December 2-4, 2011: 2 of Wands
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"Can any of you (from this card's meditation tableau) see why Waite might possibly have designed this card as a king standing atop a tower? "
I was thinking it had something to do with the astrological attributions as Magictortoise pointed out.
The King is standing atop a tower. Not inside the Tower. He is not limited to the confines of the Tower and has a vantage point that allows him the freedom to look out at the kingdom to see what's there and what could be added. Or taken away. It's really his call. The ball is literally in his court
"Iaomai wrote:
I kept wanting more from this arrangment.I just kept getting "the power of the Emperor to rule," or "the power which the Emperor holds," which, the name of the card, Dominion, already gives.
"What do you think is missing that would help you understand this arrangement?
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Hmm... More like... it's just right there on the surface for me. I can't come up with anything more seemingly profound than what's right there.
It's more of a feeling for me - that bolt-upright, aware, intense frame of mind - the one that can see both desire and the result of acting upon it.
...has all the necessary power and is on the verge of making a "king's decision" to act.
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"It's more of a feeling for me - that bolt-upright, aware, intense frame of mind - the one that can see both desire and the result of acting upon it.
...has all the necessary power and is on the verge of making a "king's decision" to act."
BOOM
You freaking nailed it! I share the same EXACT FEELING. It's like nothing's going to stop you. You're gonna get whatever you say done because you are your WORD.
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@Iaomai said
"I kept wanting more from this arrangment."
Yes, possibly there is an unclarity on expectations from the arrangement. It's actually pretty simple, though: the Minor gets its characteristics from two pairs of ideas. One is Sephirah + Element/World. The other is planet + sign decanate assignment. The two cards symbolize that planet + sign part.
I must admit - perhaps with this card especially - that the arrangement makes me think of an erect penis atop its two testicles (rather like on the Thoth Atu XV). That's not a bad image, though, for the intended function: That is, the two cards feed living, fertile streams into the "main shaft" is the Minor Arcanum. In this case, The Emperor and The Tower are the paired ideas that can be meditated on side-by-side, and also which feed upward into the primary object of meditation.
It makes (ahem) a vas deferens.
Additionally, this is where the prior work with the Major Arcana comes to play. By now, each of the Trumps should trigger a concise, central idea in your mind, something which was the concentrated result of meditations on it. These ideas flow into the present formulations. For example, The Emperor and The Tower (being all red and so forth, and known to be Aries and Mars) of course reflect much power, especially specifically male-themed power (which pairs well with Chokmah-in-Fire ideas). But they are (one way to say it) the ideas of sovereign reason paired with primary Mars force - and these start to tell us the mechanisms of how Dominion is established. Etc.
There are also alchemical (by which I primarily mean yogic / chakra) patterns evident which give hints to subconsciousness about how to release the more subtle forces of this card into your system. The Tower corresponds to the Mars chakra (Svadisthana). The Emperor combines the power of Mars and the Sun (Svadisthana and Anahatta), and has a whole doctrine behind it of the Mars force being brought from its "night" expression (Scorpio) to its "day" expression (Aries). These ideas don't necessarily have to be known - subconsciousness will read them directly from the cards and will set to work making subtle changes in the physical and astral "wiring" to amplify the effect, if you let yourself be imprinted by them.
"I keep wanting to tease out the difference here between the Ace of Wands, which was beginnings, and the Three of Wands, which, in my head at least, speaks of the expression of a particular will. That leaves the Two of Wands for will (Will?) itself, fully formed as the agent or power, but still lacking a definite direction or particular expression."
Excellent. Those subtleties are hard to grasp sometimes, and I think you're on the right track that they have to be felt (from the inside out, so to speak).
A few thoughts: With the Ace, you are dealing with the primal force of Fire. Its companion cards in the meditation are that which corresponds to Fire itself (Aeon) and that which is the Kerub of Fire (Leo = Lust). These help instruct in exactly what we mean by Fire per se (at least as it pertains to us directly, and to our Work).
On the 3... I see where you're going, but think I would put "expression of a particular will" further down the Tree, at Yesod-Malkuth - saving the stages in between for its formulation. For example, it's not concretized and "made real" until the 4, etc. But yes, a particularization has been sorted out. In Binah, we find the matrix wherein Chokmah has seeded its essential impulse, its intent. Binah (triangling) starts to provide a containment for its manifestation. (Etc. etc. and all the symbols you already know.) Therefore, the old title was "Established Strength," and Crowley retitled it "Virtue," or a particular power. It will be The Sun and its sign of exaltation, The Emperor, which serves as the "testicles" feeding their seeds up into the card. - So will is "established," which might mean "built" but perhaps just means that the field has been well prepared and now is seeded: the crop is inevitable.
I think your paragraph above captures the 2 of Wands pretty well, because there is an apparent dualism. There is the sense of just the raw will-force itself, independent of a specific target; and yet it is clearly the specific impulse that will seed Binah. Perhaps the distinction here confirms something about the nature of True Will: That it truly is infinite, in the sense that it is going and on a course independent of a particular target, and yet, in a specific context, it focusses itself on a particular target, as if it's "the end of the moment." It's as if one starts in San Francisco and decides to "go east" - there is no specific target although, perhaps, one will end up more likely in New York than in Miami. Along the way, without interrupting that one is "going east," Salt Lake City catches one's attention and, for the moment, "going to Salt Lake City" seems to be the goal for a few days. In truth, one is just going east.
It may help if you have a full copy of Liber Theta and read some of the support material on the Minors. On p. 36 I speak of the Twos in general as follows: "Only upon reaching Chokmah does the element itself appear (Kether being only the element’s seed-potential). As Chokmah is uncontaminated by any influence, the element appears in its original, purest, and most naturally harmonious condition."
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@magictortoise said
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@Jim Eshelman said
"Can any of you (from this card's meditation tableau) see why Waite might possibly have designed this card as a king standing atop a tower?
"Hmm, not really - apart from the obvious astrological associations... But then, we can't really know why he choose most of the designs that he did, given that his was about keeping the oaths not revealing..."
Ah, but we can. In many cases we see the almost literal presence of the composited Trumps formulating the Trump. This lets us look for that same thing in other cards where it is more subtle.
Thus, in the 2 of Wands (Tower + Emperor) we see a king on a tower. In the 3 (Sun + Emperor) we see a king and the Sun. In the 4 (Empress + Emperor) we see men and women partying in a pagan celebration. - In each case, these ideas are put in the context of the sephirah of the card.
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@Iaomai said
"Hmm... More like... it's just right there on the surface for me. I can't come up with anything more seemingly profound than what's right there. "
That, in itself, is a very profound observation. A thing is what it is. Bob's your uncle. There may be no hidden meanings at all. - In fact, these cards are often incredibly simple - though their effect on you can go far beyond their doctrine.
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@Jim Eshelman said
"This card (as the first of the non-Ace minors) is useful in showing where Waite (for example) got some of the designs for his Minor Arcana cards.
Can any of you (from this card's meditation tableau) see why Waite might possibly have designed this card as a king standing atop a tower?
"I thought Pamela Smith had pretty much a free hand in designing these cards.
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I don't believe it for a second.
Artistic style, yes. Implementation of details, yes. But the basics of design? That would be so un-Waite.
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I meant specifically the small cards, not the trumps.
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@gmugmble said
"I meant specifically the small cards, not the trumps."
Yes. For no good reason I can think of, that's how I interpreted it
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@Jim Eshelman said
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There are also alchemical (by which I primarily mean yogic / chakra) patterns evident which give hints to subconsciousness about how to release the more subtle forces of this card into your system. The Tower corresponds to the Mars chakra (Svadisthana). The Emperor combines the power of Mars and the Sun (Svadisthana and Anahatta), and has a whole doctrine behind it of the Mars force being brought from its "night" expression (Scorpio) to its "day" expression (Aries). These ideas don't necessarily have to be known - subconsciousness will read them directly from the cards and will set to work making subtle changes in the physical and astral "wiring" to amplify the effect, if you let yourself be imprinted by them.
"I do feel the effect i must say, and that's i believe the major advantage of working by your method, Jim - which i hadn't realized fully before.
Al-Shariyf and i have been communicating quite a lot since we've started this project, i've initiated this correspondence as i wanted to verify in a way my experiences, i wanted to make sure i wasn't imagining it... most interestingly, not only Al-Shariyf's and mine experiences were in sync, but they (for the lack of better wording) coincided in time too - nevertheless the time difference and all.
I have gained clarity of thought in this process that i don't think i had ever experienced before; certain character traits i needed to work on - improved, my personal boundaries are far firmer than they were - and that was one of the major issues with me... and that's just the highlights.
Great method - and it does work, even if done like this - online and without having passed the initial steps that people who belong to the very school/order do.
Thank you for making it possible for us, Jim.