Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Tarot: The Chariot today


Perhaps the Chariot is most obviously associated with the car nowadays. With my 1960s Avengersland fantasy, what car could I possibly choose to represent the chariot but a Reliant Scimitar? - especially as this is the other, with the Tower, of my tarot birth cards. Cars represent so much to us: freedom, status, they even have a sexual significance. There is a tradition that the charioteer is leaving his home for the first time. If this is merely based on the placement in the 'fool's journey' through the Major Arcana, then all well and good. But in decks previous to Rider-Waite_smith he is not obviously leaving something, which leaves the journey much more ambiguous: it could well be that the focus is really on his journey to something. The city in the background appears from RWS onwards, to the best of my knowledge.
If he is a young man the chariot may represent his 'first car' experience: this journey may well lead to even greater foolishness, if this is the first time he is living away from home, experiments with drugs and drink, has sex, and grows facial hair, if he can. Hopefully this journey won't end in disaster. Hence the significance often placed on the direction of the horses or other animal pulling it. They can represent decision, indecision, two balancing poles, two poles to be balanced, depending on where you look. The rider may or may not have reins. What I love most about this card is that everyone who's written about tarot or designed a deck has had a go at it, leaving a lot of conflicting information hanging around. Perhaps the best synthesis of this is that this card represents many things to many people, with different directions or journeys and apparently conflicting interpretations. So it may therefore underscore the nebulous nature of divination and the importance in a reading of finding out how the querent understands the question and image.
Another tradition refers to the charioteer in a more martial sense: this places the journey in a war context. Of course whether the charioteer is armoured to protect himself or others is another question!
(Apologies if the pictures on this come out weird: blogger is acting very strangely today and I really don't know why!)


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