Tarot Poetry & the Sonnets of Teofilo Folengo

Thank you, Mary, for posting this. I’d actually forgotten that article I did, and more importantly, the possibilities it opens. In a few weeks I will be leading a Tarot For Writers workshop at Goddard College, where I teach creative writing. This will be fun to include.

I also enjoyed the Journey poem, which I hadn’t known. It seemed to me to get better, and more subtle, as it went along. sort of like the Fool himself.

meanwhile, I was working some time ago on the idea of blessings for Major Arcana cards. In Jewish tradition there is a blessing one says for all sorts of occasions, from getting up in the morning, to drinking wine. It struck me it might be interesting to come up with a short blessing to say on receiving a card in a reading. For instance, if the Magician card appears one could say Blessed are you, Source of all Light, who makes us vessels of power. Or the High Priestess–Blessed are you, Silent One, who sits in the Gateway of Mystery. Some are direct, such as the Hermit–Blessed are you, Lonely One, who holds light on the mountain. And some are more esoteric, like this Emperor blessing–Blessed are you, Builder and Architect, who creates the four corners.

And here’s a poem I wrote recently, when Awakening from the Shining Tribe deck (traditional title–Judgment) fell out while shuffling.

Awake, blessed one!
The sky is singing to you.
The earth is singing to you.
Light rises from the Great Below,
Whispers fall from the Great Above.
Your fingers are seeds,
Your bones are trees,
Your skin flows
With the surge of the sea.
Blessed One! Awaken!

A wonderful idea to bless the cards received in a spread. Something new to try. And a nice post too! Thanks!
Berthe

Oh, I just *love* the blessings! Rachel’s actually *sing* with poetry. I am living in bliss right at this moment, mashed thumb and all.

This sonnet by Teofilo Folengo (1527) shows us that the Tarot images/icons were not for games only, at least by the early sixteenth century. The trumps are the symbolic basis of a good philosophical poem, wherein Love proclaims that its fire can be tempered by those who live under its star, and that Love regards death as only a trickster.

I hope you won’t mind Mary my mentioning my own little poetry blog, where tI also post a few short form poems around a tarot theme, for example on the Wheel of Fortune:

X

http://pfffrrrummmp.blogspot.com/2011/04/x.html

holy holy holy

See now the top rung
lights of the world,
both called holy:

here top the Ladder of the Moon,
Holy Roman Emperor;

there top the Ladder of the Sun,
Holy Father, Bishop of Rome.

Two lights with brides
in triumphal train,
a juggler and a madman
or, perchance, a holy fool and true:
the other two outshone.

There are illustrations to this on my blog, with notes on the medieval theory of lights in the comments, plus part of a poem by Vincenzo Imperiali, c. 1550 with links.