Tarot Card: VIII Strength

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Original Artwork, Phil Gennuso, TAROT POSTS, VIII Strength

prototype by phil gennuso

 

For this proposed card, VIII Strength, I have used barbells and a beautiful vase.

The barbells symbolize our goal of physical health and renewal. I am something of a classicist and believe we must try to take care of body, mind, and soul. I try to walk at least a few miles every day and try small exercises with barbells as often as possible.

However there is our other side, the spiritual side, that also is part of our strength. Here I have used a vase, hand made in Brazil over ten years ago, a bit fragile perhaps, but beautiful, and sturdy in its own way. Art is for our soul, our spiritual journey, and that too, is part of our strength, as we try to make sense of an often chaotic world.

Tarot Card V The Hierophant

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Original Composition, TAROT POSTS, The Hierophant

original collage by phil gennuso

This is my proposed Tarot card for the Hierophant, typically card V in the traditional Tarot deck.

The Hierophant classically is based on the Pope, or the High Priest, but I chose to select Dag Hammarskjold, the UN peacemaker and second Secretary-General, and Mary Baker Eddy, the Christian mystic who founded Christian Science.

When I was growing up, Dag Hammarskjold was one of our heroes, along with Dwight Eisenhower; and in fact, John Kennedy, called him (Dag Hammarskjold) the greatest statesman of the century.

Mary Baker Eddy, remarkably, as a woman, founded a major branch of Christianity, Christian Science, a religion with millions of members in the US and worldwide.

I think both of these figures represent the spiritual, and inspirational aspects of the Hierophant, to 21st century men and women.

Isn’t it time that women, who are more than half of the human population, also take their place beside men, as spiritual leaders, in all religions?

Tarot Card X Wheel Of Fortune

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Original Design, Phil Gennuso, TAROT POSTS, Wheel Of Fortune

original by phil gennuso

This is one of my proposed Tarot cards, The Wheel Of Fortune, generally numbered X, from the Major Arcana, or one of the Trump cards.

The Wheel of Fortune was very prevalent in the Medieval Ages, where life, and health, were often unpredictable, and so the spinning wheel certainly is one famous symbol for this card, similar to a roulette wheel. You never knew what calamity might happen next.

Of course, through science, we have been able to take away some of the unknown, but still, inevitably, for most of us at least, life will have many bends and turns, many ups and downs, that we never expected. So this card still has major significance though perhaps not as much as in days gone by.

I started my design with the typical wheel, but then I just started to unravel the spirals, thinking of one strand of DNA. And then I thought, well isn’t DNA the biggest wheel of fortune? It determines our height, our looks, our talents, you name it. And we have absolutely no control of the outcome, how the DNA from Mom and Dad will combine to make us. We can only react and build a life around what DNA fortune has thrown our way.

So I decided to make my wheel of fortune a bit differently. It has some of the circular qualities of traditional cards, it also has one of the strands of DNA, or even RNA. It also is spiraling and perhaps unraveling, it depends on your situation and how you read the card.

Let me know what you think!