20170301_GLR CARDS E_BOOK

GLR
CARDS
A Journey to your Whole Being
Nathalie Pilard

ISBN:
© Nathalie Pilard
All rightsof reproduction, adaptation and translation, in whole or in part, reserved for all
countries.
The author isthe sole owner of the rightsand responsible for the content of this book.

TABLE
• Goal of the cards and presentation of the author 4
• How to read the cards 5
• The cards of Structure, or the Kantian cards 8
• The cards of the Journey, or the trump cards 16
• Examples of reading 24
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GOAL OF THE CARDS AND
PRESENTATION OF THE AUTHOR
The set would be composed of a deck of the 39 GLR cards and of the book of their
hermeneutics. It aims at revealing one’s personality as a whole. The GLR cards can
lead the readers towards the parts of themselves that might be left behind because
of life or because of one’s own self-saboteur. Lacanians and Freudians would say
that this person in us has to do with our polymorphous superego. By fear, by
shyness, or by caution, the parts of personality in question are not revealed to
oneself. The result is viable, yet the person is not a whole being. Do you remember
the last time you had an artistic shock? At that moment, you killed the self-saboteur,
thus gaining free access to your soul. That was one decisive step towards your whole
being. Humanistic psychology’s goal is to reach that wholeness. Jungians call this
journey individuation. Letus walk together with the GLR cards.
My name is Nathalie Pilard. I am a scholar in Religious
Studies. I am expert in Psychology and Religion, which I
teach, and in the history of Esotericism. My latest book is
Jung and Intuition. Despite my lifelong interest in cards, I
became a specialist of Tarot cards by chance. As I was
working on my PhD, I had the occasion to give a paper in
one of the Vatican museums. Having been raised as a
Catholic, this meant much to me. I decided to write a paper
on ... the Popess. Each woman is the feminist that she has
the opportunity to be. The Popess is one trump card of a
Tarot deck. I soon discovered that my figurative collages
represented trump cards.
My name as a visual artist is Giselle Lila-René, GLR is my signature. I am French.
I started making figurative collages in France as I decided to go back to university.
My two activities, intellectual and artistic, are inseparable. It took me a long time
to understand and accept it because Giselle is sheer intuition and absolutely free.
My academic research led me to the UK, in beautiful Scotland. Once there,
because I changed language, my collages became abstract. Back in France, black
and white oil pastels expressed my soul in symbols, then came colour and finally
painting.
I have a secret name, aptly used as electronic password. That which this name
stands for I will not tell, but it is part of me, of my past and perhaps of my future.
On my (unfinished) journey to my whole being, I have had to put names on the
various living parts that animated my soul and life. Nobody has to do that. But we
all have several parts of our selves, just like we have several first names, nick
names, spouse names, etc. I believe that gaining awareness of the various parts of
one’s personality is a chance notto be missed.
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THE READING
There can be two ways of interpreting the hand gesture of picking a card among
other returned cards in a deck. It is chance. It is fate. I propose a third way, that of
the unconscious. As it picks one card rather than another one, the hand either
commits a faulty action or is guided by the unconscious. For the psychologist,
consciousness could be like a returned card, the immersed part of the iceberg to use
a famous analogy. The other side of the card could represent the unconscious with
its loads of potentialities. The GLR cards are saturated with symbols. They are like
snapshots of changing dreams, bits of unconscious, representing a totality in the
structure of a system, the game, itself the mirror of the world andits soul.
Be it by fate, chance, or unconscious, once the picked card stands in front of our
eyes, we become responsible for its interpretation. The readers need to be aware of
the central and most interesting fact that most of what they will see in the card will
be the result of their own projection on it. This is precisely that which is interesting
in the reading and where the readers will have the opportunity to learn the more on
them. The GLR cards do not tell the future. They inform the readers on their state of
mind, on their wishes, on their aspirations and consequently on their possible
psychological and spiritual progress. If a hidden part of your personality is present
in your life, it will probably appear in your reading of the cards. Your job is to
recognize it andto transform it into a life opportunity, into a new awareness.
There is not a single method of reading the GLR cards, but as many ways as there
are readers. I consider this moment one of peculiar intimacy and I use the cards to
better analyse my dreams, or each time I feel any psychological movement. Isolated
and calm, I shuffle the deck and cut it. The card on the top of the pile is my card.
Some consider the unconscious to be their soul and therefore the reading of cards as
a ritualized and regular meeting. Some others start their day with a reading. There
are no rules. As well, I put emphasis on the first picked card, often limiting my
reading to this single card. My rule is that I spend the longest time possible on the
card to attempt to exhaust its meaning. If I am not satisfied with a single card, I seek
for further enlightenment with another card, etc. But a person can decide to pick up
four cards from the start, for instance, or to decide with two cards that one card
represents someone and the other card someone else (the reader’s representation of
this person), with three cards that one is the past, the other the present and the last
one the future (again, the reader’s representation of the future). To me, the simpler
the better, for the GLR cards are rich in symbols and a symbol from the unconscious
is a giftnot to be ruined.
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TYPE OF CARDS
The composition of the GLR cards is simple. There are the cards that represent
structure – the Kantian cards – and those who represent the journey –the trump
cards. All cards will be detailed one by one. But the golden rule remains to follow
one’s own prehension andapprehension of the cardabove all explanation.
Cards of Structure
First motivated by that which we could unfairly call technical issues – the scandal of
the contradiction of Reason with itself – Immanuel Kant wrote between 1771 and
1781 his first “Critique”, the Critique of Pure Reason. Was he aware then that he
had created a system, the categories, that would become a centrepiece of western
philosophy and the inevitable authority on matters of human capacity of
comprehension?
Kant’s philosophy calls forth the human limits. Reason evolves in the boundary of
four categories: quantity, quality, relation, and modality. Concretely, one cannot
think outside of the frame of time and space. One cannot think either without one’s
own mind and that of any other on earth. Kant’s categories thus represent the
structures of consciousness.
• “Time” belongs to the category of quantity, itisour first four-card Structure section.
• “Space” belongs to the category of quality, itisour second four-card Structure section.
• “The other” belongs to the category of relation, itisour third four -card Structure section.
• “Oneself” belongs to the category of modality,itisour fourth four -card Structure section.
To articulatethose four notions, wewill describe one card from each category.
Cards of The Journey,or Trump Cards
The tradition has made the trump cards of a Tarot deck a spiritual journey of
initiation. They first represented the art gallery of rich North-Italian families, who
had chosen the most renowned artists to make cards instead of paintings on their
walls. The political and religious message of the families was strong. In their cards
they clearly fought the power of the Vatican. Milan was painted as nothing but the
Celestial Jerusalem, the last card of “Accomplishment”, Number 21; the Catholic
“Pope”, Number 5, ... had a wife, the “Popess”, Number 2. With time the card would
ironically become that of a valued high priestess. Traditions oppose each other.
Tradition evolves.
The initiation of the trump cards is that of the readers, it is their journey. With the
Structure cards they explore their limits. With the Journey cards they go in the
foreign countries of their soul, full of light and shadow. The GLR trump cards are
replete with symbols. They require the readers the most careful attention. Each card
needs to be meditated for its significations will never appear at first sight but with
time. And never more than with the trump cards the golden rule applies that one
card in one context can mean something utterly different than the same card in
anothercontext.
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TYPE OF CARDS
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EVENING
STRUCTURE / TIME
Colours are the most dominant element of the EVENING card. Orange and red are
the colours of the evening sunset, of autumn, which is the third season of the year
just like EVENING is the third card of the TIME section (composed of MORNING,
NOON, EVENING, andNIGHT).
Harmony and peace also seem present inside the orange circle. Evening could be
the right moment for rest... or for love, if we observe the two loving birds in their
cocoon likeout of sight. Religiously, EVENING can be seen as a protective circle.
What is the EVENING of the readers? What kind of time applies to their situation
when they read the card? Above all, what is their first impression when they see it
beyond any other consideration? I painted birds, but other forms can be seen, the
curve of a “C”, why not? Anything. The imagination of the readers is always a
priority for they read the cards to understand their own state of mind and the
contentof their unconscious projections.
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EVENING
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INTERIOR COLLECTIVE
STRUCTURE / SPACE
The original collage of the card INTERIOR COLLECTIVE is called “Loft” as it
abstractedly represents a beautiful apartment seen from above, or from an internal
balcony. This is my unconscious projection of a perfectly abstract construction. The
reader has not to see a flat but to follow his/her own impression. I will repeat this
incessantly.
INTERIOR COLLECTIVE is the first card of the four SPACE cards section, which
comprises INTERIOR PERSONAL, EXTERNAL COLLECTIVE, and EXTERNAL
PERSONAL. Seen literally, INTERIOR COLLECTIVE can represent a person whose
house is full, that is, who would be married and have children, for instance. On a
more symbolical level, the interior can represent the inner self, and the collective
the fact that some still unconscious aspect of the personality desires to express itself.
Which element of the collage couldbe this aspect, which form, whichcolour?
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INTERIOR COLLECTIVE
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THE BEST ME
STRUCTURE / ONESELF
Among the four ONESELF cards, THE BEST ME, THE PAST, THE HIDDEN ME,
and THE SOUL, I chose the collage “White Hub” that illustrates my book Jung and
Intuition. Surely I (unconsciously then) wanted to show on this cover that which I
considered my best me. This consideration, this gap, is the Kantian modality of the
self. The card will never represent the ego itself but our representation of it. We are
in a dialogue with ourselves.
THE BEST ME is well-balanced, its colours are complementary and soft, the central
hub is luminous. Its white can represent the potential blank page of a future work.
The tracing paper, which is present in the four ONESELF cards, aims at
emphasizing an area of the collage, here, the luminous centre. What is your
luminous centre?
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THE BEST ME
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TRANSITION
STRUCTURE / THE OTHER
The original oil pastel of the TRANSITION card is called “Neck”. I see indeed in it
the back of the neck of a red haired woman. This back is bathed in light. The
sensation of the sun here is delightful. Some see a baby with blond hair on the
bottom. Others see a tree with red leaves. All those elements carry strong
symbolism.
The neck is the part of the body which is the passage of the conceptual to the real,
the physical way from the mind to the active organs. THE OTHER here can literally
mean someone else and thus TRANSITION could express a will, a readiness to go
toward that person. THE OTHER can also stand for the worldand TRANSITION for
the birth of a so far project in real life.
The four cards of THE OTHER speak of how we can engage in relationship, the
Kantian category of relation. TRANSITION stands next to DEPARTURE, PEACE,
andSEDUCTION.
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TRANSITION
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THE FOOL
JOURNEY / THE CARD WITHOUT NUMBER
That the FOOL has no number makes him the person that is not entirely part of the
game. Like the joker of traditional card games, he has got some strange power, or
rather the power of the stranger. As such he can see better than anybody else, for he
has gotthe benefit of insight. But he is awarethat hewill remain the stranger.
The GLR FOOL is a hunter, busy with a hare. In the distance is the city. Does he
protect it with his shotgun or is he solely far from it, hunting? Between the two
places, there is a way, a difficult one (followed by Lot and his daughters, by Dürer).
Above the hunter in the blue sky stands a protective wing. Mary appears on it, da
Messina’s Virgin Annunciate, whose hands here seem to warn the man against
some danger. Our hunter is Velasquez’s Philip IV of Spain. King Philip considered
the inheritance of a large empire an inevitable condition. Historians still debate on
him being or not a good king. Did our Philip the hunter feel a stranger to his people
or was he a strong protector, like the lion on his gun, of his empire? Trump FOOLS
might not be those to be trusted, this is not their role, but they possess a knowledge
that nobody has.
Do the readers feel that they are the FOOL themselves, in a retirement of some sort
and from which they could learn by benefiting from a privileged point of view on a
distant situation? Do they think they have to deal with a FOOL and recognize
him/heras such? Is there some FOOL in them, craving from freedom or trying to be
protective? From Mary in the sky, to the king in the front, Lot and his daughters on
the way, to the people in the valley, the FOOL reminds us that distance puts things
into perspective but alsothat the unconscious is full of dark shadows.
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THE FOOL
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THE POPE
JOURNEY / CARD NUMBER 5
The anonymous Gentleman immortalized by El Greco has become our POPE. El
Greco’s portraits are known for their ethereal aspect. The man is here, fixing us with
the deepest gaze, and yet we know how much farther than us this gaze can go.
Watching the POPE card is like a privilege. With him, we are inspired to do our best
under his auspices. Forhimperhaps.
The colours of the collage from the red at the bottom to the blue at the top represent
the intermediary status of the POPE, who is suspended between earth and heaven.
A mechanism of a watch in earth tones is situated on the POPE’s heart to remind us
of his human condition, just like the broken piano. By contrast, his divine aspect
appears on his triple crown adorned with the divinities of Classical mythology (a
crown in fact composed of the original frontal plan of the Coliseum). Because Tarot
tradition has allowed a woman to live next to the POPE, I have imagined a feminine
presence in the back of his head. On the top left of the card, a white bosom is visible.
It can be that of Sophia, the Wisdom of many religions, and God’s companion for
some.
This description of the card cannot be other than full of emotions. They are only
mine. When I see an extraordinary softness, intelligence, and depth in this POPE,
you can feel otherwise. And most importantly you and I have changing impressions.
Sometimes the POPE’s grandeur does not bring me protection advises me instead
not to be too cerebral at the moment of the reading. Sometimes too, I focus on a
single part of the collage. What does it mean, for instance, that which looks like
flames at the top of the POPE’s crown?
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THE POPE
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JUSTICE
JOURNEY / CARD NUMBER 8
The keywords associated with the traditional trump card JUSTICE are justice,
balance, and truth. The GLR JUSTICE card links those terms to the relationship
that can exist between consciousnessandthe unconscious.
Watch the two characters of the card, both three-quarter portraits with a curtain on
the right. At the bottom left, and proportionally representing one twelfth of the
collage, stands Richelieu. In the middle of the collage, at least three times bigger
than the dignitary stands the young Maja from the Maja and Celestina on a
Balcony by Goya. This represents the right proportion between consciousness
(Richelieu) and the unconscious (Maja). The JUSTICE card urges the readers to
regain some balance between unconscious drives and potentialities and a
consciousnessthat might be too self-repressive of the formers.
Maja’s balcony stands between two solid domes, those of the Palais Brongniart, or
else the Parisian Bourse. Richelieu’s palace is no less concrete: he stands in front of
the Palais-Royal, but its proportion on the card is less important than the palace of
Maja. I, too, associate Richelieu with the Sorbonne that he renovated, because
university is an important part of my consciousness. In the Palais-Royal is located
the Conseil d’Etat, which is the French supreme court for justice. The justice of
consciousness is that of reality, nobody escapes it. But truth and balance are never
given but to be sought for in the depth of our true aspirations, with the aeriality of
Maja’s angels and with the confidence and softness of her gaze. Which Richelieu is
that of the readers: a man of power, a religious man? Which vital sap nourishes
their Maja?
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JUSTICE
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THE STAR
JOURNEY / CARD NUMBER 17
The GLR STAR card is that, logically, of the Parisian Place de l’Etoile (“étoile”
means “star”), at the top of the Champs-Elysées. On this Place one can see the Arc
de Triomphe, as in the card. The original collage is named “Triumph” after the arc. I
chose this name long after I made the collage as a result of that which this collage
meant to me. The traditional trump card of the STAR is the card of liberation,
revelation, and imagination. “Triumph” is the first collage that I made. It definitely
represents all that for me now. The GLR STAR card is also the card of the artist. The
artists know of liberation, revelation, and imagination. The GLR STAR card can be
the card of vocation andcalling.
Historically, the STAR card was linked to that of the MOON (Number 18) and that
of the SUN (Number 19) as astrological representations. The birth of Tarot cards is
interestingly situated between late medieval times and early Renaissance. The
astrological representations belong to the latter both artistically and religiously as
an emancipation of traditional Catholic images. Just like the North Italian families
fought traditions, the GLR STAR card is iconoclast. It exhibits three naked women,
three apparently immovable manikins wrapped with ribbon and wearing Breton
hats, yet moved to the top of the Arc of Triumph and of a Parisian building which
seems to dominate the Arc itself. At a distance, the Eiffel Tower is no longer a
phallic symbol but like the fourth sister of the “Three Graces” as indicated on the
street lamproad sign.
Surely traditional representations are disturbed on the GLR STAR card. Yet the eye
instantly catches the inner balance of the composition. Pure imagination, liberation,
and revelation have got room in consciousness. Do you give enough credence to
your imagination? Followyour luckystar.
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THE STAR
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FIRST EXAMPLE OF READING:
IN LOVE WITH LOVE
A four-card reading needs four pages of explanation. Observation and meditation
take time and mental space. Those are lines of approach that unite several kinds of
GLR cards to see how one person can articulate the various and varying meanings of
a reading.
The person who made the reading had chosen to pick four cards but as she returned
the first one, a big smile came to her face. She was a woman in her forties. Four
years ago she had divorced and had, since then, lived a difficult life. Her first
impression of the first card was the passion (red and orange) of the loving birds. For
the first time after four years, she had a glance at the possibility of love. We can read
this modality of the “possible” in the type of the first card: STRUCTURE/TIME. The
reading takes place in summer and the EVENING card represents autumn. This is a
coming season. Thisis the timing of that which emerges.
Her vision of “love” is reinforced by the three other cards. The fourth
STRUCTURE/THE OTHER card is that of SEDUCTION. On the card, she sees the
silhouette of a woman in a sexy blue and red dress. Her relationship with the other
in this situation of love is that of seduction. She is ready for that emerging state of
mind andmode of action.
The third STRUCTURE/SPACE card is that of EXTERNAL COLLECTIVE. Her mind
is directed outward, in the world. Her mind also sees this world with other people
than herself. This card confirms again that the love that she reads in the first card is
one that takes place in reality (EXTERNAL) andis one to be shared(COLLECTIVE).
Now the second card is more complex. The JOURNEY card of the FOOL invites a
first literal reading. The love in question has got an object: a potential man. Surely
we cannot miss that positive reading. Yet the FOOL is not any man. As an internal
part of the woman, it stands in this circumstance for a craving for freedom, for a
relief of the too heavy burden of a life of responsibilities without real joy. It
represents a past and a present that is still here despite the aspect of “potential”
seen in the three other cards. Those three cards are STRUCTURE cards, the state of
mind of the reader is clear. She is ready. The FOOL is a JOURNEY card. Right now,
in her psychological and spiritual journey, the woman is still at a distance of that
which she aspires to. But the fact that she becomes aware of it thanks to the FOOL
card can make things change.
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SECOND EXAMPLE OF READING:
ACTIVE SOUL
The person who made the reading did not know from the start how many cards she
would pick and felt satisfied after the reading of the fourth one. She consequently
read the cards one after the other with no knowledge of the nextone.
As she picked the first card, the woman wore a frown. The reading had taken place
in winter and clearly love was neither in her mind nor in her life. What then those
“not” loving birds of autumn could have anything to do with her?
She did not wait too long to pick a second card. The POPE. Now the reading could
make sense. She symbolically was one bird and the POPE was the other one, both
protected by the red circle of the first card. The woman had entered a dialogue with
her masculine soul. The woman was in her forties, and the POPE was obviously not
an equal, a soul mate, but it embodied in her view her deepest intellectual and
spiritual aspirations. Why would she need such a discussion in her JOURNEY, at
the time of the reading?
She picked a third card: the STAR, another card of JOURNEY. How was her mind
occupied with imagination? She had indeed several projects in progress that
required imagination, and imagination too had always been a close friend of the
reader. But the card also carried for her the idea of emancipation. Did the woman
have to strip as naked as the three Graces of the card? We have seen how the POPE
was clearly inside the reader’s mind and inside the protective circle of the first
EVENING card. The STAR started to open the reader to the external world.
The fourth card confirmed this outward direction with the STRUCTURE/THE
OTHER card of TRANSITION. The neck of the oil pastel indicated the movement
from the cerebral - the project(s) in question - to its realisation in the world,
symbolically to the moving organs of the body. The two last cards of both JOURNEY
and STRUCTURE thus indicated a movement. But unlike the one that we saw in the
preceding reading which indicated a readiness of action, the timing of this reading
was slower. The woman was in a middle-term motion, which was indicated by the
timing of the STRUCTURE/TIME card: from winter (the season of the reading) to
autumn (the season of EVENING). Three seasons could be necessary to transform
the project(s) into a living realisation. Symbolically three seasons represent a
woman’s pregnancy.
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