The Trees of Eternity

The Building of a Tree of Life

The Circles of the Tree of Life

The Tarot Major Arcana

The Cube of Space

The Ideal Numbers

The Planetary Paths

The 22 Letter Labels

The Color Codes

The Lightning Flash

The Star Structures

The Swirling Tree of Life

The Playing with Words

The Holy Grail

The DNA Structure

Zero-in to Zero-out

Astrology Charts and Reports

10 Actors

0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9
Sun	Mercury	Venus	Earth	Mars	Jupiter	Saturn	Uranus	Pluto	Neptune

12 Acts

Cardinal	16	18	11	15
	Aries	Cancer	Libra	Capricorn
Fixed	19	13	17	10
	Leo	Scorpio	Aquarius	Taurus
Mutable	14	12	20	21
	Sagittarius	Pisces	Gemini	Virgo
Elements	FIRE	WATER	AIR	EARTH

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The Ten Actors and the 12 Acts of the Play of Life

In this particular play of the potentiality and possibilities of the tarot, I have used the Rider/Waite/Smith deck to illustrate my perspective of a modern approach to a divination system using Tarot cards. In order to follow in the renaissanse tradition of Marcilio Ficino, I have focused on the ten major number characters of the Indian/Arabic counting system; astrological planets and zodiac; and the 22 Hebrew letters; and incorporated them with a modern perspective and understanding. In this system the major arcana is a representation of the ten different types of human characters, which correlate to the ten ideal numbers (0-1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9); the sun with it's nine major planets (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto); and the 12 different types of experiences and environments (the Zodiac) we go through in life. It also correlates with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet by way of the three mother/father letters (Alef, Mem and Shin), the seven double letters (Bet, Gimel, Dalet, Kaf, Pay, Resh, and tav), and the twelve single letters (He, Vav, Zayin, Chet, Tet, Yod, Lamed, Nun, Samech, Ayin, Tsade, and Qof).

The Tarot themes of the major arcana represent a larger and longer social scale of consideration (Solar cycle); and the minor arcana to represent a smaller and shorter  personal scale of consideration (Lunar cycle). The minor arcana represents the sub-lunar, and thereby, more mundane and emotional experiences in our lives. The minor arcana is a sub-category of tarot cards and has its' own rhythms and patterns, which are separate and distinctly different from the major arcana. The major arcana looks at the bigger and broader experiences. Keeping in mind that the more mundane routines and rhythms of life that occupy most of our daily attention, concerns and dreams, can effect our lives just as profoundly as our more universal social considerations. Mundane activities like counting down the days until the next pay check, or marking the calendar to keep track of a menstrual cycle, all fall under the minor arcana's' cycles of the Moon (Minor Arcana); whereas our longer goals and aspirations of social position, career or spiritual path would fall under the longer cycle of the Sun (Major Arcana).

 The original Mamluk 52 card deck has correlations to the 52 weeks of the year, which are divided into 4 seasonal groups (4 suites) of 13 weeks (13 cards per suite). The addition of the queen to the minor arcana deck, which was not present in the older Mamluk decks, changed the intent of the court cards from positions of rank (Deputy, Governor and King) to inherited court positions (Page, Knight, Queen, and King). In other words from a progression of positions in the Mamluk system, to a inherited possession of position in the European system.

The Mamluk military class was from the Islamic part of the world (in existence from the 9th to 19th century) and had three ruling tiers above the rank and file; deputy governor, governor and high commander. The more modern tarot, in keeping with the renaissance going on in Europe at the time (14th and 15th century) replaced the Deputy card with the Page, the Governor card with the Knight, added the Queen card, and kept the King card; and then combined them with the (presumably) European addition of the Trumps (Major Arcana) and called the new combined deck of cards Tarocchi, a.k.a. the Tarot. New games were derived and new methods for divination were developed. However, there is no real way of knowing the true history of the tarot or of any original intent or meaning of the cards.

The fact that the Gypsy and Jewish peoples had both entered into the European arena from the Eastern countries at this point in time bringing with them knowledge and traditions from the Asian/Arabic countries. This glaring fact, to often ignored by western tarot enthusiast and Europeans in general, really can not be ignored; it can be reasonable argued to have had a significant impact on the westerners view of both fortune telling (an iconic gypsy image), and the use of the Indian/Arabic number system, which introduced the number zero (The Jewish traders were masters of the many systems of numbers at the time.).

For an extensive exploration into the possible history of the Tarot cards, and the Asian/Arabic connections, I refer you to the I  as well as much more insights into the modern Tarot, I highly recommend visiting Queen of Tarot website.