Tarot Analogies: Three-Part Harmony and Feeling*
*With apologies to Arlo Guthrie for deliberately misquoting Alice’s Restaurant.
AUTHOR’S NOTE: The fact that a tarot deck can be subdivided into three distinct but interdependent tiers — trump, court and “pip” cards — invites numerous analogies describing how they interact from the top down in “three-part harmony.” Here are a few ideas.
We might look at the three “zones of influence” from an anatomical perspective: the Major Arcana (aka “trumps”) symbolize the high-level abstractions and executive/administrative functions of the brain; the court cards signify the heart of the corporeal identity that serves to personalize one’s individual “footprint” in terms of size, shape, appearance, level of maturity and character traits; and the Minor Arcana, or “pips,” represent the cranial sensory apparatus (eyes, ears, nose, mouth) and the extremities — hands and feet with their sensitive fingers and toes — all faculties that interface directly with physical reality. The last of these assumptions supports my belief that the “pip” cards are the most telling indicators of routine progress in the unfolding of events; they show “where the rubber meets the road” when everything else can amount to lofty speculation (trumps) or socio-psychological distraction (courts). The pips are unfailingly “real,” the others are often tenuous and transitory due to their conjectural nature.
Then there is the “military” paradigm: the trump cards represent the strategists at rear-echelon headquarters churning out hypothetical “theater-of-war” projections; the court cards are the tacticians heading up the forward command posts and aspiring to enact their superiors’ vision in real-time maneuvers at the front; and the pips are the “foot-soldiers” who carry out assignments in the field. In a tarot reading I like to track what the “grunts” are up to and gauge how faithfully they are able to execute their marching orders.
There are also environmental distinctions. As I’ve written about recently (and frequently), the trump cards are more likely to depict stage-setting themes and situational backdrops than concrete events and circumstances with major consequences. But we can put a slightly finer point on it. Their impact may be broad and relatively shallow, indicating “surface noise” that will be easily penetrated by more visceral experiences, or narrowly-focused (i.e single-pointed) and trenchant, striking at the roots of the matter, providing motivation and demanding attention. (Where I draw the line is that they don’t invariably reflect a critical “hit” on our equilibrium, they may just add imaginative and stimulating flair to our deliberations.) The court cards generally describe the enveloping social milieu or the psychological atmosphere that defines the mental/emotional impact of the affair; and the pips convey routine, day-to-day occurrences and developments that run mostly on auto-pilot and require little intervention except perhaps to fine-tune our posture toward them (e.g. trying to “get up on the right side of the bed” for a change).
Finally, there is the mystical perspective. The trump cards can show how we are being pulled most emphatically away from our mundane focus and propelled toward a higher and perhaps more spiritual goal (but I wouldn’t hold my breath hoping to arrive there). The court cards can suggest where we might “give away our power” or, alternatively, drain power from other people (either intentionally or accidentally if they happen to place themselves in our path). The pip cards can convey “flying under the radar” such that our daily activities make little impression on the fabric of our being (most of us know the feeling of drifting aimlessly through our days like a footloose kid in the middle of summer vacation). Once again, in a reading the Minor Arcana usually tell me which rocks to turn over so I can see if anything interesting crawls out from underneath. Court cards may be predictable and trumps unremarkable but pips are seldom dull if we’re after pragmatic insights.
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on May 29, 2024.
