love trumps

This week's reading re-iterates the theme of love in my future. At my age, I'm not sure how that's possible, but I've learned to trust the cards.

The king of hearts, an emotional and fair-minded guy, somewhat self-sacrificing (he is a suicide king) moves into the next phase of an unpredictable life with some hesitation.

Five spades is another recurrent theme -- I drew it on the left a month ago -- signaling  changes in the specific things a person does every day, or in other words changes in routine. I'm cooking a lot less, and eating mostly raw food. Other changes occurring as well.

And then there's trump VI, which I don't believe I've ever drawn in a reading before. Of all the cards, this one along with the hanged man comes in for the most tortured, complex, and arcane occult interpretations. it simply means "love," specifically of the romantic variety. "Love" was the card's original name, and it appears to have been, in the earliest semi-complete deck, a depiction of a dynastic marriage of the houses of Sforza and Visconti.

The image was scrambled by the inclusion of a third person on the card in the Marseilles decks, and the interpretation of 19th-century "seers" such as Eliphas Levi.

The symbolism of the trumps is not difficult to understand in most cases, because the first part of the more-or-less standard sequencing of them contains patterns of meaning. The sequence begins with a depiction of the order or structure of society in trumps I through V, then come VI-VII-VIII-IX, or love, war, fortitude, and old age. Fortitude, or strength, doesn't seem to belong with the others, which are all things we encounter as we go through life. The deck's three virtues, strength, justice, and temperance, have shifted their positions in the sequence frequently over the years.

Then comes the first of the "big wheels," Rota Fortuna, and the first half of the trump sequence is complete.

Edit: The sequence is VI-VII-fortitude-IX in Waite's deck. In older decks such as the Marseilles, it's VI-VII-justice-IX. An even older sequence had justice in the 20th place.

Click on the image for a larger view. Photo and tarot cards ©2013, 2001 by Dave B, a.k.a. catboxer.