Interview by Ian Bryant
Deck Published by M. M. Meleen / Atu House 2016
Photo Credit: Ian Bryant, Deck: M. M. Meleen/Atu House
Introduction
Just as Aleister Crowley’s Thoth tarot deck, painted by Lady Frieda Harris, has for decades become an essential part of many serious tarotists magical tools collection, so I suspect shall the Tabula Mundi tarot created by M. M. Meleen find its way into the tool chests of future generations of tarotists and magicians. After working my way through Crowley’s books The Book of Thoth and 777 for a writing project, I was left with a feeling that I wanted something specific in a tarot deck that was modern and spoke to the 21st Century, yet was executed in a way that could still be as timeless as Lady Frieda’s art has proven to be. Many Thoth-inspired decks have crossed my desk and l love each of them in their own way, but that feeling still sat in the back of my mind for several years. By chance I was in a discussion about this very feeling in an online community when M. M. Meleen’s Tabula Mundi deck was mentioned. I’d not heard of it at the time and after seeing a handful of images from the 2016 color deck (a black & white version, Tabula Mundi Nox et Lux, came out in 2015), I was pleased to find my itch being vigorously scratched, for I had found the deck I longed for and knew it after only seeing images of a half-dozen Major and Minor cards. What was more important to me was not the replacement of Thoth, however, but to complement the classic deck, as Crowley’s tarot will always be my go to for personal meditation, reflection on the Tree of Life and other Qabalistic mysteries. Rather, it was important any deck that filled my need was respectful of the Crowley system of magic, of Thelema and of magick in general. The Tabula Mundi tarot deck and the accompanying book put me at ease on all counts.
Without further ado, please allow me to introduce you to the Tabula Mundi Colores Arcus, an inspired Thoth based tarot deck by M.M. Meleen.
The Tabula Mundi Tarot Q&A
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
Ian Bryant: First, thank you for taking time to do this interview. I’d like to start off by asking if you remember when you first had the idea for the Tabula Mundi Tarot? Were you reading any particular books at the time, or watching any movies or shows that might have had an influence? I’m also curious how you documented the initial idea and whether you found it filled any essential needs of yours.
M. M. Meleen: You know, it’s getting harder to remember now. I feel like a completely different person. I guess if you consider that the human body replaces all of its cells and after more than seven years, it's been just long enough since the start of this anyway that they have all been replaced, so I actually am a completely different person! Feels like a dream though.
Does the deck fill a need? The deck fills a need for me, in that there aren’t many Thoth based decks in a world full of RWS based decks. Of the “Thothy” decks out there, I don’t feel that any of those I'm aware of were made by anyone truly in love with, and full of respect for, the tenets of Thelema. I think it’s just that the shoes are so big to fill, that one has to come at it with utter humility. After the fact I realized it is rather sort of an audacious thing in a way.
Aside from the Thoth and Thelema aspect, I'm pretty hard to please when it comes to tarot. There are thousands out there but not many decks tick my boxes artistically yet adhere to traditional esoteric archetypes while also saying something original that adds any new perspective to the genre.
I’m pretty sure I started TM under some auspicious astrological timing, as all of the majors seemed to magically align with some sort of resonant astronomical event. It was right around the time when my first deck the Rosetta was released (which was November 2, 2011), that I started the Fool for Tabula Mundi.
I knew already that I wanted to try again, as while I was happy that the Rosetta was well received, I knew I could do an even better tarot work. My artistic skills had grown by the time I was in the last suit of that deck. I’d also learned not to work actual card size, like I did for Rosetta, and other things not to do. I made all the mistakes and learned a lot. It prepared me for doing it again.
Ian:I’m glad you mentioned the Rosetta tarot, as I actually bought that deck after falling in love with Tabula Mundi. In some ways I feel Rosetta is closer to the Crowley-Harris Thoth tarot than Tabula Mundi is, but that it leans more toward “classic” Thelema while Tabula Mundi, for me, is a step towards future Thelema.
M. M. Meleen: I realized that I wanted to do a Thoth based deck that did not draw artistic inspiration from the Thoth, but used 100% my own designs. The Rosetta was a mix, some completely original takes and some “Thoth-inspired” cards. Most were new interpretations but some were visually close to the Thoth, especially in the cups suit. I found I regretted not doing them all as completely original takes as it was never my intention to do any type of clone deck. I was happiest with the many Rosetta cards that were completely unique expressions. I wanted to draw a deck that was timeless, at once completely original but at the same time not too “personalized”, one that needed little explanation because it remained true to the traditional universal tarot archetypes, and with each card instantly recognizable for what card was portrayed while yet being wholly new. And one that expanded on my own growing knowledge of the esoteric components, that continues to grow and so I'm pretty sure I can keep making cards that will always have something to say.
So the ink was barely dry on Rosetta when I started drawing the Fool card for Tabula Mundi. It’s still one of my favorite cards in the deck. Where Rosetta’s Fool is stepping through an ouroboros portal, Tabula Mundi’s Fool is about to step into a wormhole in the fabric of space-time. The question I had to ask myself, is how the hell do I draw a wormhole with a magic marker? Emphasis on the magic part of the marker I guess. It worked out really well by some miracle. It seemed divinely inspired.
Ian: The Fool definitely came out loud and clear; while in some ways I’ve shunned technology, I am still in awe of what nature produces, and wormholes, black holes and in general anything to do with space-time anomalies completely sucks me (no pun intended). Your Fool card called strongly to me, to say the least. I can’t believe these were drawn in pen and ink!
Photo Credit: Ian Bryant, Deck: M. M. Meleen/Atu House
M. M. Meleen: I knew that I wanted the medium to be pen and ink lines with lots of detail and texture, colored in with colored inks in the colors of the Golden Dawn color scales. I did the cards in order. Once the Fool was drawn, it set the style and tone for the whole deck, with the premise that the Fool steps into the wormhole, and exits it at the Universe transformed, having seen facets of everything along the way, the one thing transmuted into infinite new perspectives.
Artistically
it had the look I wanted that was at once both modern and ancient, a
believable world of its own that exists in its own time and space
that will never be dated because it doesn't correlate exactly to
anything in this one.
Ian:
So, digging a little deeper on the pen and ink and your overall
process in creating the art for Tabula Mundi, what else can you
reveal?
M. M. Meleen: For Tabula Mundi instead of doing card sized miniature paintings like in Rosetta, I worked larger, at a size just under 7x11. I worked on frosted acetate, first doing a light pencil sketch and then refining the drawing and adding detail with a fine line permanent magic marker. I’d hunted around trying to find the right marker that would not smear or run when the wet colored inks were applied. Of course the type of marker I finally found got discontinued. Good thing I’d had the foresight to hunt around and buy a case of them before they disappeared from stock.
After the drawing was refined with the marker I’d erase the pencil marks, and then use the marker again to do all the shading, creating form mostly with stippling but also adding textures and details. When the black and white version of a card was done, I scanned it. Those scans became the first 78 card version of the deck released in 2015, the black and white Nox et Lux edition. Then over the next year I painted over the originals with colored acrylic inks, and these paintings became the Tabula Mundi Colores Arcus edition.
For tools, besides the markers and paintbrushes for the inks, I also used one of my favorite tools, the Phi ruler. I used a lot of sacred geometry in the art and these rulers were handy for utilizing the golden ratio in the design and composition. So rulers, compasses, pencil, erasers, permanent marker, and acrylic ink applied with a brush were the main tools. Sometimes I’d use a paper towel to create texture in the wet ink, and one painting (5 of Wands) had salt thrown at it. Nothing was done digitally, except adding the titles and cleaning up things like stray paintbrush hairs that got into a scan.
For process, well the most important is the mental part of the process. The Majors took an incredibly long time. In addition to an average of 40-50 hours of artwork on each card, for each one there was at least a month of “gestation” where all I did was think about it, constantly, waiting to the idea to appear. I did them in card order, and for each one just thought, and thought, and thought some more. It was all very one pointed and obsessive. Sometimes a lot of time would pass before the lightning flash and the inspiration for the drawing would come from the muse. And during that time, I thought about the elements of the archetype pretty much constantly: while driving, while eating, while bathing, while getting ready for sleep! I also meditated on the esoteric titles of the Majors, as I found them incredibly evocative, almost poetic and very conducive to imagery. It really was all just “astral surfing”, being out there in the aethers looking - if you are out looking, what you are seeking finds you.
The Minors came much more quickly. I was really possessed by them. For those what I did was hold the idea of the two related majors in my head, simultaneously. So for the 2 of Wands for example, it’s Mars ruling the first decan (ten degrees) of Aries, so I’d hold in mind the ideas of the Emperor (Aries) and the Tower (Mars), constantly, obsessively and one pointedly, until somehow the idea of the card design arose magically from the concepts and elements of the two Majors. Again, lots of concentrated thinking (some would call it meditation), but this time, on two cards at once until they merged. For some reason, this went much faster than the process of creating the Majors out of the pure ethers. Probably because there was a seed - or two actually - to start from, rather than from the void.
Photo Credit: Ian Bryant, Deck: M. M. Meleen/Atu House
The other thing I was doing is making sure that all three cards of the same sign would line up geometrically and symmetrically, so that I could combine them into the set of “decan” cards that come in the expansion pack. For example, the Two, Three, and Four of Wands all being Aries, each one a decan or ten degrees of the sign. So not only did I need a good design for each minor, but the design had to line up like a puzzle with the other two cards of the same astrological sign! Without anyone noticing that they did! No design element could interfere with the design elements of the other cards of the sign. The idea was that if you overlaid them all as transparencies, they would combine into one picture. The sacred geometry ratios helped. Crazy as it sounds, it actually worked. Don’t ask me how. I just remember working in a frenzy, it really was like being possessed by them. I was working on the entire suit at a time, making sure they all had symmetry to work together. The acetate was good for that since it is slightly translucent, and I could lay them on top of each other to see how they would combine. It’s strange but even though I was pretty sure it was going to work, I didn’t know if it really would as I’d not tried it. I promised people they were coming without knowing for sure exactly what they would be, or if or how it would work. It was something I just "knew" because the muse said so. But it did so I then eventually created and released the expansion pack.
Ian: I’m really glad it all worked out and you’re right, I’m completely amazed at the beautiful symmetry when I lay each set of cards out next to the Decan card that combines them together; absolutely amazing and transfixing. You have created meditative masterpieces in this extension pack. Moving into inspirational sources, you mention in your Book M - Liber Mundi some key influences such as Aleister Crowley's The Book of Thoth and Liber T by James A. Eshelman, published by College of Thelema. Did referencing those works lead you to any other sources, whether books or art, that are seen in the deck?
Photo Credit: Ian Bryant, Deck: M. M. Meleen/Atu House
M. M. Meleen: As far as books go, well The Book of ThothThe Book of Thoth is a gateway drug. It led me deeper into Crowley’s other works, and ultimately to Thelema. I just found that as a personal philosophy it really resonated. is the never ending gobstopper of a book, because it references and leads to so many other books, that it continually unfolds for you. I joke that if one were imprisoned and could have only one book and any of the books that it referenced, you would be both educated and entertained for years with that one. Even now after all these years I can pick it up and find something new in it, that was hiding. It’s like that saying that when the student is ready the teacher will appear.
For artistic influences and inspirations, most of what there is to say is in a little section of Book M: Liber Mundi, called “Random Artist Notes on the Majors” that will tell you, for example, that the other side of the wormhole shown in the Universe was inspired by an Escher work, or that the Priestess was inspired by a certain painting by William Bouguereau, and that the pomegranate hearts were a theme I explored in an earlier series of paintings on heart transmutation I’d done years before. It also tells funny inspirations like that the Emperor’s buskins or armored boots were inspired by some internet thing I’d seen that compared the infamous “face on Mars” to Crowley in a nemyss headdress. Weird little details like that. Sometimes they are just errata but sometimes it strangely ties into the card meaning. That section also sometimes lists the astrological alignments that were happening as the card was drawn, at least those I could remember. I do wish I’d recorded them all at the time, as they were numerous but by the time I wrote the book I’d forgotten most of them.
Ian: OK, now for the hard question! What are your favorite cards from this deck and why? Also, which cards from the deck were most difficult to complete? Was there anything you wished youhad put into the deck after publication, or perhaps any details of the deck you wish you could have described more on your website, your book or the Little White Book?
M. M. Meleen: It’s really hard to pick favorite cards in this deck because they change all the time. That was one of my goals for Tabula Mundi, to have all the cards be good enough that I never looked at it after it was complete and regretted any one card, like I could have done better. I think I pretty much succeeded in that because I like them all, even the cards usually experienced as negatives. If I had to choose today, I think the Majors I’m most fond and proud of are the Fool, the Magus, Fortune, Death, Art, the Moon, and the Aeon.
I don’t recall any being too troublesome to complete although some definitely took longer to conceive of or to execute. They came out as they should be, and what was revealed was revealed and all is alright in the picture of the world.
The book, well I wouldn’t change a thing as I’m not entirely sure I was more than the monkey at the typewriter. I swear parts were guided or channeled as I was led to things constantly. It was written fast, in a three or four month period, during which time I suffered the loss of my only sibling, which was the worst blow of my life and with the most suspicious and inauspicious timing. Let's just say it nearly killed me but I'm still here. Writing the book was one strange surreal series of wormholes after another – as I discovered through the writing what was in the cards, not the other way around.
Ian: I’m so sorry for your loss. I have a greater respect for you, now, knowing what it must have taken to produce this work after such an emotional event. Well, let’s close this portion of the interview and if I may, I’m curious what would you like to say to Thelemites who work with the Thoth deck about how Thelema and your Tabula Mundi deck are related, and how you might recommend use of the deck in living Thelema?
M. M. Meleen: I don’t feel like I’m in any way qualified to give advice to other Thelemites! Yet Tabula Mundi was a project that came from following my True Will. It taught me what that feels like. It’s going its own way with love, under will. If decks have personalities, this one is an independent spirit which is very much in line with the Thelemic principles.
Personally, I like using the extra large Majors edition to display on my altar the planetary card of the day (Sun for Sunday, Moon for Monday, Tower (Mars) for Tuesday…) plus using the zodiacal major of the astrological season, and using the elemental majors for the equinoxes and solstices. The decan cards in the expansion set are good for this too, some use them as a sort of perpetual calendar.
As far as working with the deck and Thelema goes, the Thoth deck is a collection of Crowley’s magickal knowledge and an expression of the tenets of Thelema. That's what should be used for that. But I do think that Tabula Mundi has a place in this world and may help to break open the Thoth cards and the tarot itself, perhaps showing something inherent yet hidden to the casual observer, and for that reason it’s interesting to compare them to their Thoth counterparts and see what shakes out for you. It is my hope is that they can offer a different perspective, and a new picture of the world.
Ian’s Favorite Tabula Mundi Tarot Cards
Ian: Thanks for discussing the overall journey of making your Tabula Mundi tarot deck. If we could, the cards from your deck below stood out to me as I meditated on Tabula Mundi card by card. I’m curious to hear if there are any anecdotes or details of these cards that make them special, and if you might have some insight into these cards that highlights their place in the deck?
Photo Credit: Ian Bryant, Deck: M. M. Meleen/Atu House
The Aeon
M. M. Meleen: The Aeon was surely the most intimidating card to make. It has such a high bar to live up to, as Crowley’s conception and Lady Frieda’s art in the Thoth for this card is genius and breathtaking, and because it’s the card that encapsulated the reception of the Book of the Law. Because Thelema is the closest thing I have to religion, it’s a holy icon to me. How can anyone besides Crowley and Harris do the Thelemic pantheon justice? And the concept of the Aeons, it’s nearly inconceivable. Because I believe the Book of the Law to be a divinely received work, I had to come at it humbly and devotionally, and just do the best I could to make a worthy illustration of something so profound.
You may notice that the symbol in the center of the border is a circle. The Aeon is one of only two cards in the deck that have a central symbol. The other is the Universe, which has the alchemical symbol for Earth since it’s a major that does “double duty”, correspondence wise, as it is the card for both the planet Saturn and the element Earth. Likewise the Aeon card is standing for both the element Fire, and the fifth element of Spirit, or the power To Go. The circle felt like the perfect symbol for this, and for the cycling of the Aeons. The circle infinitely expanded is Nuit and the circle contracted to a point is Hadit. Together they form a sun symbol, a fertilized egg. The circle also creates the most interesting illusion as the eye looks first at the circle at the bottom of the card, then to the circle of the sun’s disk rising at the horizon which echoes it, the last to the circle at the top of the card where Hadit flies near the top Aubrey hole. It feels like an initiation, like you are standing within the card at the base of that keyhole tomb of flame, and you are looking down, and then your gaze rises up to the sunrise, and then up to the heavens.
There’s an earlier painting I did of a sky goddess, perhaps the muse Urania, combing galaxies from her hair. Nuit here is likewise part of the night sky, seen combing stars from her hair with a comb shaped like the letter Shin. Hadit is represented by the winged solar disk, and also by the sunrise. The Sun symbol (a dot within a circle) that is formed by the juxtaposition of the sunrise seen through the circle of the alembic is Horus, a sun god who was created by Nuit (the circumference) and Hadit (the center). Horus is the red ouroboros dragon created in the circle of the alembic (Nuit) after it has been fertilized by that seed of the sun in the center (Hadit). The ouroboros itself is a circle that is both expanding and contracting, as Horus is the child of Nuit and Hadit.
The Aubrey holes in the card both help reinforce the idea of measurable cycles and also reference an earlier painting I did that had them around an ouroboros and Stonehenge. Stonehenge itself is both about measures of celestial time and an icon of the old Aeon. So you can see that these symbols form a sort of personal cosmology or language as they have been parts of previous works, and yet they are universal and can be used to convey the truths of the archetypes. I’ve been collecting this stable of symbols for a long time!
Lust
M. M. Meleen: There are two versions of the card, so I’m assuming you mean the original Lust card, and not the version In Nomine Babalon. The original Lust card, the figure was based on a statue of the Hindu goddess Durga. Normally Durga is shown riding a tiger, but in this particular version there was no tiger or lion. Yet I was struck by the strength in the figure’s physique, and so my version of the figure showed her grasping the lion-serpent by the tail in that sort of sinuous way.
Ian: I don’t have the In Nomine Babalon deck, but I’m lucky to have the Lust card from that deck (included as an extra in my order, thank you) and I immediately replaced Lust in my deck with the alternate Babalon version; somehow it felt right although I do love the original pictured below, as well!
Photo Credit: Ian Bryant, Deck: M. M. Meleen/Atu House
M. M. Meleen: It’s funny, both versions of the Lust card had some sort of Leo-Virgo cusp timing thing happening. The first version was completed shortly after the fixed star Regulus, heart of the lion and Royal Watcher star of the North, had progressed from the sign of Leo into the sign of Virgo. It was in February, during Aquarius season, which also seemed appropriate enough as the Aquarius/Leo axis perfectly represents the Lust card, with the (wo)man or angel of Aquarius combined with the beast or the lion of Leo. It calls to mind the sphinx, part woman and part lion, which was said to mark that point in time on the cusp between Leo and Virgo where Regulus has resided.
The card is the card of Leo, always associated with Leo’s ruler the Sun, but it is also about the conjunction of the Sun and Moon, Chaos and Babalon who are solar and lunar, and have a Venus/Mars polarity energy too. We see the Sun/Moon combined over the dark mountain (which is the same volcano in the Prince of Wands card) and other solar themes like the lemniscate/analemma. The full blown rose is a flower I’ve always associated with Babalon, with Shakti energies of joy, lust, and vigor as well as kundalini and spiritual unfolding.
The second version of the Lust card, the Babalon version, was the 93rd card completed (the 78 cards done first, then the color scale rose key signature card was designed, then the 12 decan cards and the Minutum Mundum diagram were added, then the additional Lust card). That card was completed on August 22nd or 23rd – on the cusp of Leo and Virgo as the Sun was conjunct Regulus. It shows the goddess triumphant over a field of roses and in that version the beast has the seven heads referred to in the 49th chapter of Crowley’s Book of Lies, called “Waratah-Blossoms”, dedicated to Babalon:
Seven are the heads of THE BEAST whereon She rideth.
The head of an Angel: the head of a Saint: the head of a Poet: the head of An Adulterous Woman: the head of a Man of Valour: the head of a Satyr: and the head of a Lion-Serpent.
One of those heads looks like Crowley. But which one does he represent?
Fortune
M. M. Meleen: The most interesting thing to me about the creation of this one is that the three figures on the Wheel aren’t quite the usual Sphinx, Hermanubis, and Typhon – even though they are. Their altered forms came to me in a dream or a hypnagogic state, half sleep. A three eyed owl stands in for Sphinx, a hand-serpent for Typhon and a ring-tailed lemur for Hermanubis. The weird thing is that I saw that lemur but I didn’t even know what it was – I thought it was a sloth but when I looked up sloths I realized it wasn’t one, it was a lemur. Strange, where did it come from as it certainly wasn’t conscious!
It was a challenge to draw and paint all those warps and wefts, and the Golden Dawn color scale for the card is pretty intense too. Some of the texture came from putting paper towel in the wet ink – which is funny if you think of the paper towel brand Bounty as a riff on the word Fortune.
Photo Credit: Ian Bryant, Deck: M. M. Meleen/Atu House
Three of Wands
M. M. Meleen: When I first did this one I wasn’t sure if it was good enough – but then again I always question my own Virtue. But lots of people are drawn to it, and it has actually over time become one of my favorites as well. Maybe that says something about my own progression, maybe not!
Since it is the decan of Aries ruled by the Sun in its exaltation, it combines elements from the Emperor (Aries) and the Sun card. I think it is also the card where the idea was born to create the decan cards. Symbolically it’s the perfect decan for some idea to be fertilized so that really fits! It’s where I discovered the idea that through symmetry I could relate and connect as composites all of the three minor cards of each sign as extra cards in the expansion pack. Of course that got a lot harder to do in the 8/9/10 series than it was in the 2/3/4 series of cards – so many more elements! Somehow I made it work. But the idea was born in Virtue.
The Sun
M. M. Meleen: As mentioned in the “random notes” section of Book M, that pine cone was modeled on a statue, the largest statue of a pine cone in the world that exists in a courtyard of the Vatican. It's an allegory for the pineal gland in the center of the head, since the Sun’s Hebrew letter Resh is the letter meaning head or face, so central head or front of head as opposed to the Moon card’s letter which means back of head. Twin serpents, like kundalini that rises up the spine, are sun symbols, as are serpents in general, for me anyway. The eye and the heart vessel as well. Without going into details that can be found in the book about everything including the shapes of the serpents’ tongues, what is neat about this card is that it contains a diagram of all of the 36 decans and their planetary rulers; of course revolving around the winged Sun.
The Moon
M. M. Meleen: There is just something weird and uncanny about all Moon cards. This one has a lot going on in it! The figurehead on the ship represents an Oneroi, the black winged demon children of Nyx who guard the gates of horn and ivory, where dreams true and false come from. It was modeled on a real ship figurehead sculpture in Russia. The gate of horn is represented by the mechanical hand which is marked with palmistry areas of the Moon and Neptune. This hand thing was modeled on my pepper grinder, which is built inside of an artists' model of a left hand. I posedit in the sign of the horns of witchcraft of course! The horn of ivory is a model of a phrenology head, and since the Moon card’s Hebrew letter means “back of the head” it has a drawer in the back releasing a lunar moth. I’ve always known there is a door in the back of the head – and one must guard it well, both what exits and especially, what you allow to enter. The door to the back of the man-in-the-Moon’s head is barred.
Photo Credit: Ian Bryant, Deck: M. M. Meleen/Atu House
Seven of Disks
M. M. Meleen: A tough card to encounter in the Thoth system, mostly because of the full stop nature of the word Failure. But I don’t think the card itself represents full stop failure, it just means success as yet unfulfilled, or getting less than the promised paradise, for a lot of effort and toil. That’s why it shows the diagram of the Tree of Life after the fall of man, and the expulsion from the garden of Eden in the Six. Adam and Eve condemned to toil on earth because Eve reached for knowledge down below Malkuth, very Saturn/Earth, for Saturn ruling this decan of Earth sign Taurus. So the card combines themes of the Universe and the Hierophant, or world creation/ending and religious teaching, in Netzach (7/Venus, relating to Eve). It’s also a teaching diagram for the Golden Dawn’s 4=7 grade, and the number symbolism there seemed too perfect.
Six of Swords
M. M. Meleen: I’ve always wanted an orrery, and am fascinated with the stars. This card is the decan of Aquarius ruled by Mercury, in the sephira of the Sun, so all of these themes show here with the card picking up themes from the Star and Magus. Aquarius, the Star card, shows the ideal or star in sight; Mercury the god of travelers shows how to get there. Combine a star to sight with, travel guidance, and the Lord of Science, and you get the orrery and the sextant. If you look closely the orrery arms are six little swords, each one carrying one of the planets around the Sun, which fits as the sephira Tiphareth is solar, and the sun is just another star.
Princess of Cups
M. M. Meleen: The Princesses are unique in that while the other court cards each have three related minor cards they rule to draw their images from, the Princesses relate mainly back to the Aces. Though that means they actually are the fruition of their entire suit so they are so much more! This particular Princess, if you compare her to the Ace of Cups, you will see that she is rising made from the waters of the Cup portrayed in the Ace. The idea came from a depiction of a water nymph. Though she is clothed in ethereal garments or waters and isn’t depicted sexually so many people seem to be attracted to this card in that way; it’s funny how often I’ve heard that. It fits as she embodies ideals. She holds a lotus as her esoteric title “The Lotus of the Palace of the Floods”. Above her is a swan, from the descriptions of the court crests in Book T, which describes her crest as a swan with open wings.
Photo Credit: Ian Bryant, Deck: M. M. Meleen/Atu House
Decans of Aquarius
M. M. Meleen: This extra card from the expansion pack combines all of the cards of Aquarius into a single card. In this case, the cards are the Five, Six, and Seven of Swords as each is one third of the 30 degrees of the sign Aquarius. So elements of each card are overlaid with each other graphically to create a composite. It works because they were designed with symmetry and intention. Because each of those minor cards relates to two majors, you also get elements of the Star card for Aquarius, and indirectly, elements of the planetary majors that rule each of those Aquarius decans, in this case Venus, Mercury, Moon.
Decans of Scorpio
M. M. Meleen: Similarly this card is a composite. Because like Aquarius, Scorpio is a fixed sign, the cards are also the Five, Six and Seven, but in this case of Cups since it is fixed water. The cardinal signs are the Twos, Threes, and Fours, and the mutable signs are the Eights, Nines, and Tens. So you will find elements of the Five, the Six, and the Seven of Cups, and also the Death card, all having to do with the sign of Scorpio, and also indirectly, some elements of the planetary rulers of those three minor decans: Mars (the Tower), Sun (the Sun), and Venus (the Empress).
Lots of people ask how one uses the extra decan cards in the expansion pack. Some of those are:
- as
significator for the querent
- as
significator for the situation
- for
dealing with issues of timing
- for
study and meditation with the related minors and majors
- for
altar display, as a perpetual calendar
- for
practical magick layouts
For more explanation see:http://www.tabulamundi.com/ways-to-use-the-decan-cards-in-the-tabula-mundi-expansion-pack/
Closing Words
Ian: I want to thank you deeply for all the detailed responses you’ve given. This deck is special to me and I hope that more folks are introduced to it through this. It wasn’t apparent to me when I first opened the deck, but while I knew it was important in some way at the time, I had no idea it would have a presence in my daily meditation routine, in my personal writing habits (used as prompts and organization for my intentions) and take a spot in my shoulder bag as my constant companion. For all of this, I thank you. Before we part ways, any closing thoughts to leave our Tarot Reflections readers with?
M. M. Meleen: All I can express here is gratitude for everyone whose paths have crossed mine through the cards. Art is created for someone to receive it, and I’m grateful that it has been received so well by so many intelligent people that I truly respect. Tabula Mundi seems to be a thinking person’s deck, and because of it I’ve met so many that I’m honored to interact with. Also thanks to those who came before and provided so much inspiration, as well as those who came through me, as I’m certain I was at times only the vehicle.
This is probably a good place to mention the podcast Fortune’s Wheelhouse, that I co-host with T. Susan Chang, author of Tarot Correspondences. We’ve already released episodes for each of the 78 cards where we talk about the esoteric symbols of the Thoth and Rider Waite decks for the Majors, and for the Minors we still talk about the cards of Thoth, Rider Waite, but added Tabula Mundi to the mix, so more can be learned there about all of the minors and courts of Tabula Mundi as well as all sorts of esoteric nerd goodness. As I write this we are on a short break after managing to do 78 weekly episodes, but we are about to start up again with a whole new format in early June. You can find it freely offered at any of the podcast places, and we also have a Patreon site where we put out extra content and do give aways of our tarot related works to listeners. We also have just signed to co-author a book together - so more to come on that.
I’m in love with the process of creation, with magick, with the occult, with art, and with tarot. I’m working on a new deck that is very different from the two that have come before. It’s called Pharos Tarot after the famous lighthouse of the ancient world, and can be seen on its own page on the Tabula Mundi website. I’m also working on a couple as of yet not shown and unnamed decks and some other related projects, because I can’t seem to help it; it’s a labor of love.
If anyone is interested in learning about my latest works in real time, I occasionally put out a newsletter. A link to subscribe is at the top of the home page ofwww.tabulamundi.com.
FINI
Love is the law, love under will.