Marseilles Seekers Thread (Third Exercise)

[firefrost]

Edited my list.

 

[EnriqueEnriquez]

dear all,

I just want to amplify on what I was saying about the convenience of reading poetry. Consider this poem from Miklós Radnóti:


Postcard
4

I fell next to him. His body rolled over.
It was tight as a string before it snaps.
Shot in the back of the head-"this is how
you'll end". "Just lie quietly," I said to myself.
Patience flowers into death now.
"Der spring noch auf," I heard above me.
Dark filthy blood was drying on my ear.

Szentskirályszabdja, October 31, 1944

"Der spring noch auf" means something like “to pop open” and comes from a verb that describes flowers blossoming. A bullet making a brain blossoming from a head is a powerful image that take us back to looking at the pips. Each card is a pistol’s shot waiting to be turned into a blossoming. That is our job, turning pips into messages, bullets into blossoms.

(BTW The only reason why you and I can read that poem is because Radnóti’s wife had her husband’s body exhumed from the mass grave where he was thrown on November 1944. The poem was on a notepad the corpse had in his pocket.)

Best,

EE

 

[firecatpickles]

So far I have entered lark's, Kilted Kat's, Bernice's, firefrost's and Satori's lists into the spreadsheet.

 

[Satori]

Hi Kilted Kat,

Thanks for doing this! I just fixed my first page of words, from page one of the thread. Some of those are long, but I think they are my best ones.

 

[Satori]

dear all,

I just want to amplify on what I was saying about the convenience of reading poetry. Consider this poem from Miklós Radnóti:


Postcard
4

I fell next to him. His body rolled over.
It was tight as a string before it snaps.
Shot in the back of the head-"this is how
you'll end". "Just lie quietly," I said to myself.
Patience flowers into death now.
"Der spring noch auf," I heard above me.
Dark filthy blood was drying on my ear.

Szentskirályszabdja, October 31, 1944

"Der spring noch auf" means something like “to pop open” and comes from a verb that describes flowers blossoming. A bullet making a brain blossoming from a head is a powerful image that take us back to looking at the pips. Each card is a pistol’s shot waiting to be turned into a blossoming. That is our job, turning pips into messages, bullets into blossoms.

(BTW The only reason why you and I can read that poem is because Radnóti’s wife had her husband’s body exhumed from the mass grave where he was thrown on November 1944. The poem was on a notepad the corpse had in his pocket.)

Best,

EE

Interesting that you saw the bullet transforming the wound into a flower. When he said "Patience flowers into death now" I saw it as a flash for him, that maybe before you were patient because your kid's play hadn't ended, or patient because your place in the bread line was near the end of the line. That the process of waiting always yields some kind of fruit. Patience yields something for you, some sort of gift. This time patience and the ability to wait would end in death. And his poem tells me that he was able to wait without going insane, even in the face of some horrific circumstances.

Thank you for sharing that poem Enrique. For so many reasons beyond our practice here.

I think that too, the lesson for me here, is that my own patience with the process of learning the Marseille sometimes wears thin. I want to be really good at it already, and that is spoiled in so many American ways!

When I read that poem I see that there are some things that are worth waiting for, and now that waiting will take on a whole new meaning. I could be waiting to die, and so all the other little times of patience mean something else entirely. I can allow myself the space to grow into the deck, and allow it to grow into me.

I was thinking that as I look at the flowers and vines on the pips in some ways our understanding of that 'growth' is paralleled in ourselves. Perhaps in some ways as we grow that understanding in our hearts and minds we develop a syntax that is indeed the language of the birds, the language of the Marseilles.

 

[firecatpickles]

I just fixed my first page of words, from page one of the thread.

Oh, goody. Entered.

There are only three participants left to edit their posts for formatting, SilentBreeze, indianstorm and mosaica. Soon I will be able to attach the Excel file!!!

stella01904 is combining hers and Hooked's because it is just easier, since they were using a unique skill-set to brainstorm the meanings of their pip cards.

 

[Satori]

“A person comes to us because they have lost their words. They will never say it like that, but that is basically it. They have forgotten how to talk about a problem, or about themselves. Perhaps they simply haven't yet found the right words to talk about their future. We may have forgotten their future and need a few cue words to remember it. We give them our cards so they can use them to tell us their story, and we look at these cards to find some words we can give back to them.”

I was just rereading your first post in this thread EE, and I realized that maybe I will do another list! Don't worry Kilted Kat, I may not do it, but I was thinking about approaching the list from the perspective of what EE says above. Thinking about what I see as a way to supply to someone else with something they might have lost.

When my friend saw the right and left parts of her brain yesterday in the cards, and was heartened to see they were merging together, she was finding something in my cards that was hers! What is funny about this is that I do sometimes ask a person to relate to me what they see in the card, but this time I hadn't I was too busy waiting for the Pop! to happen in my brain.

So she gave something back to herself. Very interesting. I'm only halfway through my morning coffee and I've had two very moving experiences already. I don't know what I did to deserve this but life is good.

Thanks Enrique for sharing these things with us. I have never before seen so beautifully elucidated that Tarot is about so much more than divination. It truly is about life.

 

[mosaica]

Sorry, KK, I can't get to mine. Daughter's birthday, parties, company coming.... It's been a busy few days. I'll try to get to it tomorrow? Feel free to go ahead and do the list without me.

 

[firecatpickles]

Sorry, KK, I can't get to mine. Daughter's birthday, parties, company coming.... It's been a busy few days. I'll try to get to it tomorrow? Feel free to go ahead and do the list without me.

I can do yours for you.

After I go get all 2 of Coins on my new eyeglasses at LensCrafters!

Back later...

ETA: mosaica's list added to spread sheet

 

[firecatpickles]

Here is the final edition.

I went ahead and edited the last three I mentioned before, instead of waiting around.