Reconciling the Opposites
I have been a visual artist my entire life and now I am transferring those skills into writing about visual imagery. But a very specific imagery, one that I have been studying for fourteen years - the Tarot de Marseille. This is no ordinary deck of picture cards. I hope my writings will convey that to you. Forget everything you have ever heard or believe about the tarot. This is not fortune telling. In my experience it is revelation. Allow me to share my discoveries here in The Open Book.
My first reading is based on a three card draw after I had asked the tarot what my next article should be about. I laid the three cards out on the table and then an exhaustion overtook me. I fell into a deep sleep and had a dream. In the dream my spiritual teacher was standing in the room. The tarot cards were all over the floor and he was asking me about the cards. I was telling him about the hidden geometry in them. My sister was also in the room. She has been estranged from the family for a few years. In some ways we were like twins, more so because we were treated that way, but we were also treated as opposites. When one was in favour with a parent, the other was not. I woke and looked at the three cards on the table. What I saw took my breath away.
I drew the three cards above: Le Mat (no number), Le Soleil (19), and La Maison Dieu (16). The numbers of the cards are important, as you will shortly see, for they establish the whole tone of the reading.
Going directly to the pictures on the cards, we are presented with a dominant figure. The character fills the whole card, someone setting off on a journey. We see a small blue animal, a cross between a cat and a dog, pushing Le Mat forward on his way.
Le Mat holds a small pouch attached to a blue stick over his right shoulder, and in his right hand a red walking stick. Red shoes, red stick, signs of action. The small flesh-coloured pouch suggests that he is carrying only the bare essentials. The hat and clothes tell us he still belongs to the world.
His head looks upward into the sky, indicating he is heading into the unknown. However, if one follows the line of the red stick and the blue stick (opposites - active and passive), they visually converge within the Sun. This connection is suggested by the red tip at the end of the blue stick.
The Sun, a light that radiates indiscriminately, can be interpreted as a symbol of the Divine. Its card number 19, depicting the numbers 1 and 9, deepens this reading - the First and the Last, Alpha and Omega.
To summarise where this is leading, we are being shown duality through the path of the red and blue sticks: active and passive, visible and invisible. Following the invisible lines, these opposites converge and unite in the One, represented by the Sun. This journey from duality into unity is what we are about to uncover.
Le Mat is the only card without a number. Because of this ‘oddity,’ our attention naturally moves to the two numbered cards in front of him: 19 and 16. Number 9 and number 6 are reversals of one another, mirrored and inverted. And we are about to see this pattern repeated throughout the imagery.
Both cards contain two twin-like figures.
19 - They are almost naked. 16 - They are fully clothed.
19 - Their hands reach towards each other. 16 - Their hands reach away from each other.
19 - They are standing on their feet. 16 - They are standing on their hands.
19 - They are coming together. 16 - They are falling apart.
19 - The background is a man-made wall. 16 - The background is nature.
19 - The bricks are horizontal. 16 - The bricks are vertical.
19 - Coloured tear shapes fall from the sky. 16 - Coloured balls fall from the sky.
As we begin to see, the cards are saturated with dualities.
19 - The foreground is water. 16 - The foreground is earth.
19 - A natural white rock. 16 - Three white man-made steps.
19 - The card is topped by the Sun (fire). 16 - The card is topped by a crown and feathers (earth and air).
19 - The sun is a living being. 16 - The tower is a constructed form.
19 - Le Soleil is masculine. 16 - La Maison Dieu is feminine.
19 - The yellow sun sits high in the sky. 16 - The green moon on the door sits close to the earth.
19 - Le Soleil contains eighteen lines in the cartouche, pointing toward card 18 - The Moon, the mirror of The Sun.
At first glance the two cards appear to describe contrasting movements. In Le Soleil the figures move towards union and in La Maison Dieu they appear to be driven apart. Traditionally many readers would treat these cards as opposites: the Sun as harmony and communication, and the House of God as falling apart and disruption. However, the closer we look, the less certain that distinction becomes.
Separation and union are not necessarily opposites. Separation can reveal a greater unity. A structure falls apart because it can no longer contain something larger than itself. Therefore, the coloured balls in La Maison Dieu could be describing a celebratory breakthrough rather than a sorrowful breakdown often associated with the tower card. If this was only about despair surely it would be depicted with the coloured tear shapes as seen in Le Soleil. Without these mirrors and reversals it would be hard to see what is being communicated, we would sit with our old beliefs and the systems that tell us what to see rather than observe what is actually there.
The apparent opposites continue to reveal themselves: one card presents the Divine as a living celestial being and the other presents the Divine as a building. In the former, with the naked characters below receiving the rays of the sun, Le Soleil could be understood as a direct experience of the Divine. In contrast, the tower in La Maison Dieu can be seen and read as a building housing the Divine, the fully clothed characters mirror this principle. The Divine is housed both within the building and within the people.
Essentially both cards point to the Divine. Le Soleil presents the Divine as transcendent, while La Maison Dieu presents the Divine embodied within form. Without the reflections of each other we could never see the whole picture. One cannot directly look at the sun in the sky, but we can know of it through its reflection on the moon. They are not against one another, they are expressing what is there through each other.
Just as Le Mat’s sticks converge beyond the frame of the card and resolve in the Sun in the next card, so too Le Soleil and La Maison Dieu may not resolve their meaning within their own boundaries. Perhaps the invisible meeting point is what surrounds them. Separate, in their individual identities, they represent dualities, but together they are held in the One. They belong together within something vaster.
The House of God may appear as a rupture, but the rupture itself reveals what the structure could not contain. Even the two characters thrown apart reveal what their limitations can no longer hold. This brings our attention to Le Mat. With the scale of his figure, he is not even fully contained within the card itself - he is beyond limitations. In his vastness he is free from the conflict of contradictions and free from the perspective of opposites. His heart sits between the two sticks, at the place where differences meet.
Looking back, Le Mat set off on a journey that began with what looked like duality, symbolised by the blue and red sticks. The journey led toward the recognition that apparent opposites belong to a larger unity. The red and blue sticks were already carried by him before they visually converged in the Sun. This unity was only revealed when the lines were extended beyond what was immediately visible. The animal, itself only partially contained within the frame, offered a clue. Just as it extended beyond the image, so too the meaning of the sticks was only revealed when we looked beyond the boundaries of the card. Taking this idea into life, we find a metaphor for seeing beyond the conflicts we meet and looking for the invisible that holds them as one.
Le Mat himself is the embodiment of this. Perhaps this is why he remains unnumbered. Number implies position, and position implies limitation. Belonging nowhere within the system, he is free to hold all polarities: coming together and falling apart, spirit and matter, above and below, active and passive, harmony and discord. He does not resolve the opposites by choosing one over the other. He reconciles them by carrying both.
His gaze is not directed toward the ground before him, but toward the sky above. While his feet remain in the world, his attention is fixed on something beyond it. He is the one who sees the unseen, moving toward a point of convergence not yet visible within the frame. The opposites are visible, their unity is hidden, and Le Mat remains oriented toward that hidden point, knowing that what appears divided belongs to a larger whole.