Images are the unspoken language.


I have always maintained that images and symbols were the unspoken language even before alphabets were developed. Alphabets themselves are symbols and images, that when put together form words and sentences, that can be spoken.

A symbol is simply an image that has been given a meaning. I find it interesting that although native Americans had several different tribal languages they never did develop an alphabet for recording a written language. They simply stuck with images and symbols that represented things or that told stories.

The images in the tarot cards used for divination all have meanings applied to them. In general, they have general meanings, but a tarot card reader can just as easily apply his or her own meaning to them.

Today, the cards I created are from fine art images and the meanings applied to them are traditional and also personal to me.

For my friends who also study the tarot, the images are a language. We could convey a feeling just by using the cards as a communication.

If I were worried about something and someone asked me. "How are you today?" I could answer that question with a card:



Which conveys the answer: Very stressed out.. very worried.

Images are the unspoken language and they are a universal language that can be used by people who can't speak the same language.

This is rich information that is full of wisdom. Thank you for another lesson you share with us.

As a non-spanish speaking living in California, I occasionally find myself drawing pictures on paper to communicate.

symbolism...I love it!!

It is a very interesting area of study indeed!

Great example of the symbolism with images!

from sociological research, the smile is believed to be a universal image as well...

Gee. It looks kind of serene to me. I thought it was some kind of meditative accupuncture representing pure bliss.

I guess I speak a different image.

here is another set of images...

http://www.rorschach.org/



is there anything that we think of that does NOT bring an image to our mind/conscious/vision...

Pattern seeking critters we are says master yoda.

If you saw the picture up close you would probably not think so. The swords are going into her head, she is up in the air about something. She looks very stressed. Besides for those in our group who knew this deck, they would definitely know what that meant. It was our personal language.

I think a picture is almost always going to be interpreted differently by each individual.

I cant see that picture too well either, and maybe id agree it shouts out stress, but there is more to the picture. What are those swords for? There will not just be one sole answer.

how much does memory impact our image perception?

if someone had been attacked with a sword prior, that would maybe give them an image view of stress, fear, death even...

If someone was a collector of swords, they may view the image as a "crown" of glory so to say...

someone previously saw them as a form of acupuncture, I wonder if that person has had acupuncture before...

all the images interpretations would have been impacted by memory...
can we view an image without bringing memory into the perception?

Unknown. Some symbols have meaning to the subconscious. Each person and society will interpret an image differently.

The swastika was a spiritual symbol. Hitler used it but he reversed the image. It came to mean something else entirely.

There is a whole language of symbols created and used by the hobo society or professional vagabonds and transients who are "homeless people." Also, graffiti by gangs have their symbols and meanings within their groups. These are all languages.

Unspoken languages.

Yeah, but then you'd be talking about a formal language where everyone gets together and agrees on what symbols mean.

In fact, even without having done that, in this particular picture everyone should know what a sword is, and swords sticking in heads aren't typically cool.

The more abstract images become the more varied impressions they will have on different people.

When you come to the level of something like a sword it becomes 'analytical'. In other words, swords represent war and battle, or power of authority by force. A sword is a weapon, unless you have a really big tomato you're planning on dicing.

In fact, if I made my own Tarot deck would replace the entire suit of Swords with the suit of Quills. Pens that represent intelligence. After all, Swords are associated with the element Air and Air is supposed to be associated with logic, intelligence, wisdom, and communication.

Ever since I've been studying Tarot I've noticed that most people actually use Swords to mean this very thing. Not being able to deal with situations very well via logic. And so the suit of Swords had become a symbol of difficulty and turmoil.

I personally see logic, intellect, wisdom and communication as wonderful opportunities. So when I read the Tarot suite of Swords instead of viewing it as a block that I don't know how to deal with, I view it as an opportunity to use communication and wisdom to move beyond the current apparent crisis.

So I would change the entire suit to be the suit of Quills and when those cards came up I would see them as opportunities to put the power of wisdom and communication to good use.

In fact, I already view the suit of Swords in this way. I try to choose Tarot decks that tend not to have gory Sword cards.

Instead of jabbing nine swords in my head, I'd have a picture of someone sitting at a desk with nine feathery quills in ink wells waiting to be used, and maybe one of them actually in the hand being used.

Optimisic Tarot.

This would portray the same stitation being handled in a different way. Instead of sitting around banging my head against the swords, I'd be contemplating what I could write about the situation, and to whom I might send the finished scroll.

Of course. That is what I am saying.

Images and symbols are the unspoken language. I don't know what you mean by 'formal.' It is not the same as words that can be spoken and have meanings. The images only convey a feeling or a story without words.

With your own tarot deck you can do anything you want. You can make every card mean something happy and positive if you want. (Unfortunately that is not how most people live their lives.)

Quills are a good symbol for mental activity I guess, but I like swords better.

I find the swords come up a lot with people who are always inside of their head analyzing everything, thinking too much, worrying, etc.

The worrying creates the turmoil.

How do we know that without 'speaking' about it?

Well that's true. It does seem that the masses do indeed have difficulty with rational analysis and with communication. So I'm not the least bit surprised that the traditional Tarot decks reflect this.

It just seems passive to me. By that I mean the images choosen for the Tarot decks seems to be designed around people's failings with logic and communication rather than being designed around what people should be doing about these things.

By the way, I'm not the only one who feels this way. I've read several books on Tarot where the authors have suggested the same things about the suit of Swords. They didn't go as far as suggesting it should be changed to a suit of Quills (that's my own personal idea). But they have suggested that Swords need to be viewed more constuctively and they have attempted to do this in their decks, even though they have retained the actual swords as the symbol.

Air is my favorite element. Logos, and communication are things that I am quite attracted to. So I'm truly drawn to the suit of Swords in Tarot because of what it's supposed to represent on the deepest level. Yet to me, the suit just appears to be everybody else's nightmare.

So I have a very profound intutive desire to make the suit (and logic and communication) more attractive and positive.

In fact, I do the same thing with some of the other suits. For example, the suit of coins (or pentacles) is supposed to represent the element of Earth and manifestation. Yet it has become almost entirely assocaited with finance.

Well, that's not suprising since, once again, the masses tend to buy everything they need rather than making it themselves.

Just the same, I perfer to think of Pentacles in terms of clay. Because clay can be molded into whatever shape we want. It better represtents 'manifestation'. The fact that we can barter with coins is also true of course, but for me, the real power of Earth is the fact that we can actaully construct new things from raw materials. I see the pentacles far more in terms of the actual invocation symbols rather than as money. Although, like I say, barter is always part of that too. But to lose sight of our ability to manufacture 'manifestation' seems to me to truly be a seriously sad thing.

Anyway, I'm just sharing my views. Not meant to expect anyone else to follow me.

We can know what a picture means to us without speaking about it.
It conveys feeling and mood that sometimes words are not enough to express. It could have several meanings and it could be meant to have several meanings.

We can know without speaking about it to each other, but we can never be sure if two people understand the picture the same way. But then that is true of spoken language too.

How is the feeling or mood interpreted in the brain?

Why would your brain need to interpret your feelings or mood unless you choose to use your brain for this analytical task?

A question like this just sounds like you need to explain everything in terms of the brain analyzing things. Like as if you're starting with the premise that you are your brain.

From the way JB talks I feel that she's made it perfectly clear that she is not her brain. Her brain is just a physical biological computer that she uses when she wants to analyze something in a logical and comparative manner.

It doesn't seem to me that people who are starting with such drastically different premises could ever hope to understand each other's vantage point.

Although I would think that they could at least understand that they are viewing things from entirely different foundational views.

My answer when posed with a question like you've just asked is that there is no need to interpret an experience unless I feel that I'd like to do that. If I chose to do that, I would probably also chose the context in which to interpret it. In fact, I could chose a myriad of different contexts in which to interpret feelings and moods and come up with a myriad of different interpretations most likely.

So who then is it making THAT choice?

Obviously not the brain.

At least it's obvious to me.

This is one of those basic fundamental premises that I hold to be 'self-evident' and if you don't see it as being 'self-evident' then we simply disagree on the primal premises and nothing more can be said about it.

We're simply starting with different primal premises, that perhaps we both feel are 'self-evident', but we could never hope to prove to one another.

It is automatic.