The
view from earth:
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| Universal Waite Tarot |
When we carefully examine The Star card of Tarot, important questions and messages
emerge. (See my original blog on The Star January 20, 2012) It
would seem this traditional card designed by Pamela Coleman Smith under the
direction of Arthur E. Waite for the Rider-Waite Deck in 1910, has been
imagined in the context of early religious traditions, both pagan and biblical. First,
you may want to know who the young woman is, shown pouring water from two vases
- one into the water of a pond, and one poured onto the land. What is the
significance of the water and land? What about the star itself and its
relationship to the woman? What does the star mean? The key to understanding this
card is the enormity of water. We
know that without water, there would be no life. Without water, living
creatures, plants, animal, human, and most living forms could not exist, and our
verdant planet would look like the barren landscape of Mars.
If there is magic on this planet, it is
contained in water.
Loren Eisley, The
Immense Journey, Time, Inc. 1962
The woman:
The woman represents raw nature. She is characteristic of the
earth goddess of old, immanent in nature, who pours forth the essence of life symbolized
as flowing water. She is the nurturing Mother Earth. For early peoples, the earth
was considered sacred, and rocks, springs, rivers, and caves, were sacred
places to contact higher powers and the spirits of nature. Waite refers to her
as the Mother Principle of the Universe. (Arthur
E. Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot)
In early religious practices, and in mythical belief, several ancient primordial
goddesses were associated with stars, particularly in ancient Middle Eastern religious observances and mythology. Merlin Stone discusses the reverence for nature goddesses in her book Ancient
Mirrors of Womanhood (Beacon press, 1979). She
writes: “The connection of a goddess with
a star is also to be observed in the Semitic account from Canaan.” In their
stories, the goddess (most likely known as Ishtar, as recorded in ancient texts)
was imagined as a falling star, which landed in a lake in Lebanon. The lake was
venerated as sacred and an altar was set up in reverence for the goddess. A little tree may have been placed there as
well. She concludes that, “Worship of the goddess continued until 330 A.D.” What
about the star goddess of ancient Egypt? Stone continues and says that their
goddess was Isis: “Isis was worshipped as the great divine mother of all
nature.” In Ugaritic literature, she was called “Lady Asherah of the Sea; a
title that may signify ‘She who treads on the Sea’” (Harper Bible Dictionary). In Tarot symbolism, this card is
usually interpreted as a cleansing or renewal time – getting in touch with the
flowing cosmic source of our life energy. It represents, grace, beauty, and the
hope for a better future when we can see ourselves as we really are.
In a darker context, the goddess Ashtoreth (a.k.a. Ishtar)
is mentioned many times in biblical stories as being problematic, an
abomination to be gotten rid of, as patriarchal beliefs had deposed the goddess
in certain Mesopotamian countries before the Christian era. In biblical, and other
mythological texts, such as Ras-Shamra, from Assyria, (13th century B.C.)
the goddess is mentioned many times as either Asherah, Astarte, Ishtar,
or Ashtoreth. In biblical literature,
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| BOTA Tarot |
(I Kings 18:19) she
was associated with the evil Phoenician Princess, Jezebel, and her statues were
destroyed in the priesthood’s prohibition against idol worship. Particular vessels,
sacred to Asherah were deposited in the Jerusalem Temple, much to the
consternation of the Priests. (II Kings 23:4) In
ancient Grecian mythology, Astraea, daughter of Zeus and Themis, was a
star-maiden who lived on earth and blessed mortals. In Northern Europe, she was
Esther or Ostara, who appeared in the blooming of spring where, over time, her
veneration was transformed into Easter celebrations by the Church. Easter eggs,
such as Pysanky eggs were originally decorated with goddess symbols from the
pre-Christian era but were repurposed by the Church with symbols of crosses.
Then of course, in Christianity, there was the famous Star of the East, symbol of divine guidance leading the Magi to
Bethlehem where Mary gave birth to the baby Jesus (Matthew
2:1-12).
Through this and other mythic images one
can trace the ancient goddess
who ruled the stars when they were thought
to be the blessed souls in heaven –
heroes, gods, martyrs, deceased sacred
kings and saviors…”
Barbara Walker, The
secrets of the Tarot, (HarperCollins, 1984)
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| The Star Tarot of Cosmic Consciousness |
The White
Goddess, Robert Graves (Vintage Books, 1948)
Harper’s
Bible Dictionary, (HarperCollins, 1985)
Universal Waite Tarot (US Games Systems, 1990)
Water: How do we think about water in our time: What is the status of water on earth
today?
In the book, Meditations
on the Tarot, (Tharcher/Putnam 2002) the anonymous author writes:
“It is necessary to postulate the
existence of an active agent which affects the passage from the state of that
which is only potential to one of reality….an acorn becomes an oak, or a
fertilized egg becomes a mature man, or a primordial cosmic mist becomes a
planetary system…”
water!
In examining the full spectrum of Nature’s principle of
growth, from the beginnings of cell-division to fully developed live beings, this
process is happening because of water, the flow of which carries the source of
our life’s blood and nutrients. We can’t express enough, the
importance of clean available water for drinking and agricultural use,
especially referring to the amount of pesticides and other poisonous substances
seeping into groundwater. Scientists are investigating the question of an
adequate flow of water in our rivers as glaciers that feed these rivers
continue to disappear.
“Waters create an alive pulsating world…That steady beat of your heart,
that pulse of life is 100% dependent on
the pulse of water”
Betsy Damon, (Keepers of the Waters Newsletter, 2019)
Recently, “Surge,”
an art exhibition at the Museum of
Northwest Art in La Connor, Washington (10/06/2018 - 01/07/2019), displayed
an important visual dialogue between artists and scientists from the Skagit Climate Consortium, regarding the
scope and health of the Skagit River in the upper Puget Sound area. Their
collaboration focused on issues concerning the current status of the glaciers,
rivers, wetlands and estuaries, and the tidal marshes of Washington State. Of
utmost concern were the scientist’s data on the receding glaciers on peaks and
volcanoes that feed the Skagit River; one of the largest watershed drainage systems
in the US. The scientist’s candid truth is, that since 1900, the glaciers have
receded 50%. The Skagit River and several other rivers are fed by the drainage
from the surrounding peaks of the North Cascades Mountain Range, the Picket
Mountain Range of British Columbia, Canada, and the receding glaciers on the ten
thousand foot majestic volcanoes - Mt Baker and Glacier Peak. The Skagit River
Basin covers 3,100 square miles and includes 394 glaciers, most in the North
Cascades National Park. Scientists, artists, local farmers, and representatives
of the Swinomish tribe also held discussions open to the public in the museum on
climate change and its effects on the health of the Skagit River, the local
people, farms, and wildlife.
The Artists: A
group of 25 artists and several top climate
scientists coordinated their efforts, which resulted in this extraordinary art
exhibition showing the effects of global warming on the Northwest Coast. The
museum provided a, “…forum for artists
together with environmental researchers and educators to present the public with
new perspectives such as flooding, sea level rise and storm surge” (Surge Events Flyer, Oct. 2018). The artists
brought visible form to the scientist’s findings through maps, paintings,
sculptures, installations, and poetry, which greatly enhanced my perspective.
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| Alice Dubiel: Lay Of the Land Photo: C.B. Bell |
Alice Dubiel’s colorful installation, “The Lay of the Land:
Glacial Biocenosis” consisted of seven paintings of large topographical maps
from 1959, which showed the positions of the surrounding glaciers on Glacier Peak, Mt. Challenger, and Mt Baker at that time. In small, delicate acrylic paintings, she depicted threatened wildlife, king salmon, birds, insects, and other life forms, including organisms that live within the glaciated areas. Her scientist collaborator was Jon Riedel,
geologist from North Cascades National
Park. On her website, she mentions several websites of scientific studies on
the Skagit River and glaciers, well worth studying: https://www.planetart.space/
Mary Ashton’s slowly rotating
paper pulp and painted images of the receding South Cascade Glacier (Loss),
and woodblock prints (Glacier Regression,
1929, 1960, 2004, 2016) were inspired by geologist Jon Riedel’s studies. She showed its shape in 1929 and slow disappearance
to its present size today in four time frames, making clear its considerable
loss.
Phillip Govedare’s four large landscape paintings presented an
aerial perspective on the lay of the rivers, streams, and imprint of roads,
canals, mining and agriculture on a broad scale in the Skagit area. He
collaborated with Professor Phil Levin
from the University of Washington on
work for the Nature Conservancy on
the Fischer Slough tidal marsh
restoration on the South Fork Skagit
Delta. http://www.phillipgovedare.com/
Three Canadian
artists, Erica Grim, Tracie Stewart and
Sheinagh Anderson, collaborated on Salt
Water Skin Boats, “six evocative forms [that] take the shape of coracles:
ancient vessels used to traverse global waterways…” combining sound, branches,
twigs, animal skins and bathymetric maps in “…fleshy boat-like objects [that]
float overhead…” Anderson’s Ocean
Constellation soundscapes were recordings of water, wind, creatures, sonar,
ship and plane, creating eerie undertones within the museum. “Salt
Water Skin Boats,” (Catalogue, The Reach
Gallery Museum, Abbotsford, BC,
Canada)
Mary Coss’s cold, dystopian landscape installation, Silent Salinity, explored the effects of
saltwater intrusion in local estuaries of Puget Sound showing how salt water
changes the plant and animal life in those tidal areas. In her dramatic and
powerful message, her white (salt bound) installation piece, with grasses,
bulrushes, pools of standing water and dead creatures and mollusks, appear to
be frozen in place. She says in her statement accompanying Silent Salinity: “Where there was once fresh water, it is now saline.
Silent Salinity is my homage to this fragile ecological balance.” She
worked in collaboration with Roger
Fuller, Spatial Ecologist from Western
Washington University. She says, “Barnacles appear here on the bulrush like
canaries in a coal mine signaling danger to the ecosystem.” Her website: https://marycoss.com/portfolio/silent-salinity/
Sources:
The many scientists and artists involved in this
collaboration are included on the website of the Museum of Northwest Art: https://www.monamuseum.org/
Other Resources:
Betsy Damon, and her organization, Keepers of
the Waters, have been working on implementing the importance of centering
society around water, such as her Living
Water Garden in Chengdu, China: https://keepersofthewaters.org
Yes! Magazine “China’s Living Water Garden,” by Anne H. Mavor, October 29, 1999
Goskagit.com article: Study Shows North Cascades glaciers have shrunk dramatically
since
1950’s, by
Kimberly Cauvel, (November 20, 2016)
Easily accessible articles:
Discover Magazine, “Meltdown,” by Eric Betz, June 2017
National Geographic, “Water,” November, 1993; “Water,” April 2010
National Geographic, “Into Thin Ice,” (Arctic Melt) January 2016
Side note: Since
1979, the Arctic has lost more than one half its volume of ice. Scientists
believe this is the result of man-made greenhouse gases. For more information,
refer to the article in National
Geographic Magazine, January 2016, about the Norwegian research vessel
“Lance” and the scientist’s study.
