Interesting combination of Major Arcana Cards for today, Yule Eve.
My Inner Focus card is III The Empress. The image on the card shows a jester wearing motley purple and gold sitting on a throne in a strong and majestic room, with a mature and solidly-built Queen, dressed in her finery and wearing a golden crown inset with red, blue and purple gemstones and a golden necklace with a large pendant containing an image of a sheep, sitting on his lap (and I'm assuming, his penis). Her feel are strongly planted, her skirts are hiked up to her knees, and her hands are resting on her thighs. Her eyes are open and her lips are parted, and she appears to be enjoying herself. We don't see too much of the jester; his eyes are wide open as he looks at the Queen over her shoulder, his arms are around her, one arm around her waist holding her bottom firmly against him and one hand on her breast, and his feet are more relaxed, as if she is the dominant one in this image. The key concept connected to this card is that love and pleasure do not have age limits, however a bit of discretion is good.
Interesting symbolism here: the sheep is considered a harmless, guileless and innocent animal that represents the natural life that flows into a human's consciousness from Spirit. Our Decameron Queen is telling us that she is the manifestation of the natural world. Indeed, on her shoes are equal-sided crosses (representing the four classic elements) contained in a diamond shape which could very well be an octahedron, representing our presence on the plane between Above and Below. Pairing her with a jester is another interesting symbol. The jester was seen as being a fool (and there could be a connection here to the symbolism of The Fool of the Majors), however the jester was allowed to make jokes at the expense of very powerful people, usually without suffering consequences. Indeed, it was often seen as bad taste to punish a jester for his words or deeds.
My Outer Focus card is IX The Hermit. Now that right there sounds like a conflict, an "outer" card being represented by an "inner-facing" concept. The image on this card shows a commonality with The Empress: a jester seated in a chair with his arms around the waist of a woman. This time, the jester is dressed in more coarse clothing, with a lit lantern on his thigh and a hood and cloak that hint at the garb of a monk. He has a happy smile on his face. The woman is young and curvy, and is standing before him, facing him as he removes her clothing. We can't see her face but both of her hands are out to her side, the right hand facing upward and the left hand facing downward (similar to the stance of The Magician in traditional Tarot imagery), giving him access to her clothing and her body. The key phrases associated with this card are: an attractive body distracts even the most staunch ascetic, but don't be deceived by hypocrites and false virtue; deception is present.
The Hermit is traditionally a card that tells of withdrawal and spiritual seeking but in the Decameron Hermit, our monk has his priestly garb pushed back and he is using his lantern to illuminate the body of the wench standing before him as he disrobes her. Bocacchio is said to believe that many people in power, particularly religious leaders, were somewhat hypocritical in their ethics. This image does hint at a bit of hypocrisy and its key phrases literally mention both hypocrisy and deception.
There are a slew of possible messages here. I'm going to see this as reminding me that while as adults, we are expected to act in a mature fashion on certain occasions. However, that does not mean we cannot enjoy the pleasures of life, be light-hearted and have fun, and grab hold of sexual pleasure. If we can balance those things, we will create a kingdom that follows our lead, and ends up happier and filled with joy and well-being. Attraction is certainly in the eye of the beholder, and we are given two different versions here, but who has the power in either of these scenes, the jesters or the women? We also need to remember that our ethical code gets applied to ourselves as well as others, and we should make certain that we are saying and doing whatever we are saying and doing completely for the right reasons. We need to be honest with ourselves and be sure there are no ulterior motives hidden behind the happy smile or the groans of pleasure. Spiritual seeking is very in now, and it is easy to appear legitimate in the eyes of others yet embrace different ethics internally. However in the end, we know when we look at ourselves in the mirror if we are playing at this, or if truly making the honest effort.
No comments:
Post a Comment