Dos de Copas

Translating the Minor Arcana into a modern bridge deck, this Two of Cups would be the Two of Hearts. Tarot Universal Dali frames two famous hearts – Cupid and Psyche from L’Amour et Psyche’ (1817) by Francois-Edouard Picot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:L’Amour_et_Psyché_(Picot).jpg.

Dali captures the illicit lovers – Cupid, the Greek god (though the story is told also of Eros and even farther back, Amour), hiding his identity from his wife, the mortal Psyche, to keep the marriage secret from Venus, his mother. It is an old story.

Yet the Two – a number of balance and union; and Cups—the suit of water and love – this should be a card of beginnings and deep sharing. But Dali does not frame this intense meaning with the traditional warm red colors of love. Dali frames this love story told through centuries in a cool Cerulean.

The frame itself a profile of a lumpy headed old man with wisps of hair far back upon his cranium and upon his chin. His startled eye stares from Psyche’s navel. Or is that not the man’s eye but rather the head of a bird?

And at that the frame transforms into a bird – the lumpy headed man’s lips are the bird’s head, wings can now be seen in the place of chin or crown and this disappearing old man’s beard and hair become feathers.

No need to say Optical with Salvador Dali who knew all life was Illusion. He stuck crutches everywhere, trying to prop open for us to see, showing us peeks into the dimensions hidden from our parochial sight.

It is hard to trust this moment of the truest of true love, which is what this last moment is for Cupid and Psyche. Very soon Psyche will begin suffering the extraordinary ravishment Love can wreak upon a mortal. Is this idyllic moment, the moment before her life's tribulations begin, is this the Illusion? It is through arduous solo journeys she achieves the love and balance this card traditionally purports. Is this last idyllic moment only in the mind of the lumpy headed old man? Is the bird soaring or plummeting? What are we to carry forward from this into the week ahead?

As Cupid is Love, Psyche is Soul. Is that the warning we feel here, at this number in this suit of Tarot Universal Dali? Beware the Soul’s ravishment by Love.

Traditionally the Two of Cups speaks to balance, beginnings, partnerships, unions and love. Tarot Universal Dali bows to tradition here with the winged lion – carnality elevated above lust – and the caduceus’ opposites intertwined – the same Two of Cups header as in the modern tarot standard bearer, the Rider-Waite set.

Comment: Salvador Dali painted the 72-card Tarot Universal Dali for his muse Gala, one of the great gifts that powered Dali's Genius. But was Gala his beloved? Of course. But it's complicated.

There is not so much Great Love shown by Picot, re-imagined by Dali – rather Ravishment verily moans from the Dos de Copas of Tarot Universal Dali. Maybe the implicit warning is a kindness offered. I think it is a Dali crutch, giving us a glimpse into a week of twists and turns, not of gentle harmony. Love and Soul are both involved. A promise of ravishing pleasure; a warning of ravishing dénouement. Balance. Opposites entwined.

El Ocho de Bastos

The Eight of Wands. El Ocho de Bastos. What a bloody card in the Dali deck.

Again Rachel Pollack ‘s “Salvador Dali’s Tarot” identifies the painting of a struggle within a cavernous background, made all the more ominous by Dali framing the details inside a succulent red womb. The surrounding gore is additionally off putting.

How to reconcile this with the harmonious, well balanced eights, particularly the Eight of Batons? Yes the Dali card shows balance in and off itself – and certainly energy, the new overtaking the old – so overtly showing rebirth – but the image is so full of batons’ work, work, work.

And out of it, in the Dali card, the clash is the triumph and the lack of mercy is elegant.

His detail of the saluting men comes from the Oath of Horatti by Jacques-Louis David http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/his/CoreArt/art/neocl_dav_oath.html which was painted before the French Revolution in 1784.

The Oath was David’s depiction of a story told in Lvius’ history of Rome. Patriotic, pre-revolutionary France saw the three brothers pledging defense of Rome as heroic. The weeping women were sidelined in the painting and ignored by Dali. (“The Oath of Horatti,” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia)

This is not a card of going gently into any good night. This card is about the triumph of action and assault. Unexpected in a card traditionally reflecting balance and renewal.

Although the blood could be taken as birthing Dali is not content with merely framing the action. He fills the left side of the card with a blood saturated mosquito, that harbinger of death. Paint is smudged and drooled down the right side. This is not a gentle rebirth – it may be balanced but the medium is violent.

But what of the book speared by two of the batons and suspended above the action? That, too, is a new twist to the traditional card. Perhaps it tempers the intemperate action that the Eight of Batons can also depict. The wands, batons, scepters, regardless they are wooden and carry the element of fire within; purifying and sudden.

Indeed, sudden actions, thoughtless activity, jealousy and dissonance is captured in the Eight of Wands as well as the bloom of newness. It must always be considered that every action, every thought, every card, every heart holds its own opposite.

Comment: So. Well begun January: Let us hope this promise of violent rebirth shakes us from the thoughtless activities that would allow the Cabellero de Oros to not see the abandoned and now exploded wealth left behind. Let us accept the challenge that the trail itself, as promised last week and this week confirmed, will be harsh and sudden.

But the book. What shall I make of the book, the writings, the record?

It is this that we write here today.

CABALLERO DE OROS

The Tarot Universal Dali's Knight of Pentacles -- drawn at random from the full 72-card deck.
A fitting start to a journey into 2010. All that wealth exploded behind him. And he doesn't seem to notice.
Dali plucked his Caballero de Oros from the First King section of Benozzo Gozzoli's The Procession of the Magi frescoes. http://www.palazzo-medici.it/eng/sez_museo/viaggio.htm ilicomes -- Dali gave him the First King's horse.
The knight, snatched off the steep mountain of the magi's journey and dropped into a fiery desert, shifted his gaze to his new liege, his new creator -- Dali.
Dali further confirms his own powerful status as Rey de Oros making that card a self-portrait.
Gozzoli tucked a self-portrait into his frescoes as well, but lacked Dali's bravado and independence, casting himself as an adviser midst the rabble of the kings' retinue.
Meanwhile, perched upon the computer screen, my Knight of Pentacles opens the year and rides on, his world exploded behind him, his surrounds parched, his distraction letting droop his banner. Even his horse -- once the king's horse -- sinks unnoticed into the mud and the void below.
Comment: I will deliberate as I carry this card into my week in this way: Who will I become? Will I be the knight, the seeker, the rider across this desert? Will I follow a liege? Am I the liege?