Fours of Swords and Cups, the King of Oros and Knight of Bastos

A spread of four randomly selected cards were chosen to accommodate the upcoming gypsy weeks -- living from cars and trailer/tent.

The spread began with the return of the card of that Muse of Mine: Cuatro de Espadas.http://deedee-salvadordali.blogspot.com/2010/04/siete-de-oros-y-cuatro-de-espadas.html

Indeed, this Muse is part of this annual trek away from home and habits.
This Four of Swords is followed by another encore appearance -- the excessive

Rey de Oros. http://deedee-salvadordali.blogspot.com/2010/05/rey-de-oros-with-circe.html The King of Gold wrapped in a self portrait. What is he doing on a trek away from the abstract and into the concrete? Now that is something to ponder.

Then new cards for the third and fourth:
Cuatro de Copas -- the card of something not realized, a prize overlooked. Such a sad card for Cups. Rachel Pollack links its sadness in this Tarot Universal Dali deck to the deck's Two of Cups. She sees them sharing the "darker side of sexuality."

It seems in its own way even sadder than the very sad The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David (1793) whom Salvador Dali took for his Cuatro de Espadas. Here, in the Cuatro de Copas, the self proclaimed King of Pentacles takes from Hippolyte Flandrin (1832) "Study (Young Male Nude Seated beside the Sea)."

Whether sad or sexual or both, because the youth is not placed -- that is, there are no landmarks, no reference points -- this 1832 painting has been compared with Surrealism -- the 20th Century style brought to its zenith by Salvador Dali.

And followed by the Knight of Wands.

A premier appearance for Caballero De Bastos -- the Knight of Wands -- but not for Benozzo's Voyage of Three Kings which Salvador Dali also used to find his Knight of Oros -- the introductory card to this journey.

That seems enough for now -- a trek to ponder through the caravan travels in the weeks ahead. For it seems suddenly hugely obvious that this path must take a turn.

The Four of Swords. The King of Pentacles. The Four of Cups. The Knight of Wands.
All in the Minor Arcana.
Only two are pip cards -- both fours within a four card spread.
Every suit appears.

Ponder the path.

Tres y Sota de Oros

Such complicated cards. Such complicated paintings. Such complicated Masters.

Following last week's Pentacles, there is surely money somewhere near. Or, as these cards suggest, it is the more basic meaning of the suit enlivening this time. Pentacles are not merely the coinage of the realm, they are our realm itself -- the Earthly realm.

Swords are air. Cups are water. Wands are fire. Pentacles are Earth.

Tres de Oros, the Three of Pentacles, the balance of the threes with the twist of spirituality which is requently captured in this Three of Coins card. In Tarot Universal Dali this Savior image is taken from the Master of Genoa, an anonymous painter of Bibles from the 13th century.

Sota de Oros, the Page of Pentacles, symbolizes Youth beginning the journey of external life, Earthly life. But Dali chooses Sir Joshua Reynolds, painting three centuries later, and chooses' Master Hare, a painting designed to show the primacy of a child's world, the child'a disinterest in external matters.

Very spiritual messages this week, and noteworthy for coming again and again from the Earthly realm.

Three is the number of completion, of wholeness. The tension of one - two dissolves into creation of a third -- woman, man, child; mind, body, spirit; a three-legged stool; a musical chord; the Christian trinity. Completion. Balance. Harmony.

The Page of Oros -- the child within the suit of the Earth -- is coming new to immersion in the world, or immersion into a new world. The page, of any suit, is the student, the child, the learner.

So what to make of both completion and novice from this two-card reading suggesting that the new knowledge is spiritual in nature but worldly in pursuit. It sounds the best of all words. It sounds wonderful.

Although Italian, the anonymous Illuminator derives his name from the illuminations in a Bible now in Gerona, Spain. The influence of Byzantine icon painting is obvious as is his efforts -- prevalent at the time -- of creating three-dimensional objects on two-dimensional spaces in space. The efforts led to the later Italian Renaissance style.

Sir Joshua Reynolds, painting three centuries later would have captivated the Magician of the Tarot Universal Dali not only with his long and productive career as a portrait painter but with his theories of great art: "Invention, strictly speaking, is little more than a new combination of those images which have been previously gathered and deposited in the memory."

But what does Dali mean growing an ectoplasmic seahorse -- the creature where the male gives birth -- above and behind this child? And what with the delicate dragonfly below? Watery and androgynous. Of course. How Dali.

Then this 20th Century Master adds an extra small Pentacle in the child's hand and two more in Tres de Oros at Christ's feet.

Comment: A momentous week of awakening to a new spirituality that touches so many elements. That seems enough with a single added imperative -- Remain open, as a child, to all that is offered. And then accept.

Rey de Oros with Circe

Unable to leave well enough alone I selected a second card before turning over this week's King of Pentacles. Who else is the king of riches but the Magician himself. This is the second self-portrait in Tarot Universal Dali.

There is The Magician, a powerful card of the Major Arcana seen above. And there is also the King of Wealth, of Reality, of Pentacles, as the suit is most commonly known in Tarot. And also known as Coins and in Tarot Universal Dali outright gold -- Oros.


Without knowing I held this King in my right hand I slid him still face down across the table and was pulled to draw another card, one that compelled my attention and then my hand and then turning it over again appears the Nine of Cups. For the second time in this journey. http://deedee-salvadordali.blogspot.com/2010/03/nueve-de-copas.html For the third time in this year.

There is something not getting past the Nine of Cups.

In Dali's hands the card represents not merely the traditional read of excess -- as so extravagantly Rey de Oros was already poised to endow this report.

Tarot Universal Dali adds to gluttony and excess the Dosso Dossi painting, "Circe (or Melissa)," she of either great goddess or great sorceress status and representing ageless myths and archetypes of the Siren and of Vengeance.

Judith Yarnall in Transformations of Circe: The History of An Enchantress writes,

“No matter what century or work Circe appears in,
she is associated with our bodily vulnerability and has power over that
– a power that is often presented as sexual allure.”

Paired, left to right, 1st drawn then 2nd, it seems the King of Gold shrinks from Circe as they face one another across the margins of their cards. Is he in pain? In anticipation? Is his right hand loose or clenched? His leg is crossed against his body, protectively.

Circe looks on calmly, her wand now alight in the fire at her feet. Her wand? But this is a card of the Cups, the suit of Love and Relationships and Emotions. Surrounded by them and at her head a silver wine beaker. A communion cup. Yet she holds a wand of fire. The Wands are such a male suit of action and invention, of fire. Yet this Goddess or Sorceress of Cups, this Vessel holds the power to melt the great king's gold. She holds the Wand of fire as he lolls delirious perhaps oblivious in his material wealth.

As these dual images of excess propped against the computer screen, failing yet to enlighten or to explain why Circe keeps visiting, word of newly crafted goddesses not yet fully formed reach me across many decades, awakening deep memories, deepening insights. Their creator asks why care taking continues after Love and even Responsibility end. She is looking for answers as she shapes and prepares her goddesses.

What is there we cannot get over? Will not. What is it that fails to satisfy? All Circe need do is step from her casual seat. There are breaks in this circle of Cups, a route out from all those Cup demands. It seems possible the King will not notice, his eyes are downcast. Content with his gold.

And even if that were the issue, what matter? The Goddesses and Sorceresses control fire. What holds us back? What are we afraid of?

Siete de Espadas - Again - and Cinco de Espadas Anew

You've seen her before, the Roman virgin huntress, Diane. But this past week's end she coupled with the Five of her same suit, Cinco de Espadas.




Anthony Van Dyck's 1634 portrait of Charles I shows the king as "master of his world" in the words of Rachel Pollack in her Dali Tarot. Except, she says, in Salvador Dali's re-casting there are the butterflies.

The Magician's butterflies migrate throughout Universal Tarot Dali. Here, says Pollack, "they represent the secret thoughts and emotions ... fantasies and unacknowledged desires ... undermining the pose..."

For them both, Charles and Diane -- as it were -- the ectoplasm seduces these indivisible numbered Swords and draws them each forward.

It is beyond even Renewal that these cards speak. It is Awakening. All is Anew. Untested. Not yet contrived. Something base and sexual and unacknowledged, calling us into our futures.

Are you listening? Are you hearing?

The journey -- and the cards seem to hint it has only begun -- appears to promise great difficulties. So say the swords upon swords. And also deep singularity exists in the coupling of mystical number 7 and 5, the card of loss. Both are prime numbers. Neither able to divide into equal quotients.

Using Numerology, as is the way with Tarot, the combination of the cards is the already heavily weighted and freighted number 12. 12 disciples, 12 virtues, 12 vices, 12 months, 12 gods of Egypt. Then the numbers 1 and 2 are added together. Three, 3, the number of harmony.

Harmony develops as the numbers progress; it is a future state. Rightly so. Harmony is not associated with Swords. There is no particularly pleasant state of affairs found amongst Swords. The suit bespeaks difficulties. But also resolutions in action.

Swords are the Element of Air, the very stuff of the words we speak, songs we sing, thoughts we think. The passions we express. Swords are the wildly swirling Element of Air -- they shriek: Alive! Alive! Alive!

The Magician chose that dark Van Dyke to say: No! to repressed "romanticism" -- plucking again from Pollack's work with Tarot Universal Dali. Dali, indeed, demands No! to all repression. Cinco de Espadas under The Magician's hand demands repression transform. These 12 Swords demand Metamorphosis.

These cards came to me from a woman whose randomly drawn Significator -- Sieta de Espadas, Diane -- appeared here Feb. 11, 2010. At my request, because of the duplication, she selected at random a second card. The famous portrait of Charles I by Van Dyke emerged.

Van Dyke's self-portrait at 15 shows him a prodigy as was The Magician.

Before week's end transitioned to week anew, http://www.metamorphosiscenter.com came to me, as unanticipated as Charles and Diane. Metamorphosis emerges. Investigate at your pleasure. Enjoy the layers upon layers of life; enjoy their laying and their lifting.

Dali chose amongst the other Masters in his lineage, the European Masters, to layer the Tarot he created for his Muse Gaia. The Magician used crutches on his own canvases. But here he used his ancestors' Christian, civic and mythological visages and visions to introduce new realities into the conventional symbolism of the Tarot. And The Magician did more. He used these Masterpiece troves to redirect, perhaps even deliver a pathway around a destiny better averted.

In the Cinco de Espadas, The Magician softens the blow of Rider/Waite's emphasis, which is upon the gloating victor, the defeated relegated to the background.
Thoth goes straight to "Defeat," erasing even the victor.


Charles does not gloat, though he is self-satisfied and self-absorbed. The Magician does not seek a lesson built upon that. He seeks the lesson of Metamorphosis from the butterflies. Surely, suggests The Magician, there is nothing gained casting ourselves into the game of Victory or Defeat.

It is a very difficult time, a very complicated time. Everywhere, for everyone. We must become butterflies, develop as our instincts instruct, accept metamorphosis as the true change that brings Harmony, which demands the 3rd leg, the teeter-tottering of victory and defeat cannot achieve balance.

Visualize the Chinese handcuff toy, feel the woven tube fitting both index fingers nail toward nail. Pull and pull and it tightens. Relax and all falls loose and free.
We must open ourselves to new worlds, frightening only from unfamiliarity. Just like the caterpillar, it is unlikely we always visualize what is to come.

Relax, Diane. Relax, Charles. Just Breathe.

Going to Port Lligat

With care I shuffled, cut to the left, accepted both the top and the bottom cards. The top was a repeat. http://deedee-salvadordali.blogspot.com/2010/03/nueve-de-copas.html -- the discomforting display of fortune. Indeed. Separately, plans began today to visit Salvador Dali's home.

The bottom card was Diez de Espadas, the Ten of Swords, in Tarot Universal Dali vernacular it is Vincenzo Camuccii's "Death of Julius Caesar."

The assassination a result, paraphrasing Wikipedia, of a conspiracy among 40 Roman senators. Caesar had recently been declared dictator perpetuo by the Senate, which left some senators fearing Caesar's ambition would overthrow the Senate in favor of a tyranny. The assassination led to a civil war that replaced the Republic with the Roman Empire.

Seeking a gentler path ... easing up on that violent image, the number ten always marks some ending -- in all the suits. And thus always foretells of a beginning.

Seeking a gentler path ... in the traditional decks ten swords pierce a man's back. Overkill, says Rachel Pollack, a meaning echoed by many. "The very extremity gives us a clue to release from the turmoil," she writes in "Complete Illustrated Guide to Tarot."

But she writes of the obvious in "Salvador Dali Tarot" -- she writes of "betrayal ... treason against friendship as well as social order."

Seeking a gentler path there Rachel Pollack also writes of the birds flying above the scene. She says they "relieve the violence."

Comment: Plans continue to visit Salvador Dali's home.