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| Rohrig – Princess of Cups |
This is a very special day – the Leap Year Day where women can ask their beloved to marry them without having to go through the pantomime of sighing and dragging their feet as they go past every jeweller’s window on the High Street.
I myself open the door of wedding dress shops and shout ‘Don’t Do It!’ Cynical, moi?
Flamboyant playwright Oscar Wilde once said that it was the tragedy of every woman to turn into her mother and that it was the tragedy of every man that he didn’t.
Or something like that.
This got me thinking: How do you think that sovereignty is transferred in your Tarot deck? Do the Kings marry into the Queen’s suit or do the Queens marry in to the King’s suit?
That might all sound a bit confusing……I’ll try to clarify and hope that I don’t tie myself in knots as I do so!
Think of our own Dear Queen Elizabeth. OK, she was of the House of Windsor (or Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as they are REALLY called) and Prince Philip married IN to the Windsors from the equally confusing and non-Greek sounding House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg.
Stop being confused by court cards! Start being excited by the possibilities! Become a court card adventurer along with me 🙂 The Tarot’s Court Cards are my specialist area. They talk to me. Not LITERALLY though ….
Comments
10 responses to “Sovereignty in the Courts”
But where did she come from in the deck, Carla?
I guess I'm simple-minded, but I think the Queen of Wands was always wandsy, the King of Pentacles was always pentacle-y, and so on. I see them as rising through the progession of Page to Queen and Knight to King, as far as the cards go. (I can see how a real person could start a Page of Cups and end up a Queen of Swords, depending on what happens to them in life.) But I think the Queen of Wands married the King of Wands because they were both wandsy all along, in the deck.
Ooooh. Speed dating with the court cards. I think I see a Meetup exercise. 🙂
HEY! Let's play a game. Get two decks. Draw the courts from both. Now draw one from the first deck. Then another from the second. Marry them off. What's their relationship like?
Oops! First part of that might be confusing. In the Shapeshifter deck, the courts begin with Pages and end with Goddesses (Queens), meaning the Goddesses are dominant.
Wow, yes! And the thing I noticed already is the difference some decks make with the feminine vs. masculine energies being dominant. My Shapeshifter deck, for example, orders the Gods (Kings) before the Goddesses (Queens). So we know for sure who's in charge there! Could get very complex, indeed. I really never thought of this Court business in this fascinating human story sort of way. Could be a real soap opera if we keep on with it. 🙂 More seriously, though, I think that marriage does not necessarily erase the person's original self (we hope, although folks can lose much of their identity in relationship). We could also see it as a balancing and blending thing. What if the Queen of Cups was married to the King of Wands? Could be both would benefit from taking on some of the attributes of the other (Queen taking on more active and public leadership roles, King learning to "go with the flow" a little more). Or, she could drown his ambitions or he could evaporate her dreams. Hmm. Possible poem there. Might work on that one…
Hi Ali,
What a thought-provoking way of considering the Courts! This one should keep us busy for days, at least 🙂
Cx
I hope that it provides hours and hours of court card induced entertainment lol!
I think it would depends on many factors. Firstly the deck, secondly what the Fool's journey has brought to that particular Court. For example a Page of Cups might turn into Queen of Swords IF a previous marriage with a Wand Court left her heartbroken. Or a cynical Page of Swords turning into King of Cups once he has ound the right person (which he always swore he would never find). I can go on forever, hope it makes sense 🙂
Yes, it does depend on many factors 🙂