Only a few more weeks to spring
Welcome Fellow Nerds, Book Geeks and Tarot Lovers
FYI: TRIVIUM RESEARCH TIDBITS ON THE TAROT
Once a month, I'll focus on the tarot and divination to give my Trivium World authenticity and depth. Do read the novel beforehand. All FYI sections contain SPOILERS.
The Tarot: Focus For winter 2021
The Tarot
Introduction
What is the Tarot?
These playing cards originated in Europe during the 15th century. In the 18th century, many used the cards for divination. The tarot has four suits like other playing cards. Each suit has fourteen cards, ten pip cards numbered from one to ten and four court cards: Page, Knight, Queen and King. In addition, the tarot contains twenty-one allegorically-illustrated trump cards and a card numbered 'zero' also known as 'the Fool.'
Those who use the cards for divination believe the cards reference ancient knowledge from ancient Egypt and the Qabbalah. The Ettelia deck from the late 18th century was believed to be derived from the Book of Thoth because it contained Egyptian themes.
The diviner is called the 'reader,' while the one querying the tarot for advice is called the 'seeker' or the 'querent.'
The oldest surviving tarot deck is called the Visconti-Sforza tarot. It contains 60 cards and dates back to the fifteenth century.
The Major Arcana (the greater secrets) contains twenty-two cards with no suit affiliation. The Fool is sometimes unnumbered or goes by the number zero. The other twenty-one are numbered with Roman numerals starting at I and ending at XXI. They are: The Magician, The High Priestess, The Empress, The Emperor, The Hierophant, The Lovers, The Chariot, Strength, The Hermit, The Wheel of Fortune, Justice, The Hanged Man, Death, Temperance, The Devil, The Tower, The Star, The Moon, The Sun, Judgment, and the World.
Many believe the Major Arcana has a deep psychological and archetypal relevance that actually accounts for all of lives stages. Each card is thought to represent a major life turning point.
The Strength card was traditionally the eleventh card. The Justice card traditionally was the eighth card. The creators of the popular Rider-Waite-Smith deck switched the position of these cards to better fit them with the astrological correspondences decided by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. They associated the eighth card with Leo and the eleventh card with Libra.
Minor Arcana are the fifty-six suit cards of the tarot. When used for divination, the Minor Arcana allows readers to understand subtleties and details that surround the major events depicted by the Major Arcana.
The only known example of a deck that illustrated both Major and Minor Arcana was the Sola Busca deck.commissioned by a wealthy Milanese family in the 1490s. Because Waite suggested Smith use Sola Busca for her inspiration, there are many similarities in the symbolism between the two decks.
The four court cards, the Page, the Knight, the Queen and the King can represent actual people in the seeker's life.
In Trivium: The Lovers, Billie reads Lena Hebert's fortune to reveal vital information concerning the livelihood of her store. Her reading for Sara provides insight into Billie's personal future. Lucia's hand-painted tarot reflects on pivotal moments in her history. Both women often references specific tarot cards to convey their emotions at the time.
Every modern tarot deck is different carrying a different connotation based on the theme and illustrations selected. Many however, use the Rider-Waite-Smith deck from the early 20th century to provide the quintessential guideline.
Pamela colman-smith: Focus for November 2020
Pamela Colman-Smith and the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot
Many tarot card readers feel an automatic affinity with Pamela Colman-Smith, illustrator of the gold standard Rider-Waite tarot. Dubbed 'Pixie' by her friend, the actress,Ellen Terry, and affectionately known by this nickname by all her friends, Pamela Colman-Smith was an American born in London in 1878, lived during the early 20th century and died in 1951. She moved with her family to Jamaica where she lived until 1893. Educated at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, her art reflects fin-de-siecle symbolism preceding Willima Morris's Arts and Crafts Movement.
After her parents died, she returned to England, working as an illustrator and designing theatre sets for the Lyceum Theatre group where she met and toured with Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and Bram Stoker. One of her lifelong friends was Ellen Terry's daughter, Edith Craig (the great aunt of John Gielgud.)
Pixie wrote and illustrated two books about Jamaican folklore, one of which was Annancy Stories (mentioned in Trivium: the Lovers). Her illustration projects included work for the Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, his brother Jack Yeats, Ellen Terry and Bram Stoker.
In 1903, she started her own magazine which she called "The Green Sheaf." Although it contained contributions from notables like Yeats, it lasted only a little over a year. From there, she created her own small press, The Green Sheaf Press, which published novels, poems, fairy tales and folk tales by mostly women writers.
In 1907, Alfred Stieglitz (husband of Georgia O'Keefe) held an exhibition of her paintings in New York. He was intrigued by Pixie's synaesthetic ability: she would paint the images that came to her while listening to music.
Yeats, an important member of the London chapter of the Golden Dawn, encouraged Pixie to join the Order in 1901. It was there she met Arthur Edward Waite who commissioned Colman-Smith in 1909 to create a tarot deck that included illustrations for all fifty-six Minor Arcana cards. Waite suggested Smith use Sola Busca for her inspiration, but many of the illustrations are uniquely Pixie's inventions.
As Billie implies in Trivium: the Lovers, Pixie was paid very little for extensive work that was to become one of the most popular tarot decks of all time. Waite discounted her input, claiming it was he who decided what images would adorn each card. The resulting deck did not even bear Colman-Smith's name nor was she credited for the images by name. Only after 100 years passed did the name of the Rider-Waite tarot change to honor its illustrator. Pixie finally received the honor due her with the release of the commemorative Smith-Waite deck.
Colman-Smith never achieved great commercial success. After the first World War, the public lost interest in her partucular brand of art. After years of financial instability, she died in 1951. Her possessions were sold at action to pay off her debts. In the novel, I take the liberty of having Billie and her family consider Pixie a dear friend. Their association begins because of their mutual affiliation with the members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Although Bohemian by nature, Pixie considers Billie's rash behavior as dangerous to her future. The artist's concern prompts her to use desperate measures. She dresses in gypsy garb and plays the tarot divinator to deliver a well-intentioned message that Billie would have otherwise ignored. The Devil, the Moon, Judgment Reversed and the nightmare card, the Nine of Swords work as Pixie intended, prying on Billie's mind. Not effective immediately, their haunting presence eventually forces Billie to face the truth.
