by Marcus Katz
Where else can we see yellow? In the leftmost card, we see that the rider is wearing a coverlet over a yellow undershirt. In colour terms, he is covering his gains, his “plenty.” This gives us advice—we must ensure that the couple who have asked about their business do not give away their success. They must keep things to themselves, as otherwise jealous people will sneak their resources or trade secrets away. In real terms, this may affect their marketing plan, any financial decisions, and much more. Everything must be underplayed rather than put out there.
So if the couple then asked about where growth could come from in this situation, given they will have to mute their trumpet a little, we could look for the colour green. This signifies reliable and steady growth—natural growth. It appears mainly on the central 7 of Swords—on the tabard upon the horse, the cover of the reins, and the victory wreaths on the rider’s head and his wand. This shows us that growth—victory in the long term—will come from reining in progress. Everything must be protected (the horse) and slowed down, kept under tight control. This is an obvious reading for budget constraint in a new business.
You can now look at other colours within the three cards to get a little bit more detail, for example the red on the 7 of Swords character’s shoes and hat. Does that tell us if it is one person who may cause a problem, or a group?
Practice tip: Try using just colours rather than your usual reading methods. Particularly try three-card readings with reversals. You may also want to look at how much of a particular colour is present in the complete reading, and which colours are missing. Build up your own personal correspondences to colours as you discover them.
[contents]
Nine
Pamela’s Music
–Pamela Colman Smith had not the great creative power of these men,
but it soon became evident that she had something quite as rare,—
the power to see clearly the invisible realm of which they all dreamed.
M. Irwin MacDonald, “The Fairy Faith and Pictured Music
of Pamela Colman Smith,” in The Craftsman (October, 1912).
We have two direct sources that speak of Pamela’s deep connection to music; both are lengthy magazine articles, one written in 1908 and the other in 1912. These are coincidentally on either side of Pamela’s production of the tarot. The first is “Pictures in Music,” published in the Strand magazine, and the second is “The Fairy Faith and Pictured Music of Pamela Colman Smith” in The Craftsman. Pamela illustrated two articles reproduced here from originals in our collection.
105. Chromatic Fantasy by Bach, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. (Illustration courtesy of authors, from The Strand magazine, no. 210, June 1908, private collection.)
At the time was an emerging interest in what is now termed synesthesia, the transposition of one sense experience to another—in this case, music to image. Whilst the study of this phenomenon, where an individual sees numbers as shapes, or sound as colours, etc., was for a while neglected during the behaviourist phase of psychology, there is now a growing interest in the subject.
In 1910, the year in which Pamela’s tarot images were getting into the hands of purchasers, the Russian Symbolist artist Wassily Kandinsky wrote a fundamental piece on the subject, Concerning the Spiritual in Art. He gave examples of the relationship of colour to musical instruments, such as “Orange is like a man, convinced of his own powers. Its note is that of the angelus, or of an old violin.”149
106. Ballade no. 1, op. 23, in G Minor by Chopin, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. (Illustration courtesy of authors, from The Strand magazine, no. 210, June 1908, private collection.)
Pamela certainly saw sound as images. The Craftsman article states, “She sees music rather than hears it, and she expresses—as perfectly as she can and with the literal directness of a child—exactly what she sees.”
So when she was painting the tarot, we cannot but help wonder if she listened to music. There is certainly evidence that a gramophone record-player was available to her at Smallhythe Place, as she drew and painted within the house or in the garden.
107. Symphony no. 5 in C Minor by Beethoven, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. (Illustration courtesy of authors, from The Strand magazine, no. 210, June 1908, private collection.)
Pamela could not see images in all music; like many who report synesthesia, there were particular types of triggers. In Pamela’s case, the music of Grieg brought nothing to her but the obvious pleasure of the music, whilst at the other end of the spectrum, Wagner overwhelmed her faculty with “a confused blur of violent antagonism.”150
108. Piano Sonata no. 8, op. 13 “Pathétique” by Beethoven, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. (Illustration courtesy of authors, from The Strand magazine, no. 210, June 1908, private collection.)
We will present a glossary of Pamela’s known musical landscape and then illuminate her deck by looking at it back through the music.
Beethoven: Broad, powerful, sweeping, titanic emotions, tossing seas, trackless deserts, mountains, kingly forms, stately, brooding, overwhelming strength, great swinging curves (King of Cups)
Mozart: Dainty, precise (Page of Cups)
Strauss: Sensual, freakish, strange emotions, merry, elvish, “of the earth, well spiced with genial deviltry” (The Devil)
Debussy: Vague, delicate, austere, glowing, vivid, fugitive fancies, fairy, pixie pipes, clouds (The Moon)
Cesar Franck: Emotional, passionately religious, rich, sombre, a sense of spiritual unrest (8 of Cups)
Tchaikovsky: Despair, drooping, entrancement of woe (5 of Cups)
Dvorák: Dryads, close to nature, hearty-humoured (3 of Cups)
Schumann: Vigorous youth, pulsating with life, casting a falcon to the air (Page of Swords)
It is Debussy who conjures most the “Land of the Living Heart,” and who himself said that her paintings were his “dreams made visible” (Craftsman, 29). They in fact met in person. However, Beethoven brings an end to that frivolity and ushers in “a titanic world that saw the beginning of time.”
Beethoven’s Sonata no. 23, op. 57 in F Minor, “Appassionata” is judged to embody the most “purely symbolic” of Pamela’s work.
In Franck’s Call to Earth we have a detailed image of Pamela’s vision:
109. Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 54 “Castle of Pain,” by Schumann, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. (Illustration courtesy of authors, from The Strand magazine, no. 210, June 1908, private collection.)
Three godlike figures have heard the call and yielded to their destiny. One, clad in gleaming robes and with crowned head still touching the clouds, stands on the earth erect and stately, but in the drooping, dreaming face is seen the numbing influence that slowly lulls the spirit into the stupor of physical existence. Another towering form in the far background is stumbling forward, drawn down as with invisible cords to the waiting earth, but with arms flung up to heaven as if imploring succour. The third has fallen prone and already is blending with the earth so that it is hardly distinguishable from the swale in which it lies. Only the jewels of its robes and the white unconscious face catch the gleams of celestial light from its former home.
110. The 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky, illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith. (Illustration courtesy of authors, from The Strand magazine, no. 210, June 1908, private collection.)
Similarly, in Schumann’s Symphony no. 1 Pamela depicts “the shape of a gaunt old tree, with bare branches blown by the wind: yet the tree is a woman, helpless in the grip of mortal anguish, rooted fast to an abhorred spot and bending before the strong wind of destiny.” It is of note that whilst the music is of spring and the first springing of love, that Pamela saw a darker side in her vision. We would suggest that this is the theme for the 4 of Cups, whereas the music is more suited, it seems to us, to the Ace, 2, and 3 of Cups.
Schumann’s Nachtstücke no. 4 (Roundelay with solo
voices) “shadows forth a towering peak against the primrose sky of dawn. Up the mountainside toil weary, shadowy forms,—the dreams of humanity returning home.” Listening to this piece of music creates a soundtrack for the 8 of Cups.
Building a Musical/Visionary Way of Reading Tarot
Whilst we cannot replicate Pamela’s particular way of transporting music into vision, we can practice certain skills that build up to a unique way of reading tarot. These are based on models of computer vision programming, but apply to appreciating music and many other contexts.
There are four skills or approaches we can take when listening to music, learning from something we see, and hence reading the tarot:
Feature-finding: Noticing events such as peaks, pulses, and other notable features.
Measure-taking: Noticing certain patterns over time.
Difference-finding: Comparing and contrasting patterns.
Structure-building: Noticing patterns built in sequence over time.
If we apply these to a tarot reading, we can read the “music” of a line of cards even before reading individual cards. We have found this method works very well when reading a long line of cards, such as in the Opening of the Key method or by simply reading ten cards at a time.151
To read in this method, which can also be used as a skill practice that deepens your everyday readings, select ten cards whilst considering a specific question, situation, or project. This method works too with “general readings” where no question is supplied.
Look over the ten cards as if they were an arrangement of individual notes in a musical score or letters in a game of Scrabble.
Note three key features in the cards without reference to their position. Three of the most immediately noticeable symbols that meet your eye. They may be similar to each other or very different—the important thing is that they are three immediate features.
Notice any patterns across the cards. Do they go generally up or down in their numbers, suits, or majors/minors/courts? Is there a block of Threes at the start? Is there a major card every third card? Or is it totally random and scattered (which is also a “pattern” for interpretation)?
Discern the biggest difference between any two cards. Is there an Ace and a 10, a dark major card such as the Devil and a bright minor card such as the Ace of Cups? Which two cards are most different from each other?
Is there a “story” to the sequence of cards from left to right? Do they start dark and move to light, or the other way round? Are there three pairs of minors separated by four court cards, like challenges or gatekeepers? If this was a structured storyboard, what would be the pattern of the story?
Now put these four aspects together and you may be surprised how deeply they provide an answer to any situation. The first aspect provides the key feature of the solution or answer; the second, the likely nature of the outcome; the third, a yes/no aspect; and the fourth a summary or outcome for the whole situation.
Having explored here a very conscious skill and approach to the tarot, one perhaps more suited to Waite’s approach to tarot, we will next look at a more deeply emotional and unconscious method of accessing the images through Pamela’s point of view.
A Tarot Liturgy
In order to experience Pamela’s creations from music, we can use our imagination to create a sacred space where we relive her favourite music through the cards. In doing so, we re-align ourselves to the very manner in which the deck came into being. We will use the notion of the cards as stained glass windows for this exercise, allowing us to embody their use as an illumination of the soul—as Waite would do ten years later with his Waite-Trinick tarot. We will further explore how music can be used to experience two aspects of every card: the upright and reversed, the beginning and end, the light and the dark. In doing so, we can deepen our appreciation of the nuances of the cards in everyday readings.
Take a card and prepare a piece of suggested music from the glossary of Pamela’s music (Beethoven to Schumann) given previously, or use your own intuition.
Close your eyes and visualise the card as a stained glass window in a sacred space of suitable nature; it could be a chapel, church, temple, or grove of trees. You can allow the nature of the card to dictate the location, although it must have a stained glass window of the card within the scene.
Take a moment to decide if you are going to work with the card’s rising or falling nature; these equate to the “upright” or “reversed” aspect of the card. (We recommend working with both over time.)
Play the music and if you are working with the card’s “rising” aspect, imagine that you are viewing the card window in that special place at night, a moment before dawn. Allow your imagination to start to see the sun rising behind the window, slowly illuminating it as the music plays. Start to see more detail, more colour, more light as the sun rises and floods the window.
Allow the colours of the light streaming through the window to fall upon you as you continue to listen to the music, and pay attention to any feelings and insights that arise.
Allow the music to fade and the visualisation to fade when you are ready, and return to your normal state as you open your eyes.
If you are working with the card’s “falling” aspect, follow steps 4 through 6 as described with the setting sun, imagining that as you watch the card and listen to the music, the light diminishes and slowly fades the card window to darkness.
Use the same music for the card in both “rising” and “falling” visualisations. This will give you an intricate intuitive appreciation of the card for everyday reading with no further reflection or conscious consideration. However, if you wish, you may journal your feelings and experience of the card.
This method can be done on rising out of bed or before sleep, and in combination with the Pestle of the Moon, the first exercise in the next chapter. You should record your dreams if performing the method in this way, as they will no doubt become more intense and tarot-empowered.
[contents]
Ten
Spreads & Reading Methods
… and now, he seeks in book and manuscript
What he shall never find.
–W. B. Yeats, “The Phases of the Moon” (1907)
The Pestle of the Moon:
Activating Your Intuition Through the Moon
In this tarot exercise, you will be guided through the eight phases of the moon to regenerate your intuitive abilities. This will be done in the spirit of Pamela, who herself became one with her creations, embodying the cliff face overlooking her own self-portrait drawn to Beethoven’s Piano Sonata no. 11, op. 22, and also bringing human form to the turbulent ocean through her anthropomorphism of waves in her painting The Wave (1903). We also see this “land becoming human” in her work Red Cloak (1906).152 Such embodiment of the landscape was intrinsic to Pamela’s work and here we use it to mystical device.
In working with the moon, we draw upon W. B. Yeats’s elaborate system of mysticism that he collected in A Vision (1907) and which contains a poem called “Phases of the Moon.”153 In this poem he provides attributions for the moon’s phases. In combining his poetic vision and Pamela’s notion of embodiment to music, we will access and inspire our own intuitive abilities.154
This is an entirely “off-book” method that may not even register consciously as to its effect. It should be practised for enjoyment and relaxation—a form of tarot meditation— without any specific result expected or sought.
This practice commences on the new moon and will last the duration of the twenty-eight-day lunar cycle. You should record your dreams during this practice, which can be one of the ways in which your intuition will express itself. After Yeats, we call our method (previously used only in private within a secret magical order) the “Pestle of the Moon.” It is based on Golden Dawn techniques, particularly those taught by Florence F
arr in her “secret order within a secret order,” the Sphere Group.
The Pestle of the Moon
On the new moon, out of your tarot deck pick the High Priestess and the Moon cards. Place these cards vertically in the centre of a table, High Priestess above the Moon.
Shuffle your deck and take out eight cards at random.
111. Pestle of the Moon Spread. Created by Llewellyn Art Department. Cards used reprinted with permission of U.S. Games Systems.
Starting from a “new moon” position at the right of the two central cards, arrange each of the eight cards in a circle. The positions and their key phrases are as follows:
New Moon: The Cradle
Waxing Crescent: The Dream
First Quarter: The Whim (of Adventure)
Waxing Gibbous: The Hero’s Crescent
Full Moon: Twice Born, Twice Buried
Waning Gibbous: The Soul at War (in Frenzy)
Last Quarter: Tremble Into Stillness
Waning Crescent: The Casting Out
Each of these phases lasts for about three days and nights, so we tend to work with each card for that length of time, using an online lunar calendar.155
Take the card appropriate to the moon’s phase and set it by your bed.
Glance at the card and allow your intuition to pick a particular feature or symbol.
Close your eyes and imagine the card in your mind.
Open your eyes and glance at the card again.
Close your eyes and repeat several times until you can imagine most of the card.
