The Unseen Map: “Here Be Dragons”
AUTHOR’S NOTE: I just came across the idea that an unpopulated tarot spread (prior to laying the cards) represents an “unseen map of the question” (this coming once again from Vincent Pitisci’s Genius of the Tarot, my current “morning-treadmill” read). This squares well with my own premise that the spread positions represent “signposts” or “way-points” for the emerging story-line: the situational twists-and-turns won’t be divulged until the cards are dealt. I’m reminded of the old seafarers’ maps that had large uncharted regions annotated with “Here Be Dragons” because the mariners feared there would be dire consequences for navigating them. While a tarot spread doesn’t automatically assume the worst, the possibility is always there (and to be honest, some people like encountering dragons).
I’m going to wrap this concept around my appreciation of Pitisci’s “re-imagining” of the Celtic Cross spread, which is one of the more lucid explanations I’ve found even though I don’t always agree with his position meanings or his understanding of its narrative flow. While it is common to read the spread in a linear manner from Card #1 to Card #10, Pitisci relates all ten positions to the question in a kind of dispersed “stew” or “scramble.” I’ve always applied the old-fashioned assumption that the first six positions (the “cross” section) illustrate the early development of the subject over time and the last four (the “staff” or “pillar”) convey the querent’s experience of, and reaction to, the matter as it unfolds to its conclusion. (It was put in simpler terms as “The cross is about the question, the staff is about the querent.”) In addition, I use Eden Gray’s clockwise rotation for the “cross” positions and her positional descriptions with my own tweaks rather than Waite’s or anyone else’s.
The novel approach that Pitisci brings to the table entails conceptually “matching” the individual cards in the “cross” to those in the “staff,” and it is one I’m going to explore here. In his readings he ties together Cards #1, #2 and #7 of his personal design; Cards #3, #4 and #9; and Cards “5, #6 and #10; Card #8 stands alone as his “timing” card: act now or wait? I won’t go into his rationale (which seems a little skewed to me), but will instead bring his general approach to bear on my own re-envisioned Celtic Cross.
Cards #1 and #2 represent the “heart of the matter.” (I don’t use the “Significator” card.) Card #1 shows the situation as it stands, while the “crossing” Card #2 depicts what I call “major motivators” (either challenges or opportunities). In thinking about Card #7 (which Gray titles “Fears” and I view as self-defeating attitudes and behaviors) I realized that it can speak to the “challenge” aspect of Card #2, suggesting whether the perceived obstacles are real or just phantoms of the querent’s overactive imagination. So I can see reading these three cards as a “vignette” describing the initial dimensions of the question, both situational and psychological. (Pitisci’s take is that Card #7 — as Waite’s epithet “Himself” — sharpens the querent’s view of the personal aspects of the question shown by Cards #1 and #2; I don’t disagree in principle, but I would use “slants” rather than “sharpens.”)
For Card #3 (at the bottom of my personal “cross”) I use the traditional “Distant (i.e. unchanging) Past” and “Foundation of the Matter” definitions, echoing Pitisci’s “What the querent has already gone through.” It doesn’t have a direct match on the other side of the spread; I think of it as commentary on the buried origins of the “situation as it stands,” but it could also be proposed as hinting at the historical reasons behind the “fears” of Card #7. Thus, Cards #1, #2, #3 and #7 could be read as a “quadrature” since they all denote foundational aspects derived from the “inner architecture” of the matter.
Card #4 at the left in my design shows the “Recent Past,” but I’ve come to think of it as the influential sum of prior experiences being actively carried forward from the Distant Past into the Present (my Card #5 at the top), bringing to the situation either useful resources or accumulated baggage (I’m thinking “assets or liabilities”); perhaps it could be considered a figurative “spark of conception” between the two spheres. Since it symbolizes the embryonic state of the answer as it crystalizes out of the previous conditions signified by Card #3, it can be related to Card #8 of the “staff,” which reflects the querent “coming of age” through mastering the circumstances presented in Card #6 and steered by Card #7. Card #4 would then reveal the “environment of the question” as a work-in-progress and Card #8 (the “Querent’s Environment”) can be read as the individual’s handling of the eventual consequences from his or her mature vantage point or “power base.” (In line with Pitisci’s “timing” notion, the querent might contemplate whether or not to “pull the trigger.”) Putting the two together creates a progression from a relatively unstructured scenario to a more explicit one of action-and-reaction, all for the purpose of “environmental” positioning.
As does Pitisci but with different titles and objectives, Anthony Louis reads his arrangement of Cards #5 (the Present), Card #6 (the Near Future) and Card #10 (the End of the Matter) as a composite view of the resolution of the situation. Card #5 “sets the stage” for the near-term forecast, Card #6 populates it with potential circumstances and events, and Card #10 gives the “final analysis” of the projected outcome. I use this paradigm in a casual way because it aligns with my opinion that Cards #4, #5 and #6 display a temporal “continuum” rather than three defined time-slots with a fixed beginning and end. But in practice I usually conflate only Card #6 with Card #10 since it shows the “first steps” on the path to the ultimate solution. As an expression of Pitisci’s “What the querent wants to achieve,” Card #5 can be conjoined with Card #9, which I interpret as the querent’s “aspirations” and not simply as Gray’s “Hopes.” In its role as “the Present,” Card #5 mainly provides testimony about how likely the immediate future is to manifest as intimated by Card #6; if the two are compatible in nature, the near-future outlook is substantiated, but if they are contrary it is less assured in its promise (or threat). Think “cheerleading” in the first case and “foot-dragging” in the second.
These shifts in perspective offer an interesting adjunct to my usual way of reading the Celtic Cross, and I’m going to take them under advisement going forward. It becomes obvious that neither the “cross” nor the “staff” evolves in a vacuum or exhibits any kind of sequential “lock-step” in its progress
Originally published at http://parsifalswheeldivination.wordpress.com on July 22, 2023.
