I asked the question where is food in the tarot and I got these five cards:
Of course getting 4 out of five as pentacles makes perfect sense, since pentacles represent the physical world and food is absolutely basic to our existence as material beings. Interesting there are no Major Arcana cards. And there is that one cups card, the Page.
The nine of pentacles is emblematic of the Slow Food movement. See the snail in the foreground? This elegant lady is obviously enjoying and at home in her environment. You get the sense that her people have been on the land for centuries and that she enjoys a rich life built on simple pleasures cultivated into artful living. The grapes are lush and ripe, the trees are green, the sun shines, she has cultivated wild nature through the falcon. She clearly has everything she needs.
According to Arthur Waite’s The Pictorial key to the Tarot the divinatory meanings of this card are: prudence, safety, success, accomplishment, certitude and discernment. These are qualities necessary to the production and enjoyment of slow food.
According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Food following are some of the objectives of the Slow Food Movement.
Objectives
The Slow Food movement incorporates a series of objectives within its mission, including:
- forming and sustaining seed banks to preserve heirloom varieties in cooperation with local food systems
- developing an “Ark of Taste” for each ecoregion, where local culinary traditions and foods are celebrated
- preserving and promoting local and traditional food products, along with their lore and preparation
- organizing small-scale processing (including facilities for slaughtering and short run products)
- organizing celebrations of local cuisine within regions (for example, the Feast of Fields held in some cities in Canada)
- promoting “taste education”
- educating consumers about the risks of fast food
- educating citizens about the drawbacks of commercial agribusiness and factory farms
- educating citizens about the risks of monoculture and reliance on too few genomes or varieties
- developing various political programs to preserve family farms
- lobbying for the inclusion of organic farming concerns within agricultural policy
- lobbying against government funding of genetic engineering
- lobbying against the use of pesticides
- teaching gardening skills to students and prisoners
- encouraging ethical buying in local marketplaces
Here is the page of cups looking at a fish in his cup. Cups are symbolic of love, communication and relationships. Is the page going to eat this fish? He looks more like he is studying it. One of Wait’s divinatory meanings is “a message.” It does look like this fish is delivering a message to the young student. What could he be saying? I imagine he is saying something like:
“Hi. I know you were probably looking for water in this cup and instead you found me. Well, I want you to know that I am the water. Without the water, I cease to exist. If you want to continue to enjoy us for your dinner, you must take care of the water. If you do not, your cup will run dry. Now give me a kiss and put me back in the water. I’m late for a class.”
The health of the animals (including us) is a testament to the health of our water, air and soil. We are all one. I heard Jeanette Armstrong in a talk about indigenous wisdom versus systems theory. She said her people would never consider the salmon without also considering the river. The Western way of thought is to reduce experience to individual, unrelated concepts. This strips our perception of inherent interrelatedness. Next time you think of a salmon, look at the image in your mind. Is it a dead salmon on a plate or is it a live, healthy salmon jumping up the sunlight waters of a running river? The former imagined salmon is contingent upon the latter imagined salmon. Try changing your mental image and see how you feel. I rejoice in the jumping salmon.
The three of pentacle doesn’t show anything living other than humans. They are using their collective efforts to erect a cathedral, which is a symbol of our highest spiritual aspiration, so you would think this was effort well spent. To my mind, something is missing, something that would enliven this work. It is love of nature. This card implies love for God since they are building a cathedral, but what about love of life and the animate material world? I’m all for taking the roof off this building, laying in some soil and inviting the townsfolk to garden and eat in living monument to our creator. Our Western tradition of philosophical separation of mind, body and spirit has run its course. It’s time to reclaim the body of the world and realize our highest spiritual aspirations through caring for our physical selves and our earth, this means, among other things, enjoying good, slow food.
The two of pentacles shows a guy dancing and juggling with the shape of the waves mirroring his motion. This card speaks to the dynamic nature of the natural world. In order to enjoy life one must become accustomed to its unpredictability. We are most alive when we are in the flow. Our bodies do this dance every moment we are alive as does the rest of the natural world. There is the water again. I get the feeling this guy is following the advice of the fish from the Page’s cup.
The five of pentacles is a continuation of the idea in the three of pentacles. Here is a couple of broken down bodies struggling with Nature as the monolithic church shines behind them. The church is of no help to them in this moment of physical suffering. Take care of your body. It is your cathedral. Do not suffer in the name of the spirit. That is an old, silly habit. Skip church this week and tend your garden. You will find what you need.
