“Awareness is only the tip of the iceberg. The bigger part of our knowledge resides in the subconscious.”
Just as all the other trump cards from the Marseille Tarot, The Popess is a characterization of something that couldn’t be taken seriously during the times in which the Tarot first appeared in public. The Catholic church was averse to the idea of followers taking responsibility for their own deeds. Such behavior was bad for church business, and for the power which the church held over its members, in its self-appointed role as arbiter of heaven and earth, and good and evil. There was no other way for the trump cards of the Tarot to survive in Europe during the Middle Ages, without taking the path of ‘The Fool’, the jester who could tell the truth in a fanciful manner. Personal development was out of the question, and inner wisdom, which The Popess stands for, could only be expressed in something the church saw as impossible: a female pope.
Everything we need to know to live our lives, resides within us from the moment we were born. It is the experience in the course of a lifetime that reminds us what it is all about.
Words that spontaneously come to mind are heralds of the subsconscious.
Sophia figure. In her lap, where inner wisdom lies, she carries the book of knowledge. In order to seek out the realization of what it holds, she advances to number 3, the number of creation.
The Trump Cards, or archetypes are numbered I through XXI, and are distributed over three layers of seven cards each.
1. the Temporal Body (cards I-VII)
2. the Evolving Soul (cards VIII-XIV)
3. the Eternal Spirit (cards XV-XXI)
The Storyteller is the unique Nil Card, who ‘ignorantly’, without preconceived notions, wanders through the experiences of the other 21 trump cards.
The first layer of the Trump Cards (cards I – VII) is the physical layer, or the ‘experience soul’. This layer mirrors the physical conditions on earth through which we gain life experience.
Every number has a unique energy, and therefore a unique meaning and role in the interpretation of the card, in combination with the color or the archetype.
The 2 symbolizes duality, the polarity of a situation. We often learn what we really want by first examining the opposite possibility.
Ready for some Self-study?To get started by yourself, the Nan Yar card game and its booklet can be bought on this website. The booklet with explanation and interpretation is also separately sold as pdf or e-book.
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With ‘The Storyteller’ as your personal guide, I take you on a journey through the ‘Nan Yar – Who Am I’ personal development card game and let you look at your query through the eyes of the Archetypes, Challenges, Insights, Gifts and Tools, introduced to you by the cards.
Let go of what was to make way for what is. Discovering who you are and what you are capable of puts the world at your feet.
In a one-day Nan Yar group session you are trained to be your own life coach with the ‘Nan Yar – Who Am I’ card game for personal development as your guide.
