Lesson 06
Face, hands, eyes, body, direction
Observe first. Interpret second. Research third.
If there is a person on the card, they are not decoration. They are information.
Face, hands, eyes, posture, direction. Human presence as a sentence inside the sentence.
Read the figure as if they could move
Look at the face. Is it turned toward you, away, down, up? What is the mouth doing? The eyes?
Look at the hands. Holding, offering, clutching, empty, hidden, blessing, binding, driving.
Look at the body. Open or closed. Armoured or exposed. Walking, sitting, hanging, dancing, collapsed, enthroned.
Look at direction. Where is the energy facing or travelling? Toward another card, toward the edge, toward the sky, into a cup, into a fight, away from a town.
You do not need a body-language certificate. You need to stop skipping the human in the picture because you were busy remembering a keyword you now know by heart.
When there is no body
Some cards give you almost no human. Three of Swords. Ace of Swords. Wheel of Fortune, depending on the deck. The absence of a body is information. Who is not there? Who has left the wound unattended? Who is the hand in the cloud?
Do not rush to invent a person so you can do this lesson. Read the absence.
Worked example. Queen of Swords.
You know she is a court in air. Now look. The raised sword. The extended hand. The turned face. The clouds. The throne. Whether she looks at you or past you.
A Queen of Swords whose hand is open is not doing the same thing as a Queen whose sword is the whole sentence. Description first: what the limbs are doing. Then interpretation: boundaried welcome, or a mind that will cut first. The body told you which.
Observe first
The figure
Pick a card with at least one person, preferably a court you have studied. Stay with the body.
First look
What hit you first?
Facial expression
What is the face telling you?
Body language
What is the body doing?
Direction
Where is the energy facing or travelling?
Movement
What is in motion?
Stillness
What is still?
Your intuitive response
What do you know, before you tidy it up?
Practice
Take the posture, carefully
Choose a figure. Without hurting yourself, sit or stand a little like them. Hands, chin, where the chest faces. Write what the posture does to your breath and your mood. Then interpret the card. The body is a way in that a caption cannot steal.
Open the practiceReflection