These past weeks I have been slowly toiling away at creating another project, The Poetic Arcanum. It is a collection of 22 small and pithy poems pertaining to each of the Major Arcana of the Tarot de Marseille. Each of the poems aim at specifically answering the question, Who are you, with each of the Majors. They were created by shuffling the entire pack of cards, excepting the Major in question, and laying down three cards in response.
Of course, I add that this is my own creation, extracted from my own reading of the three cards in relation to the Major they are interacting with. The poems are short, free-form, and expressive. Below is a preview:
I hope you enjoy what I have lovingly created, and also feel free to share as well.
Download the PDF file by clicking on the image below.
Imagine a round wooden table inside a warm and cozy kitchen with a small window over the sink. A billowing fire burns in the fireplace on the right wall. The table is worn with scuff marks, as are the 3 chairs that surround it. Fresh flowers sit on the windowsill, half empty cups lie about the table, a couple of small lit candles illuminates a pack of playing cards, disordered and facing up. The smell of coffee, bread and liquor permeate the kitchen. It is night, the kitchen is small, and low music wafts in from another room.
This is what I like to invoke mentally when I sit before a pack of cards, while calling on their history as a game of risks and trick-taking. I love the cards for their simplicity and directness, for their capacity to play tricks and in so doing revealing the permutations of truth. I love the cards in their barest form, when they speak of the mundane, disclosing the magic in the everyday, conjuring the possibilities, a chimera. As Nietzsche asserts in his essay, On Truth and Lie,
Truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are; metaphors which are worn out and without sensuous power; coins which have lost their pictures and now matter only as metal, no longer as coins.
… I want to explore these truths, the truths we tell ourselves and with which we construct our realities, and through this exploration extract ego and identity from the questions posed to the cards. When the ego is extracted from the question, one gains a position of clarity, from this pivotal position, the answer we seek has the exact precision we need so that the unconscious is made conscious. We gain clarity along with perspective.
As I continue to form my cartomantic narrative, I know that herein lies the crux, this is the card reader I aspire to be. Simple and precise. Le Bateleur in all his incarnations, before his table, with his tools, ready to regale you, to entice you, to elevate, as above so below and vice versa. All this while sitting round a kitchen table, quotidian, a cup of black coffee on one hand and the potential of a pack of cards in the other hand.
Decks used: Le Tarot Noir by Matthieu Hackiere, and Dame Fortune’s Wheel Tarot by Paul Huson.
The Spanish Tarot de Marseille published by Heraclio Fournier, Spain.
This past week has been hectic and full of big changes, hence why I haven’t written anything here. Throughout all this time of changes, the fool has occupied my mind constantly.
It is a common habit of mine to be somewhat afraid and cautious with change. Moving somewhere new, starting a job I have never done before, or even daring to follow the things I really want. As this week ends and the summer solstice is upon us, in the northern hemisphere, I have come to learn to face, embrace and stare into the depth of the unknown. This is where the fool has been enticing me. There are many ways to see the fool. For me, the fool is one that is outside of society, oblivious to the normative strains that constrain us. The fool is someone that blindly dares, sometimes for good other times for bad, and fearlessly and foolishly goes where s/he pleases. Outside of the the structures of society, of the major arcana, not exactly part of any journey. This is why the fool has no number, numberless, mutable, changing, and capable of being anywhere. The fool is only subject to his/her whims. Blindly courageous, occasionally to his/her detriment.
Camoin-jodorowsky TDM, 2009; Le Tarot Noir by Matthiew Hackiere; The Spanish Tarot published by Heraclio Fournier, Spain.
Yet truly, I feel the fool’s energy is vital and necessary sometimes. Especially when facing fears, the unknown, changes, and daring to dream. The fool shows me that sometimes it is necessary to discard the bounds of society, to disregard all precautions and dare to be courageous and wild. Who knows what can be born out of that daring? The fool doesn’t know, neither do I, none of us will know until we try. The fool dares to try, to fail or succeed, to loose or to be victorious.
In many significant ways, in order to follow those things we really want in life, we need to have the spark of the fool, I need to keep the spark of the fool present. Daring to be, to stand out, to speak out, to search, to enquire, to think, to be outside of the fray, to break away from societal and cultural constraints, courting both danger and luck. This is what the fool has come to signify for me, one who dares to live, along with all the implications of living.
Jean Noblet Tarot de Marseille Majors; Jean Noblet Tarot de Marseille reproduced by Jean-Claude Flornoy, editions letarot.com, 2014.
As the summer solstice is ushered in during this full moon, I think about the fool, embrace the unknown, and daringly continue walking onwards. I encourage you, reader to experience the fool’s energy wisely, embracing all that life has to offer.
Natalia Lee 