Kokoshcka’s story, just as I shared it here. I told her that that is exactly what I see in the tarot, and how difficult it is to explain this to people who prefer to dream about mermaids and leprechauns.
Things like that happen very often. I never ask a person: “what do you see in these cards?” because it feels too “Rorchasch-like”. But it happens ofter that they will point at a card and tell me how that card is working them. At that point we have to harness our reader’s ego and become flight attendants. We aren’t ‘the captain’ anymore.
The second thing we can learn from this is very, very important and it has to do with the intimacy that metaphors create. ‘Getting’ a metaphor implies a certain level of sensibility and attention. Not all clients will naturally go for that. Your client deserves praise for doing so. But here is the thing: as soon as she ‘gets’ the metaphor, the realization the metaphor brings is the times stronger than something you simply spell for her. Getting a metaphor is, in itself, a revelation. And then, her connection with you becomes also stronger because you get to share with her an understanding of the ‘untold’. This is one of the most powerful things one can experience while working with the tarot.
Satori said:
Well... HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I hope you and your husband have a terrific time.
All the best,
EE
EnriqueEnriquez
Wrapping up...
Hello all,
I have to say that I find the results of this exercise to be very satisfactory. I know this was a little stretch, but I think it was important to show how the pips are that heaven full of stars in which we can draw as many constellations as we see it fit. You don’t have to ‘take’ these results with you. Drop them here and forget about them. Draw new constellations every time. It will be your clients question/concern what will provide the coordinates to do so.
In would like to wrap this third exercise up by sharing this quote from poet Ingeborg Bachmann:
“Whoever writes poetry engraves forms in our memory, wonderful old words for stone of lead, tied to or released by new words, new signs of reality. And I believe that whoever inscribes these forms also disappears into them with his own breath, which he offers as the unrequited proof of these forms truth”
Just like all poets disappear into their poems and wait for the reader to awake them again, the image makers disappeared into these cards we work with, and it is up to us to give back their life by breathing into their images. Looking at the cards we get their essence. Then we use metaphors an analogies to voice that essence in a way that gets adapted to our client’s specific concern. Doing this is like catching an old tune that make us feel as if we always knew it.
The second thing I may like to suggest, for you to get proficient in the art of seeing metaphors and analogies in the pips, is to read poetry. All kinds of poetry. Some of you may find that silly, or boring. I for one became acquainted with poetry late in my life. Before that I always considered myself incapable to read it. Once I put the necessary attention into it my life became enriched, and my understanding of the tarot increased. I tend to suspect that all poetry is spiritual work, because the world of spirit can only be explained, and grasped, trough metaphor. Any didactic approach simply trivialize it by trying to make rationally accessible what should always be a hunch. That is the tragedy of the new age market: by making the world of spirit ‘clear’, warm, and fuzzy, they transformed it into shiny gadgets and empty rituals. We may understand things. We may even understand what is not to be understood. But only what is revealed to us by metaphor brings us into intimacy with the untold.
For us, the main point of reading poetry is becoming familiar with metaphors, and with the way poets use many names to name the same things, which is basically what we do when we intend to tell all the stories from all the people in this worlds by using only 78 cards.
Just think about it.
I will let you rest until Saturday night. Then I will post a new essay on my site, and I will propose a new exercise in here.
In the meantime, your feedback and comments are welcome.
Thanks!
EE
Hello all,
I have to say that I find the results of this exercise to be very satisfactory. I know this was a little stretch, but I think it was important to show how the pips are that heaven full of stars in which we can draw as many constellations as we see it fit. You don’t have to ‘take’ these results with you. Drop them here and forget about them. Draw new constellations every time. It will be your clients question/concern what will provide the coordinates to do so.
In would like to wrap this third exercise up by sharing this quote from poet Ingeborg Bachmann:
“Whoever writes poetry engraves forms in our memory, wonderful old words for stone of lead, tied to or released by new words, new signs of reality. And I believe that whoever inscribes these forms also disappears into them with his own breath, which he offers as the unrequited proof of these forms truth”
Just like all poets disappear into their poems and wait for the reader to awake them again, the image makers disappeared into these cards we work with, and it is up to us to give back their life by breathing into their images. Looking at the cards we get their essence. Then we use metaphors an analogies to voice that essence in a way that gets adapted to our client’s specific concern. Doing this is like catching an old tune that make us feel as if we always knew it.
The second thing I may like to suggest, for you to get proficient in the art of seeing metaphors and analogies in the pips, is to read poetry. All kinds of poetry. Some of you may find that silly, or boring. I for one became acquainted with poetry late in my life. Before that I always considered myself incapable to read it. Once I put the necessary attention into it my life became enriched, and my understanding of the tarot increased. I tend to suspect that all poetry is spiritual work, because the world of spirit can only be explained, and grasped, trough metaphor. Any didactic approach simply trivialize it by trying to make rationally accessible what should always be a hunch. That is the tragedy of the new age market: by making the world of spirit ‘clear’, warm, and fuzzy, they transformed it into shiny gadgets and empty rituals. We may understand things. We may even understand what is not to be understood. But only what is revealed to us by metaphor brings us into intimacy with the untold.
For us, the main point of reading poetry is becoming familiar with metaphors, and with the way poets use many names to name the same things, which is basically what we do when we intend to tell all the stories from all the people in this worlds by using only 78 cards.
Just think about it.
I will let you rest until Saturday night. Then I will post a new essay on my site, and I will propose a new exercise in here.
In the meantime, your feedback and comments are welcome.
Thanks!
EE
Bernice
Edited mine - hope it's O.K.
Bee
Bee
firecatpickles
Yes, looks good.
