Welcome back, one and all, to my ongoing exploration of the Tarot de Marseille. In our previous post, we looked at the symbolism of the Sixes in the suit cards, drawing inspiration from the Lover and the House of God. Today, we’re moving on to the Sevens, which take their numerological significance from two trump […]
Read more "A Year of Tarot de Marseille: The Sevens"“I do not know these good people,” the prisoner replied. “Truly?” “Truly.” “And now tell me, why is it that you use the words ‘good people’ all the time? Do you call everyone that, or what?” “Everyone,” the prisoner replied. “There are no evil people in the world.” Mikhail Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita This […]
Read more "The Devil and the Star: There Are No Evil People"There are plenty of ways to draw connections between the cards of the Major Arcana. You can do it through numerology, through astrology, through the septenaries or visual cues in their symbolism. One of the simplest ways to find the connections between the cards, though, is simply to fold the sequence of the Major Arcana […]
Read more "Pairing the Major Arcana, Forward and Backward"Today concludes the three-part series wherein I assign one James Bond film to each of the Major Arcana of the Tarot. You can read Part 1 and Part 2 if you’d like to catch up with the rest of the series. Thanks again to Deborah Lipp for helping me put together this list. XV. The […]
Read more "The James Bond Tarot (Part 3)"Patricia Monaghan, one of the most badass scholars of women’s spirituality in the modern age, had a really cool talk she used to deliver about taxonomizing goddesses. I never actually got to see this talk (for lo, I am but young), nor have I been able to find any published writings where she rehashes its […]
Read more "Five Goddess Prototypes in the Tarot"Yeah, yeah, I know I was going to do a love post comparing the Two of Cups with the Lovers. But my heart’s not in it. Plus, I have officially started my Ph.D, and free time for Tarot-related things is on the short side, so a blog post isn’t going to get written unless it’s […]
Read more "On Wrath"(Catch Part 1 here.) There’s a piece of Roman literature called The Golden Ass, which is in many ways a prefigurement of the modern novel. The narrative follows the protagonist, a young Roman noble named Lucius, as he meddles with a witch and is transformed into an ass (and his subsequent misadventures as he tries to […]
Read more "Strength and the Star, Part 2: Eros and Psyche"Tarot is structured in a series of delicate dualities, sets of polar opposites that overlie each other and, in their interactions, create an extremely nuanced view of the world. Some of these dualities are in the surface-level meanings of the cards, as with the Emperor and Empress or the Sun and Moon. Some are elemental, […]
Read more "Strength and the Star, Part 1: From Innocence to Mastery"I have a lot of thoughts about the Star. Like, a lot. It’s interesting to me that, in the order of the deck, the Star follows the Tower, because in real life, things go the other way. The Star is purity, and the Tower is the fall from grace. In the normal course of life, we […]
Read more "Perfection and Completion in the Garden of Eden"
Jack Chanek 