The Suit of Staffs: Agape and Love Made Real / A User Guide to R.M. Place’s Tarot of the Saints
A User Guide to R.M. Place’s Tarot of the Saints
Meditations for Pulp Spiritual Direction Through Applied Contemplative Prediction
The Suit of Staffs: Agape and Love Made Real
Major Arcana Introduction: Balance and Development
Major Arcana: Card by Card Analysis
The Suit of Cups: Self Presenting Love
The Suit of Swords: Love Considered
The Suit of Staffs: Love Made Real
The Suit of Coins: Sacramental Engagement
Keyword Guide to Tarot of the Saints
Transversal Theology: Technical Glossary
Staffs: General Introduction
Standard Resonance
When one encounters the Suit of Staffs in contemplation it will generally lead the director to focus on aspects of creativity and will, considering how these psycho spiritual factors play out in the situation. The general narrative and pictorial focus of the cards in various decks tend to gear passionately in terms of inspiration, determination, ambition, or volitional to help contemplation consider these elements. Oppositional Staffs tend to imply egotistical behavior, impulsiveness, a lack of direction or purpose, or feeling meaningless.
Apart from the general meaning, there are a host of thematic implications that can at times be used to make connections in contemplation. Staffs are made of wood, and therefore can burn, thus the staffs are associated with the element of fire. The fire of the Staffs is related to the inspiration which starts small but hot and spreads to ablaze. Or volition which starts as an impetus and spreads to action with causal consequences.
The Suit of Staffs is traditionally paired with the Suit of Swords as the two “masculine” suits, balanced by the feminine Suits of Cups and Coins. This resonance may appear sexist, but the presentation takes masculinity as a force “yang” and then uses the nature of Staffs to convey that force artistically and intuitively. Masculine work is, like the conscious, the exterior, and public work that forms the greater society, it creates the order that informs the household (the internal/unconscious) yet as the male goes into society he is absolutely shaped and supported by the home. The Staff resonates with authority and will, traditionally masculine traits. The staff is used at a distance to strike at, implying a masculine objective stance or transcendence.
The suits are also related to the social structure of medieval society, and in that framework, Staffs are related to the peasantry because it is a simple and easily attainable weapon and it is in the peasant class that fuels the exercise of society, much as the will fuel the exercise of the intellect. The peasant class is alive with creativity and work and is the class that is least bound by traditional structures. For the suit, this implies a fundamentally creative and dynamic connotation to the cards.
Scriptural Resonance
We pointed out in Pulp Spiritual Direction the necessity of knowledge of myth and scripture. The successful director will know the myths employed by the given deck and be able to salvage them for use as they apply to salvation history. This takes application of mythic-existentialism. “The director must be able to deconstruct the existential backdrop of any given mythic genre according to standard Jungian archetypal construction and work with that meaning in real time as cards and narratives unfold.” The advantage of the Tarot of the Saints is the step of “translation and fulfillment” from an alternative myth to Christian Salvation history can be skipped because the deck uses Christian scripture, history, symbology, and aesthetics as its mythic backdrop. With that in mind, this section is meant as a spark of inspiration to begin considering avenues one can take as the conversations develop during direction.
In seeking to create a scriptural connection to this suit we can again begin with the staff itself. Looking back to the analogy we drew in the Suit of Swords regarding Goliath’s reliance on weapons. David is known for having a sling, but he was also carrying a staff, and his victory speaks to the victory of inspiration and will over intellect and cognition. Another staff related to the David story is the spear of Saul. Saul’s spear, which he used to try to pin David to the wall, is indicative of volition gone awry. Whenever Saul wields it he is overstepping his authority and using his will against the will of God. One last staff that makes a large impression in the scriptures is the staff of Moses. His staff demonstrates emptying one’s self of will and living for the will of God against the will of the oppressor. The control of Moses’ staff over the environment demonstrates the creativity available if one consciously aligned one’s will with God’s over and against the human oppressors (Pharaoh).
The greatest inspiration type scene that plays into the Suit of Staffs is the Tree type scene. In this scene, there is a tree, and under it, a hero garners particular inspiration to fulfill their role in salvation history. The first example of this is typical of the prediluvian mystic anti-example of the type scene. The first parents do not receive “inspiration” under the tree, but rather exhibit all the anti-qualities described in the oppositional staff above, pride, sloth, and envy. Under the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they pridefully asserted their independence from God and thereby slothfully failed to fulfill their role in creation and the creatures made in the image and likeness of God and conduits of divine love in creation. There they were envious of God’s power, wanting to neutralize his just rule. We went on to note each type in turn in the treatise Intuitive Ritual Investment and Conscious Ritual Investment,
The traumatic opening of the garden is then followed by series of trees, each of which garners a new step in the journey toward rectification of God. The next pivotal tree after Eden is a grove in Mamre where Abraham sets up his altar in the promised land and begins to invoke God. This tree allows for humanity to have a relationship with God that for the first time since the garden is not combative. The next tree we see is unconsumably burning on on Mount Sinai. The knowledge garnered here through the events of the Exodus story by Moses and the Israelites ultimately is that the God that Abraham and their ancestors had commerce with, the God whom they now enter covenant with, is the one true God of all creation. This God is the all powerful God of the universe who demands a certain way of living. If this way is followed, God promises life to Israel. A subsequent tree is seen in the Vale of the Terebinth, where David slays Goliath and the revelation comes that it is not by our own might or technology that we are protected, but by trust in God. A final tree we see in the Old Testament is the broom tree, under which Elijah despairs and rests seeking death. Under this tree he is given encouragement and returns to Sinai to restore the covenant. Here the role of the prophet of the heart is defined in the Old Testament tradition, that one’s desire and intentions as well as one’s actions are important. The trajectory runs from rebellions to a striving toward relationship with God, right action, right disposition, and right intention. All of this leads to the summative hero of Christians, the hero who possesses all of these qualities perfectly, Jesus Christ.
The tree where Jesus’ revelation happens is “the cross”. The tree type scenes demonstrate a call to will and creativity that can be brought into pulp spiritual direction to discuss a person’s purpose or direction and their use of the will toward this.
Tarot of the Saints particularly images crosiers as the Staffs. The crozier is a staff carried by a bishop, abbot or abbess. It is a sign of their authority as shepherds of their people. In the West, it is typically shaped like a shepherd's crook, the end used to “wrangle” animals in danger or put them back into the fold. R.M. Place has three basic types of crosiers that present in the Tarot of the Saints. There are plain croziers that simply have a hook, crosiers whose hooks are carved as flowers, and crosiers whose hooks are carved as dragons. It may be worth noticing how these differing crosiers present. Flowers may present as growth, initiative, or beauty. Dragons might show sin, or tamed postlapsarian reality as presented in the Litany of the Dragons. These three types are bracketed by the Ace which is carved with the Agnus Dei in the middle and the Ten whose hooks are carved as Phoenixes. The brackets form the paschal mystery, the death, and resurrection of Christ, where he showed his most passionate self and perfectly aligned his human will with his divine, and further aligned those together with the will of the Father. Each of these alignments is made clear in the agony of the Garden.
One final scriptural resonance for the Suit of Staffs is the element of Fire. In the scripture, fire consumes sacrifice and is, therefore, a link between us and God. As baptismal priests, our sacrifices are generally living sacrifices, that is, how we live our lives purposefully, willfully, and creatively for God. This is the sacrificial fire that descends upon the Apostles heads a Pentecost, just as it descended in the mountain when God revealed the commandments and validated Elijah before the Priests of Baal. We use fire to send up our best (lambs, produce etc.) to God in order to show that we value him more than these objects. When God sends fire down in scriptures he is showing his initiative in the sacrificial relationship. Fire is also a symbol of the Holy Spirit, and as such presents both burning creativity and passion and purgative burning, painfully burning away sin.
Expanded Resonance
Since this deck is particularly Chrisitan, we have decided to apply an extra level of interpretation to apply during pulp spiritual direction. This extra resonance will be extremely helpful in the evangelical aspect of pulp spiritual direction. Regarding the three loves, we are going to apply the lens of agape to the Suit of Staffs. Agapic love is the self emptying variety of love. Given our concupiscent dispositions, love that seeks the good of the other above the self is natural to humans as we were built by God, but the effect of Original Sin does not allow for it to be immediately present in us. Thus, agape love takes absolute investment by the practitioner. It is extremely unlikely that one would accidentally, unwittingly, or spontaneously practice agapic love. Concupiscence has shaped humans to be so self centered that absolutely other centered love takes cognitive investment, perfect conscious awareness, the ability to sacrifice one’s sense of self, and willful investment in its practice. This type of love is traditionally called the highest order of love and is the word the New Testament uses for love the vast majority of the time. This absolute investment is reflected in both the volition and creativity of the Suit of Staffs.
Agapic love in no way self presents. It takes intellect, but more so it takes creativity and will. One must seek the best interest of the other against one’s own inclination (will). One must be able to place one’s self in the position of the other and conceive of their needs as they perceive them and beyond to their actual needs apart from what they perceive. The synthesis of these two allows one the tack to approach those needs with compassion. The maneuver of expressing agapic love takes tremendous volition and creativity beyond simple cold calculation. That agape is the highest love resonates perfectly with it being associated with the peasantry, the very people the Savior aligned within the incarnation. The peasantry perfectly experiences the tenets of the sermon on the plain in Luke’s gospel. Because of their constant need to self empty, they as a class have the greatest ability to empathize with others.
When Staffs present in pulp spiritual direction it is helpful to remember that agape is difficult but in many ways, it is the summation of our willful and creative expression of love of God and neighbor. It is the mode of the incarnation, where the Logos,
Who, though he was in the form of God,
did not regard equality with God something to be grasped.
Rather, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
coming in human likeness;
and found human in appearance,
he humbled himself,
becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross
The suit can give an opportunity to discuss empathy, self sacrifice, and compassion in ways that live for the sake of the other. How do these things present in the situation from the point of view of the querent and the others in the situation?
When reverse Staffs appear in opposition to agape the general interpretation is pride, sloth or envy. Pride and sloth are opposite ends of the same coin. Pride is a radical self regard manifested as self reliance or self accomplishment without regard for the gifts of God and the support of society and one’s neighbors. Pride inhibits agape in that it is absolutely self regarding. Sloth is often loosely translated as laziness. But theologically it has a much more existential connotation. Sloth concerns one’s God given potential especially in as much as one is aware of it and one’s refusal to engage and activate that potential. Sloth displays a lack of ability to offer oneself as a gift to another because one does not invest in developing one’s self as a suitable gift. Lastly, envy is often equivocated with greed, but they are not the same. As we shall see in the introduction to the Suit of Coins, greed is wanting something one does not have. Covetousness is wanting something possessed by someone else that one does not have. These two dispositions are serious examples of concupiscence, yet envy is far worse. Envy is knowing someone has something that is good and wanting them to not have it. The difference is that it does not matter if the sinner ends up with the thing or not, so long as the object of envy is out of the possession of the owner. It is derived from pure malice. It is the opposite of agape in that it directs malice toward another in a completely malevolent way.
Ace of Staffs: The Bishop’s Crosier
Scripture Passage
This saying is trustworthy: whoever aspires to the office of bishop desires a noble task. Therefore, a bishop must be irreproachable, married only once, temperate, self-controlled, decent, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not aggressive, but gentle, not contentious, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, keeping his children under control with perfect dignity; for if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of the church of God? He should not be a recent convert, so that he may not become conceited and thus incur the devil’s punishment. He must also have a good reputation among outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, the devil’s trap. 1Tim 3:1-7
Visual Symbolic Analysis
The Ace of Staffs simply shows the upper portion of a Crosier. This Crosier has a serpent for the crook, that surrounds the Agnus Dei, the Lamb of God. The Lamb stands classically with its right front hoof raised. Over the lamb is a cross signifying the sacrifice of the lamb. The dragon circles the lamb in a classic Oroborus configuration. Generally, the image conveys authority, will, and application. But the configuration of the lamb and the serpent also offers a window into a deeper meaning of inculturation, the ability to see a corrupt system yet see the lamb abiding in it.
Meditation
The Ace of Staffs generally implies a new avenue of creativity or a new arena for exertion of will. The crosier is a particular sign of priestly authority. It carries the creative power to officiate the sacramental rituals of the Church, but it also carries with it the authority of governance and teaching authority in the Church. This office is particular to the Bishop but by his office such authorities are appropriately delegated and diversified throughout the body of Christ. Each person baptized is given the call of priest, prophet, and king, these are again the same authorities. The bishop is a sign of communal union, thus his function is unique in the community, but in as much as each person exercises their baptismal call they present these charisms. Each person is called to be a king. Thus they are called to govern, at least their self morally and with relation to God. Or if they run a family as a parent, they must govern their domestic church. Each person is called to teach, that is to help others know Christ. This may not be academic pedagogy or syllogistic argument. There are many ways to teach. One may teach by beauty and art. One may teach by example. One may teach by engagement. Everyone is called to present Christ in the world. All are called by their baptismal priesthood to be an alter Christus. Every Christian is called to “sacralize the world” through an incarnational worldview. For laity, this particularly revolves around the four modalities of Christo analogical interchange and exercise of dynamic popular piety, which is the most creative and experimental sacral ritual in the Church. These fields of religious expression and exchange are available in differing ways to all members of the Church. Their authority and execution are real and should be effected. The Ace of Staffs demands that we not “bury our quarter” a la Matthew 25. The card by means of the lamb and the dragon particularly focuses on the sacralization of corrupt reality. It is through the dragon that we see the lamb. In as much as one can enliven Christ in one’s life or in the culture out of the existing material, the Ace of Staffs calls one to do so.
The scriptural passage reminds us of the moral matrix for exercise of will and the job each of us has in implementing order according to our authority, whether it be over our own lifestyle, over our family, over the Church, over our reputation, or there reputation of our community to the outside world. These spheres are domains of will and avenues of expressive creativity. It is clear from this passage that the bishop himself must have mastery of extra-ecclesial domains because they are reflective of the same authority he wields. “ [F]or if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of the Church of God?” A good leader is also a good diplomat. By his leadership he can begin to synchronize various structures and create natural harmony.
Concerning our expanded resonance, the Ace of Staffs is the front line of conscious investment in agapic love. It is a conscious awareness of one’s role in the Church and an invitation to dynamically create and express Christ by your life and through your station in life. Agapic love is this exact conscious investment of self sacrifice. It is the awareness and choice to sacrifice all that your “self” would have been if you aimlessly wandering through life on autopilot. Or what you could have been if you used your talents to consciously steer your life to the things of “this world” quick pleasure, power, status, influence. Rather you consciously choose to activate your life out of service for the other. You choose a framework for that service, ordination, consecration, marriage, etc. Then you choose modalities to dynamically express that service.
Application
Most generally the Ace of Staffs is a chance to consider new avenues of dynamic engagement for persons in the situation. One may consider varying ways of seeing the lamb in the dragon and bringing truth or beauty to its “fullness” in the situation, whether it be the self, other actors or the circumstances of the situation. The Ace of Staffs could indicate a person in the situation who is exercising self sacrifice in a new or innovative way. Lastly, the Ace of Staffs could imply a new zeal for moral investment in one’s life.
In Reverse, the Ace of Staffs implies the closing off of an opportunity or the end of a course of action. It could also imply a stagnant approach in life, a life determined by character and habit more than choice and creativity. Oppositional Ace of Staffs could imply that someone in the situation is operating in their sphere according to rubric or habit rather than creatively and this is having a detrimental effect. Finally, polar Ace of Staffs could indicate that the dragon is dominant, that the established structures are controlling aspects of the situation rather than a dynamic or innovative fulfillment.
Two of Staffs: Union of Opposites in Passion
Scripture Passage
They saw that I [Paul] had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter to the circumcised, for the one who worked in Peter for an apostolate to the circumcised worked also in me for the Gentiles, and when they recognized the grace bestowed upon me, James and Cephas and John, who were reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas their right hands in partnership, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. - Gal 2:7-9
Visual Symbolic Analysis
The Two of Staffs shows two crossed crosiers, one with a serpent's head and one with a vine branch. They are crossed over a lit candle on a candlestick. The card presents a contrast between a dynamic or animated living being (animal) and a static receptive living being (a plant). But the crosiers are crossed implying some sort of harmony, intersection, cooperation, or union between the two. That they are over a flame show potentiality of activation. The element of the suit of staff is fire because it burns and changes. Fire symbolizes creativity because it takes a dormant thing, wood, and makes use of it, it also changes its nature, makes it ash. The image implies that this crossroads may ignite the two elements and activate their potentiality in a new way.
Meditation
The Two of Staffs presents a creative application of the union of opposites. The opposites are presented as animal and plant, or one may interpret the right side crosier as a dragon tail.
Either way, a foundational principle of esoteric thought is being employed as a medium of creative engagement. In the treatise Paradoxes and Disorders, we discussed the various types of paradox that can be used as frames for bringing together oppositions into harmony. They were the substantial approach to paradox, the spectral approach to paradox, and the process approach to paradox. In short, the substantial approach sees the opposition in terms of objects, whereas the spectral is more relationally oriented. A spectral approach sees the difference in degrees until a complete opposition is reached. A process approach to paradox involves any element of reality that instigates flux, for example, “sentient will” or “time”. It recognizes the development between the two extremes of the process of development and sees the unity in the difference. These approaches to paradox facilitate various ways of understanding the unity of opposites. The Two of Staffs recognizes not only the union but the dynamic and effective activation of that union. The coming together of two oppositions as objects, amid a spectrum, or through the development of a process, creates an opportunity for beautiful creativity and stimulating experience.
As an example, the scripture passage shows a paradox of salvation history. As objects, the Jews and Gentiles are culturally opposed to one another. They are polytheism and monotheism. They are oppressor and oppressed. They are chosen and reprobate. But they are bound in a relationship of family, as all of the lineages of scripture attest. As a spectrum, the gradation can be seen in Hellenized Jews such as the Apostle Phillip, or in the Samaritans, who adopted pagan beliefs, or in the righteous gentiles such as the centurion whose daughter Christ healed. The process of union is the process of humanity in salvation history. It requires an understanding of paradoxical scale. The largest paradox is the cosmological paradox, the process from Eden to the Eschaton. Within that major paradox is the substantial paradox of the Jews and the Gentiles who are all human, but different populations. The under process approach to paradox, one can see how salvation history, as a paradox brings these people together under one salvation. Paul is the person who represents this union. His passionate zeal, creativity, and innovativeness adapts the Jewish to the modes and methods of gentile culture until that culture is “actualized with Christ''. What results is not Rome Judaism, but Roman Catholicism, a Gentile manifestation of beatitude operating according to the Noahide Covenant.
Concerning our expanded resonance, The Two of Staffs demonstrates a very specific way of consciously sacrificing the self that results in a bond of dynamic creativity. If the general meaning of the card is the coming together of spheres, particularly opposites, in harmony, then personally the card represents our ability to see the other as others. Generally, when we see those different than us, concupiscent alienation intensifies and we begin to set up barriers or move away. This card, as agapic love, teaches us that we can recognize those different than us, and still find unity and oneness together. This is not only static unity, the candle reminds us that this unity creates novelty and adaptability. The best understanding of such a union of opposites, persons who are opposed, is the process approach to paradox. The opposition is temperament, the flux is time, the process is agapic love.
Application
The presentation of the Two of Staffs offers opportunity to consider how tension of opposition in the situation can bring fruitful creativity. The querent may focus on how this union came or comes about, but the card is more indicative of the potential creativity that is born out of the union. Thus the card can speak to raw potentiality in the situation. Lastly, the Two of Staff can allow the querent to investigate the process of awareness and skillful application of agapic love of those “different” from one another in the situation.
In Reverse, the Two of Staffs call to attention polarity and opposition. This can be a union not yet achieved, or one not sought that is causing problems in the situation. The card could also imply looking at differences as distinctions that are helpful to the situation. Polar Two of Staffs evoke a careful parsing in the situation and dividing things often seen as an equivalent. Lastly, oppositional Two of Staffs could imply a person in the situation who is invested in tribalism or jingoism`toward their own group and against another.
Three of Staffs: The Fishermen
Scripture Passage
While the crowd was pressing in on Jesus and listening to the word of God, he was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret. He saw two boats there alongside the lake; the fishermen had disembarked and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, he asked him to put out a short distance from the shore. Then he sat down and taught the crowds from the boat. After he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.” Simon said in reply, “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.” When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish and their nets were tearing. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come to help them. They came and filled both boats so that they were in danger of sinking. When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at the knees of Jesus and said, “Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man.” For astonishment at the catch of fish they had seized him and all those with him, and likewise James and John, the sons of Zebedee, who were partners of Simon. Jesus said to Simon, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching men.” When they brought their boats to the shore, they left everything and followed him. - Lk 5:1-11
Visual Symbolic Analysis
The Three of Staffs show three crosiers raised over a body of water. Two are intersecting at an angle and one rises from the middle to meet them in their intersection. All three crosiers are sculpted as vines. The angular crosiers crook, but are open at the bottom. The vertical crosier forms a complete circle and the end of the vine loops around the top of the circle. The center crosier raises from a boat that is set in the otherwise calm water. Its bow creates a slight wake indicating motion. It has one sail and a mast. There is the silhouette of two fishermen inside. On the bow, the observer can very clearly see the omen painted to ward off the evil eye. In Ancient Christianity the boat is a common symbol of the Church. It sits as a formed institution on the still waters of the mythic collective unconscious and allows us to maneuver these waters and pull from its treasures creative fodder for meaning and myth.
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Meditation
The three cards are often cooperation cards. This springs from the principle of three in trinitarian ontology, object, object, relationship. Here the cooperation is the Church. In the gospels, the boat is often the vehicle of the Church. It is a collective unit, apart from its surroundings. Those who are in it must cooperate to survive. They survive by plunging into the depths, the deeper mysteries of the water, where life that exists topside cannot sustain and vice versa. This is the treasure of the Church, which plunges into the divine mysteries and by that incursion brings forth sustenance. This analogical interpretation of the Church makes plain how the institution of the Church plunges the deep level of how myth presents truth and how the Church takes the human need to express myth, stemming from the dream world (where the mode of presentation is not causality but symbology) and activates these deep truths in people’s lives. When the Apostles become “fishers of men”, they are able to effect corporeal signification through the three modes present in the ritual life of the Church (Baptism, Marriage, and Ordination). Once one’s life takes a sacramental character, they are a sign. That is to say, what one “symbolizes” they also “effect”. The fish as sub aquatic, subconscious, beings, abide symbolically as the dream world operates, they present as symbols. When the Church effects a confluence of the two worlds, by fishing for men, the waking world begins to operate as the dream world does, people become sacramental signs.
The Scripture passage shows the genesis of the Apostolic community. The passage demonstrates in narrative form the standard meaning of the Three of Staffs, a community oriented dynamic creativity. Often the image on a Three of Staffs has a boat as a symbol of human cooperation through adventure or commerce. The boat in the Tarot of the Saints, being the Church offers a communion far beyond simple terrestrial activity. One person associated with the boat is the union of God and Man. This cooperative activity takes the most creative approach, the ability to knead truth into the fabric of existence. For this to happen Christ has various relationships to the Boat. In this scene, he is in the boat with the Apostles and offering a message to an amiable crowd on the shore. Sometimes he is in the boat asleep. Sometimes he is walking on the water, even intending to pass the boat. Sometimes he is on the shore and the Apostles are in the boat. He is also likened to the anchor of the boat. The meaning of this card can change depending on where Christ is. In almost every case there is some breach of the closed system (the boat). In our case, there is a reaching out to people beyond the system and delivering a message to them from the boat. When Christ is on the shore he is a sign that sometimes the outside can inspire the system in dynamic ways. They look out from the boat and see Christ on the shore. It is from there that he points them to the deep symbols as they pull them up, wheezing down their boat with such abundance that they can hardly bear it. Sometimes Christ is walking on the water and they think he is a ghost, a figment like a dream that has no “real” presence. At this point, he must get in the boat with them, and demonstrate his reality. Sometimes he is asleep in the boat, and times are tumultuous. We forget that he is there, or feel abandoned, but when we seek him, he comes and offers salvation. Sometimes he is the anchor, keeping is stable and grounded in the depth of our psyche, beyond our conscious knowledge. These are all ways that Jesus and the Church cooperate and ways that the Church and the greater world cooperate in the endeavor of salvation.
Considering our expanded resonance, Christ practices attentive agapic love. He sees people whose whole life is fish and fishing. He has deep knowledge of the cosmos and a deep experience of humanity to share. But these fishermen communicate via fish and fishing. Agapic love uses intelligence to analyze a situation, assess what people need, and then uses effective means to get them what they need. However Jesus understands the deep mysteries of divinity, humanity, and the perfect relationship between the two, we cannot understand it. So he uses parables, signs, farming, fishing, and the like to communicate in ways that meet us where we are. Jesus says, “This is why I speak to them in parables, because ‘they look but do not see and hear but do not listen or understand.’ So he speaks in terms that reach them where they and brings them that much further along. This is a calculation of agapic love which acts out of interest of the other for the effect regarding the other.
Application
To meet the Three of Staffs in meditation is an opportunity for the querent to consider how to operate in the community. How does a person employ their will regarding those whom they are among? How does a person appropriate or teach, which are the methods of exchange between persons? Three of Staffs could help the querent see opportunity for expanding influence or community. Lastly, Three of Staffs could indicate a sacramental significant life.
In Reverse the Three of Staffs implies divisions within a community or between communities. It could imply misunderstanding due to a lack of creativity in how people communicate. Oppositional Three of Staffs could imply a shrinking realm of influence within the situation. Or lastly, polar Three of Staffs could be an invitation to personal creative effort.
Four of Staffs: Betrothal of Mary and Joseph
Scripture Passage
Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly. Such was his intention when, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her. She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” -Mt 1:19-21
Visual Symbolic Analysis
The Four of Staffs shows two sets of two crosiers crossing one beneath the other over the top of the card, forming a bow each crosier is floral with a full circle top. The crooks of the lower set just rise above the staffs of the higher set making the crooks form a square pattern, a crook at each corner. This square of four evokes the four corners of “the world”. The middle space between the staffs of the cosiers forms a square in a diamond shape. Above the crosiers is a five point star. The five point star is symbolic of worldly engagement through the five extremities, the five senses, the point of view toward the four corners, etc. Directly below the Crosiers is the Dove of the Holy Spirit who is “presiding” over the betrothal of Mary and Joseph. Mary looks demure but happy. Her head is tilted slightly down but her eyes are looking up at him. Joseph is taking her hand and looking directly into her face. He is holding his staff, which has sprigs of leaves visible at the top. The sprigs derive from a tradition that says Mary was a consecrated virgin in the temple. When she was reaching the time of menstruation the elders were afraid her cycle would render the temple impure, thus she had to be ritually married off to a protector. Each unmarried man was asked to lay a staff on the altar and the one that bloomed would be her protector. Joseph's staff exhibited the sign (traditionally blooming lilies). The Dove and the Staff are signs of the sacramental significance of marriage, which brings forth divinity, as a sign, and in this case through birthing and raising to maturity the God/Man.
Meditation
The Four of Staffs is generally a card that implies a happy home. In the Tarot of the Saints that happy home is framed as the union of a marriage between Mary and Joseph. This union is the creative partnership of the arcana The Lovers as manifest in the world. One can see the “object, object, relationship” dynamic of trinitarian ontology pictured in how Joseph relates to Mary in the union of the Holy Spirit. That relationship explored in an overflow of love, which can be signified in many ways, but it is specially signified by children. In the treatise The Dysfunctional Human Family and the Nontraditional Holy Family we discuss the structure of the family and how the couple relate to each other and to their child, the Christ,
In the narrative of the Holy Family all the Christian power dynamics that according to the world are so convoluted take perfect center stage. The greatest, the parents, serve the least, the child, providing him with a safe, stable and ordered life and developing him into the best person he could be according to God’s plan, not the world’s, and doing so in a way personal to him. What all this yields is the greatest human being ever, Jesus, who is God, the greatest reality, come to serve the least, sinful humanity.
For the Four of Staffs we would want to focus on the couple’s nuptial signification, that is the sacramentally significant way that nuptial dyads practice parallel significance. There are three major significations a couple can do. The first is to signify God as “God is love”. In this signification, the married couple’s love makes present the love of God to each other and the world as they communicate it to each other. This happens when they are mutually loving. The second is to signify the love between Christ and the Church. In this signification, the married couple’s love makes present this love when one is in need of and seeking help, healing, or forgiveness, and the other is there offering help, healing, or forgiveness. Lastly, there is the possibility that the couple could signify the love of God for rebellious humanity. This happens when one partner is acting contrary to the covenant but not seeking reconciliation and the other is true to the covenant, seeking the good of the other and desiring resolution of broken relationships.
In the scripture passage, one can see what appears to be a complete breakdown of this system from Joseph’s point of view. One partner seems to have not been faithful to the situation and now Joseph is not seeking a peaceful resolution, but not in the best interest of Mary, though he is seeking to mitigate her suffering. The reconciliation of the event happens by means of an intense experience of somnium spirituality, an intuition he shares with his namesake from the end of the book of Genesis. Signification (the ability to be a symbol that effects what it communicates) breaks the barrier between the dream world and the waking world and allows a confluence of the symbolic, the human will, and the causal. Once Joseph relents to his dreams, he is able to be Mary’s protector and to play his part in her great priesthood, which facilitates the third great primordial sacrament, the incarnation. He does this in his role as a member of the holy family and as the spouse to Mary the Mother of God.
Concerning our expanded resonance, the agape present in this card is the mutual exchange of agape between the nuptial dyad. This could be is trinitarian signification, when each member lives for the best interest of the other and trusts that the other is doing the same. Or if could be the signification of Christ and the Church, when one person recognizes that they need help or healing or aid and calls trusts the other to support, while the other is there ready to help, heal or forgive. Each of these takes a radical self emptying in order to live for the other. But more radical would be if one partner emptied themself to live for the other even though they were not being faithful. This is the significance of the love of God for rebellious humanity. Each of these significations takes a radical love that consciously recognizes who they play in the signification, and then creatively applies the role to the specifics of the situation.
Application
To encounter the Four of Staffs in contemplation is a chance to consider parallel signification in general, whether by nuptial or simply by an alter Christus signification of baptismal priesthood. In such a case, the querrent may want to consider the four modalities of christo-analogical interchange. It could also be a chance to assess the situation concerning Christian power dynamics, especially concerning family dynamics. Or it could be an opportunity to seek wisdom of somnium spirituality in the situation as Joseph did to facilitate the nuptial. Lastly, the Four of Staffs could be used to consider any example of mutual agapic self emptying in the situation.
In Reverse Four of Staffs could indicate a withholding of self in the situation from one who should be a mutual partner. Or it could imply an emphasis on the causal facts of the situation at the expense of the wisdom of dreams and/or the effect of corporeal signification. Oppositional Four of Staffs could hint at a hesitancy at romantic involvement or partnership. Or, lastly, the need to delay such partnerships in order to accomplish tasks better left to the individual.
Five of Staffs: The Stigmata of the Most Powerful Hand
Scripture Passage
On the evening of that first day of the week, when the doors were locked, where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you. When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord. [Jesus] said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” -Jn 20:19-21
Visual Symbolic Analysis
The Five of Staffs shows the same interlace pattern on crosses that the Four of Staff has, but the crooks of the four are simple and unadorned. Separating the middle of the pattern vertically is one more crosier with a floral crook. The staff of the crosier is slightly to the left of the configuration such that the coral crook takes up the entirety of the upper space, forming a penta-crook. This configuration symbolizes engagement with the external world by means of the five extremities, the five senses, the point of view toward the four corners. Taking up the space below the crosiers is the Most Powerful Hand. It is the right hand of Christ, held wide open with the palm out. The hand is pierced and bleeding in the palm. In this depiction, the hand resembles the Hamsa, but instead of an eye, there is a wound of the Stigmata. The wrist is cupped in a sleeve. The hand, in particular, evokes a feeling of pure action and engagement.
Meditation
Standard Five of Staffs image often has either combat or a hand. It is a card of action and engagement. The traditional image of the Most Powerful Hand shows a pierced hand similar to the one presented on the Five of Staffs. Standing on the tip of the thumb is the child Jesus. The other fingers have his parents and grandparents standing on the tips, and below are four angels carrying implants of the passion. With this card, we are reminded of two things, the combative nature of the family that shapes and molds us into who we are. And the likening by Christ of his followers and his family, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” The fingertips of the hand on the card are empty which expresses the potentiality that we have of being those very mothers and brothers ourselves. We are mothers who have the potentiality to “birth Christ into the world” by sharing his love and life with others, who then go on to do the same. We are brothers in that we all, through our baptismal priesthood, have the ability to be an alter Christus. We are the hand as Saint Teresa says,
Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which He looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which He blesses all the world.
Yours are the hands, yours are the feet,
Yours are the eyes, you are His body.
Christ has no body now but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world.
Christ has no body now on earth but yours.
The scripture passages show an intimate connection between the inner Chist, the outer Christ, and the followers. The eye of the Hamsa looks out but the wound sacrificially goes through pain to let others in. Jesus shows his hands and side and they know him and rejoice. Then he collapses himself with the Father and the follower. “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” It is this equivocation that is the power of both the sacrifice of Christ and the significant sacrifices of the followers of Christ. The Five of Staffs shows a complex engagement in the world where all distinctions between the follower, Christ, and the Father are blurred. The matrix for this unity is corporeal sacrifice and the doors that the wounds open. The disciples then must go out into the community and “take up the fight”.
This fight is the resonance of agapic love for the Five of the Staffs. It is the fortitude necessary when one has been granted access to Christ in one’s inner self, to then take it out to the world as an ambassador of Christ. More than an ambassador, as a member of the Body of Christ, willing to go through one’s own experience of sacrificial suffering in order to bring fulfillment to the cosmos. In this action, one is opening one’s inner self and becoming their most vulnerable in order to bring healing and rectification.
Application
To encounter the Five of Staffs in contemplation is a call to action for goodness. It means fortitude to sacrifice one’s life as a living sacrifice as Christ did, as well as suffer for the world. The Five of Staffs can also be an invitation to look at the situation for indications of struggle that bring forth fruit, like the passion or the struggle one has in family life. One may look at the situation and assess whether vulnerability may help in bringing healing or rectification.
In Reverse The Five of Staffs could indicate a closing off to the world. The card in this position could be a defensive move to protect or a callus move made out of fear or cynicism. Oppositional Five of Staff could indicate selfishness. Or it could be an invitation to a contemplative approach, the shaping of an interior disposition rather than an exterior engagement.
Six of Staffs: Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem
Scripture Passage
On the next day, when the great crowd that had come to the feast heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, they took palm branches and went out to meet him, and cried out:
“Hosanna!
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord,
[even] the king of Israel.”
Jesus found an ass and sat upon it, as is written:
“Fear no more, O daughter Zion; see, your king comes, seated upon an ass’s colt.”
His disciples did not understand this at first, but when Jesus had been glorified they remembered that these things were written about him and that they had done this for him. So the crowd that was with him when he called Lazarus from the tomb and raised him from death continued to testify. This was [also] why the crowd went to meet him, because they heard that he had done this sign. Jn 12:12-18
Visual Symbolic Analysis
The Six of Staffs shows six staffs with floral crooks criss crossing over the top of the card. They seem to form a bough over the scene of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem below. The viewer sees Jesus riding astride a donkey. This is prescribed in the Jewish coronation Laws as a sign of humility before God. Most ancient world rulers would have a coronation with chariots of war and opulent grandeur. Surrounding Jesus are a rowdy crowd of well wishers, many holding palms or branches and some laying cloaks in the path the Jesus treads. The image evokes a victory that is humble yet short lived given many of these same people will be calling for his death within a week's time.
Meditation
The Six of Staffs often presents a figure on a horse in a triumphal procession. Often somewhere on the card, a wreath is raised on one of the staffs as a sign of victory. The Six of Staffs in the Tarot of the Saints uses this same imagery, but the triumph is the famous triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The standard interpretation is victory or completion in a situation where all ends wrap up for the good of the querent. The image of Jesus entering Jerusalem cannot be simply this. The great Christian story does have such a victory, first for Jesus himself in the resurrection, then for all true followers in the Eschaton. But the triumphal entry pictured here is but a fleeting joy. The simple fact is that in a short time almost all of these people will have at least abandoned Jesus, denied him, or outright called for his death. The reader may be shocked at the dramatic turnaround but it is not an unusual scene. It speaks to a deep knowledge that the power structures of this world are inadequate. Any controlling system has counter currents of ideology bubbling within the populace seeking to rebalance the cosmic order. When a person shows enough bravery to rise up in a particularly oppressive system, people will often latch onto this person as a symbol or sign of cosmic balance. This allegiance is rarely framed as “cosmic balance”. More often than not, deluded by the disorder of original sin, the urge for balance overcorrects and seeks to establish a new oppressive cruelty. This dynamic goes for political ideologies, cultural currents, philosophical milieu, and all social spheres of human interactions. Either a new emergence of such a figure sparks a shift in the pendulum and a new oppressive ethos, it is subsumed into the existing structure and appropriated, or it is quickly neutralized and forgotten. When Christ was arrested, the crowd assumed the latter and, for their own protection, quickly realigned.
In the scripture passage, we see the people coming to proclaim Christ King. Doubtless, some were simply being rowdy during the time of a politically charged festival (Passover). But John’s Gospel makes clear that some are there because they believed due to signs he had performed. Jesus offers another sign, he rides upon an ass as a coronation sign and the people revel in the possibility of a new system of governance. But their desire is for the pendulum to swing from imperial domination to local autonomy, from pagan rule to pharisaical rule, from foreign deity to local deity. Jesus was a sign of potentiality concerning a shift in the pendulum. When he was arrested and scourged it seemed what had happened so many times before was playing out again. The revolution was being suppressed and Rome would continue to dominate. The choices now are, abandon, denounce or decry in order to survive as the dust settles out. The scripture passage says that the disciples did not understand the fullness of the sign until after he comes again in glory. The sign was not simply the entry gone awry and destroyed. The entry, the arrest, and the execution were the signs of the passion that facilitated together the paschal mystery leading to the resurrection. This was not a pendulum seeking to swing from one paradigm to another ineffectively. It is the presentation of full rectification of the cosmos to the one true God.
Concerning our expanded resonance the agapic love is the self giving of Christ and the trusting of God’s plan. It is also the sacrifice of one’s own understanding of how a paradigm shift must play out in order to invest in a more complete vision of glory. For the disciples to see the true plan of rectification they had to let go of their own selfish understanding of what victory means. Their understanding was invested in postlapsarian power dynamics manifested in local politics. God’s plan is cosmic and expansive. It takes a willful recognition of this and a willful sacrifice of one’s own expectation to become invested in the truth of what victory is according to Christan power dynamics.
Application
At the basic revelation of the Six of Staffs, one can get a sense of a victory, but probably a temporary victory, leading to a greater victory. The card becomes a chance to look outside one’s standard expectations in the situation for possible wider applications of how one defines success. The card can also be a call to compassion for those who lack faith in people’s ability to succeed in virtue or exercise of the Truth. Lastly, the Six of Staffs can also be an advisory symbol of humility of victory.
In Reverse Six of Staffs could indicate a failure or defeat of some kind. Or it could indicate a temporary victory without the follow through of a long term victory. The Six of Staffs in reverse could be the turning of a paradigm in the situation where a new oppression takes the place of an old. Polar Six of Staffs could be a person in the situation who is locked in their limited understanding of what victory means. Lastly, oppositional Six of Staffs could indicate a lack of trust in divine providence.
Seven of Staffs: Cain Slays Abel
Scripture Passage
The man had intercourse with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, saying, “I have produced a male child with the help of the Lord.” Next she gave birth to his brother Abel. Abel became a herder of flocks, and Cain a tiller of the ground. In the course of time Cain brought an offering to the Lord from the fruit of the ground, while Abel, for his part, brought the fatty portion of the firstlings of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor. So Cain was very angry and dejected. Then the Lord said to Cain: Why are you angry? Why are you dejected? If you act rightly, you will be accepted; but if not, sin lies in wait at the door: its urge is for you, yet you can rule over it. Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let us go out in the field.” When they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him. Gen 4:1-8
Visual Symbolic Analysis
The Seven of Staffs shows the six crosiers in a criss cross pattern. The right side has crooks that are dragons and the left side has crooks that are floral with the center pattern reversed. This could be representative of the animal and vegetive sacrifices of the brothers as well as the acceptance and rejection of these sacrifices. This can be deduced from the fact that below one sees the struggle of Cain and Abel. Cain is on the floral side and Able is on the animal side. The reversal of the middle set of crosiers can be connected to the fact that this is the second son typology in reversal. Cain is poised above Abel holding his head in anticipation of striking him dead with a club. Rising above the two, rather than a seventh crosier, is a large knotted club, indicative of Cain’s murderous jealousy of God’s favor. The image evokes struggle born out of jealousy.
Meditation
The Seven of Staffs generally portrays struggle. Often it is an individual person struggling against an unseen host of foes. In this image, the foes are well known, the primordial fratricide of Cain and Abel. This is the first instance of human death, and it is facilitated by the first instance of ritual sacrifice, a new method of human divine communication made necessary by the Fall. The particular jealousy that brings the murderous wrath is spiritual. In each case, the brothers are seeking to curry God’s favor. God accepts and rejects in a manner that many ponder in order to “solve” the problem of God’s justice. But it seems that the narrative is constructed such that the listener can learn to internally recognize the wrath of Cain.
Upon reading the scripture passage, as soon as one begins to speculate why God has chosen one over the other he invests in the metrics of Cain, trying to “figure God’s motives out” one is seeking to control God. If one feels sympathy for Cain’s anger in the scripture passage above, then one is not accepting God’s judgment but trusting on one’s own. It is possible that the story is crafted to illicit just such a response as a cautionary tale. There is a very particular type of spiritual or religious person who is fueled by jealousy and wrath rather than virtue. Such people feel competitive regarding God’s love and favor. They tribalize that favor seeking to claim it as their own while excluding others. Because of that, there is a constant struggle to define God’s justice for one’s self and then using their own sense of justice to judge others in God’s name, breaking the third commandment. This leads to wrath when people do not live up to one’s expectations. The scriptural passage shows this same spiritual disposition as the impetus for the murder of one fourth of humanity. The important part of the passage is not the “injustice” of God, for there is none. Rather, it is the encouragement of God, giving Cain a true window into the justice of God. Postlapsarian existence is impossible for humans to navigate alone perfectly. They must rely on the justice of God and his reconciliation. God tells Cain that he need only practice perfect striving and trust. But Cain rejects that and invests instead in his own sense of justice.
Concerning our expanded resonance, the Seven of Staffs concerns the ability to consciously recognize one’s personally constructed sense of justice and sacrifice it in order to have faith in divine providence. It is easy to cling to justice because one can recognize it as a virtue. But the way we construct it in our own mind will differ from how God understands his perfect justice. This is not to say that we should not seek to form an understanding of justice. It is the program of agapic love to seek beyond self to the other. Thus a sense of justice that one holds must have a dose of sacrificial agnosticism, and be open to the possibility that God’s justice differs. When there is any doubt, mercy is always applicable. Just as with the First Parents and Cain, God promised death for breaking the law, humans were the first to summon death, first by their disobedience, then by their actions, the murder of Abel. Conversely, Cain is marked by God for protection.
Application
To encounter the Seven of Staffs in meditation offers the chance to consider two elements, wrath and justice. As a contemplation of wrath, the querent will want to notice what in the situation evokes wrath in persons involved. Or it could lead the querent to consider systems of justice conceived by persons in the situation, and consider flaws therein. The Seven of Staffs could be a struggle in the situation. Lastly, the Seven of Staffs could be a specific chance to consider one’s sense of justice may be evoking wrath.
In Reverse the Seven of Staff could indicate justice applied in concert with mercy. Oppositional Seven of Staff could also be an invitation to consider perfect striving in the situation, to take God’s advice, and seek to apply will toward the good. Polar Seven of Staffs could be seen as an invitation to compassion for one who is struggling with moral issues. Lastly, the reverse Seven of Staffs could be an opportunity to laud the success of others, even at the expense of one’s self.
Eight of Staffs: Martin de Tours Declines his Bishopric
Scripture Passage
The word of the Lord came to Jonah, son of Amittai: Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and preach against it; for their wickedness has come before me. But Jonah made ready to flee to Tarshish, away from the Lord. He went down to Joppa, found a ship going to Tarshish, paid the fare, and went down in it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the Lord. -Jonah 1:1-3
Visual Symbolic Analysis
The Eight of Staffs often depicts some sort of volley of staffs in mid flight, leading to an interpretation of rapid motion. Again, in Tarot of the Saints, we see the opposite of the standard, a passive rejection of development. The image shows the eight crosiers, four on each side, forming a crisscross pattern. The hooks are unadorned, speaking to the humility of the scene below. There we see three monks. The one on the left has a crosier in his hand. The on the right has a miter. The one in the middle, a priest whose stole is barely visible under his robe, is reading a proclamation pronouncing Martin Bishop of Tours. Martin is seen kneeling and facing away from the three monks. His head is bowed. His right hand is over his chest and his left hand is reaching behind him in a gesture of rejection. The image evokes humility on the part of Martin, yet also solemnity and anxiety because he has a task to do that he is rejecting.
Meditation
The motion of the Eight of Staffs in the Tarot of the Saints is a motion of tension between humility and sloth. Sloth is popularly thought to be an instance of laziness. Sleeping late on Sunday rather than going to mass is the universal example. But sloth as a capital sin is far more existential. It is not living up to the potential that God gives us, to do our work in his garden. Martin in this image is seeking to be humble, which is the antidote to pride, another capital sin. But an over correction to humility leads to a toxicity all its own, skills left undeveloped and potential wasted. Christianity has long struggled with the delicate balance between engagement and detachment. It is no accident that the people offering Martin this task are monks, the height of social detachment, cloistered and withdrawn. But one is a priest who, when acting in persona Christi signifies the height of divine engagement with humanity, the incarnation. Martin was a hermit. His previous life of engagement as a soldier was not in line with how he believed a Christian should act. Now he is faced with an opportunity to lead again and he is hesitant to accept the pomp and circumstance of being a bishop. While understandable, this is unacceptable. He must learn to use his skills, while not being attached to any temptation otherwise.
In the scripture passage, we see another rejection of call. In this case, Jonah is called to prophesy. But rather than help the wicked people of Nineveh, he flees to the opposite edge of the world, Spain. His motivation is not humility, but spite. He doesn't want to help the Asseryians come to know God. He perceives them as bloodthirsty murderers who do not deserve God’s mercy. When Jonah is successful in his mission (the only prophet in the Bible to be so while still alive) his reaction is absolute bitterness. Perhaps a better selection would have been the parable of the talents, but our passage drives the point home even better from the end of those helped. After all, what difference has a passive humility done for them? From their point of view they simply experienced abandonment, no help came. The humble person’s motivation may help them personally abate the spiritual danger of pride. But this is a completely selfish calculation. In the case of both Martin and Jonah, God forces the hand of the hesitant. This reminds us that God will get his way. But the selfish calculation of the humble in this case will undo all that is sought to do by one who stubbornly refuses God’s will.
This leads to our expanded resonance. The conscious recognition of risk for the sake of the other and the willful calculus to take such risk. In this case, the risk is ultimate, the peril of temptation and the loss of the soul. But the truly humble soul will act out of agape, and give up their comfortable spiritual position and endure temptation in order to help others. After all, temptation is not sin. This is the mode of agapic love manifest in the incarnation, where the Logos emptied himself and is subject to temptation. If we cannot do the same then we are rejecting our baptismal call.
Application
To meet the Eight of Staffs in contemplation is to meet humility or hesitancy. It could speak to the time needed to gain strength for a task. Or it could indicate selfish reasons for not wanting to accept a task. With a deeper resonance, the Eight of Staffs may be a call to give up one’s comfort for the sake of others, to risk in order to share one’s self. Lastly, the Eight of Staffs could imply a need for detachment in order to act.
In Reverse, the Eight of Staffs could imply the need for passivity in the situation. Or it could imply the rejection of an important responsibility. Oppositional Eight of Staffs could indicate the need for a period of growth before one acts decisively. Or, lastly, polar Eight of Staffs could indicate selfish isolation.
Nine of Staffs: The Palm of Martyrdom and the Empty Cross
Scripture Passage
He brought you to life along with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions; obliterating the bond against us, with its legal claims, which was opposed to us, he also removed it from our midst, nailing it to the cross; despoiling the principalities and the powers, he made a public spectacle of them, leading them away in triumph by it. Col 2:13-15
Visual Symbolic Analysis
The image on the card shows the nine crosiers in a criss cross pattern. On the left are four crooks with dragon’s heads. On the right are five crooks with a floral accent. Below the crosses one sees an empty cross, recalling sacrifice, but also more intensely glory and triumph that results from sacrifice well performed. Over the base of the cross are two palm fronds crossed at their bases. The leaves extend out reaching into the pattern of crosiers. The image evokes past suffering, but more immediate peace and justification that results from the struggle.
Meditation
The Nine of Staffs often evokes a saga of struggle that one has completed, but that leaves wounds. In the Tarot of the Saints, there seems to be no indication of such wounds, but careful observations proves otherwise. First, the cross is not a crucifix (a cross with the body hung upon it). The empty cross speaks to the resurrection, but even in his glorified body, Christ still bears the wounds, Christ’s former shame now the sign of his victory. In other representations, the “wound” is often bandaged so that it might heal. But for the Christan, the wound does not “heal”. It is carried into the next life as a sign of redemptive suffering and glory. Thus Christ appears to the disciples and shows his wounds. Still existing in the glorified body, it shows that the suffering was not in vain. There was a purpose that one carries over with one into eternity. The perfection of the Eschaton is different from the perfection of Eden because that perfection has gone through salvation history and has changed because of it. Thus the palms on the image are a sign of the martyrs, those who sacrifice their lives for the Faith. When they are pictured in devotional images, they often carry with them some symbol of how they were killed, either the implement of their death or some indication of the suffering they endured. The image of the Nine of Staffs is “observational”. One sees that there is suffering and there is triumph. One sees that they are related. But the symbols of the card are very generally applicable to Christian life. Thus the card seems to convey the pedagogical nature of sacrifice for the one who is observing.
In the scripture passage shows the objective effect of demonstrable sacrifice. The author is using the sacrifice of Christ to illuminate the reader as to the effect of sacrifice and teach them of what Christ has done for them. In synchronicity with the card, the reader is an observer of the sacrifice another is making. This observation forces one to recalibrate their understanding of the cosmos, their own role in bringing progress, and their understanding of the person sacrificing. For example, Christ’s ability to “turn” the principalities and powers to the effect of goodness is quite astonishing to a person not completely aware of how God can bring good out of evil. The most pertinent example is Death, a principality that Christ conquered and used in order to bring justification to the world. Previous to his sacrificial act, Death had been seen as an adversary, whose role is to meet out punishment. Now that Christ has conquered, we have Holy Death, Death as a means of legitimate and effective sacrifice on the multiple levels we discussed in the treatise Toward Appropriate Thanatosian Piety. But it is up to us to learn the lessons and learn to use Christ’s victory and the powers that he conquered to effect our baptismal priesthood as alter Christus’.
The expanded resonance of agapic love for the Nine of Staffs is a willful sacrifice of assumed knowledge in order to approach the other as others and learn of their sacrifices. One self absorbed aspect of most people is that we tend to think our knowledge is superior and our suffering is more intense. The Nine of Staffs calls one to regard the other and learn from their sacrifices. First one must recognize these sacrifices, then one must shed any understanding of knowledge they have in order to recalibrate how sacrifice can be effective. Without this kind of compassion and empathy, no one could recognize how Christ conquered death, they would only see a condemned criminal who failed at life in every way. Because of an act of agapic love, observing the other as others, we learn the lesson and see Christ and his martyrs for who they are, not failed humans, but great teachers of sacrifice. As if to make the difficulty of this task clear, we have four dragons and five floral crooks. The sacrifice of Cain seems to be the greater on this card. Sometimes the sacrifices that appear to be the least become the greatest. It takes a careful student to observe and effect this.
Application
To meet the Nine of Staffs in contemplation is to meet an example of redemptive suffering. This card represents pedagogical opportunity, especially concerning sacrifice, suffering, and redemption. In this situation, who are the teachers and who are the learners? The Nine of Staffs may indicate some shame that can be turned to glory if it is properly understood and respected. Or it may imply the need to relinquish assumed knowledge in order to learn a greater lesson, especially concerning compassion. Lastly, the Nine of Staffs can indicate hidden triumph or glory.
In Reverse the Nine of Staffs can indicate arrogance in the situation especially concerning someone’s knowledge or grasp of the situation. Polar Nine of Staffs could imply a person who is closed not looking out with compassion or empathy and therefore is missing something in the situation. Oppositional Nine of Staffs could indicate needless suffering, or a “martyr complex” in the situation. Lastly, polar Nine of Staffs could indicate harsh judgment of someone afflicted.
Ten of Staffs: The Phoenix
Scripture Passage
King Nebuchadnezzar was startled and rose in haste, asking his counselors, “Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?” “Certainly, O king,” they answered. “But,” he replied, “I see four men unbound and unhurt, walking in the fire, and the fourth looks like a son of God.” Then Nebuchadnezzar came to the opening of the white-hot furnace and called: “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out.” Thereupon Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire. When the satraps, prefects, governors, and counselors of the king came together, they saw that the fire had had no power over the bodies of these men; not a hair of their heads had been singed, nor were their garments altered; there was not even a smell of fire about them. Dan 3:91-94
Visual Symbolic Analysis
The Ten of Staffs Shows the ten crosiers in a criss cross pattern, five on each side. To the left, the crooks are phoenix heads and to the right the crooks are phoenix tails. The effect is a series of five complete phoenixes atop the page. Below you see a phoenix rising from the fire. Its head is facing left along with the heads of the crooks. Its wings are spread in victory of regeneration. The image evokes a sense of rebirth or completion of purgation.
Meditation
The phoenix is a common symbol of rebirth. As early as Clement of Rome, it was already adopted by the Christians as a symbol of resurrection or purgation. Whereas the Nine of Staffs presents sacrificial pedagogy, Ten of Staffs represents the experience of coming through the sacrifice itself. In this case, one may focus on the new life achieved, but the presence of the fire gives one pause to consider purgation, the fire that burns away the unnecessary or harmful in order to come through new and refreshed. The element of fire is most readily connected to the Suit of Staffs. In this card, the role of purgative fire in “burning away” becomes clear, especially in how it manifests a finished product. When purifying a metal one “tests it in fire”, meaning heating it to the extreme, and as impurities rise to the top, they are scraped off until the metal (gold for example) is pure. The rising phoenix is a symbol of this process completed.
The scripture passage shows Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego emerging from the raging furnace after being thrown in. They are captives in Babylon and, just as Israel must come through the suffering of captivity, they must come through the fire of the furnace. Babylon is linked to this furnace that tests the faithfulness of Israel. There they experience the suffering of humiliation in captivity, but also the temptation of a “better life” in the advanced civilization of Babylon. The fire in this case is the suffering of resisting short term gain and bowing to the gods of Babylon. Staying true to God often causes us to suffer both actively and passively. All of these false gods seek to draw us away from worship of the true God. The passive suffering is the concupiscent longing we have to bow down to them and succumb to the glamor of this world. The active suffering comes when we subjugate ourselves to these gods and the fire is intense in a different way. Either way, if one takes on the suffering as purgation the result is the phoenix, a new relationship to reality and a new way of being in the world. That way includes the fundamental nature of the old self as well as the mark of the suffering endured, but the new creature is purified by experience.
Concerning our expanded resonance, the phoenix symbolizes all sacrifices successfully endured and a new ability to approach another with a differing view. The Ten of Staffs implies a new awareness of exercised agapic love. This is the summation of agapic love which can consider the other but still act as a self. Much had to be denied and learned in order to reach this point. But agapic love does not destroy the self, it actualizes it.
Application
Encountering the Ten of Staffs in a reading can be an indication of any kind of renewal, especially by purgation. It can lead one to look for an agent in the situation that has passed through trial and come out better. Lastly, the Ten of Staffs could point one to a person in the situation who has actualized agapic love and can act as an agent for others.
In Reverse the Ten of Staffs implies continued suffering of purgation. Or It could imply a rejection of the process of purgation; a rejection of suffering as redemption or a bowing to the powers that would enslave one. It could indicate a continued need for sacrifice in the situation. Or oppositional Ten of Staffs could signal a collapsing in one oneself by someone in the situation. Lastly, polar Ten of Staffs could indicate a continued suffering that one must endure.
Page of Staffs: Saint Roch
Hagiography
Saint Roch was a French noble who early developed a sympathy for the poor and sick; reported to have been born with the image of a red cross on his breast. Orphaned at age 20, he gave his fortune to the poor and became a mendicant pilgrim. While on pilgrimage Roch encountered an area afflicted with plague. He stayed to minister to the sick, and affected several miraculous cures, usually by making the sign of the cross over them, but contracted the plague himself. He walked into a forest to die but was befriended by a dog. The dog fed him with food stolen from his master’s table, and Roch eventually recovered. When Roch returned to Montpellier, France, he was arrested for being a spy. He languished in jail for five years, never mentioning his noble connections, cared for by an angel until his death.
Visual Symbolic Analysis
The typical Page of Staffs holds the staff aloft and looks at it longingly or in amazement. Since the staffs generally signify creativity, volition, and desire, the image of the page usually conveys the passion of new found strength and dynamism. The image of Saint Roch is markedly different. Saint Rochy stands in the center of the card, with his crook in his left hand. He stares away from the crook. His right leg is perched up on a ridge with his right hand resting on his knee. On his calf is an oozing open sore. At his foot stands a dog with a piece of bread in his mouth. The creative dynamism portrayed by Saint Roch in the picture speaks more to how he used his weakness than how volition and creativity are a strength for the individual. The staff is present, but it is his walking staff as an indigent who is not recognized as a nobleman and is ultimately regarded as a criminal by his own people. The prominent wound shows his personal weakness. The presence of the dog shows how Saint Roch exhausted his life in the service of others, but God supplies support through the natural order for him to continue.
Meditation
The Page of each suit represents engagement in the significance of that suit at an exuberant, but novice or sophomoric level. To meet a page in contemplation evokes consideration of zeal but also a lack of experience in persons involved in the situation.The Page of each suit represents engagement in the significance of that suit at an exuberant, but novice or sophomoric level. To meet a page in contemplation evokes consideration of zeal but also a lack of experience in persons involved in the situation. The Page of Staffs is certainly exuberance in creative zeal and the exhilaration of new found freedom. This zeal is extremely motivating to get a task done, but typical of a Page, may not have the skill to create or act to the best effect. The Page of Staffs as a “student” knows patience in creativity and humility if freedom.
Saint Roch is the template for a pilgrim saint. His life is one of renunciation and the flux of travel. His dynamism is one of shifting environments and therefore adaptability. His life displays the dynamic creativity of the Christian life. What we are born into, postlapsarian reality, where we would have ourselves be noblemen, must be rejected for simple service and a lack of a home. “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.” The Knight of Staffs is Saint James, whose relics in Spain are the terminal point of one of the great pilgrimages of Europe, the Compostela. This pilgrimage was the originator of the Shell as a symbol of pilgrimage. The Page and Knight share a clear pedagogical relationship in both the Staffs and Swords. In this case, the great pilgrim James has found rest, and the pilgrim Saint Roch is journeying and in motion. But as a page he seems, in motion, to start, but by the end is “arrested”. He spends his last years imprisoned by the people that should know him. The hagiography would have us interpret this as humility and rejection of the pomp of his former life. But his former life cannot have been only pomp. Something about his application of creative will went so far as to completely divorce from his former life and the new creation was unrecognizable. This is an overstep for a religion that fulfills. If wealth is a problem, then by all means shed wealth. But the inability to connect to the citizens of Montpellier as who he was shows a lack of creative fulfillment and engagement. He seems to have taken on a roel inauthentic to himself and ends up “arrested” unable to fulfill his role as a pilgrim.
Concerning the expanded resonance, Saint Roch symbolizes fresh and exuberant agapic love by his willingness to sacrificially shed everything and give in charitable service in the immediate circumstance, the plague. These are textbook examples of agapic giving that target strangers and employ self denial. They do not show the craft of personal investment in the individual and using one’s good at service of the other. It is a neophyte agapic expression to divest distraction and seek to help “people in the abstract” (strangers). The more mature expression of agapic love takes the other person for who they are as a person, not simply a “target of love”. Saint Roch’s status as an indigent pilgrim probably did not afford him time to garner such deep connections.
Application
Saint Roch as the Page of Staffs offers the querent an opportunity to consider the standard meanings of the card, adventure excitement, energy, and fearlessness. But Saint Roch is undergirded with a self sacrificial foundation. The querent may want to look for a person in the situation who is dynamically creative or in a situation of transition? Saint Roch also brings up questions of service to others without thought of self. Lastly, Saint Roch could lead the querent to ponder how the environment supports their endeavor in the situation.
In Reverse Saint Roch allows one to consider harmful forms of haste, laziness or agoraphobic tendencies. Oppositional Saint Roch could also lead one to contemplate stagnation or self centeredness. One may consider whether their application of agapic love is too widely targeted and not personally attuned.
Knight of Staffs: Saint James
Hagiography
Saint James the Greater was the Son of Zebedee and Salome, brother of Saint John the Apostle, and may have been Jesus’ cousin. He is called “the Greater” simply because he became an Apostle before Saint James the Lesser. HE was an apparent disciple of Saint John the Baptist and a fisherman. He left everything when Christ called him to be a fisher of men. Was present during most of the recorded miracles of Christ. He went on to preach in Samaria, Judea, and Spain. He was the first Apostle to be martyred.
Visual Symbolic Analysis
James is pictured standing erect with his staff upright in his right hand. On the staff is a banner with a shell on it, the sign of completion of the pilgrimage of the Compostela de Santiago. At the end of this pilgrimage in Spain, one finds James’ relics. He also holds a book that is bound shut by clasps. Most generally the book could be the scriptures and allude to his right of interpretation as an Apostle. The writings of Saint James tend to be action oriented with a high respect for Law, as opposed to Saint Paul who has more respect for intention. The book could contain Law, but if that is the case, why is clasp it shut? Rather the clasp could imply the inaccessibility of the unconscious or the unknowable, in which case one must dynamically and creatively act according to faith, which is indicative of the suit.
Meditation
The Knight of each suit can be thought of as the employment or good use of that suit’s significance. To encounter a knight in contemplation allows the querent to reflect on how the suit the knight represents is best employed, or how it is being employed by someone in the situation. The Knight of Staffs most generally implies the active use of will and creativity. It implies a person who is courageous and willful, but also hot tempered hence James’ nickname being one of the Sons of Thunder. The Gift of the Spirit relating to passion is fortitude. Fortitude is the moral virtue, given by the Holy Spirit, that ensures firmness in difficulties and constancy in pursuit of goodness. It gives you the strength to endure in order to choose, and the strength to endure the creative process, which can sometimes be arduous. The Knight of Staffs is a meditation on this endurance and the employment of both will and creativity in a situation.
James is the Brother of Saint John the Knight of Cups, and can be interpreted as the volitional dynamic counterpart to John’s contemplative intuition. James is famous for saying, “Indeed someone may say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Demonstrate your faith to me without works, and I will demonstrate my faith to you from my works.” James’ image evokes the pilgrimage he is associated with. His staff is one of will and creativity, but such is not for its own sake. There is a goal. The reckoning of the goal in the ancient world, following an old Roman trade route, was “The end of the world”, which is the end of the Compostela. The card carries with it the completion of a long process, not haphazardly taken. The Compostela is known as an adventure but the meditation is one of a test of will. It is long and rugged and demands fortitude. The journey is a dynamic and constant change of scenery and culture across southern Europe. Taking this into account one can see how Saint James as the Knight of Staffs epitomizes the process of will and creativity. Unlike the Page Saint Roch, James completes his journey to the end. He does not end up back home, nor is he arrested and placed in a situation of immobility. What allows him to do this is his disposition for action according to Law. Law well sculpted should not limit creativity or will. Rather it is a framework in which they can operate effectively according to the end one wishes them to meet.
Considering the expanded resonance one can see the exercise of agape as the journey and with the goal in mind. Agape is self emptying, so there must be a person who is an object of love. The person’s best interest is the goal. But the journey is the trial and error in creatively engaging with that person to discern what they need and how to get their needs met. The creativity is employed in the skillful discernment and then the fact that often what they need is not what they believe they need. To be blunt and tell them what they need will do no good, so the skillful agapic lover must probe and test scenario after scenario until an assessment is correct. This takes creativity and the experience of trial and error takes sheer will.
Application
To meet Saint James the Knight of Staffs in meditation is an invitation to consider activating one's will or creativity. Saint Jame is also an opportunity to consider goal oriented transition in the situation, Are there motions with terminating ends that need to be considered. Lastly, Saint James beckons the querent to consider the active process of applying agapic love in the situation
In Reverse the Knight of Staffs does not take the journey, journeys without a goal in mind, or takes paths forged by others, not creatively one’s own. Or if one is going with the expanded resonance, reverse Saint James indicates the sloth involved in the lack of acceptance of what it takes to make a well executed journey. Or the envy one experiences that keeps one from practicing agapic love. In the situation is there a person so bereft of charity as to wish the absence of good another possesses? Oppositional Saint James could indicate an antinomian freedom or creativity in the situation whose limitless definition tends to breakdown its effectiveness. Lastly, the polar Knight of Staffs may be an invitation to passivity, non choice or a tried and true path.
Queen of Staffs: Saint Genevieve
Hagiography
When she was seven years old, Genevieve met Saint Germanus of Auxerre on his way to England. Germain befriended her because of her insistence on wanting to live her life for God and prophesied her future sanctity. She took the veil at age 15. Prophesied invasions and disasters for Paris. Could read consciences and calm the possessed. When Paris was besieged by the Franks, she encouraged its defense, organized prayers for God‘s protection of the city, and led an expedition for food to relieve the siege. Later, she again saved it from destruction, as, through her prayers, Attila the Hun suddenly changed his devastating course through Gaul and turned aside his army, while still south of Paris. In 1129, the procession of her relics through Paris is believed to have ended an epidemic.
Visual Symbolic Analysis
Saint Genevive is pictured standing among bushes holding her staff in her right hand and a lamb clutched to her chest in her left hand. The staff carries authority symbolizing her prophetic role in her community, the lamb symbolizes both Christ, who she keeps near her, and the peace that she seeks for her community during her life.
Meditation
The Queen of each suit is generally interpreted as the mature feminine manifestation of that suit’s significance. Queens are the suit manifest as nurturing, protective, emotive, compassionate, giving, and caring manifestation of what a suit symbolizes. The King and Queen cards of a suit also represent the spectral extremes regarding the gender resonance of the suit itself. A queen card of the masculine oriented suits is going to present as the nearest one can get to the center of the gender spectrum regarding that suit. Whereas a queen card of a feminine suit is going to present the best manifestation of what that suit symbolizes as it is presented by masculine principles. The Suit of Staffs is a suit that generally aligns with the Masculine so the king and queen will align appropriately on this gender spectrum. Generally, the Queen of Staffs leans social and implies community building. This queen is charismatic and vivacious and uses those intuitions to build up those around her. This is a macro-community leader, a masculine trait, but done so with a nurturing disposition of maternity.
Saint Genevive as the Queen of Staffs is a symbol of this exact vivaciousness as a force of will and creativity for the defense of her people and peace for her city. As a prophetess, she is able to intuit dangers and prepare those around her for them. When danger comes she is able to organize the community such that she staves of destruction. This is a communal organization in the material realm. She is also a great champion of rallying the community according to the spiritual realm, which is more effective. To rally the community physically against the Franks put the city in the defensive posture and took material organization. Genevieve foresees the advance of Atilla the Hun and instead of simply laying up supplies for a siege, she also rallies the community in spiritual and ritual prayer, thus winning peace for the community. These two events in her life exemplify two ways a person can choose to be spiritual, to put on a defensive posture as they engage a hostile world, or to seek contemplation and attain spiritual peace despite the ragings of the world abroad. The procession of her relics to stave off plagues indicates the Genevive as the Queen of Staffs ability to maintain an active legacy. While she existed on this plane, she sought the aid of celestial companions for the protection of her city. As a celestial being herself she is still engaged in the protection of her city, but “from the other end” not bring in the people to prayer as a Saint whose physical remains still move among them. This legacy is the maternal legacy of lingering care and passion for peace and stability of her children and the ability by sheer will to be able to effect the lives of their children.
Considering our expanded resonance, Genevive creatively engages the dangers of the world around her. She uses her feminine sense of communal abidance to notice the needs of the people, protection, and peace, and then seek conditions that supply them. This is agapic love aimed at the community rather than a person. Her ability is to exert her will, despite being a woman in a time of patriarchy, for the protection of the people is an exercise of agapic self emptying.
Application
To meet Genevive in contemplation is to meet a maternal figure who is protective and seeks defense or peace in the situation. Saint Genevive also points to the maternal legacy of protection as it effects the situation. The querent may want to analyze the situation and consider whether the defense mechanisms employ maternal nurturing and is it serving the situation well. Lastly, the intuition of Saint Genevieve is to sense danger and prepare. One may consider whether there heretofore unnoticed dangers in the situation that need to be discovered, and if so how can one prepare for them, physically and spiritually.
In Reverse Saint Genevive takes a self serving posture and defends oneself at the expense of others, even loved ones. Is fear so overbearing in the situation to cause this selfishness? Oppositional Genevive may also indicate aggression rather than peace or a defensive posture. This aggression may be necessary to accomplish a task in the situation, or it may be indicating a hostile aggression that is causing trouble in the situation.
King of Staffs: Saint Patrick
Hagiography
Kidnapped from the British mainland around age 16, Patrick was shipped to Ireland as a slave. Sent to the mountains as a shepherd, he spent his time in the field in prayer. After six years of this life, he received a dream in which he was commanded to return to Britain; seeing it as a sign, he escaped. He studied in several monasteries in Europe. Became a Priest., then a Bishop and was sent by Pope Celestine to evangelize England, then Ireland. In the span of 33 years he effectively converted the people of Ireland.
Visual Symbolic Analysis
Saint Patrick as the King of Staffs is pictured on rocky terrain with a body of water occupying the recesses of the image. Patrick is arrayed in ornate episcopal garb. His chasuble is adorned with shamrocks, his famous analogical tool for teaching the doctrine of the trinity. Saint Patrick looks directly at the observer. In his left hand holds a crosier encircling a shamrock. His right hand is pointing at a snake on the ground. The snake seems to be moving away from Patrick, yet its head is reared up and is regarding him. Patrick is known for chasing all the snakes out of Ireland. This is usually regarded as a metaphor for removing paganism from the island. At the same time, in the image, there seems to be a relationship between Patrick and the snake. Historically, Patrick neither chases snakes nor the Celtic culture from the island. Like any good evangelizer, Patrick applies the gospel to the present culture. Due to his effect the celts formed a thriving culture of Christianity including a Celtic rite of the liturgy. There are two possibilities for interpreting the snake. First, it is the worst element of Celtic pagan culture that Patrick chased from Ireland. However, rather than a gesture of rejection, the gesture of Patrick, with crosier and finger, may mimic the esoteric posture, “as above so below”. If this is the case then the gesture hints that the snake in the image is the pagan culture that Patrick evangelizes, keeping what is good and rejecting what is evil. Patrick brings the gospel of the incarnate Son, and incarnates it into the culture of Ireland.
Meditation
The King in each suit is generally interpreted as the mature masculine manifestation of that suit’s significance. In contemplation the presence of a King card invites the querent to consider aspects of traditional masculinity, father figures, social order in the situation. The King and Queen cards of a suit also represent the spectral extremes regarding the gender resonance of the suit itself. A king card of the feminine oriented suits is going to present as the nearest one can get to the center of the gender spectrum regarding that suit. Whereas a king card of a masculine suit is going to present the best manifestation of what that suit symbolizes as it is presented by masculine principles. The Suit of Staffs is a suit that generally aligns with the Masculine so the king and queen will align appropriately on this gender spectrum. Usually, the King of Staffs is a leader who organizes by force of will through creative persuasion. He is macro-oriented and willing to take risks to attain a goal. The King of Staffs is the type of leader who can extend his will to his subjects in such a way that wills are synchronized. That is, he persuades so effectively that his will becomes the will of his subjects.
Patrick exemplifies the risk accepting nature of the King of Staffs in that he daringly escapes from slavery and then daringly returns to the Island of his enslavement to bring his former enslavers the good news of liberation in Christ. His creativity comes in his ability to explain trinitarian ontology and his ability to so successfully integrate the gospel with the culture of the Celts that they are able to develop an entire variety of Christianity apart from the Roman variety. The character of the King of Staffs to persuade is an ability of Patrick’s. He begins by having his will brutally subjected in slavery. Then he is granted the grace of a dream that inspires him to escape. Yet he does not grasp his will as his own. Rather he synchronizes his will with that of Christ by study and spiritual discipline. This is a free choice rather than a coercion like pagan slavery. Then out of compassion and love he returns to offer liberation from slavery to sin and false gods to the people of Ireland. His ability to creatively empathize, born out of his own former state of slavery, gives him great success in his mission and as a leader, he is able to synchronize the entire culture with the gospel, while allowing it to thrive as it is.
Regarding our expanded resonance, Saint Patrick the King of Staffs presents agapic love by his willingness to return to his captors and offer them a better life after they had enslaved him. The absolute consciousness and psycho-spiritual creativity it takes to step outside of one’s own experience of brutal subjugation and see their persecutors as equally oppressed. This dynamic ability to empathize is beyond natural and takes sheer will to act on once it is conceived. All of the psycho-spiritual stamina required makes this action emblematic of agapic self sacrifice. The resultant synchronization of wills is reminiscent of Christ’s own internal life. Christ has two natures but is one person. Christian belief is that he possesses two wills, one for each nature, the human and the divine. These wills are perfectly internally synchronized, such that there is no variance and they appear as one. Further, Christ’s will is synchronized to that of the Father, as exhibited in the Prayer, the Our Father, and in the Garden of Gethsemane. These synchronizations of will are the perfection of what the King of Staff strives for through agapic exercise. To submit and synchronize his will to the above, and then allow synchronicity between himself and those in his charge below.
Application
To meet Saint Patrick the King of Staffs in contemplation is an invitation to investigate interpersonal synchronization of wills in the situation. The querent may want to investigate if there are people in the situation who are dynamically and creatively collaborating and if so who is facilitating this. The presence of Patrick also allows one to meditate on the dynamics of slavery and liberation in the situation, this may be literal but could be allegorical or spiritual as well. Lastly, The King of Staffs general helps the querent seek a leader in the situation that exhibits creativity and dynamism.
In Reverse the King of Staffs shows elements of slavery, habits, or sloth, not aspiring to one’s potential. Is there a person in the situation who is not leading as dynamically as necessary, but simply following rote methodologies? Or polar Saint Patrick can indicate the stifling effect of envy in a leader. Does someone in the situation not allow people to shine with their talents and gifts? Lastly, oppositional King of Staffs may call for applied passivity to the situation.
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