Notes of a Hermetic Conversation between Phillip and Joel on January 30, 2023.
Noticing this new element on the vertical baton, this white portion above and below. What is strange, is that it is thinner on one side vs the other. Thinner and shorter. Is the yellow portion also thinner? One would need a ruler to really tell. But it seems to be just the white. The yellow part is thicker than the white part.
The vertical baton is bigger than the diagonals, noticeably. If the white is thinner, and is passing through the blue interweaving, is that part more related to the diagonals, to the “X” than to the thicker portion of the vertical?
But really it’s only one part of the white that is thinner. The white portions really seem to be in the “foreground”, i.e. one could imagine that the red portions bordering the blue are a continuity running behind it, not separate “bars” of red.
The vertical must be running behind the entirety of the blue weave, however. In the background for that part. Not interwoven between the two layers. Unless it turns blue once it passes into that region? But even then, there would be an outline of it, a blue outline.
This is the first time that a transformation happens in the middle. Assuming that it is a baton, i.e. that the white portion is actually a continuity, and this isn’t just two separate forms growing above and below the blue weave.
In the Three and Five, it’s clearly one implement running through vertically. No passage through the middle in the odds—it runs behind.
Is the white related to the new leaf form? Those leaves look more orange somehow. They’re lacking the blue, only yellow, red and white. Even up through the Six of Batons, there were yellow, red and blue.
There is a real Autumn feeling. Oak leaves. The orange feeling comes from that. Halloween, leaves changing. This royal, regal, noble late summer feeling. All is still.
This in contrast to the intensity of the Six. The Seven is more refined.
The curved leaves are like a shield.
It’s really hard to tell if that color is orange or not. It would just be so strange for a new color to suddenly appear, this far in!
It’s like a reverse plant. The flower (yellow) giving rise to a leaf.
Before, there was this root/flower. But here it is more of a flower/leaf. Like a thistle. Giving rise to the leaves.
There are no fruits. In the Swords, there were berries. And in the Cups. Here it is all leaves and flowers.
There is a metamorphosis from the Six to the Seven of Batons, but it’s like something is missing.
The wrap up at the end of the Letter-Meditation on the World. A sudden change of topic that he doesn’t quite finish, he just introduces. “Well, I made my point, I’m all done.” There was a narrative that only went up to the Five of Batons. Now we’re getting a preview, or indications, of where we should take this next.
The final chapter of Steiner’s Theory of Knowledge Implicit in Goethe’s Worldview takes the same approach. He very briefly lays out what this approach implies for art, for human endeavours…an exponential expansion that is only an introduction. “Here’s where this could go next.”
There is more of a leap from Five to Six. The yellow plant has grown from Six to Seven, changing the leaves from radiant wings to oak leaves.
Note that the Five of Batons is the final appearance of the “pearl.” The two yellow pearls, that are like eyes in the Two of Batons, gradually sink into the blue weave, get absorbed by it. They disappear in the Six, and that is the last we see of this “pearl” shape that first appeared in the Three of Coins. Does that indicate that there is something behind the blue that we just can’t see? Does all of the white connect behind the blue? Did the pearls become this white structure:
Perhaps it changes so drastically in the Six because the white stems and the yellow pearls disappear completely. They sink all the way in. Then when it/they return the plant changes, the plant starts to enter the vertical, unite with the vertical baton.
The yellow pearls guide the white in, so that it can return and be its own guide later on.
Notice that the yellow root/flowers gradually open in the Two through Five, allowing the yellow pearls to draw more and more of the white in.
The white also gradually disappears from the vertical flowers. It has gone into the vertical baton rather than the vertical flowers.
The Six now has this feeling of an unsustainable and possibly hazardous moment, when the white is totally gone. Jumping from one trapeze to another, in the air, before she is caught. Or the woman in the box who gets sawed in half, the moment before the big reveal…”what will happen next???”
Is it a reversal after the Six? We looked at the Six as the new turning point (instead of the Five, as it had been in prior Suits) last time. Will it all play out the same way as it was from Two to Five, only vertical blue becomes vertical white, or…?
Or will the flowers come back, and will they have any white in them after losing it completely over the course of Two, Four, Six?
The curl of the oak leaf is very different from that of the “normal” leaf. No counterbalancing swirl at the end, showing the other side. All of it is directed “in.” This makes for an oval curve Nathan that a U shape. It we completed it, it would be like the shape of a globe on a map (two “globes”, one above and one below—it would look like cells dividing).
We lose the circle form that we were seeing before in the middle. It has split into two.
There is a clear diamond shape in the middle, formed by the blue weaving and the yellow plants:
Or maybe the ovals continue from the oak leaves into the red bars?
We’ve never had the question before of the blue/red leaves having a relationship with portions of the batons. Here it seems natural for them to curve in, and make a further shape with them. In the Six, the leaves are just running parallel with the diagonal batons. They are spiralling, but in a straight line, not a curl.
You can see the end of the stem within the leaf in the Seven. That is a first: we have never seen the end of the stem before. It is akin to the “tooth point” we noticed in the black part of the diagonal batons.
The leaf shape as a kind of container that the stem has been inserted into, in order to protect or revivify, to feed it. It makes the stem more root-like. This is overall the opposite of a normal plant. A leaf-flower where the root should be. A root-stem instead of a root. Then a leaf.
We’ve never had a plant like this before.
Heh, a bit of a play on words/images: “the end is in sight.” We are nearing the end of the Tarot.
And the end is the beginning, the root? Roots are often white. Or like a bean sprout. The orange could be the husk of a sprout.
There is quite a lot of the Nine of Cups in both the Six and Seven of Batons:
Ok finally comparing the strong red of the Ace with the leaves of the Seven—this is definitely orange!
The mind just won’t accept it. We’ve never had orange. We can’t have orange.
So: we’ve never seen the end of the stem, and here is a color that over the course of 70 Arcana had never occurred yet. We are suddenly entering new territory at the very end, rather than this being a summary.
The sharpness of the leaves also adds a new quality. They feel like “real” Fall leaves as opposed to the fairy tale leaves we’ve had all throughout.
Maybe the vertical baton isn’t directly connected to the plant forms through the white. Maybe there is just a parallel shift going on: whatever goes on for the plant is immediately reflected in the baton.
Wait—there is something funny in the weave. One of the batons crosses over and under simultaneously:
What??? Crisis. Is it really authentic? Yes, it is there in each of our cards. Not a printing error. What does that even mean? We are struggling to justify it. Is it like piano wire then? Guitar strings? No. That doesn’t work for the rest of the image.
The pattern appears to be: over under over; under over under; over under over. The “in between” spaces are always under; they’re “not real.”
But one of these “over under over” branches has one that is both under and over, in the middle of the sequence. It’s different in the Six.
Is it related at all to the smaller portion of white? A counter-response to the presence of the white in the background, “behind” the blue—a glitch arising because of it.
Maybe one of the batons poked a hole “through” one of the other batons, rather than going over or under. The central baton of the upper left to bottom right diagonal went through the outermost baton (or innermost baton, depending on which way is up) of the upper right to bottom left diagonal.
It has become extra woven.
The Unknown Friends 