Over the last two days, the cards that I drew as daily meditation were the 8 of Swords and the 4 of Swords. They are both cards of the rational and mental plane, the intermediate sphere of Yetzirah, and are also associated with Jupiter. This is relevant because. in any context, what does Jupiter enjoy?…
The most common reading of the Six of Cups associates the card with nostalgia. That interpretation almost always comes from the usual iconography. Children, flowers, simple gestures, “innocent” scenes. Let’s see what nostalgia actually means. Nostalgia comes from the Greek nóstos (return) and álgos (pain). Literally: the pain of an impossible return. The impossibility of…
After doing a reading for William Stoner, I decided to do another one for another stoic figure in American literature: Don Gately from Infinite Jest. Now Don Gately is one of the main staff members at Ennet House, the halfway house for recovering addicts in Infinite Jest. He is a former burglar and addict who…
This is a cardinal reading to analyse the relationship between Tony Soprano and his mother, the one that runs through the entire series and, in the end, structures almost everything he is. The Ascendant is Tony, because I wanted to see the relationship through his eyes. The Descendant is Livia, as the Other. The Imum…
I was meditating on the Knight of Wands. He is Air of Fire. That combination alone says almost everything. The rational, mercurial, mental element applied to direct and immediate action on the world. It’s the moment when plans are acted upon, when the mind gives direction to the flame. He is the conqueror who brings…
I decided to analyse William Stoner through the symbolism of the Tarot, since he is one of my favourite literary characters. Stoner, by John Williams, is a novel about an entire Stoic life lived without heroic gestures or visible conquests, but with a strong inner coherence. My cardinal reading uses the cards as a way…
I drew the Knight of Pentacles as my card of the day. First, it is a court card related to the material, to the physical, to Earth (Pentacles). Earth is cold and dry, feminine, heavy, inward-moving, and resistant. It is the element of form, matter, limits, weight, and duration. Things that belong to Earth grow…
Yesterday, while listening to the beautiful Medusa by Brendan Perry, I felt the impulse to draw a Tarot card. The card was the Queen of Pentacles. The image that immediately arose was that of a tear falling onto the earth, slow, dense, laden with memory. Perry’s voice seemed already to contain that gesture, especially when…
In the previous article, I mentioned that my recent readings had been lacking a certain lightness. Curiously enough, the Tarot seemed to take that remark personally and answered with a touch of mordant humour. In one reading made over the past few weeks, for personal matters, the first card I drew was the Five of…
A few years ago, when I first began to handle the Tarot, I did so with the lightness typical of a beginner, with that blend of scepticism and playfulness which protects the spirit when it comes close to the invisible. There was no fear, no heaviness, only curiosity and fascination with the forms. I used…
