► “Athena, Goddess of Knowledge” /

“Athena, Art Gown by Resa McConaghy”🦉:

Athena. Art Gown by Resa McConaghy©2018.

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This is another post on the series of Tarot, featuring Resa McConaghy´s excellent gown “Athena”. 

To recapitulate: in previous posts, I have digged into Tarot: Major and Minor Arcana. Furthermore, in the last post, also written in collaboration with Resa, we´ve analyzed how certain Tarot cards  somehow define “archetypes”, and could, therefore, be related to The Hero´s Journey and Mythology.

In this new post, I´ll present Resa´s majestic gown “Athena”.

Before that, I ´ll introduce some facts and information concerning Athena, the Greek Goddess of Wisdom. 

Then comes Resa´s gown. By then, we´ll see how some symbolic details she has chosen could be associated with Mythology, Tarot and Astrology. 

Finally, aside from Athena and to conclude, I wanted to spotlight some sketches that Resa did…

►Icarus´Fall: “The Myth. Symbolism and Interpretation”:

“Icarus and Daedalus”, by Charles Paul Landon.-

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►Icarus´Fall: “The Myth”: 

Icarus’s father Daedalus, an athenian  craftsman, built the Labyrinth for King Minos  of Crete near his palace at Knossos  to imprison the Minotaur, a half-man, half-bull monster born of his wife and the Cretan bull. Minos imprisoned Daedalus himself in the labyrinth because he gave Minos’ daughter, Ariadne, a or ball of string in order to help  Theseus , the enemy of Minos, to survive the Labyrinth and defeat the Minotaur.

Daedalus fashioned two pairs of wings out of wax and feathers for himself and his son. Daedalus tried his wings first, but before taking off from the island, warned his son not to fly too close to the sun, nor too close to the sea, but to follow his path of flight.

If he were to do so, Daedalus explained, the wax that held his wings together…

The Birds Are Following You-Paul Nouge-Subversion des Images 1968

In late 1929-early 1930 the poet, photographer, theoretician and co-founder of the Belgian Surrealist Group Paul Nougé created a series of 19 photographs that were collected and published as Subversion des Images in 1968. The series lives up to the title, subverting and questioning perception in the manner of his friend and fellow co-founder Rene Magritte, who is featured in several of the images.

►Greek Mythology: “Nemesis, the Goddess of Revenge”:

“Justice and Divine Vengeance Pursuing Crime” by Pierre-Paul Prud’hon. (1808).

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Nemesis (In Greek νέμειν némein, meaning “to give what is due” was the spirit of divine retribution against those who succumb to  Hubris (arrogance before the gods).

She was also known as Rhamnusia. Another name for her was Adrasteia, meaning “the inescapable.” 

Nemesis directed human affairs in such a way as to maintain equilibrium.

Her name means she who distributes or deals out. 

She was related to the ideas of righteous anger, due enactment, or devine vengence.

The Greeks personified vengeful fate as a remorseless goddess: the goddess of revenge and righteous indignation.

Happiness and unhappiness were measured out by her, care being taken that happiness was not too frequent or too excessive. 

Nemesis has been described as the daughter of Zeus.

►”Tarot and Archetypes” /

“Collaboration with Resa McConaghy” 💢:

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►Introduction:

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time”.-

(T. S. Eliot. “Four Quartets”: Little Gidding).

This is the third post of a series on Tarot (See these two previous posts: Tarot: “Most Relevant Generalities / Major Arcana”and Tarot: “Minor Arcana”).

The following post was written in collaboration with my friend Resa McConaghy, from Graffiti Lux and Murals and Art Gowns. (See brief bio below).

Here, we´ll analyze how certain cards from both Major and Minor Arcana are “archetypes”, and could therefore be related to Greek Mythology. Our pivotal benchmark, as expected,  will be the Rider-Waite tarot deck.

We´ll then see how examples of Street Art (Murals and Graffiti) could have equivalents in certain Tarot Cards. We could say that such Symbolic images appear…

The Voyeur-Clovis Trouille 1960

The controversial life and work of the Marquis De Sade, the man so diabolical he was called divine, is still the subject of much debate between apologists who defend him as the apostle of total freedom, and his detractors who view him as a vile libertine possessed with an over-weening feudal sense of entitlement and a virulent misogyny. The question that Simone De Beauvoir nervously asked in 1951, ‘Must We Burn Sade?‘, is still no closer to being answered satisfactorily. But maybe it will never be, as the challenge De Sade lays down is an impossible one.

Regardless of De Sade’s ambiguous position in culture, what is not in doubt is the influence he possessed over the Surrealist movement. Andre Breton name checks the Marquis in the Surrealist Manifesto and he is included in the Pope of Surrealism‘s Anthology of Black…

►Tarot: “Minor Arcana” 🦎:

The Four Aces of the Minor Arcana. Tarot deck: Rider,Waite & Smith.

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►Major and Minor Arcana: 

As we have seen in the first post of this series (Tarot: “Most Relevant Generalities / Major Arcana”), a Tarot deck has 78 cards, consisting of two types of cards: Major and Minor Arcana. The Major Arcana (analysed in-depth here), consists of 22 cards, without suits. The Minor Arcana are the remaining 56 suit cards. In this post we´ll analyze the Minor Arcana cards, using the classic Rider-Waite deck.

When used for divination the Major Arcana are traditionally more significant, but the Minor Arcana are what allow Tarot readers to understand the subtleties and details that surround the major events and signifiers in a Tarot spread; in general, the Major Arcana represent large turning points and the Minor Arcana represent the day-to-day insights.

The Minor Arcana comprise four…

►Tarot: 

“Most Relevant Generalities / Major Arcana” 🗝️:

The twenty-two cards of the Arcana Major. Tarot deck: Rider,Waite & Smith.

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►Introduction and Sketch of this Post:

This is the first post of  the series on “Tarot”. 

Firstly, in section 1), I´ll present an overview of the story of Tarot, its use for divination purposes, tarot spreads, cards´positions (upright or reversed), total number of cards, division into two categories: Major and Minor Arcana.

In the second section (2) of this post, I´ll assess in-depth the Major Arcana. 

For that purpose, I´ll use the classic Rider-Waite deck, illustrated by Pamela Colman-Smith, which has been continually printed since 1909. Hence, it is easy to find in Bookstores or online nowadays.

Let´s keep in mind that the Major Arcana cards are somehow related to Carl Jung’s archetypes. They are “patterns”, inherent part of the Collective Unconscious. These cards symbolise the process…