atddta 32: the Star in Tarot/ AE Waite

[robinlandseadel at comcast.net]

I like Tarot cards.

http://www.sacredartscentre.com/Tarot%20Insights_files/thesar.jpg

A lot.

I was plenty aware of Tarot cards early on. I started going 
to Renaissance Faires back in 1972. I had managed to 
move in with Bea in 1972, not a good year for me or the 
hippie movement. Hippies and neo-hippies are in much 
better shape right now, not to mention card readers, which 
have become nearly commonplace. But in 1972, psychics 
were pretty out there and one of the few convocations for 
those sorts of people were the Renaissance Faires. Back 
then, there were only two, the Southern Faire, in Agoura, 
California and the Northern Faire [curiously close to the 
Grateful Dead's rehearsal studio] in the little town of Novato, 
right by the Valley of the Moon. The Southern Faire was at 
the Paramount [thus the Firesign Theater's "Paranoid 
Productions"] Ranch, in or about Ventura, right by the Great 
Pacific. Early morning fogs there were quite spectral. The 
was a section of the Faire called "Witches Wood", where 
you could get your cards, palms or auras read. If you tuned 
into the right frequencies, you could get higher than a kite can 
fly, higher than the C..O.C., hell---maybey even higher than 
Roky Erickson. I remember one May morn/afternoon, having 
inbibed 10 joints, some hash, a little mescaline, maybe some 
psycilocybin and a bota bag filled with rotgut---clearly, I do not 
do things by halfs, Hunter S. Thompson speaking more to me 
by then than Aldous Huxley---I was 17 inches off the ground 
for the better part of that day. Mainstage had a 
famous/scandalous belly dancer---she was a nudist [good thing, 
that!] and her quite attractive tits would periodically pop out of 
her anachronistic neo-surf dancing costume, much to the delight
 of beer swilling males and of particular irritation to one wizened 
Auntie, who niece was exposed to the aforementioned mammary 
glands. Quite a nice pair, really, and well worth the crowds, heat 
and constant threat of passing out altogether.

Well, being in a rather delicate state, I wandered off to Witches Woods 
just to get away from this Borgish collective. What should I behold but 
a beautiful woman clothed in white body paint and a few feathers, 
dancing with herself and an accompaning gagaku band. It was glorious, 
it was the phoenix, it was a perfect day---one I returned via dreams 
and other means of travel  many, many times. It was the best of times.

And that was the public place for Tarot card readers [and dope dealers, 
nudge, nudge, wink, wink] in L.A. in 1972. 

                  "What about this witchcraft religion?" she asked. "What is 
                  it that we believe in What is it, Z?" She always had a great 
                  effect on me, and I realized I'd never really pulled it 
                  together before: feminist witches---what do we believe in 
                  that's different from the rest of the pagan community? Why 
                  are we new? And I just sat down and 
                  channeled the "Manifesto of the Susan B. Anthony Coven 
                  No. 1," right on the edge of 1972, reflecting all our moods 
                  and times. . . ."
                  "The Holy Book of Woman's Mysteries", 
                   Zsuzsanna Emese Budapest. Page xvii

Z. Budapest and Starhawk read cards at those fairs.

I met Z. Budapest in 1989, in the wake of the earthquake. I was sweeping 
the floor of my basement kitchen and the broom told me to call Z. By that 
time, I hadn't taken much of anything for three years, but my interest in 
Feminist Sprituality was galloping along unabated. I wasn't about to argue 
with the broom, so I met her and I took an immediate liking for her, she 
reminded me so much of Bea.

In any case, because of Pynchon, I became fascinated with tarot cards. 
I lived at the northern faire site in 1980/82 and while I was living at
the faire [I thought of tarot cards as weird background noise by then]
I read Gravitys Rainbow. Weissman's tarot showed me how tarot cards 
could generate philosophical meditations, display a pattern, work like a 
mandala, demonstrate ladders to heaven. It was waaaaaaaaay cool. 

Z. Budapest turned me on to the Crowley Harris deck. Freida Harris
was the driving force behind this deck. Although it has the rep as 
being Crowley's "Thoth" deck, it is in fact quite feminist. Freida Harris 
was the real driving force behind the deck.  "Pixie" Coleman-Smith
is the source, but Frida's tripped-out images have more sheer punch.

Wonder what Nick Nookshaft has to say about the Star card?

                 "Allow us," said Nigel, "to introduce Miss---Or actually, 
                 as she's a seventeenth-degree Adept, one ought to                  
                 say 'Tzaddik,' except that obviously---"

                 "Well blimey, it's really only old Yashmeen, isn't it," 
                 added Neville.
                 AtD, 221

My niece pointed out that there ain't no 17 degrees in the O.T.O.

As OBA's been talking 'bout the cards, we can safely assume
he's still talkin' cards in this section.

                 The figure of the goddess is shown in manifestation, 
                 that is, not as the surrounding space of heaven, shown 
                 in Atu XX, where she is the pure philosophical idea 
                 continuous and omniform. In this card she is definitely 
                 personified as a human seeming figure: she is 
                 represented as bearing two cups, one golden, held high 
                 above her head, from which she pours water upon it. 
                 (These cups resemble breasts, as it is written: "the milk 
                 of the stars from her paps; yea, the milk of the stars 
                 from her paps").
                 Aleister Crowley: The Book of Thoth 
                 (Egyptian Tarot), page 109

                 To let me quote the master (Crowley would be the 
                 Master--that capitalization factor is how we can 
                 differentiate...):

                 When Crowley "heard" the reference to "the fortress" 
                 and "the House of God" (alternate titles to trump XVI, 
                 The Tower), a question arose in his mind concerning 
                 the general correctness of the ordering of the tarot trumps.  
                 Instantly, his question was answered, when Aiwass 
                 (Crowley's Holy Guardian Angel) dictated the next line: 
                 "All these old letters of my Book are aright but Tzaddi 
                 is not the Star.  This is also secret: my prophet shall 
                 reveal it to the wise."

                 This comment puzzled Crowley.  If Tzaddi was not the Star, 
                 then what card was?  And what Hebrew letter should be 
                 attributed to the Star card? The answer was some time in 
                 coming, but when it did come, there was no doubt in 
                 Crowley's mind that he had figured it out. Tzaddi was 
                 the Emperor.

http://www.tarotpassages.com/ThothLMD.htm