Tag: Major Arcana

The Strength-Justice Tarot Controversy

Posted C. LaVielle13 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot

Some of my best friends read with decks in which Strength is numbered 11 instead of 8 and Justice is 8 instead of 11. In fact, I own eight tarot decks and five of them use this numbering system. Horrors! How can this be? The first tarot cards we know of, The Visconti-Sforza decks, were painted in Italy in the 15th century and didn’t number the major arcana cards. At least the ones I’ve found on line didn’t. Most subsequent decks did number them, but their order has been constantly switched and different cards, such as the virtues Faith, Hope, and Charity have been added and subtracted to accommodate various metaphysical theories. In The Devil’s Picture Book, Paul Huson mentions a 15th century manuscript with a marginal note that gives a number to each major arcana key. In this system, Strength is 9 and Justice is 20. The French Marseilles decks (1600-1700’s) were the first to use the Strength 11, Justice 8 numbering system. They… Read More »

The Major Arcana and the Hero’s Journey: Justice, Part III

Posted C. LaVielle1 CommentPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey

Justice, key XI and the Wheel of Fortune, key X sit at the balance point of the Major Arcana. Ten cards precede them and ten cards come after them. Together chance and karma create the fulcrum around which the hero’s journey turns. If we consider the Wheel of Fortune to be the mechanism of manifestation, then Justice is the force within the cosmos that brings balance to the wheel. The wisdom of the tarot matches the Egyptian concept that it is Justice that brings balance to the universe. Libra, the scales, is the astrological sign attributed to Justice. It sits smack dab in the middle of the zodiacal year at Fall Equinox and it’s all about balance, harmony, and beauty. The Hebrew letter Lamed corresponds to Justice. As a verb it means “to teach or instruct” and as a noun it means an ox goad. The meaning of the letter Aleph is ox, and Aleph corresponds to The Fool who signifies pure cosmic energy. And… Read More »

The Major Arcana and the Hero’s Journey: Justice, Part II

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey, Uncategorized

The Ancient Greeks’ concept of Justice was more pragmatic than the Egyptians’. According to Egyptian mythology it was Maat, or Justice that set order to the universe at the moment of creation, and so Justice is the primary force of their world. (see Justice, Part I) The Greeks claim that it was Ananke, the primordial goddess of compulsion, inevitability, and necessity, that set everything to order. She emerged fully formed at the very beginning of time, a serpentine spirit intertwined with her mate, Khronos, or Time. Together, Time and Necessity hold the egg of the universe fast in their powerful coil. She is the mother of the Fates, or Moirae and although even mighty Zeus defers to her, she’s not a popular or commonly worshiped goddess. Nobody, except perhaps a politician, enjoys bowing to her. As far as we know, only one temple to Ananke ever existed. It was in Corinth, and this most powerful of all goddesses had to share it with Bia, meaning… Read More »

The Hero’s Journey and the Major Arcana: Justice, Part I

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey, Uncategorized

Maat is the Egyptian goddess of truth, justice, balance, and harmony. She regulates the stars, seasons, and the actions of both mortals and the deities and set the order of the universe from chaos at the moment of creation. She is a most ancient goddess; archeologist have found depictions of her from the middle of the Old Kingdom, c. 2600 BCE. To the ancient Egyptians, she was not just the goddess of truth and justice, she was truth and justice. The early kings described themselves as “Lords of Maat” who spoke aloud the Maat they conceived in their hearts. The Pharaoh’s Vizier, who was a combination of Prime Minister, Chief Security Officer, and Chief Judge, was the High Priest of Maat. Paul Doherty’s fascinating ancient Egyptian mystery series features Chief Judge Amerotke as its sleuth. He not only invoked Maat everyday before he entered the courtroom but also had a very rich and fulfilling relationship with her. In the underworld, Anubis weighs the deceased’s heart… Read More »

Major Arcana, The Hero’s Adventure: Wheel of Fortune: Epilogue

Posted C. LaVielle14 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Synchronicity, Tarot, The Hero's Journey, Uncategorized

The Wheel turned for us today. I was fixing breakfast when my husband walked into the kitchen and handed me the phone. “This man is saying Paris (our cat) is dead. Talk to him, I’m going up to get dressed.” “Where are you?” I asked the caller. He was right outside the house. Two of the utility guys that were putting in a gas line at a neighbor’s house met me as I came running out. Their faces were grim with concern and sympathy as they handed me Paris’s collar. “We were over there working and when we looked up he was laying in the street. He was up on our rig earlier saying hello. Really nice cat.” “Where is he?” “He’s just over there ma’am,” One of them said. He put his arms around me when I started to cry and patted me gently on the back. “If you let me know where you want me to put him, I’ll take him there for… Read More »

The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey: Wheel of Fortune, Part III

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey, Wheel of the Year

The Wheel of Fortune’s number is 10 which puts it as close to the center of the major arcana cards as you can get, assuming The Fool, 0, is at the beginning, so it signifies a turning point or balance point. The number 10 is also the beginning of the next series of digits after 0-9 (The Fool through The Hermit), so it can be seen as the beginning of a new cycle. This cycle can be either “better” or “worse” than the one before it, but it is always a step up in complexity and challenge. Jupiter is the planet assigned to the Wheel of Fortune. As the largest planet in the solar system, it is the planet of expansion, which is what the Wheel does—it expands not only our outlook, but our options. Astrologers also call it the Greater Benefic, or bringer of good fortune, with Venus, The Empress, being the Lesser Benefic. Kaph, or Kaf, is its Hebrew letter. Its symbol is… Read More »

The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey: Wheel of Fortune, Part II

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey

Ixion was king of the Lapiths, a tribe in ancient Thessaly, and to my mind, one of the most notorious men in Greek mythology. He lived back in the day when gods and mortals still socialized and when possibly mortals were a bit immortal, since gods and mortals interbred with gusto. Depending on who you are reading, Ixion’s lineage goes back to Gaia herself, or he may have been a son of Ares, or he may have been a mere mortal. At any rate, he murdered his father-in-law, who was a guest in his house, thus becoming both the first kin-slayer and a violator of xenia, the Greek concept of guest-friendship. Because no one had ever slain a family member before, his neighbors had no idea how to perform the rituals that would cleanse him of his guilt. Ixion went mad and roamed the land as an outlaw. Zeus took pity on him, released him from his guilt, and brought him up to Mount Olympus.… Read More »

The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey: The Wheel of Fortune, Part I

Posted C. LaVielle5 CommentsPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey, Uncategorized

Whether it’s Vanna White that spins the wheel, The Greek Moirae, The Norse Norns, or Shakespeare’s Weird Sisters, this card is about Fate, i.e., Luck. And as you can see, Luck is always a Lady, and she’s usually not real pretty. Like the Three Fates, there is a remorseless inevitability about this card, and I have never understood why most readers regard it as benefic. Fortune is not the same thing as fortunate. Seven days after a child is born, The Three Moirae, come to the infant’s hearth and determine the babe’s fate. Clotho spins the life thread, Lachesis measures it, and Atropos cuts it off. They are remorseless and powerful. Even Zeus bows to their authority. Once a destiny has been spun, measured, and cut there is no changing it. But who wants to surrender their free will to three cantankerous old ladies? We live in a time when marvelous advances in medicine and technology have given us the illusion that we are actually… Read More »

The Major Arcana and The Hero’s Journey: The Fool and The Hermit

Posted C. LaVielle1 CommentPosted in Major arcana, Tarot, The Hero's Journey

And androgyne looks up at the morning sky and dances on the edge of a cliff. He/she could be either going up the mountain or coming down. The point is, He/she is going. The Fool is a card of beginnings, of endless possibilities, the card of the seeker. And old man stands at the very top of a mountain holding a lantern up against the night and looks down. He has arrived. There is nowhere higher for him to go. The seeker has found what he is looking for. And to make sure the reader doesn’t miss that these two cards are related, Coleman-Smith and Waite made them the only cards in the tarot deck that place their subjects high up in the mountains at the edge of a drop-off. (The Emperor has rugged cliffs behind him, but he’s not so high up, there’s no drop-off, and he’s seated.) The Fool (0) and The Hermit (9) are the beginning and the end of the ten-digit… Read More »

Two of the Worst Things That Could Happen Just Happened (Continued)

Posted C. LaVielle12 CommentsPosted in Getting Published, Major arcana, Synchronicity, Tarot, Young Adult Fantasy

Thing 2: A few days after I got The Letter I went to the library to find a book to read. I was too lazy to check my list of books that I need to read, I just wanted something to relax and entertain. It would be nice to be able to to say that a sense of foreboding settled over me as I approached the New Books rack, but it didn’t. I just picked a likely looking book, The Last Days of Madame Rey, skimmed the blurb, and checked it out. It was several days before I got a chance to sit down and begin reading it. The prologue was titled “The Fool”. Oh good, I thought, a book with a tarot theme. When I got to the first chapter and it was titled “The Magician: I began to panic. I looked ahead. Sure enough, the second chapter was “The High Priestess” and the third was “The Empress”. To my horror, A.W. Hill, the… Read More »