Presence-of Card Cameos. . .

Major Arcana cards make cameo appearances in other cards throughout Tarot in the Land of Mystereum.  They appear throughout Mystereum in multiple cards, both other Majors and in Minors.  This is to add to, to inform Tarot character development through visual story and allusion.  I also felt that this multiple-cards-in-a-card visual story technique furthers the deck so The Minors . . . are not minimized.

This visual expression of the cards themselves journeying around The Land of Mystereum is at the heart of the very structure of Mystereum.  We could call this opening up the epistemology of card divination, epistemology being philosophy of the study of how we know things.  We could call the card cameo appearances a Tarot etymology that expresses snapshots of the origins, the lineage of each card’s divination personality in their ongoing and living developed births of their appearances in your readings.  Interestingly enough, we can also simply say, . . .

“Cards in Tarot in the Land of Mystereum inform one another.”  Cards in the Land of Mystereum literally inform one another in the visual story of the cards where they appear.  They don’t start doing this after you learn them. They start doing this after you meet them, notice them in a “what’s that?” way, can pick their “face” out of a crowd so to speak.  Takes a little doing of course, yet play it like a movie . . . “Who’s that? What is THAT thing or person doing here?”

Have some fun opening up and exploring this cameo appearance Presence-Of feature in The Land of Mystereum.  It is there to assist you in card inter-relationships and working with your intuition, to further inform the Imagination Tools gifted by Mystereum’s 192-page Imagination Primer book.  Pick a Major Arcana character in your Tarot in the Land of Mystereum deck.  Then, one by one, go through your deck.  See what full portions of the card and what out-takes or details appear in other cards.  Once you have walked through your deck and pulled the hangouts, the Presence-Of places of the card you have chosen, ask yourself . . .”How does this card contribute with its appearance in this other card?  What clue to this card’s identity does the guest appearance accentuate, how does it flesh out the card’s story?  Are these cards the same yet simply at different scales?  For example in the Imagination Primer the 3 of Swords expresses in a way that something beyond its grasp is formed that,

3 of Swords to Tower story excerpt

“ . . . It is important to take stock here when things are distorted or feelings that perplex or confuse you come up.  We have not built much here.  But, we have heard rumors that when lots of us (3 of Swords) get together over time left unchecked something called The Tower is formed. . . .”  Oh, so The Tower is both a natural phenomenon and also preventable at times?  Ohhhh the responsibility.  What else does this Presence-of quality indicate to you here?

So, on to the Tarot Presence-Of Hierophant Cameos

The Hierophant in The Land of Mystereum plays 4 visual storytelling parts, appears in 4 cards.  There is The Hierophant card of course, and as well The Hierophant makes Presence-Of cameos in the Page of Wands, the Page of Pentacles, and the Ace of Cups.  It felt very natural for The Hierophant to appear in this way as a perennial story-thread of a card further alluding to a sense of place throughout cards in The Land of Mystereum.  Why doesn’t The Hierophant appear more?  Well, maybe he really does.  Look at the UFO thingee above him.  Is this also present in a way in the sky above The Wheel?  This Mystereum character dictionary of appearances reaches out and symbolically spices up the deck in many places, like characters on stage in a play.  Mystereum is not a deck of card soliloquies or monologues.  The whole deck is inter-related both in visual and spoken story.

More cameos to come . . .

I will be elucidating the story of the appearance of each character and symbol individually in this Presence-Of series one by one.  So, for today, I will simply express the Hierophant’s appearance in of course his own card and as well these 3 others where he appears . . . directly.  Enjoy this additional dna thread of personality and identity structure that weaves through the fabric of The Land of Mystereum.

The Hierophant appearing

in The Hierophant card visually expresses the story of a living spirit coming down to the earth in groups of people landing and walking about up and down his pyramid, playing on his legs, swimming and boating in his water — a bit like the stick-figured wall in the cave scene in The English Patient.  Is The Hierophant sitting IN the pyramid?  Is the Hierophant sitting in Front of the pyramid?  As his gorilla self’s Highness appears to be floating in his lotus pose . . . Does his sitting IN the pyramid and in FRONT of the pyramid compose the throne of the psychological connection of that which is within to that which is about?  Why is the pyramid made of red earth, or is it rusted iron?  Why is his robe of the orange chakra’d sacral region?   Yellow of Sun above and below?  Oops whoopsie, there’s another Tarot Birth Card Set present with that above and below gig, the Temperance~Hierophant Tarot Birth Card Pair.  I’ll stop for now with the question about references.  This paragraph is about to get too long, and non-derivative things take a little getting used to, huh?  I like that Harold and Milo explore their strange new worlds and find them enlightenly strange.  Alice does this too, though, I don’t know her as well as Harold and Milo.

I’m glad I wasn’t aware of the concept of Tarot Birth Cards when I was divining Mystereum, and that still they naturally occurred for the most part in what I felt was yay or nay about images and compositions.  We’ll have to see as I go through this Presence Of series.  Similar to my not even ever hearing of the Hebrew character of samech until afterwards studying the Tree of Life, and go figure, samech IS the pattern of the composition in the Mystereum Temperance card.  Mystereum’s Temperance card has the visual  O  with a top-flourish of it of the samech symbol.  Gotta love archetypes. Gotta love not having to know, and discovering them nonetheless.  It’s not really reinventing the wheel you see as that’s mostly only good for a tire designer. Some people call it beginner’s mind.  That’s cool.  I know it as “forgetting is for getting.  It makes more room for the good stuff” and “discover the age-old wisdom natually present in your emotions” to quote myself from my set of tires so to speak.

The Hierophant

• down-to-earth spirit
• alien ships
• the gnosis of the unknown emanating down and filling within and about to emanate resonantly into established knowing

The Hierophant appearing in the Page of Wands

card visually expresses the down-to-earth spirit of The Hierophant coming in at the base of the Page’s wand from the (unconscious) left.  There is an inception of the Hierophant’s established and wise down-to-earth spirit in this Page’s wand.  Is this indicative of his naturally expert skill in play that may be wise beyond his years?  Or, are kiddos simply smaller people, and people nonetheless?  Yup, I think.  With the core of personality pretty much fully developed by age 3 1/2 to 5 1/2 depending on which psychologist you speak to . . . The wise Hierophant imbues this Page’s wand to swipe through piss-poor socialization and magnetize the greatly further-formative experiences to his core personality . . . with ease and with the fearlessness of a child.  The Hierophant is here as well because the Pages are egg-teeth of sorts.  The Pages  both open the mundane egg of the world AND they act as the Marco Polo portal to the Higher Self egg-tooth penetrating into the Higher self, Your Royal Court in Mystereum.

The Hierophant cameoing in The Page of Wands

• coming in and across through the Page’s wand to XI Strength on the tip end

The Hierophant appearing in the Page of Pentacles

• There’s a Temperance-y above and below interplay between The Hierophant centered above (and flanked by The Magician and The Chariot) and the Page of Pentacles below being red-blue tatooed by his “magical down-to-earth-spirit on the move” of all 3 Pentacle.

The Hierophant appearing in the Ace of Cups

• rising spirit to well up and fill to overflowing to replenish Source
• welling up
• spiritually fulfilling emotionally
• the source of water (fulfillment) in my steps
• the source of watery things in my steps

The Hierophant appearing in The Wheel

• maybe this was simply an allusion to the Hierophant present, and maybe illusion . . . too.

Best to your own alchemical team 

supporting your Self filling the seats to cheer on your play!  Consider these characters to already have season tickets to cheer on your strong play.  There are no cheap-seats in your game of life.  Play well.  Play with the down-to-earth strength of established spirit with The Hierophant and The Page of Wands, Page of Pentacles, and Ace of Cups as teammates.  Play with the magical strength of YOU!  The Wheel may simply be the timekeeper or line judge.

Check out previous Presence Of articles to discover more about the coordinated dynamism present to support and further inform your journey throughout The Land of Mystereum.

• The Presence Of The Priestess to see her guest starring cameos and further inform cards with her presence in The Land of Mystereum.
• The Presence Of The Fool to see The Fool guest starring in cameos that further inform The Land of Mystereum.

Thanks for visiting!  Best to this “Presence Of” series more fully elucidating one of the naturally hidden structures that are alive and well in Tarot in the Land of Mystereum.  Much like construction documents and specifications . . . suffice it to say that these cameo appearances are a lot like Consultant Coordination . . . strike that . . . they ARE Consultant Coordination of the family of players character to character throughout Mystereum.  Huh.  Who knew?  Drawing pretty pictures is the smallest part of an illustrator’s job, like card knowledge may be the smallest part of a reader’s job.  And, the more you know, the more you enhance Informed Intuition.  If you’ve ever learned to drive a standard transmission car . . . and how are you with it now?  What about an automatic?  How are you with it now?  Similar to intuition I say.

All images and text (c)2010, 2011, 2012 Jordan Hoggard

Tarot in the Land of Mystereum is available signed by the author at www.jordanhoggard.com

Groc the videos at www.youtube.com/drawsalotmore