The Four Princes

Wow, this certainly is a gang of formidable gentlemen. The Princes present an interesting counterpoint to the four Princesses (or Pages, or Knaves) that we met a while back. They both share all the blessings and curses of youth: vitality, immaturity, simplicity, audacity, curiosity, solipsism, etc. Unlike the King and Queen, the younger set needn't worry about governing or protecting an entire world or worldview; they're still training and conditioning, usually taking on just one battle or idea at a time.

Where the Princesses draw their unique characteristics from the classical element of Earth, however, the Princes are emissaries of Air, the suit of logic, reason, focus, and discernment -- this means they're less interested in their exploring the boundaries of their awesome potential, preferring channeling that energy into specific courses of action with specific (intended) results. If they fail at one attempt, they consider it a learning experience and simply leap back into the fray. Some people only feel truly alive, truly purposeful, and truly themselves when they're embattled, even when at rest. Just look at all the games our civilization plays, and the sports it enjoys!

Don't get the wrong idea -- these figures aren't heartless (though the jury's out on the Tin-Man-esque Prince of Swords). I consider all of the Court cards to be the gallery of faces that we show the world, the way we characterize ourselves -- consciously or otherwise -- depending on the circumstances we find ourselves in. We're like psychological lava-lamps, in that there are always qualities within us that are rising to the surface as others cool and descend back to the depths. None of it ever goes away, it just divides and conglomerates into new configurations. Think of the Princely tendency I've described as just that -- a tendency, often quite an important one.

Of course, you may run up against a countenance that stonewalls you or criticizes you or runs right over you in its attempts to get somewhere else. The Princes often become absorbed in learning and conquering and defending that they lose all concept of how their crusade looks to an outsider. If you don't mind wearing the countenance of a Prince yourself, then these blind-spots are exactly what you want to seek out and take advantage of in dealing with them. Let the games begin!

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The Four Sixes

Remember the beautifully strong, seamless unity of the four Twos? Now triple it. The Sixes represent the pinnacle of perfection that each suit strives for -- an intersection of energy and balance that makes anything seem possible. Evolution is messy, painful work, but when a species suddenly finds its niche, it can flourish there for millions of years, like crocodiles have. When it comes to evolution of a personal nature, sometimes circumstances will suddenly favor us, and we fly ahead with the wind under us, doing exactly what we were made to do. Those times can seem to be few and far between, but they don't have to be, especially when you know what to look out for. The Sixes are a veritable sampler platter loaded with different flavors of personal triumph; I recommend tasting them all.

As for my initial statement comparing them to the Twos, you can see this similarity for yourself. Back then we had two points floating in space. Since there are only two of them, they rely completely on each other as points of comparison, sort of like those number-line problems you may have encountered in algebra class. Adding a third point gives their perspective actual depth, and this cluster now functions as an individual point, beginning the replication process all over again in a fractal pattern. And of course, the first step of that is discovering its mirror image.

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Adding that sixth point makes this image complete; symbolically it's a return to one's origin, but with all the fruits of experience one has gathered along the way. Looking at each of the cards above should remind you of the intimate relationship you once had with the world, before you knew who you were or what you wanted, and that completion and creation needn't always find themselves at odds with each other -- at certain points they are one and the same.

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The Four Eights

If should seem pretty obvious by now: the higher we count up from the Ace, the farther we travel from that beautifully pure state and the more complicated the world becomes. Take heart -- complicated doesn't always mean "miserable."

As an overall system, the Tarot nudges us toward balance and harmony at every opportunity. The four Sixes (which I haven't written about yet) epitomize these qualities in the Minor Arcana, representing a perfect reflection of the triad formed by our first three points:

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When Seven comes along, it knocks everything off balance, which has pretty devastating results in a world already so full of variables in motion (rather like tossing an extra orange at a juggler when he's not paying attention). At this point, the Eight is a welcome counterbalance -- at least your world is staggering on two legs now instead of just one.

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While the most perfect symmetry will be achieved when you reach Nine and have formed a second reflection of the original triad, the bilateral symmetry is enough to tide you over. In the meantime, now that the underlying pattern of this system has begun to repeat itself, triad after triad, you can begin to comprehend how you arrived at this vulnerable position, so far from your point of origin, and where you are headed. If you browse each of the cards above, you'll see the effect this information has on us: the Wands urge us to flare up and race forward to find out what comes next; the Cups entreat us to ruminate on the information more indolently and begrudgingly before beginning our sojourn; the Swords shout in alarm that the game we're playing is more complex than we'd ever dreamed, and express doubts whether victory is possible; the humble Coins urge us to work with what we have and patiently tend to ourselves as well as the circumstances allow.

They all speak truth -- their own flavor of it, anyway. At this point in the journey, it's easier to continue forward than turn back. "It's always darkest before the dawn," as the saying goes. If you draw an Eight, consider it as if it's the first light on the horizon; it's too soon to say whether you'll like what you see by day, but at least you made it through the night.

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The Four Fours

Recently I demonstrated that building a triangle -- the simplest 2-dimensional figure -- is as easy as one, two, three. Conceptually, that triangle was a model of our awareness expanding to allow for new ideas and perspectives. The addition of a fourth point adds an important new layer:

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Now we see what happens when these ideas get fleshed out into 3 dimensions -- or if you prefer to keep things flat, we now have a wonderfully solid square. Either way, things are not nearly as flimsy and airy-fairy as they used to be. What happens when your notions finally take root and begin to show up in the real world? Are they what you expected, did they seem better in theory? Does their sudden weight pull you off-balance? Or do they feel wonderfully right and ripe?

Once you've actually accomplished something (whether you like it or not) you'll be able to channel that wisdom and experience into whatever you do next. Our four cards above illustrate how we adjust to our new status, offering rest and contemplation, revelry and resistance. One thing's unanimous: the ground that's been so painstakingly gained is not to be given up easily! Whether to proceed cautiously or ebulliently (or perhaps just camp out for a while) is really up to the individual. You're in the real world now, and your journey begins the moment you choose a direction.

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The Four Nines

I think it's especially appropriate that the Nines were the next foursome I was able to complete after I finished the Threes. In that post, I elaborated a little bit on how the number of a card helps define its meaning. The first three cards in the suit, the Ace, Two, and Three, formed a triangle of points by which the initial point could begin to gauge its own position:

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The process, by which one point unfolded into three, doesn't stop there -- it's actually the beginning of a fractal design. Our triangle is now itself a unit that spawns two other triangles, like so:

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If you have a hard time visualizing that, then look at this animated image, a perfect illustration at how this process would continue to play out. These three triangles would become a collective unit that would then become the crown of a set of 27 points, ad infinitum.

Many consider fractal patters like this to be a model of how the universe itself sprang into being. For our purposes, it's a way of imagining the classical elements compounding and unfolding and crystallizing into more and more concrete realities. Far descended from the pure, intangible realm of the Aces, the Nines are a looking-glass version of our everyday world and what we aspire to accomplish in it. All the danger, intrigue, idealism, bliss, and security that we hope to find just around the corner. Though the actual results often leave us unsatisfied, the carrot continues to dangle in front of us as our life fans outward from the present moment. The smarty-pants Nine of Swords shows the toll this takes on us as we occasionally realize the hopelessness of our constant effort -- but who can fault us for continuing to reach, again and again? Unless we cultivate anything to replace it, desire is the only force strong enough to usher us forward through the moments of our lives. It's written into nature itself.

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The Four Threes

It's handy that we've already covered the Aces and the Twos. The former served as pure expressions of the elements as worlds of their own, and the latter opened each of them up to the idea of contact with other worlds, resulting in graceful, harmonious interactions.

The best way to explain the significance of Three is basic geometry. Imagine a point:

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That's our Ace, perfectly self-contained. Now imagine a second point:

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Two represents a moment of awareness in which our point begins to recognize other points as a basis for comparison. The relationship they have is enlightening but very insular. In geometry this is expressed as a line. Now add a third point:

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If that second point was one of comparison, the third is a point of reference. Now that we have a triangle, the original point has an actual sense of where it exists in proximity to these others -- for example, "I am closer to c than to b." A sense of where it exists in the larger scheme of things is now possible.

This concept is a leaping-off point for understanding the Kabbalah and other mystical systems (see The Chicken Qabalah, for example, on my reading list), but I'll spare you. I don't think you have to be interested in any of that to understand how this works. I think it's a given that people's awareness grows in this fashion from childhood onward, and this third stage represents that familiar point at which one begins contemplating one's position in the wider world, becoming flooded with a sense of wonder and potential. Do you remember?

If you look at each of the cards above, they have a sort of wonderful fullness to them that isn't present in the Twos: more people are involved, greater goals aspired to, steeper risks taken. The playing field is larger, and they're all suddenly so inspired. The Three of Swords may stick out like a sore thumb thanks to its forecast of gloom and doom, but isn't that the price we pay for learning more about our place in the universe? We're thrilled to begin to see the web holding everything together, but we also become painfully aware of our vulnerability and our apparent insignificance.

Trinities abound in theology and mythology. I think it's the natural result of a simple idea becoming more complex; as civilizations grow, gods are called upon to cover more ground, taking on attributes that increasingly contradict. Once you concede to splitting your god into two figures, or allow him to take on a deputy, what's to keep from taking it further? Why not three, or seven, or seven hundred? The number three is symbolic of that tipping point into multiplicity. It gives us permission, but reminds us of the elegance of restraint.

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The Four Princesses

If you haven't noticed, the order of these four-of-a-kind entries has completely depended on the order in which I've wound up posting the individual cards. Which is to say, completely random -- the same way you'd encounter the cards if you shuffled and drew them. However, the point of these foursomes is to hint at the underlying structure of the Tarot, which is something that usually doesn't come up over the course of a reading. If that's less interesting to you, feel free to take this site just one card at a time.

Right here and now, however, we have four indomitable young ladies on our hands who occupy a pivotal position in the overall picture. Just as the Queens all reign over the element of Water, the Princesses rule the Earth. If you go back and look at their qualities, you'll begin to see what they all have in common: they're charged with a tingling sense of potential, a sort of latent force borrowed from their suit -- but as lowly, vulnerable humans, they each have at least one foot solidly on the ground. This makes each of them a sort of lightning rod, a channel from the aethyr to the earth, similar to the Aces. In the context of a reading, this is where that message of potential for manifesting your desires in the real world would come from. Of all the Court cards and the Major Arcana, they are the only they are the only truly human face we see; everything beyond there takes us further away from terra firma.

In his book The Chicken Qabalah, author and occultist Lon Milo Duquette (whom I was lucky enough to interview recently) puts a great deal of effort into explaining why the Princess card is the linchpin to the Tarot's role in Western mystical traditions, offering a simplified fairy-tale version of the Kabbalistic worldview. The Princess, as the most earthbound element, represents each of us stirring in an enchanted slumber. We have fallen for the illusion that our world is all that exists (much like the of the world of the Devil card), and several layers of illusion stand between us and an unadulterated view of reality. "You are the King of the universe..." he says, "...Who has fallen asleep and is dreaming he is the Queen, who has fallen asleep and is dreaming she is the Prince, who has fallen asleep and is dreaming he is a sleeping Princess."

Whether your personal beliefs will accomodate that idea is irrelevant, but it's at least worth getting lost in thought over. Think of the prevalence of princesses in our storytelling -- even in modern times. What is the fascination? Perhaps it's that a princess is sort of like a caterpillar, in that part of the thrill of encountering one is knowing that an amazing transformation is imminent. We begin as one thing, we end as another -- but that in-between state is a delicious realm to occupy. That's what being a Princess is all about, and all the little girls in the world would agree, if they weren't so busy being caterpillars themselves.

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The Four Twos

If you were to merely glance at the images on these four cards, they wouldn't appear to have anything in common. If you were to read all four entries, however, you'd discover that they are all about relationships -- each of the cards brings two principles face-to-face with one another, and we get to observe them dance as they mingle or repel.

Everyone knows what numbers mean when it comes to counting, but what do they mean beyond that, and why? Since the dawn of mathematics, numbers have been seen as mystical and poetic entities. Two will never be merely "1 + 1". Two has its own world of psychological and spiritual associations that have become embedded in our consciousness over the millennia. You don't have to believe in numerology or Kabbalah to understand that, it's written into our very mythology, even our superheroes with their secret identities.

If the number one represents the unified totality of all things ("All is one" ... "All for one, and one for all!" ... "All 4 One"), then two represents the principle of duality. Maybe duality is the result of an internal schism. Maybe it's a matter of that self-contained whole catching a glimpse of its own reflection, a la Narcissus. Maybe it's an encounter with unaccounted-for entity, some sort of Other. Whatever the cause, that moment when One is no longer alone anymore is something we each have an innate understanding of, and the cards you see above examine that moment from all sides, from the perspective of each of the four elements we discussed before. Is it any wonder that the fiery, ambitious Wands would treat such a schism as a challenge to one's dominance? Or that the emotional Cups would sense an opportunity for a loving relationship?

I touched on this in my post about The Emperor and his yin/yang relationship with The Empress, one of the Tarot's many examples of duality. It gets more complicated as two become three, and three solidifies into four, and four shatters into five, and so forth... Meditating on this initial division/separation/reflection is going to be a huge help in understanding the other numbers as they pile up -- and even if you don't quite understand, you'll at least begin to see that the cards of the minor arcana amount to much more than a bunch of random ideas tacked on arbitrarily to whatever numbers seemed convenient at the time.

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The Four Aces

One point I deliberately avoided during my post about the four Queens and the classical elements is the ever-elusive, much-pondered "fifth element," which, as all pop-aficionados know, amounts to "heart" on Captain Planet or Milla Jovovich if you're on some other planet.

The fifth element actually varies from culture to culture, but whatever it is usually exists somewhere beyond the material realm. Spirit, qi, and kia are all terms that have been employed to describe it. "Yes, but none of those things are real," says the exasperated rationalist. That's sort of the point, though. As I pointed out the last time we discussed the elements, "water" doesn't refer to actual water. It refers to the deep symbolic relationship we have with water and the concepts that have become associated with it throughout human civilization. Actual water is merely a vestigial bridge to that concept, and is generally far more useful for drinking, bathing, and putting into balloons to throw at each other. The fifth element is the same -- it just lacks that bridge, daring us to make the leap without one.

We snicker at 15th century humans for doubting there were other continents, but it's not fair to laugh. Without a way to get to them and explore them, they may as well have not existed at all. What difference did it make in the lives of everyday people? No rationalist has the tools to say for sure that "spirit" or "qi" exist, they can merely note the lack of physical evidence or their own lack of interest. What's important for now is that reading Tarot cards doesn't require any particular beliefs; as long as you can muster a poetic appreciation for these concepts, you can use them to understand the cards.

Look at the quartet of cards above. They represent the division of the "world" into five parts, not four. You will find the fifth part in the empty space that separates the cards. That space also connects them. Like the frosting between layers of cake, it surrounds them and allows them to function as a seamless whole. In one sense you are the sum of your parts, but you are also something greater, and so is the world you inhabit.

In a reading, an Ace represents a suit in its purest form -- so pure that it's no longer constrained to familiar elemental concepts. It's a breach in the hull, a brief moment of contact with that mysterious, languageless fifth element. Drawing an Ace is sort of like being told to watch for a bridge suddenly appearing temporarily before you, allowing opportunities or insights that are not ordinarily possible, and the suit just gives hints at what it might lead to. Make the most of this strange bulletin -- you never know when you'll have another chance like this!

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The Four Queens

Arcanalogue has come a long way in the last five months, but the more that's done, the more there is to do! Now that all four Queens have been posted, let's take them on as a posse and have a closer look at the Queens' overall function in the deck.

As many of you already know, each of the four suits corresponds to one of the four classical elements: fire, water, air, and earth. But the suits themselves subdivide, with the four court cards each corresponding to the elements too. The Queens, for example, are associated with water.

This level of reading is one that many readers never evolve past, because it starts to bring up a lot of thorny interpretive barriers. Captain Planet aside, our civilization seems to have moved on from the classical elements, so what does it mean to be "watery" and how do you articulate that in a reading without sounding like you just wandered out of Plato's cave?

At this point little Jungian psychology really starts to pay off. While concepts and definitions change over the centuries, our brain communicates symbolically, and these are preserved within our psyche. Since the dawn of time water has always presented mankind with its greatest mysteries. It was our womb as unicellular life forms, and its life-giving properties have remained priceless to us ever since we began mucking about on land, but its depths also concealed vast wonders both great and terrible, and as we evolved it became a powerful symbolic force literally built into our consciousness. This is how "water" became more than just a mere substance -- it is an energy, a vast concept containing a language all its own.

This is the aspect of consciousness that the four Queens preside over. The Queen of Wands reveals the "watery" aspects of elemental fire. How does she do this, you may ask? This is where you have to use your imagination as a card-reader. Essentially you create a Venn diagram in which the two elements overlap symbolically, and you see what is produced when they merge, how they comment on humanity, what they have in common. It's a meditative process that employs the early philosophical principles of Alchemy (but takes place on a purely conceptual level -- which means less mess to clean up, and lower risk of lead poisoning). In the case of the Queen of Wands, we look at qualities like fluidity, versatility, passion, and awareness and use them as building blocks to create an icon.

When you read descriptions of the Court cards in various Tarot books, you can usually see how an author has done this work-- it's like being able to see the lines of a sketch underneath the brush strokes of a painting. That's why the court cards tend to be the most variable from deck to deck, and why they're notoriously difficult to read -- there are fewer proper rules imposed on them. We look at them and realize they could be almost anybody, and that of course is the point.

It won't be long, however, before you'll look at a card like the Queen of Coins and immediately think "water of earth," From there it's a small step to gaining an instinctive understanding of what that means, and how it applies to the spread in front of you. Each court card is a portrait waiting to be painted or story to be told, and your unique take on them is something that will give your readings their own unique flavor. As harbingers of the unconscious, the Queens in particular are a good place to begin. Let them approach you one by one, at their own pace. Look for examples of them in the people you interact with at home, at work. You'll soon discover that you are almost always in the presence of royalty.

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