Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Structure of Shining Tribe
Like the traditional Tarot, Shining Tribe contains seventy-eight cards, in two parts: the Major and the Minor Arcana (arcana means "secrets"). The Major Arcana consists of twenty-two named and numbered cards, beginning with 0, the Fool, and ending with 21, the World Shining Woman. Most of these cards bear their traditional names. Four, however, have changed titles. Card 5, traditionally the Hierophant, has become Tradition. Card 10, traditionally the Wheel of Fortune, has become the Spiral of Fortune. Card 20, traditionally Judgement, has become Awakening. And card 21, traditionally the World, has become the World¿Shining Woman. Except for Tradition (ironically), the pictures on the cards remain close to the traditional iconography.
The Major Arcana of the Tarot is one of the world's great works of wisdom. In twenty-two highly evocative pictures, it encompasses a vast range of teachings. If we try to synthesize its ideas, we might say that it gives us a map of the soul's journey from birth to the challenges of life, to enlightenment and harmony with the universe.
The Minor Arcana consists of the four suits, similar to modern playing cards. Most Tarot decks name these suits after humanmade objects that appear on the cards. Usually these are Wands (sometimes Staves or Rods), Cups, Swords, and Pentacles (Coins in older decks, Disks in some modern ones). Shining Tribe Tarot has changed the suit names to aspects of nature: Trees, Rivers, Birds, and Stones.
The Tarot took shape in the Renaissance, when European culture emphasized human achievements as the focus of the material world. The Renaissance saw nature as wild, needing human transformation to fulfill its spiritual possibilities. In our time we have reversed this idea, literally going into the wilderness to find our most basic truths. We have turned to the ways of indigenous peoples, those who seek to live within the rhythms of nature. Such movements as Deep Ecology, or Eco-feminism, or the Gaia Theory have led us to revalue nature, both for itself and as a symbol of our own spiritual development.
Each suit contains fourteen cards, Ace through 10, plus four cards with names. In traditional Tarot decks these named cards are the Court cards: Page, Knight, Queen, and King. Many contemporary Tarot creators have found these titles weak or unbalanced, and have changed them to such groups as Mother, Father, Daughter, Son, or Sage, Man, Woman, Child. Shining Tribe removes the Court cards completely, replacing them with the Vision cards: Place, Knower, Gift, and Speaker. These will be explained fully in their own section, but we can describe them briefly as a progression of learning and using the energy of each suit. The Place allows us to enter the suit and feel its power in our lives. The Knower depicts understanding the inner qualities of that suit. The Gift tells us that we have reached the point where we can use these qualities in our lives. With the power of the Gift we become a Speaker, able to share the suit's power with others.
This concept of each suit having a particular energy (for the numbered Minor cards as well as the Vision cards) derives from the idea of the four elements. The European form of this widespread idea (we also find it, for example, in China) goes back to ancient Greece, where philosophers argued over the basic nature of all the vast numbers of creatures and objects in the material world. Eventually, this idea of primal elements settled into four: fire, water, air, and earth. We no longer believe in these things as fundamental reality. In fact, we have learned that each of the four elements contains a vast number of substances and chemical reactions. Nevertheless, the image of these elements holds a potent psychological truth. We each encounter life in different ways at different times. The world gives us different experiences at different moments. In astrology and Jungian psychology as well as in Tarot, the four elements help us organize the variety of human experience. One way to recast the elements in modern terms might be to describe the four as states of matter. Fire signifies chemical reactions, and therefore change. Water indicates matter's fluid state and thus the fluidity of emotion. Air indicates the gaseous state of matter, suggesting the invisible quickness of thought and creativity, while earth is the solid state and therefore the realities of nature, work, and wealth. When we cast the four suits as states of matter it becomes natural to look at the Major Arcana as Spirit. Indeed, many Tarot interpreters refer to the Major cards as a fifth element, sometimes called quintessence, or ether (ether was once thought to be an invisible substance that permeated all existence). This does not mean that matter and Spirit are opposed, or separate. Just as all matter was said to move through ether, so spirituality flows through all our daily life and relationships. We see this graphically when we do Tarot readings, for then we mix together the Major and Minor cards.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Structure of Shining Tribe
Like the traditional Tarot, Shining Tribe contains seventy-eight cards, in two parts: the Major and the Minor Arcana (arcana means "secrets"). The Major Arcana consists of twenty-two named and numbered cards, beginning with 0, the Fool, and ending with 21, the World Shining Woman. Most of these cards bear their traditional names. Four, however, have changed titles. Card 5, traditionally the Hierophant, has become Tradition. Card 10, traditionally the Wheel of Fortune, has become the Spiral of Fortune. Card 20, traditionally Judgement, has become Awakening. And card 21, traditionally the World, has become the World¿Shining Woman. Except for Tradition (ironically), the pictures on the cards remain close to the traditional iconography.
The Major Arcana of the Tarot is one of the world's great works of wisdom. In twenty-two highly evocative pictures, it encompasses a vast range of teachings. If we try to synthesize its ideas, we might say that it gives us a map of the soul's journey from birth to the challenges of life, to enlightenment and harmony with the universe.
The Minor Arcana consists of the four suits, similar to modern playing cards. Most Tarot decks name these suits after humanmade objects that appear on the cards. Usually these are Wands (sometimes Staves or Rods), Cups, Swords, and Pentacles (Coins in older decks, Disks in some modern ones). Shining Tribe Tarot has changed the suit names to aspects of nature: Trees, Rivers, Birds, and Stones.
The Tarot took shape in the Renaissance, when European culture emphasized human achievements as the focus of the material world. The Renaissance saw nature as wild, needing human transformation to fulfill its spiritual possibilities. In our time we have reversed this idea, literally going into the wilderness to find our most basic truths. We have turned to the ways of indigenous peoples, those who seek to live within the rhythms of nature. Such movements as Deep Ecology, or Eco-feminism, or the Gaia Theory have led us to revalue nature, both for itself and as a symbol of our own spiritual development.
Each suit contains fourteen cards, Ace through 10, plus four cards with names. In traditional Tarot decks these named cards are the Court cards: Page, Knight, Queen, and King. Many contemporary Tarot creators have found these titles weak or unbalanced, and have changed them to such groups as Mother, Father, Daughter, Son, or Sage, Man, Woman, Child. Shining Tribe removes the Court cards completely, replacing them with the Vision cards: Place, Knower, Gift, and Speaker. These will be explained fully in their own section, but we can describe them briefly as a progression of learning and using the energy of each suit. The Place allows us to enter the suit and feel its power in our lives. The Knower depicts understanding the inner qualities of that suit. The Gift tells us that we have reached the point where we can use these qualities in our lives. With the power of the Gift we become a Speaker, able to share the suit's power with others.
This concept of each suit having a particular energy (for the numbered Minor cards as well as the Vision cards) derives from the idea of the four elements. The European form of this widespread idea (we also find it, for example, in China) goes back to ancient Greece, where philosophers argued over the basic nature of all the vast numbers of creatures and objects in the material world. Eventually, this idea of primal elements settled into four: fire, water, air, and earth. We no longer believe in these things as fundamental reality. In fact, we have learned that each of the four elements contains a vast number of substances and chemical reactions. Nevertheless, the image of these elements holds a potent psychological truth. We each encounter life in different ways at different times. The world gives us different experiences at different moments. In astrology and Jungian psychology as well as in Tarot, the four elements help us organize the variety of human experience. One way to recast the elements in modern terms might be to describe the four as states of matter. Fire signifies chemical reactions, and therefore change. Water indicates matter's fluid state and thus the fluidity of emotion. Air indicates the gaseous state of matter, suggesting the invisible quickness of thought and creativity, while earth is the solid state and therefore the realities of nature, work, and wealth. When we cast the four suits as states of matter it becomes natural to look at the Major Arcana as Spirit. Indeed, many Tarot interpreters refer to the Major cards as a fifth element, sometimes called quintessence, or ether (ether was once thought to be an invisible substance that permeated all existence). This does not mean that matter and Spirit are opposed, or separate. Just as all matter was said to move through ether, so spirituality flows through all our daily life and relationships. We see this graphically when we do Tarot readings, for then we mix together the Major and Minor cards.
