Normally, most of what makes up the underlying structure of what is being presented on this site as tarot, is comprised of ideas that I believe to be universal. Years ago, however, I drew a tarot deck with Minors that illustrated the four seasons. To me, the four seasons that we experience here on Earth are not exactly universal. In fact, I often ask people who build wisdom systems upon things that are not universal, to explain what happens to all that wisdom if we were to ever pack up and move to another location in the universe where things like the planets we know of, and the seasons we experience, don't exist to the same experiential degree that they do here on Earth. If we were to pack up and move to another planet within our solar system, or another planet within a galaxy far, far away, we might find ourselves living in an environment that does not have any such thing as seasons. I remember reading a science fiction story of someone visiting a planet that did not rotate on an axis like our Earth, thus causing one side to always be too hot to support life, and the other side to alway be too cold. Leaving the only place anyone could live to be a thin strip of land between these extremes where life flourished. There were no seasons on that planet. Things were different there. Our own planet Uranus is sort of like that, having an axis of rotation that is tipped so far toward the sun as to create similar conditions. What if we moved there?
I prefer to base the wisdom of my system upon things I think are universal. But... at the same time... the fact that we do have four seasons on our planet doesn't mean they shouldn't be used artistically, or poetically or lyrically to illustrate the allegedly universal pattern of a quaternary in ways that humans can easily relate to. Quaternaries are numerous and plentiful. People use all kinds of things to illustrate them. The four suits of playing card decks have occasionally been used for that purpose. And so it has been that I too have used the four seasons to illustrate the seemingly universal idea of a quaternary within my various tarot decks. But problems arise when people interested in finding universality by way of syncretism, make forced associations between one fourfold set of ideas and another fourfold set of ideas (see Quaternary and the Elements of Tarot elsewhere on this site). This problem rears its ugly head often when trying to put forth ideas about which part of which quaternary belongs with which suit of tarot pips.
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Which Quaternary is Which?
Because of the strong interest people in tarot have with mystery, and the requirement that tarot embody that mystery, the association of Alchemistically and Astrologically significant elements like Fire, Earth, Water and Air are common among tarot decks. Associating the seasons with a suit is somewhat less common - being that they are less mysterious and more mundane - the elements are usually good enough for most people. In the essay The Invisible Body, I put forth a few reasons for my own unique arrangement of quaternary things like elements, seasons, mathematical operations and tarot suits. In the essay The Quaternary and the Elements of Tarot I describe my reasons for a unique sequencing of elements that I view to be isomorphic to an organic form seen throughout nature and the universe.
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In the essay The Quaternary and the Court Card Matrix I show how this quaternary of elements can be unfolded to produce the nine numbers of numerology seen within The Numerical Tarot deck. I then go on to suggest that two rows of nine within the Major Trumps be seen as Parents to the Children of the Minor Pips and their four rows of nine (see Evolution of a Deck Design: The Matrix elsewhere on this site). In this way, a theoretical model of existence, with only four stages of development, becomes a grid of ideas to be illustrated on little pieces of paper we have come to call tarot!
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In that same essay, we are also shown how that same quaternary can also be crossed over itself to create a 4x4 grid that could be used to establish the numerological character of the various court cards of a tarot deck. By acknowledging two contributing factors mixing together, we are asked to blend in our minds the ideas of each fourfold quaternary, and see each card as both an independent character (a Page, Jack, Queen or King) while at the same time, a member of a family by way of the suit in which that card is found (Coins, Cups, Staves, Swords). Thus we find that when relating one fourfold quaternary idea to another fourfold quaternary idea, they don't necessarily have to correlate one-to-one in describing the same exact thing, like a tarot suit... they can at times be juxtaposed against each other to create a mixture of quaternary ideas that work together to reveal a much greater truth about quaternaries in general.
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The Elements of the Seasons
Whenever anyone talks about a card from the Minor Pips, they always identify which card they are referring to with two points of reference: a number, and a suit... same with court cards: a character, and a suit. In this way, they are employing the crossed grid example put forth as a possible underlying structure behind the character of court cards. As mentioned above, I prefer to base my underlying structure upon ideas that I believe to be universal. Universally, not every manifest form of existence has a surface that could be thought of as Earthen. Not every manifest form has a watery atmosphere, or even air. Thus I would typically substitute Fire, Earth, Water and Air with the more abstract and universally applicable concepts of Force, Form, Flow and Frame. Likewise, as mentioned above, not every manifest form experiences seasons like those on Earth. Thus I would typically substitute Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter for the more universally applicable concepts of Addition, Multiplication, Subtraction and Division. But...at the same time... if asked to create a deck with a more lyrical appeal that humans could more easily relate to, I would not hesitate to use the elements and the seasons to symbolically illustrate these more universal, abstract concepts.
However, whereas many might attempt to combine these elements and seasons together as two things describing one thing (like a tarot suit), I would find them to be much more useful if crossed as a grid. As substitutes for Force, Form, Flow and Frame, the elements describe the stages of our theoretical model of existence and its isomorphic resemblance to an organic form seen throughout nature and the cosmos. As substitutes for Addition, Multiplication, Subtraction and Division, the seasons would be more of a representation of how that model of existence, or natural form, is perceived within a world of multiple subdivisions of opposites. Every entity can be broken down into various sets of opposites - relative to a given reference frame or context: Up/Down, Left/Right, Front/Back etc.
Because so many tarot enthusiasts are so devoted to perpetuating mystery, they might not feel comfortable with the idea being presented here, of using the Alchemistically and Astrologically significant elements to describe the various numbers of a suit, rather than the character of the suit as a whole. Personally, I've freed myself from that limitation, and have come up with another way of looking at things. In the diagram presented below, the elements and seasons are used in the way just described - crossed as a grid. The elements describe an entity itself, and the seasons describe the binary aspects of the entity.
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This diagram shows the entire Minor Suits, upright and reversed. By mixing one fourfold quaternary model with another as a crossed grid, conflicts concerning syncretism are reduced. This diagram shows elements describing an entity, and seasons describing the binary aspects of that entity. For more on these various subdivisions of binary influence, consult the essay Evolution of a Deck Design: The Matrix.
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It might be noticed that in this gridded arrangement of Minor Pip cards, no equivalent to tradition is indicated. Which suit of tradition should be associated with the suit of Spring? Which suit of tradition is associated with the suit of Winter? That is a question that could be answered many different ways, depending on how someone interprets existing imagery. My personal preference - the way of arranging traditional suits in a way that seems to make the most sense to this universally inspired design - would be to associate the suit of Coins with Addition/Spring, Cups with Multiplication/Summer, Staves with Subtraction/Autmn and Swords with Division/Winter. That's how my intuition sees tradition fitting into this design (see The Quaternary and the Elements of Tarot elsewhere on this site). How would you attach tradition to this design?
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A Wheel Within a Wheel Mandala!
In addition to elements and seasons, there is one more aspect of human existence on the surface of planet Earth that can be used symbolically to lyrically describe an important universal concept. Our daily experience of light and dark presents itself as a very obvious example of the binary nature of every fundamental entity living in a universe comprised of undulating cycles of opposites. Nothing happens without opposites. The light and dark of day and night remind us of the binary nature of the universe over and over again. The idea of being awake in the day, and asleep at night, makes each day a cycle not too dissimilar from the activity of Spring and Summer vs. the hibernation of Autumn and Winter. This apparent death and rebirth - our daily death and rebirth, and our seasonal death and rebirth, is also expressed within the ideals of alchemy and the ideas of Solve et Coagula. In the essay The Spine of Tarot I describe a how I view the Major Trumps as two rows of nine, and how each Major icon is to be viewed as the parent to two children within the Minor Pips. By viewing the Minor Suits as a cycle of seasons, and the Majors as a cycle of day and night, the two together become a wheel within a wheel! It is with this in mind that I have come to view my parallel nine Major Trumps and the Minor Suits as an expression of just such a death and life, or life and death, or light and dark, or day and night cycle.
Below is a mandala you can use to meditate on this idea of a wheel within a wheel. At the center is a Magic Square rotated to be more of a Magic Diamond! By rotating to a diamond, we can connect the numbers 1, 2 and 3 and 7, 8 and 9 as opposing triangles, to create a six pointed star. This is not supposed to be proof of the transcendent existence of God, it's just for fun. :-)
Beyond the Magic Diamond of nine numbers is a visual description of the cycle of seasons and days. Beyond that is a ring showing the actual seasons. Outside of that is a ring showing 365 days of a year. Beyond that are the icons of the Major Trumps of The Numerical Tarot. From each Major icon two lines trail off, to direct our attention to the two Minor cards that are to be seen as equivalent to the parent Major. Beyond those Minor Pip descriptions are the Quintagrams that describe the cumulative effect of multiple binary influences upon a given entity. Beyond that is a ring showing 360 degrees of a circle.
In playing card decks of the distant past, suits were typically though of in ways similar to the light and dark, or day and night method being employed in The Numerical Tarot design. In regular playing card decks, seen in casinos and neighborhood card tables today, the suit signs are typically light and dark, or red and black. In most tarot decks, this original design has been lost. The Numerical Tarot brings it back! Trying to associate a cycle like seasons, or day and night, to a deck that has lost all notion of light and dark will undoubtedly lead to confusion and endless disagreements based on subjective interpretation of something unclear. The purpose of The Numerical Tarot is to be clear. Those devoted to a form of tarot governed by mysticism will probably feel comfortable enough with the endless disagreements that come with the interpretation of something mystical and deliberately obfuscated. Those seeking clarity might find something of use within the All Things Are Numbers approach and The Numerical Tarot deck.
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