Meditations on the Tarot: The Chariot

The Chariot is the card of triumph, and the card of fasting. It is the card which teaches renunciation and mastery through obedience. In it I see St. Mary of Egypt, who's feast was yesterday; the woman who gave up an entire life to follow her Beloved into the desert, where she never again tasted the wines and good foods of her previous life, and, it seems, hardly missed them. 

Mary, who turned so suddenly and so completely from her sins, was saved from the temptation that comes with renunciation, the temptation toward spiritual pride. She was saved, I think, through love. She had that rich and promiscuous love; the love that in one moment falls so completely and never looks back. Love enough to give everything to Him and never question. I picture her with water-hands, Mary of Egypt..long, thin, and brown after her years in the desert, listening to her Lord whisper His words to her in the sunlight, and laughing merrily at the thought of her life to come. 

Fasting is the means to the triumph of love over death, and in these final week of Lent, we recommit ourselves to it, in hope of finding some share of St. Mary's own Triumph.The Chariot card reminds us that renunciation requires love to succeed.

Meditations on the Tarot: The Lover

My Lenten focus has been Love and yet I couldn't write about the Lover - who chooses between two very different loves. The card shows him between to women, the first "seizes him and kisses him, and with impudent face she says to him:

I had to offer sacrifices

and today I have paid my vows. 

So now I have come out to meet,

to seek you eagerly, and I have found you."

(proverbs 7:13-15)

The other holds back, she is the opposite of her rival. 

"I possess knowledge and discretion..

I love those who love me,

and those who seek me find me."

(proverbs 8:12 and 17)

It is the card of temptation. The choice between vice and virtue - and one made easier through the discipline of fasting, because we fast to seek God, to learn love more deeply from Love Himself, with minds and hearts undistracted by the seductions of the one we do not love. The one who wants us, but not as a true love does. 

It is an ideal season to keep the lover in mind, to meditate on his choice as we try to build "a spiritual monastery in relation to this world and it's god."

 

Meditations on the Tarot V: The Pope

"The ancient rites have lost their effectiveness since Christianity appeared in the world. The .. Catholic religion, in fact, is the legitimate daughter of Jesus, King of the Mages. A simple scapular worn by a truly Christian person is a more invincible talisman than the ring and pentacle of Solomon...Necromancers evoke the dead, the sorcerer evokes the devil and he shakes, but the Catholic priest does not tremble in evoking the living God."

The Pope is the card of Benediction. The magic of the God-Man made visible throughout time. And when I look at it I think of the Icons above my altar - their tiny blue light glowing in the darkness; little doors opening to the warmth of the Divine Will.

We are entering into a season of fasting now..and I tuck my written prayers behind the Saint best suited to tend to it: Paraskeva and the Theotokos sharing my beloved friends, St. Joseph nurturing the lonely and the dead, Anna keeps me from laying out the lovely cards beneath my books, and Nikolas works wonders for us and keeps the car from breaking down. Yarrow has given the coyotes to St. George, she worries about them - will they find their friends in the night?  And there is a creepy guy on the snow as well - haunting, wrapped in his own death, we've given him to Sts. Anthony, Patrick, and Elizabeth Ann Seton, he needs quite a few holy friends to keep from worrying us. The world is full of mysteries. Full of the unsettling dead and the dark, uncertain night. 

It is overwhelming to think that we walk on an earth that has drunk the fresh blood of Christ. That we drink it as well - is there anything, really, for us to fear? I worry less while fasting, there is the Icon of Christ in the Cup, reminding me with delight.."I bear on my body the marks of Jesus" and cannot be troubled by any man.

Meditations on The Tarot: The Emperor IV

 

"Freedom is the true throne of God and His cross at the same time. Freedom is the key to comprehension of the role of God in history..the God of Love and the God-King, without the sacrilege of making Him a tyrant and without the blasphemy of doubting His power.."

I like the Emperor in this card, he is a peaceful ruler - no sword, no retinue, just calm authority. He rules alone, like God..without needing the trappings of a court to give him power. Alone under the sky, we can see his authority - even unacknowledged, needs no force to defend it. He simply is The Emperor.."he has made a place in himself for the Divine Name" - and because of that self-established emptiness, he can receive authority. 

"Nature has a horror of emptiness..the spirit has a horror of fullness."

I think about this as I look at the things I would like my life to be full of..good things, beautiful things, a life full-to-brimming; where is the Spirit in such a life? Does He get lost among the crowd? Do I mistake Him for something else, something easily replaceable? It is better to have lonely places in my heart - little rooms that I would have filled with all the blessings of life; tiny beds to rest in as He waits for me to hear His voice.

Meditations on the Tarot: The Empress - Magic and the Theotokos

“There are three kinds of magic: magic where the magician is the instrument of divine power..sacred magic;magic where the magician is the source of magical operation..personal magic;lastly, magic where the magician is the instrument of elemental..or other forces - sorcery. [The Empress] refers to sacred or divine magic.”

“Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to Your word.” (Luke 1:38)

The question in this letter is whether or not there is a legitimate form of magic - a magic divinely authorized; and I, believing in a God who gives martyrs their heads to carry and who comes as a Child to instruct the arrogant or to nestle in the arms of the humble, a God who comes into my own life to be devoured, I can only agree with the author. There is such a magic, and the Virgin is it's Queen. She who became the truest instrument of divine magic, and whom we are to imitate as we, too, allow God’s magic to make all things new - even if we wonder, as the She must have, at the strange and unlooked for paths He makes for us.

Meditations on the Tarot II: La Popesse (the priestess)

"Wisdom has built her house. 

She has set up her seven pillars."

             (Proverbs 9:1)

I have a friend named for Wisdom, and in my mind she is forever dancing in the light of a new-born sun. In the priestess card, we see God collected, put on a page, and studied - intimately, like a very rich dream.  A reflective card, it offers creativity, in its deepest sense, to understanding. The author links the card to Wisdom, to study, and to the Word made flesh:

"The second arcanum ..shows us how Fire and Wind become

Science and Book. Or, in other words, how "Wisdom builds her house."

I think mostly of my friend, building her own house on the western coast. Foundations to last long beyond the life of a building - pillars to walk with her on her path to the Son. I see her studying God as He writes Himself on each page of life; and then I think of the Word as He was - small and tender, delighting in his own tangible self, in the textures of his skin. Saying to Himself, as children do: "I have two hands, I have my eyes, my mouth; I have my body..See - this is my body!"

Monday Reflections: Notes from Meditations on the Tarot

I.

The Magician 

The Anonymous author of Meditations on the Tarot is not writing a book on divination. This is not a book for the reader of the cards, and the reflections are only on the major arcana. It is a book which uses the images of the cards to bring us into a deeper relationship to the world of symbol and faith. 'A journey into  Christian Hermeticism' - the author calls it, and what is Christian Hermeticism but a journey itself, an ever growing relationship.

In the first card, we're invited to meet Symbolism itself in the form of the Magician, who like symbols themselves "conceal and reveal their sense at one and the same time."

The magician is linked by the author to "the rapport of personal effort and of spiritual reality" - the card that opens the door to understanding the others. 

                          Learn at first concentration without effort; transform work into play;

                          make every yoke you have accepted easy and every burden that you 

                          carry light!

Seen that way, it's obvious we need a magician of some sort - we need to bend the exterior life to reflect the will, shape it, as a magician does. It is not an easy task though, each person has a burden which seems impossibly heavy; but Christ has called us to do the same, with his own magic lifting the yoke until it is easy to bear. The key our anonymous friend gives is in disinterested concentration - focusing not on the burden, but on the One who makes burden's light and there, concentrating 'without effort' on the absorbing beauty of Christ, our work becomes the serious, joyful play of the child.

I'm finding as I read these reflections, that I love the quiet of them, the abundant symbolism, and the different and completely non-divinatory view of the cards. It's a way of looking at them I'd never really explored before, and it's a blessing to have the chance now.