December 23, 2012

• Court cards completed

  Court cards completed

  Tarot

  I finally completed the set of court cards for my personal Tarot deck. I am still 4 cards short to have a complete personal Tarot deck (the 10's of the suits are still missing). I used my own as well as art from my children to complete the cards and place each in the appropriate position on the enneagram as discussed in my previous writing.  These cards each tells a story given its position. My deck is not finished even when it is complete. The deck of cards was always meant to be an evolving deck that can change and evolve as I change and evolve.  When I look at the first cards I drew and the quality of some of the cards that form now the court cards then it is an amazing journey of improvement even though I can not dedicate the proper amount of time to art. I broke a bit from the traditional layouts by not including cups, swords wands and pentacles in the cards itself. Rather I used the colors and traditional elemental symbol to indicate what card it is. I have also not written the name of the cards to avoid classification in the use of the cards. I just placed a ++ to indicate the active mature element, -- the passive mature element, + the active young element and - as the passive young element. I myself use the terms King, Knight, Queen and Princess.

  

  1. Starting at node zero is the Knight of Swords depicted as an angel in battle with a dragon. A new cycle is started when we are facing our fears or see our own shortcoming in life. The dragon represent our attachment to the material or physical world while our spirit yearn towards freedom and higher values. It is the duality between the spiritual and physical that propels into an evolutionary cycle of personal growth and self improvement. The young active impulse is the start of a new cycle with the aim of creating new momentum away from the old.
  2. Point 1 is the point of philosophy where we challenge and question our believes. On the left is the Queen of Wands depicted as a lady making music. We seek harmony, coherency and meaning in our philosophy.  You will see at point 8 is the King of Cups ending the cycle of music. When we recognize the musical octave scale we will know that the path of progression is not just linear. When we focus our ideals on that which is lofty and uplifting we will find that there is harmony between our desires and our achievements.
  3. Point 1 has the Queen of Swords on the right hand side which is depicted by a young lady looking up to see a vision or gain a new insight into her understanding of the world. She represents the force through which we discriminate, compare, question and analyse our philosophy or paradigm. It is only through constantly challenging our mental paradigm that we can grow towards new insights. Without a sound personal philosophy as foundation we can not grow, we can merely remain stuck but when we have a solid philosophy it allows us entrance into the world of creativity.
  4. At Point 2 when we explore our philosophy with sincerity we discover that we can achieve far more of our full potential than what we are living at the moment. It is the Queen of Pentacles at the left that remind us of our limitations in terms of time and space that present the challenges we must over come. We understand our full potential better when we begin to grasp that we ourselves set our limits through our beliefs...and it uprooting limiting beliefs that allow us to seek new ways of living. Her world is grey and devoid of compromise but rather look at the world in terms of factual knowledge.
  5. At point 2 we also have the Queen of Cups (on the right) in her mysterious blue cloak.  She represent the mysterious world of the values that guides us into our action. Ultimately it is our values that determine what we can achieve in life. The queen of cups does not force a value system onto us but remind us that we need to continually investigate what values drives our actions.
  6. Point 3 is the point of intent. At this point we find the King of Wands embarking on the road towards his intent. He is equipped to fight for what he wants to achieve. The Kung-fu master is continually learning, continually practicing to become better with the long term vision in mind. He does not just want to obtain a singular objective but see each objective as part of the puzzle needed to build a new life.
  7. Point 4 is the point of harmony and romance and we find here the Princess of Pentacles on the left with a yin/yang symbol on her face. She sees balance between the desire of need and what we have. Forever she informs us to appreciate what we have and use it to its full rather than focus on the lack and what we do not have.
  8. Point 4 on the right has the Princess of Cups, depicted by a Lady looking away uninterested in what would be in the future but seeing those things that others dont see. Not looking from the picture is not a sign of ignorance but rather she sees that which other misses. She is aware of the backdrop of our life and how we need to seek the assistance of others and appreciate friendships for us to move forward. She does not rely on herself alone but look around for assistance.
  9. Point 5 on the left is the Princess of Wands looking for opportunities. She is a lady, awake and aware with a zeal for life. She lives with hope knowing that at any moment of time there are opportunities to move closer to what she wants. She does not hesitate to investigate life around her. Fully aware of the risk she remains unsatisfied to remain with the status quo by continually looking for opportunity to knock on the door.
  10. Point 5 on the right is the Princess of Air depicted by a young girl standing, looking at the immense ocean of possibilities.  She sees everything as an opportunity like a surfer waiting for the right wave to surf. She is young, to remind us that we need innocence to see the true value of the situation. Too often old thinking paradigms limit us and make us blind to see new opportunities. The Princess of Swords however is ever aware that we live in a universe of abundant opportunities is we are willing to look at the world through the eyes of a child. 
  11. Point 6 is the point where we find the Knight of Cups as a Buddhist monk sitting in a temple reflecting with a bowl of water in his lap. He represents the moment of quietude before we take action, to test that action against our conscience. Do we act in service with compassion for our fellow human beings? The Knight of Cups reminds us that if we want to walk the path of divine enlightenment we must find space of solitude before the God of our heart and understanding and test our actions and desires for coherence with the divine and natural laws.
  12. Point 7 on the left is the King of swords ready and prepared to act. The face is that of the Nordic warrior Beowulf who was a mighty warrior that ruled his people. The kings are symbols of maturity. To act and increase the possibility of completing an action we must have the courage to act by stepping from our comfort zone into the unknown. We need to be disciplines but also have the determination to continue to succeed.
  13. Point 7 on the right is the King of Swords represented by a picture that was painted by Leonardo da Vinci of St Gerome the first Doctor in Theology. In this picture however Saint Gerome is slightly changed to have wings which shows the ability to fly. This emphasize the importance of proper planning and calculating of the costs before we act. The King of Swords not only plans but can now plot the path from the current situation to the future desired situation and actually see in our minds eye the changes that needs to take place.
  14. Point 8 on the left is the King of Pentacles...depicted only by the hand of a Nordic god holding a hammer. This is the depiction of ultimate creating a new or alternative failure. The mead pouring from the horn at the bottom reminds us that in this act of realization we will sacrifice time and energy in order to transform and/or change the world. The magic lies in doing.
  15. Point 8 on the right is the King of Cups represented by a violin player on his knees ending the song. It reminds us that everything comes to an end where we will be judged for our actions. It reminds us that at some point in time we will have to wrap things up and move on. It does not matter how good something might be, everything has the potential of becoming outdated and no longer adding value to our life.  We need to move on  at the appropriate time or else we get stuck and unable to move forward.
  16. Point 9 ends with the Knight of Pentacles. The Knight of Pentacles are represented by a dark brown wood elf with big eyes looking back at the results. ow that everything has been completed it is time to access what was good and what was bad and learn from the experience. Have we achieved the intent and have we remained in line with our conscience. The Knight of Pentacles calls us to remember ourselves and be aware of our circumstances and to see how we have progressed over time.

  • 6:33 pm
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