the game of seeing®
TAROT
Robert Pinsky’s poem ‘Rhyme’ from his book “Gulf Music” starts with this stanza:
“Air an instrument of the tongue,
The tongue an instrument
Of the body, the body
An instrument of spirit,
The spirit a being of the air”
I find it to be a perfect description of the way vowels and consonants work together to create the shape of a word. By extension, that stanza is also a perfect example of the way trumps and pips, major and minor arcana, work together so that the tarot can talk to us.
When we say “AAAAA…” this sound made of vowels alone can create a psychological effect in us. It can resonate in us. But some times it is very hard to say what the sound is about. Even when the sound is ‘working’ us, it is very hard to put into words what is going on in us while listening to this sound. I feel that is what happens sometimes with the Major arcana. Depending on the level of awareness of the person looking at the tarot images, their effect may be more or less ‘unpronounceable’. It is not that they don´t have an effect, but that the effect may be hard to put into words, or to translate into an applicable notion. It happens often that we are all inspired, describing the breakthrough implicit in La Maison Dieu, for example, and we can tell by the other person’s face that she is wondering “yes, yes, but, is my boyfriend going to break-up with me or what?”
Vowels are made of air, pure air. Air is as ethereal as the archetypes depicted in the tarot’s trumps. That is why we say that the vowels of a word are its soul, just as the trumps in the tarot are a tool for soul-making. But as Pinsky points in his poem, the soul needs the tongue, and the body, to be perceived. Since physiologically speaking consonants are obstacles we put to the air coming from our throat so the vowels can get reshaped into intelligible phonemes, we like to say that consonants are the body of a word.
Like our vowels, the trumps may need ‘consonants’ to qualify them. The sound of “AAAAA…” gets clearly qualified if we use a consonant to reshape it. When we say “MAAAAA…” and then “MAAAA…” again, we know what these sounds are about. There is no doubt about the way in which these sounds are working us. That is the role of the pips, or minor arcana. The pips are to the tarot what consonants are to the vowels, what the body is to the soul. They are there to qualify the trumps. They talk about health, money, romance, work… And they become especially useful when people are not ready for pure soul-making. Temperance, for example, could seem incomprehensible for a person, but it becomes easy to understand if we use the Two of Coins to qualify it. Right there, Temperance becomes the act of “balancing our checkbook”, and the person looking at the cards can approach the principle from a tangible, albeit more limited, perspective.
We can explore any word by looking at its soul and body. This way, a word becomes more than the sum of its parts and gets turned into a meditation. In this little game, and in the game of tarot as well, it will be more useful to look at the shape of the letters than to focus on concepts. The secret is let spontaneity regale us with a direct comprehension.
A very fortunate word to exemplify this would be the word TAROT.
TAROT is:
Soul: AO
Body: TRT
The letter A resembles the stand of Le Bateleur, while the letter O suggests the mandala in Le Monde. (The mandorla, dear friend, is that floral ellipse that encircles the naked woman in the middle of the card). The soul of the word TAROT will therefore describe the tarot’s first and last trumps.
What about the body of the word? As a structure, TRT suggest a journey (letter R) whose destination is the same as its departure point. Between these two letters T we have ARO. The letter R suggests the forward motion of Le Fov, communicating the letter A with the letter O. In other words, ARO would describe Le Fov’s pilgrimage, from ‘here and now’, as depicted by Le Bateleur, to the state of transcendence depicted in Le Monde. The fact that this journey is framed by the two letters T is quite relevant, since it seems to suggest that Le Fov’s pilgrimage never ends. We travel far away to end up where we began.
Maybe what matters are these few things we understand along the way. Sometimes we use the tarot to raise difficult questions, not to answer them.
Lets turn the card’s names into images.
Lets imagine that there are two axes, a vertical one representing a sense of being, and an horizontal one representing a sense of becoming. These axes unite “above” with “below” and “past” with “future”. Lets take the most minimal shape in our alphabet, the letter I. It is made from one single stroke. The letter I would represent the individual. Now, lets assume that our sense of being gets reshaped by our sense of becoming. This is, when the vertical axis represented by the letter I is activated horizontal-wise, we have the letter I reshaping itself to form all the other letters in the alphabet.This way, by understanding the ‘motion’ that took place from the original vertical stroke to become a letter, we have a narrative we can follow, turning any word or name into a meditation.
When the letter I breaks apart to become receptive to the ground, we have a letter A. When the letter I grows arms to grab the world it creates the letter B. If the letter I curves itself, forming a letter C, it becomes receptive towards the future. The letter D is a letter I that became pregnant. The letter E is a letter I expanding on three parallel levels that we can equate with the mind, the heart and the body. The letter F is a letter E whose physical development, his connection to the ground, isn´t complete, and runs the risk of falling down due to excessive idealism. The letter G is egocentric. Can you see how she is always pointing to herself? The letter H resembles a staircase, dividing above and below; but it could also be seen as two letters I joining forces so we can climb up. The letter J is always running the risk of getting hooked to the ground. Can you see why? The letter K stands like a martial artist, both receptive and active towards the right, while keeping its back straight. (In our narrative, the right can be understod as the future). The letter L is a letter I that only spands on a physical plane. The letter M seems like two letters I holding hands while some other times it looks like a sexy woman with a v-neck sweater. The letter N is elastic. Two letters I guard a proper distance thanks to that diagonal line separating them, but diagonals are always dynamic and we suspect that sometimes these two letters I may get closer than others. The letter O is a letter I who closed itself to become whole. The O says “Being and becoming are one single thing”. The letter P is an F whose heart and mind got fused. The idealist became a champion. The letter Q got some vices from the letter J, or perhaps, it is telling us that wholeness is but a moment. All eggs must be hatched. Can you see how the letter R resembles a train, always rrrrrruning forward? Can you see how the letter S slithers from above to below, connecton both planes with a flickery line? The letter T found its intellectual limit, while the letter U is intellectually limitless because it is always receptive. But the letter V has an advantage over the letter U: it is receptive to above, while active below. The W puzzles me. Are these two letter V’s joining forces or competing against each other? Beware of the letter X. It is receptive to each one of the four corners, and therefore, it can realize itself by becoming a center point, or expand forever in all directions. The letter Y is a letter I whose head is split open; and I would like to ask to the letter Z if there is real need of keeping a distance between heaven and earth.
This is a game, and the only rule is to look again.
I will start with Le Fov because he is going somewhere, and by doing so he offers to take us there too. Perhaps this pilgrim is walking straight to Le Bateleur, perhaps not. In any case, this card is as good as any other to start playing with shapes and letters. Words are composed by vowels and consonants. Vowels emerge from the guttural sound our breath produces, while consonants are created when out lips, tongue, and mouth put a resistance to that guttural sound. Biologist Luc Bigé wants to imagine that, since vowels are made of breath, while consonants are physical limits we impose to that breath, vowels can be seen as the soul of words, while consonants would be the body of the word. I find that simile useful. When we breath some vowels over a few consonants, a word happens.
In LE FOV we have
A soul: E O
And a body: L F V
The soul of Le Fov’s name is composed by the letters E O, inviting us to think that we achieve wholeness (letter O) by expanding at all three intellectual, emotional, and physical levels (letter E). It makes us remember that the soul of LE MONDE is conformed by the letters E O E. When we place Le Fov and Le Monde together we can see how our pilgrim aims at the ideal represented by that woman in the center of the mandala. The Fool’s aim is to inseminate the World. Look at E O. Don´t they look like Le Fov trying to embrace Le Monde? In Le Fov, E and O are saying: “expand your intellect, expand your heart, expand your body and you will be whole”. In Le Monde, E O E are saying: “once you have expanded and become whole, expand again”. If Le Fov and Le Monde join souls we get: E O E O E, a rhythm that sounds like the worries-free chant of an infant.
And now, can you see how much the L F V feel like Le Fov? The body of his name fits the character like a glove. The L talks about expanding through the ground, just like that man who is eternally walking. If we look at Le Fov’s face we can see the letter F acting as a guiding principle in it: in the letter F the heart and the mind move forward. L and F suggests a disconnection between Le Fov’s upper and lower body. It is not exactly that what is happening in the card? His feet walk on one reality while his mind walks in another one. We find no signs in his face of the pain the wild creature is inflicting in Le Fov’s genitals. Finally, the letter V is there to tell Le Fov: “Be open-up”. Just as E O are saying “expand and be whole”, L F V contains a simple message: “walk with your feet, feel with your heart, think with your mind, trust inspiration”.
Poet Billy Collins wrote: “When a metaphor strikes us powerfully with its originality and its aptness, we almost feel that a new neuronal path has been created in us, that a previously dormant synapse has been activated. Insofar as such a metaphor rewires our way of perceiving, we experience a breakthrough in the usual categories of thought.”
In our game with letters, we aren´t decoding any secret. We are just playing with shapes to see where they will take us, knowing that they will only take us as far as the image itself will allow. The image on the card becomes the foreground of the card’s name, so we can explore the rhymes and resonances that occur between text and image. If we indulge in this silly little game of reading the names of the cards as images, we run the risk of finding something we aren´t looking for. That’s just what we want. How much can we understand about a card by looking at its name? How many times can we find our Bateleur in the word ‘bateleur’? And then, what else will we find there?
If we remain loyal to the idea of vowels being the soul of a word while consonants are the body of the word, we have this:
The soul of the word ‘bateleur’ is: AEEU
The body of the word ‘bateleur’ is: BTLR
AEEU: The letter A is the quintessential representation of Le Bateleur: an individual standing on the ground, the legs wide apart anchoring the body, the head pointing toward the sky, and the solar plexus, represented by the horizontal stroke right in the middle of the letter, steadily anchoring the whole structure. Strong balance, solid instinct and a sharp head: that’s our magician. The letter A is the first letter in our alphabet, just as Le Bateleur is the first trump. Both share the same body posture and the same position within their systems. Le Bateleur is all body, all presence in the material realm. But AEEU is an interesting structure that suggests an evolution, taking us from being receptive to the ground (letter A) to being receptive to the sky (letter U). Right in the middle, the expansive letter E gets doubled, as if suggesting the repetitive work of the artist who has to practice his sleights until they become second nature. In other words, the soul of the word ‘AEEU’ seems to be telling us “repetition turns practice into insight”. It is through the smallest things that we reach transcendence.
Now look at this: BTLR. Only the letter T suggest stillness, while the B, the L and the R face right, suggesting a motion forward. Le Bateleur is always on the move! His table never remains at the same spot for too long.
Look at the first and last of these four letters. BTLR. The letter B is full of possibilities, like two milky breasts, like two protruding eyes wanting to see it all, like our two arms holding a treasure against our chest. But the B will go nowhere unless it becomes an R. The R moves forward, “RRRRRRRRRRRRRR”, by letting go of one leg. Is it not precisely this which happens with that coin our Bateleur is holding in his right hand? The coin can appear or it can vanish, but it can´t remain still in the hand forever or the hand will freeze, making any further act of legerdemain impossible. Money, like blood, must circulate. L and R are a deconstructed B.
And the letter T… It looks like an individual wearing a hat, just like our Bateleur. Hats are vertical limits. Hats protect us from the rain or the sun, but they also prevent body heat from abandoning us through the head. Nothing can come in, nothing can get out. Joseph Beuys wore a felt hat, hoping to become a hare. The metaphor of the hat-as-personality, the hat-as-mask, is very prevalent in our society: “put on your thinking cap”, “I wear many hats”, “the hat makes the man”… Our Bateleur seems to be wearing a hat that is too big or too heavy for his head, which seems to be shrinking. Maybe the T is there to remind us that heaven is a hat.
Le Bateleur’s hat imposes a vertical limit that suggests, by default, an horizontal expansion. “Beware of what you wear “-the BLTR seems to be saying- “because what we pretend to be, we become.”
Our game is very close to la langue des oiseaux, the language of the birds, without claiming to actually employ it. The only certainty we have about la langue des oiseaux is that it invites us to imagine that things can just be what they seem to be. I like Jean-Claude Flornoy’s definition of la langue des oiseaux as a language that functions through “spontaneity and direct comprehension”. But the true intent and secrets of this language are lost to us. We have forgotten. Forgetting is a way of dying, and we can say that the language of the birds is a dead tongue. Here, we are trying to revive it a little by making one major shift: we ignore the sound of the letters. In our view, they have become graphic objects. Why? Because the letter AA that a Frenchman pronounces is not the same as pronounced by an Englishman, or the same letter A a Spaniard pronounces; but all these letters A look the same. That gives us enough common ground for playing with the shapes of letters, turning words into meditations.
PAPESSE is: soul: AEE, and body: PPSS
PAPE is: soul: AE, and body PP
Can you see how much softer La Papesse feels?
The main difference between the names of these two cards – what La Papesse has and Le Pape is missing- is that double SS for a few moments. If we follow its shape with our finger over and over and over we are driven into a sort of trance. Moving from below to above and from above to below, the letter S connects both realms in a fluid two-way dialogue. If the S talks about a vertical exchange of information, a double S suggests a reverberation akin to the act of praying. This repetitive gesture drives our mind into a meditative state that is conducive to making analogies.
Le Pape has lost La Papesse’s SS and with it, he has lost his connection to heaven. His kingdom is certainly of this world. SS suggests that La Papesse inhabits a vertical empire while Le Pape inhabits a horizontal one. PAPE is PP + AE. PP evokes war banners, while the A and the E are talking about establishing territories and expanding them. These letters seem to be saying: “take my insignias, claim a ground for me, expand my empire”. Is not this exactly what the figure’s hand suggests in its blessing? Le Pape’s right hand gives us a “go ahead” signal. Pape, PapeSSE… the addition of these last three letters comes to soften the male ‘pop’ present in the masculine version of the word. Our focus – these two letters S suggest – shoudn’t be forward but upward.
When we compare the soul of these two words: AE for Le Pape and AEE for La Papesse, we see how La Papesse suggests a further expansion. While Le Pape prays where all can see him, La Papesse prays alone. While La Papesse waits, Le Pape seems to know. The words ‘papesse’ and ‘pape’ leave us with the feeling that it is better to experience the learning than to learn the experience.
Little by little we see how everything in the tarot expresses the tension between being and becoming. The double S reinforces a question: if there is an above, and there is a below, who is above La Papesse? We don´t know. This is a good thing, since not knowing is the root of wonder. Who is above Le Pape? No one. That much we know. The cards clearly state that he stands above his two acolytes. Who is above La Papesse? An angel, perhaps, although I would like to believe that angels are sudden thoughts.
The conclusion of our little game will always be the point at which we decide to stop playing.
L EMPERATRISE- LEMPEREVR- LEMPERANCE
León Battista Alberti wrote: “When the men painted in the picture outwardly demonstrate the movement of their souls as clearly as possible, the story will move the spectator’s souls in turn». Something similar can be read in Jules Lubbock’s “Storytelling in Christian Art. From Giotto to Donatello”: “We do not simply take in stories and absorb their lessons about the world. Rather, when we read about Zeus seducing a young woman, we involuntarily imitate his feelings and behavior.” Saint Agustine would define that as verba visibilia, that is, an image as visible speech. Because it is a set of narrative pictures, the tarot exists at the limit of what can be said with words. If we want to understand the true advice hidden in the tarot, we would have to write-off most of what has been said about it. After we have taken our ocultist’s helmet off, we will be able to see the tarot images with the naked eye and discover that each image’s true meaning has been encrypted in its character’s posture.
In our game with letters, we find three cards whose names look extremely similar. We look at L EMPERATRISE and immediately notice the similarity between her name and LEMPEREVR. This isn’t surprising, since they are of course a couple. But then, we are puzzled to find a third card sharing very much the same name: LEMPERANCE. Why has TEMPERANCE been re-baptised? Jean-Claude Flornory would suggest that by writing an L at the beginning of the name, Jean Noblet was giving away the fact that he was a master companion. In any case, let us thank the master for bringing to light an interesting dynamic that will help us understand how our images are ‘hiding’ their advice in plain sight.
If we place these images in sequence: L EMPERATRISE-LEMPEREVR-LEMPERANCE, L EMPERATRISE and LEMPEREVR look like a bourgeois couple who sit lazy and fat in their living room while LEMPERANCE, the maid, fixes them a drink. In fact, the eagles on the shields of L EMPERATRISE and LEMPEREVR remind us a bit of Chaucer’s eagles in the “Parliament of the Fowls”: two of the same species refuse to mate. Why? When we look closer, a little soap opera emerges: L EMPERATRISE is furious, since LEMPEREVR only has eyes for LEMPERANCE.
L EMPERATRISE, LEMPEREVR and LEMPERANCE share the root LEMPER. Look at the vowels: one letter E chases the other letter E, just like LEMPEREVR tries to charm LEMPERANCE by offering her his scepter. L EMPERATRISE stands behind, like the letter L, firmly holding her ground.
We will get back to the rest of the letters in LEMPER shortly.
The remaining portions of these cards’ names flirt with us. It is impossible not to unite them into one word. Rearranged, ATRISE EVR ANCE ends up being A TRI SEVERANCE, as in a triple separation!
We are about to feed the evening news with some juicy drama…
But here is where we need to pay attention and obtain the advice the cards conceal. In a way that’s suspiciously similar to what we see in LAMOVREVX,: our little sequence shows the three roles a person could play in a love triangle, and it also suggests a possible way to play each role for the benefit of all involved. One could be the cheated party, like L EMPERATRISE. In this case, the figure is telling us: “Be strong and hold onto what’s yours”. Can you see how she is doing precisely that? One could be the cheater, like LEMPEREVR, who leans back with his hand on his belt, as if to say: “Control yourself. Cross your legs so you cannot jump forward. Keep your pants on!” Or one can be the third party, like LEMPERANCE, whose posture seems to be telling us: “Stay away from temptation, and if you feel passion barking closer, cool it off!”
See how the tarot’s characters are advice in disguise?
We can see the effects of following this advice in a happy resolution: LEMPERANCE is the last image on our right. Back to the root LEMPER, the last letter on our right is the R, who seems to be about to take off, leaving M and P, this is, Mater and Pater, mother and father, alone. Perhaps then the letter P will see itself as a flag, ready to conquer those mountains the letter M represents.
This week, why are we dealing with Death and Love at the same time? Because if we look closer, we notice how both LAMORT and LAMOVREVX have the word AMOR, love, hiding at their core. In the case of LAMOVREVX, this seems to make sense. After all, this card depicts the challenge of knowing where our true passions lie. We will have to enact LAMORT’s scything motion to understand that his work is also an act of love, since it is he who does the hardest job, the one that needs to be done but no one wants to do.
LAMORT is: Soul: AO and Body: LMRT
LAMOVREVX is: Soul: AOVEV and Body: LMRX
LAMORT’s soul, AO, seems like an exact rendition of the character in the card. By being in total harmony with the earth, reaping what it has produced (letter A), the skeleton attains wholeness (letter O). We see a similar structure in LAMOVREVX’s soul, AOVEV, but in this case the letter A (which mimics the exact posture of the Lover’s legs) and the letter O stand in conjunction with VEV. VEV is an assemblage that bears a strong resemblance to the image in the card. The letter E stands between two letters V, both of them attractive, both promising an open path to heaven. But there is more here than meets the eye. In fact, if we pay close attention, we see how these three letters are letting us into a little secret: the lover has made his choice already. Can you see how the letter E throws its arms towards the letter V on our right? Can you see how this gesture is present in the card’s image? Look at the lover’s left hand! It is already on third base!
Let’s look at the body of these two words. Both LAMORT and LAMOVREVX share LMR, that is, the certainty that any expansion we attempt in this world (letter L) would be fruitless unless we find an object of passion (letter M, seen as two letters I mirroring each other or holding hands). Only then will our expansion in the world accelerate (letter R). But the truly relevant detail here is found in the difference between these two words. LAMORT ends with a T, suggesting a horizontal line broken towards the earth. Again, the letters evoke the act of reaping! LAMOVREVX ends with an X, a letter that resembles the alleged crossroad on which the card’s main character seems to be standing. But, as we already saw in the letter E, it is possible that this crossroad is illusory: the card could be reminding us that ‘confusion’ doesn’t exist, but is just a game we play when we know what we should do and don’t want to face the consequences.
Whatever happens in our lives is of little importance. What matters is how we tell the story of what has happened to us. That is why an old proverb says “Don´t trust the teller. Trust the tale”. Truth is not what is given to us, but what we receive. This week we look at the name written on the card named LECHARIOT. Pursuing our little game, how much of that charioteer, his vehicle, the horses and their tale, can we find in such a word?
Lechariot is:
Body: LCHRT
Soul: EAIO
In the word’s body, the letter L indicates a departure filled with hubris. Lechariot has set out to conquer the physical world. The letter C opens like a bag that lets its cat out: this cat is a letter H. Can you see how that letter H is Lechariot itself? The letter H signals the vertical structure that gives Lechariot its shape. A horizontal line right in the middle of the rectangular structure separates above from below, just as a similar flesh-colored line separates the charioteer from the two horses. The letter H, right at the heart of the word, reminds us that we can’t run a marathon if our brain has been severed from our spine. That is why, no matter how fast Lechariot runs (letter R), its accomplishments will be severely limited (letter T).
(Curiously, in the Jean Dodal tarot, our chariot is named LE CHARIOR, ending in R and not in T. It is a good thing that Freudian slips hadn’t been invented at the time. Otherwise we would have to talk about the “penis envy” the letter T would suffer when compared to the letter R. There is no doubt that Le Charior moves faster than Lechariot, with that letter R at the very end, running forward with the intensity of a locomotive!)
The soul of this word leaves no doubt. A horse (letter E) stands on his hind legs, trying to jump over an obstacle (letter A). By forcing himself to surmount the obstacle, the horse runs the risk of getting impaled (letter I) or of falling into a bottomless pit (letter O). The soul of this word bears the imprint of Lechariot’s downfall: arrogance can defeat any army, even before the battle starts. After all, Lechariot’s wheels are stuck on the ground. Lechariot can neither jump nor detach its progress from the rotation of the earth. Perhaps it is there to remind us that we can ride a wave as long as we are willing to follow it wherever it takes us. Riding the wave with elegance transforms us into masters, but demands humility. WE are our own masters, not the wave’s master. We constantly ought to remind ourselves that we don´t own the wave, but we can embellish it, just as it is our duty to embellish all our tales about the waves we have ridden before.
This week we are looking at IVSTICE, and feel the urge to “right some wrongs”. Why is it that in all our image’s’ names the letter V replaces the letter U? Shouldn’t we simply write JUSTICE? When we compare the letter U to the letter V, we understand that we could, but should not.
Why?
Because, although both the letter U and the letter V are receptive to heaven, only the letter V is active towards earth. While the letter V acts like a funnel, decanting inspiration into action, the letter U is like a cup that gets filled with inspiration but keeps it contained, preventing it from impregnating the ground. Developing that metaphor, allow me to bluntly suggest that the letter U mimics a condom, while the letter V is hanging unrestrained. Referring to what we said a few weeks ago, the letter V reminds us that Ingenium Non Valet Nisi Facta Valebunt.*
So, let’s keep the word IVSTICE as it is. Notice that the word’s soul is IVIE, while the word’s body is STC.
Can you see how STC portrays IVSTICE itself? In one ‘hand’ the letter T holds a letter S. Given the natural motion of the letter S, connecting above and below, we can see it representing the sword, whose handle points to the ground, while its tip reaches towards heaven. In the other ‘hand’ the letter T holds a letter C. IVSTICEO, the letter C is always waiting to be filled, just like the plates on a scale. We may even go so far as to say that the letter C is incomplete until it has been filled. There is something else worth noticing here: the balance between directions that is suggested by STC. While the letter S implies a vertical direction, the letter C, open to the right, evokes a horizontal one. Justices invite our sense of being to always inform our sense of becoming.
And how do we do that? Well, IVIE indicates an important shift. IVI also resembles our crowned lady: the letter V intercedes between two letters I. These three letters take us back to the idea of IVSTCE as a mediator. But then we have the letter E, indicating an expansion taking place on three levels: physical, emotional, and intellectual. How can this be accomplished? By resonating with the horizontal direction suggested by the letter C, the letter E reminds us that we shouldn’t get stuck in other people’s conundrums. With its arms and legs reaching out, the letter E is telling us: “If you are given the power to rule over other peoples’ lives, get out of there!”, because the most important kind of justice has nothing to do with judging others. On the contrary, ultimate justice consists in giving ourselves what we deserve.
uses her sword to cut what she doesn’t need and then uses the scale to make sense of what is left. As a cut-off letter
* “Our wit is worthless unless we have the will to work”.
“I believe the 21st century will be a world without art in the sense that we have it now. It will be a world without objects, where the human being can be on such a high level of consciousness and has such a strong mental state that he or she can transmit thoughts and energy to other people, without needing objects in between… [The public and artist] will just sit or stand, like the Samurai in old Japan, looking at each other and transmitting energy. This is the future world I see as an artist: a non-objective world.”
Marina Abramovic
The tarot presents us with a set of mental operations that we can use to change the way we think about something. If we accept each one of the tarot characters as real beings that ’stand’ before us, inviting us to mimic their actions, we will find ourselves enacting Abramovic’s ‘prediction’.
If we stand mirroring LERMITE, with a lamp in our left hand and a cane in our right, we become the letter L that begins this word. In front of us, the lantern’s light shows us where we came from. We know what we have experienced. Behind us, the lantern’s light casts our own shadow, obscuring the future. Can you see how, just as the letter L is a letter I projecting its shadow on the ground, there is nothing behind LERMITE? The card shows a clear yellow path in front of him, but a blank space behind. This suggests that LERMITE walks backwards, inviting us to trust that there will always be a way, even if the light of reason hasn’t yet discovered it.
LERMITE is Soul: EIE and Body: LRMT
The letter I, surrounded by letters E, feels alone. All these letters E seek something out there. They chase the external world with arms outstretched like zombies, while the letter I stays silent. No matter how certain these letters E seem to be about their goals and destination, the letter I distrusts their effort knowing that, wherever they insist on standing, they won’t leave any imprint.
Look at the word’s body: LRMT. United, the letters L and T would create a square, a solid figure in which RM can resonate and create an echo. And what is RM? Some things cannot be explained but only experienced. RRRRR… and MMMMM… are vibrant sounds. Pronounce them and you will immediately feel lifted. These are cathedral sounds. Sounds that we can’t hear if we run on ahead, but that will re-build us if we stop and listen.
Each word is a vault ready to reward those who unlock it with a message. Many times, separating the vowels from the consonants in the title of a tarot card will lead us to the discovery of the image’s workings. We only have to look at the vowels in LA ROVE DE FORTVNE to realize how true this is: A OVE E OVE. See what is happening there? The vowels conform a repetitive rhythm that reveals the main feature of the image: change is a constant cycle.
The vowels present us with two rounds of that cycle. The first round is preceded by the letter A, while the second round starts with the letter E. What is the difference? The letter A has a vertical emphasis. It moves from a broad base to a narrow point at the top, like an arrow. The contrary is true of the letter E, whose emphasis is horizontal: three horizontal stripes move right from a vertical pole on the left. The letter A reminds us of the little king on top of the wheel. A king who can be easily overthrown if he insists on remaining upright. We either change or break. On the other hand, the letter E reminds us of the two animals going up and down around he wheel; creatures whose bodies have become so fixed in this rotation device that we can’t tell where they end and where the wheel begins. In other words, these two rounds of an infinite cycle: OVE… OVE… OVE… suggest that we need to become movement, so we can be part of change without being broken by it.
No matter how firmly we stand, the earth is always spinning.
The A has to become an E. We need to understand the rhythm of the world if we want to dance with it, for we cannot impose our rhythm on the world. Once we have understood this, the consonants in the name of this image start making sense. They are a parade of trumps going around Fortune’s wheel: L R D FRTN. There we can see Le Fov and Lempereur. We also see Le Pendu and Le Soleil, and even more. Can you tell which is which? Can you identify the other three letters?
People in the Middle Ages hoped that painting was capable of “revealing the invisible by means of the visible”. The fact that we aren’t medieval people doesn’t prevent us from also wanting a peek into the unseen. Tarot images are little miracles, unexpected apparitions that shake us from our day-to-day trance and startle us, elated, into a place where reality is no more. In this way, tarot images allow us to experience notions that cannot be put into words.
When we look at the word FORCE, we find in particular how the progression from the letter O to the letter C resembles the main action in the image: a woman holds a lion’s mouth open. If we see the letter O as being closed, we can perceive the letter C as an open letter O. It is interesting to notice that if we look from the F to the E and back again, we will also see the E as a letter F that opens up. Perhaps the letter E is a letter F whose jaw has dropped! This transition from F to E mirrors the transition from O to C. In other words, the letter F becomes a letter E so the letter O can become a letter C.
What does all this mean?
We may never know, but we can tell what it might imply. In this case, these letters seem to suggest: “An individual who evolves only at an intellectual and spiritual level (letter F) remains closed to reality (letter O), but when the individual opens up to let reality in (letter C), his intellectual and spiritual growth leads to material expansion (letter E)”.
In other words, all our theories and beliefs only matter if they help us to overcome our fears.
And, what about that letter R we have been ignoring?
Well, given the presence of our lion, a lion that we see twice in the tarot (active in FORCE, and receptive in LE MONDE), we can safely assume that the letter R is the lion’s roar, lying dormant, safely concealed in the middle of the word, waiting for us to let it out.
Our game of tarot is based on spontaneity. That is why, when a friend proposed to turn LE PENDV around and look at his name upside down, I knew I had to oblige. He was acting like Le Fov, always ready to leave us breathless with his sudden inspiration.
When we look at the word PENDU upside down, we discover a theme of treason running through the whole word. This recalls the alleged Medieval origin of the image as depicting a punishment for traitors. The reversed V feels like a heartless letter A. The reversed letter D feels like a C which wants to swallow a letter I. That reversed D resembles a crocodile, its mouth open, with one of those cleaning birds inside. Can the bird really trust the crock’s jaws to remain open? In the letter N, two letters I keep their distance, always suspicious of each other. The letter N suggests an accordion-like movement, similar to the ‘dance’ of a spy shadowing his target. The letter E seems like a letter I that has been stabbed three times in the back. Finally, the letter P always feels like a letter F whose passion and intellect have fused. The P is a letter I pregnant with high notions. An idealist. In this particular case, we look at the reversed letter P and realize that it is hanging head-down like our PENDV. In other words, the little story in these letters would be something like: “A heartless man, wanting to take over another’s man life, watched from a distance until the time was right to stab him in the back,- three times! He then buried the corpse upside down.”
Quite a plot!
If we sober up just a little – but just a little – we can see that these letters concern the worst kind of treason: self-betrayal. In our obsession with material stability (letter V reversed) we get jealous of our neighbour’s possessions (letter D reversed, giving us C+ I). The greener we see the grass on his side of the fence (letter N), the sharper the sting of all our false expectations (letter E reversed). I say ‘false’ because our neighbour’s expectations shouldn’t be ours. We owe it to ourselves to craft our own definition of success. We want what others have, we try to live other peoples’ lives, and life manages to have us stuck with our heads buried in the ground (letter P reversed). We can use that situation to look at the world from our very own perspective, and hopefully reconnect with our roots.
And when we look at the word PENDV upside down something else happens: we are in fact releasing our PENDV. He is upright now, floating! He seems to be quoting the Latin proverb: POST NUBILA PHOEBUS “After the clouds comes the sun”.
LE DIABLE (To my friend Christian Scheidemann)
Who is this character that pops out like a Jack-in-the-box, throwing the little toy soldier off the window ledge and causing so much uneasiness in those who look at him?
DIABLE is:
Body: DBL
Soul: IAE
In English, the Devil without the initial D becomes EVIL. Evil is the anagram of LIVE. LIVE begins with the letter L and ends with the letter E: the word takes us from a mindless and spiritless path (letter L) to a balanced expansion involving both the physical body and the emotional and intellectual centers (letter E). In between these two we see the individual (letter I) making itself receptive to heaven and active towards earth (letter V).
In our game of shapes we see how the same letters arranged in a different order lead us to a completely different reflection .
EVIL starts with the letter E, which can be seen as a letter I that has grown arms and legs so it can embrace the future. One can imagine that the letter expands at three levels: material, emotional and intellectual. The letter V is receptive to heaven, and active to the ground, like a funnel that focuses all intentions and ideas and transforms them into action. The letter I represents the individual and is the simplest letter in the alphabet, made by one single stroke. The letter I, the perfect individual, comes to be when our expansion (E) leads to effective action in reality (V). But then we have the letter L. Maybe the L is a letter I that casts a shadow on the ground. And, what would that shadow be? Back to the letter E, the L would signal an expansion that occurs only on a physical level, or in other words, living without awareness. So, yes, EVIL is a way to LIVE indeed.
It seems that there is no way to escape that L and its shadow, present in as many renditions of the word Diable as we can think of: the English DEVIL, the Spanish DIABLO, the Italian DIAVOLO. In the Italian,we are surprised to find two letters O,L is present in all of these languages! (By the way, did you notice how the words ‘two open’ also have two eyes wide open right between them, looking at us? Our little game is infinite!). Even the German for for devil: TEUFEL ends with this same letter L. ‘Teufel’ is in fact an interesting word. Its soul wants to be free. EUE suggest expansion in the world and receptivity to heaven. But the word’s body pulls it down. TFLT) and a divorce between the mind and spirit (letter F) and the body (letter L). F L could create a very nice letter E, but that doesn´t seems to be the case here. They co-exist separately. Again, a life without awareness!
And, what about that D the word evil is missing? Since the letter D can be seen as a letter I that got pregnant, it seems to stand for the creative principle,. Therefore, a DEVIL who cannot create, but can only destroy, would certainly be EVIL. Not only that.: it would also be rather flat and uninteresting, a puppet.
Our DIABLE is not like that. It has a pregnant D, ripe and ready to give birth, and two handsome breasts (the letter B). Can you see how the creature depicted in the card also has a living womb and full teats? (I would love to tell you something about these two characters chained at Le Diable’s feet, but I tend to ignore people wearing leather and chains). suggesting two open mouths. The creature on the card also has two mouths. The letter suggests an obstacle to reaching heaven (letter and
Compare the letters B and E. As in a “BEFORE AND AFTER” poster, the E shows a broken letter B, a letter B that has exploded, and whose energy has been released. That is what the word DIABLE suggests, the unleashed energy of the proverbial trickster, ready to stir things up a little, to have us acknowledging our creativity and keeping our eyes open.
Images are miracles and they deserve to be treated accordingly. When we contemplate an image we shouldn’t label it with a rational tag, as if it were a corpse we want to bag. We must let the image engage our senses so the senses can engage our mind. That mind of ours, which can heal the spirit and move the body, must interrogate the image and ask: “What are you showing me? What are you making visible?”
If there is an image from the tarot that deserves to be interrogated, it would be LA MAISON DIEV, which in the last three centuries has been transformed from a House-of-God into just a tall building.
LA MAISON DIEV is: Soul: A AIO IEV, and Body: L MSN D
In A AIO IEV, two letters A become an E and a V, but only after ignoring the allure of a void represented by the letter O. For the first letter A, becoming a letter V would imply giving itself up to heavenly inspiration: the individual becomes a funnel. For the second letter A, becoming a letter E would signify a progressive understanding of how to transform that inspiration into action in the world: the individual becomes a staircase. But this is easier said than done, since that letter O exerts such a huge attraction! As proof of this, two letters I stand around the letter O, like a schematic depiction of the previous image: LE DIABLE. In fact, we can suppose that the tower is where LE DIABLE holds his slaves captive. Just as in LE DIABLE, the characters seem to willingly accept the devil’s leash, these two letters I seem to have surrendered to the letter O voluntarily. They stare, stiff and mesmerized, at the emptiness of the O, just as we have all stared at a void now and then, in one of those sparkling moments where wrong feels so right.
A flash or thunderous flame would be necessary to wake us up. We find our flame among the consonants, in the letter S, whose movement suggests a dialogue between the realms of heaven and earth. The letter S is a whip-like lighting bolt, and Jean Noblet tells us that this is a very peculiar kind of lighting, since it breaks from the tower to crack into the sky. Among the consonants we notice how the letter S stands right in the middle of a ’structure’ created by the letters M and N. Each of those two letters contains two letters I separated by diagonal lines: double-layered walls holding slanted whispers. They separate the initial L, which talks about our mundane expansion, from the final D, whose pregnancy suggests our capacity to deliver ourselves to transcendence.
In other words – or in other letters – the name on this image seems to be telling us to avoid the temptation of growing stiff. From time to time, it would be healthy to break down; then, like the famous poet Rumi, we can say:
Birds make great sky circles
of their freedom.
How do they learn that?
They fall, and falling,
They’re given wings. (Translated by Coleman Barks)
We may remember fear.
We have arrived at the only card in which human characters are absent, which suggests that we are invited to wait until it is safe to come out. And while we wait, we may want to ask ourselves: what is really going on here? This is LA LVNE, a card we experience with our spine sending a shiver to the hairs on our back. As soon as we become aware of these hairs, which may very well have never been there before, we realize we have become werewolves, and we are howling too, just like the two dogs in the image.
Looking at an image can affect us. It does so because our thoughts are malleable. When we pour our thoughts into an image, and the image embodies these thoughts, our thoughts change. When an image accommodates our thoughts, it reshapes them. Images can change us. Images give us something to hold on to. We aren’t talking about ‘hope’, but about a practical structure for our psyche.
Images are mental operations. They embody our intellectual processes and give us something to aspire to. When we look at Le Bateleur, for example, we don’t really seek to become magicians, but we aim to stand up straight while making use of all the tools available to us. Images suggest a physicality that the mind translates into the memory of the body. Images are a link between intellectual and experiential processes. A link between anxiety and action. Here it would be useful to talk about archetypes. The problem so far has been that the notion of archetypes is applied to the tarot in a reductive way. Saying that LA LVNE is Jung’s “male unconscious femininity” doesn’t give us any real understanding of how archetypes work, because trying to fit the tarot into Jungian archetypes is merely an anecdotal exercise. The truth is, Jung barely mentioned the tarot in his writings, and when he did so he did it from the perspective of someone who had never experienced it first hand. He wasn´t thinking on the specific images of the tarot when he wrote about archetypes, but he left us a very useful notion of archetypes as a structure for the unconscious mind.
When we feel the fear that cannot be named and are told we are ‘depressed’, we are left without means to grasp our problem. ‘Depression’ is an abstraction. At best we could ask “what should I take for that?”. But if we are invited to take our nameless fear and pour it into LA LVNE, our fear materializes in the form of tides, day and night, moon cycles, and the sudden nervousness of beasts. Right then we understand that no matter how dark darkness can get, it always changes. Pain is a moment. It can always recede, even if just temporarily.
LVNE is: Soul: VE and Body: LN
The letter V always suggests the influence of heaven, and in the tarot we see how the final trumps sequence accords progressively more space to the skies. But it would be good to acknowledge that the crayfish, the two dogs, and the two towers are creating the same letter V. Nature has become receptive! The letter E here seems to articulate three levels of action: there is the moon on top, irradiating droplets, then the two dogs, sucking them, and then the crayfish, hoping to catch at least a few. We can also see the letter E in three levels of the image: a strip of heaven, a strip of earth, and a strip of sea. In any case, VE seems to invite us to think about how every event shades its influence in layers. We never really know how deeply an event is touching us, or how many levels a single event can reach.
The black L on the white background looks like a tower washed by moonlight. The letter N reminds us that there are two towers, not one, and that these two towers are separated by a distance that the diagonal line in the middle of the letter depicts as dynamic. The bridge between towers is as long or as short as we feel it to be. Determining the length of the bridge won’t be as important as realizing the subjectivity of its measurements. This way we are told that waiting is better than giving up. If the distance seems insurmountable today, it will feel shorter tomorrow.
Each tarot image is a talisman against fear.
On the tenth station of the cross in the church of Renne Le Chateau one can see three dice. The visible numbers on the dice’s faces are: 3, 4 and 5. Since dice are also present in Le Bateleur, this has been taken as definitive proof of the connection between the tarot and the mysteries of the grail. I guess this follows the same logic as saying that our freckles are constellations mirroring the stars, and therefore, dermatologists rule the universe.
Although no one has yet mentioned the similarities between the hats of Le Bateleur’s and Indiana Jones’s, all kind of numerological ruses have been employed to further demonstrate how the tarot conceals the secret of the grail. Let’s play with the numbers on Renne Le Chateau’s dice: we are told by the experts that if we multiply 3×4 we get 12. If this isn’t impressive enough, get this: If we then add 5 to 12, we get 17. I gather you aren’t mesmerized yet, but wait. Card 17 in the tarot is Lestoille. See? There you have Mary Magdalene herself, doing the holy dishes!
Making connections is a form of mental gymnastics. In our game with shapes we must keep the bird out of the cage because we know that, as soon as we lock it in, it becomes a shadow of itself. Shapes have a voice, but nothing they say should be taken as the last word. If we want the game of tarot to help us grow, the act of seeing has to be more important than what we see. If making connections prove something, it is that we can make connections. Nothing more, nothing less. Even so, in the midst of such connections we can arrive at unexpected insights. Keeping that always in mind, let us continue our little game by looking at LE SOLEIL.
SOLEIL is: Soul: OEI and Body: SLL
All is clear, in broad sunlight, since both SLL and OEI seem to convey very direct messages. SLL suggests being nourished by heaven (letter S) so we can expand within the world (letter L). But we see two letters L, suggesting that we aren’t supposed to do this alone. Either we see these two letters L as two different persons, as in a partnership or a couple, or we see them as two halves of ourselves: masculine and feminine, active and receptive. In both cases, our expansion in the world depends on their being united. That is what the letters OEI are talking about. In them we can see the main scene depicted in LE SOLEIL: two characters, one masculine (the letter I) and the other feminine (the letter O) extend their arms and legs (letter E) to embrace each other as one single being.
The tarot’s lore tells us that in LE SOLEIL a child who can see is lending his eyes to a blind one. This is a beautiful metaphor for the kind of communion the letters OEI are suggesting. Maybe we need to borrow the eyes of another to be truly complete. Perhaps then we will realize that the only mystery to unlock by searching for hidden clues and connections in the world around us is the mystery of ourselves.
Soul: EIVEE Body: LGMNT.
Look at the soul: EIVEE. The first thing we notice is a horizontal motion emphasized by the presence of three letters E. Repeated in this way, these letters seem to suggest the flow of life, our minds, hearts and bodies rushing forward, sometimes without knowing were are we going or why. We live in catacombs dug out bit by bit, by walking the same paths day after day, by tasting the same flavors over and over, by listening to the same tunes once and again, without even noticing that by repeating ourselves we have turned into ghosts.
In EIVEE, the flow of life is suspended by a call from above.
The letter I reminds us to stop. Day after day we walk along with the herd, but, do we really want to go where the herd is going? When we mimic a letter with our body we understand what its shape is saying. Just as the letter I is telling us to stand still, the letter V suggests we should look up and become receptive to the sky. It opens itself to heaven: it is open to inspiration from whatever exists outside the flow of our routine. Standing as a little unit in the center of LE IVGEMENT’s soul, the letter V reminds us that hope is in the details. Keep a candle by your window, so those who are lost can find their way home. Carry a deck of cards in your pocket, so you will always have the option of building a castle. Get a top hat and you will always have the possibility of pulling out a rabbit. Why? Because every time you refuse to kiss a toad you are denying a prince.
The word’s body is also very eloquent: LGMNT. It starts with a letter L and ends with a letter T. In other words, the horizontal emphasis of the letter L gets redirected to a vertical emphasis in the letter T, reinforcing the idea of looking up from time to time. Both letters L and T seem to be saying: “Stop walking with your eyes. Your feet know where they need to go.” In order to look up and find inspiration, the letter G suggests that we dispel any false sense of wholeness by performing an act of attention which will take us back inside ourselves. The letter G seems to be pointing its thumb towards its heart, as if to say: “Looking within is a way to be reborn over and over”. Then, to avoid falling into selfishness, the letter G is followed by the letter M, which advises us to find someone else to hold hands with. Inspiration is worthless if we can’t share it. But clinging to others can also prevent us from being inspired. For this reason, the letter M is followed by the letter N, which reminds us to always maintain the healthy distance, even from those who are closest to us, that comes from independence.
In some old decks, LE IVGEMENT is renamed ‘Fame’. This may be relevant, since recognition is indeed re-cognition. Something is renowned when we dare pay enough attention to know that we know it. Focusing on the routine elevates it. But, what if that humdrum routine is ourselves?
LE IVGEMENT. These ten letters are telling us that, like a bear emerging from its den after the winter, we resurrect every morning. But we need to stop and take notice if we want to really wake up.
In an interview, artist Damien Hirst said “You might say very clever things just by feeling your way in the dark.” I think he has a point. By feeling our way in the dark, we learn to create a whole reality based only on the few things we manage to touch. This way we learn that when an experience is presented to us we don’t need to pay attention to everything. No matter how big a river may be, we only need a few sips of water to quench our thirst. The tarot’s images are full of colors, details, symbols and characters. Trying to understand an image by scanning each single color, each single symbol and each single detail in it would be like gulping down the whole river! That’s why we compare one image to another, one name to another, so we can pay attention only to these few things that, by being repeated more than once, are impressed upon us. We find a message in the similarities among images. Then we qualify that message by noticing the differences between these similar things.
What is in the soul of words? The vowels always carry a vibrant message. When we unlock LESTOILLE and LEMONDE to look at their souls, a similarity catches our eye. LESTOILLE’s soul is EOIE, while LEMONDE’s soul is EOE. This is enough for us to work on and wonder. Today we can give the consonants a rest.
EOIE-EOE
We cannot help be inspired by the fact that the souls of these two words are so similar, especially since the two images also resemble each other: both feature a blond woman as main character. This blond woman, free of clothing to represent freedom from material burdens, is often thought to be the soul, the anima, or the anima mundi. In other words, the soul of two words representing souls is almost identical, just as the women depicted in the images.
Almost.
When two things are alike, we will find more information in their differences than in their similarities.
In EOE, we see LEMONDE as ephemeral glory. The horizontal flow of the letter E contrasts with the self-centeredness of the letter O. That letter O, which reminds us of the mandorla centered on our woman, stands between the two letters E. This tells us that glory is like an Inn we find at the roadside. We can enjoy its comfort for a night or two, but then we must keep going. In any case, there is a fluid rhythm in these three letters: “advance” (first letter E), “rejoice” (letter O), “advance” (second letter E), that could be translated as “rather be a river than a pond”. On the other hand, EOIE shows a stop in the rhythm illustrated by the letter I, as in an errand we must run before feeling free to dance with the world.
The letter I regards the letter O like an individual staring at a void; or more precisely, like the woman in LESTOILLE stares at the river into which she pours the contents of her jars. With the letter I beside the letter O, the woman is standing outside of the mandorla, and we notice that if the letter I jumps into the letter O, it will create the image in LE MONDE. The letters O and I are telling us that, if the woman in LESTOILLE wants to become the woman in LEMONDE, she needs to release all that water, and then throw her entire self into the stream. No river holds itself back.
It is a good thing that we have the tarot to help us reflect on such things. As in any other kind of poetry, visual poetry should help us build ourselves a soul. It is so hard to do this on our own that we can’t help but envy how lucky diamonds are. Diamonds can take thousands of years to go from dust to light. We have only a few decades to attain our full lustre.
