Yesterday, speaking of the “Young Rose”, we left off describing the great jug that “holds”, in the tranquility of the Sanctuary, the great heart of the faithful ready to fill it with love. To know how much a vase can “contain”, we must know its “emptiness”, returning metaphorically to the darkness of the mother’s womb, ready to be reborn. In the dark centre of the unconscious we must search, and, when it appears to us, follow the glimmer given off by mental clarity, which can raise our state of consciousness. Being tarot cards – as initiatory tools – a set of obscure symbols, they become a subjective language. There is no collection of symbols comparable to these wonderful “court cards”, which reveal a wisdom subject to no suggestion other than that of mute images.
Delving further into the theme of the Silent Book, I would like to introduce you – as if there were any need – to Giulia Farnese. Everything has been written about her, and she, impassive, as she has done throughout these centuries, has never replied. Reflected images in front of a mirror allow only a few to recognize and to recognize themselves: only those who do not merely look, but truly want to see as if for the first time, will know how to turn a gaze into a story. Placed before mute images, our task is to discover what lies hidden. But a “magic” mirror reveals nothing to those who are blind in spirit. Since it is impossible to delve deeper on someone else’s behalf, we must use only our own will, since nothing and no one can make accessible what we do not see for ourselves.
The true secret always remains incommunicable; it cannot be transferred from one person to another – to possess it, we must “absorb” it. It awakens at the silent sight of things, without waiting for the prompt of human speech. I was only 13 years old when I first met Giulia among the pages of a book that praised the “efforts” of the Farnese family while belittling them, emphasizing instead the “pomp” of her fleeting existence. Finally, I met a person – obviously a woman, a writer from Viterbo – who, mea culpa, I admit only “revealed” herself to me a few months ago, even though our meeting seems more distant than that. She introduced me to Giulia – with whom she was already bound by a long, deep friendship – as one of her admirers and an emotional reader. I understood that our writer has managed, within this “magic alphabet” tied to the arcana, to put certain letters back in their rightful place, letters that had been mistakenly – or perhaps more deliberately – placed in the wrong one.
From the family’s “efforts” to the “pomp” attributed to her, she understood that Giulia can be identified only with the word “STRENGTH“. I myself, for that matter, had already placed her in the creation of the Arcana of Faul, in Arcanum No. XI: a happy coincidence. Roberta Mazzabarba is writing a story that Giulia seems to appreciate, even while continuing to remain silent. Roberta, like a confessor, manages to “listen” only to what the deafening silence can say, and seems to guess what Giulia continues not to say. The writer, with her “receptive antennae”, picks up even what merely vibrates in the air, and, like an interpreter of telepathic messages, “reveals”, as if it were an arcanum, the secrets and the truth of a woman whose life has been misrepresented by everyone, allowing her to open her “hidden” diary, kept closed for so long, because the truth does not always interest everyone.
“Truth is what is useful”, the truth sets us free. The writer told me one day: “Giulia is asking me to set her free”. In the photo you see, I embraced this mannequin, which in its “mutilation” represents Giulia; I undressed her, removing all the finery and the garments that had been sewn onto her, and in her nakedness she let herself fall into an embrace, woman to woman – sometimes wounded, humiliated, used, but always, deeply, STRONG in our solitude. Arcanum XI does not highlight physical, muscular strength, but the exercise of a feminine power – it is the mysterious force of the mind that dominates matter, the conscious and the unconscious. This slight figure holds open, with bare hands, the mouth of a lion, a carnivorous beast, the embodiment of undisciplined energies and passionate vehemence, which, despite its ferocity, once tamed, can render immense service.
Even the most negative energies must be captured and used the right way, purifying those that tend toward evil. To wield a strength, one must master it and know how to hold it back; this is the magic of those called upon to assert their personal influence at the decisive moment. No life should be viewed individually, but collectively; it rests on the joining of divergent forces that require a meeting point in a higher interest.
In this reconciliation, indispensable for the rise of the Farnese Family, lies all of Giulia’s mysterious power, represented in the tarot in Arcanum No. XI: taming the lion of passions represents the ideal that can be achieved by controlling selfish instincts. Perhaps she cursed her own beauty, which became an instrument of power in the hands of others, but now she can trust the hands of a friend who wants to tell her most beautiful side, the one that never interested anyone. When we manage to make symbols speak, they become stronger than words, becoming a riddle of a living thought. Faced with this human enigma, though continuing to remain silent, she keeps letting others speak. Just as the tarot are not slaves to words, in the same way Giulia lets the strength of her image speak.
I wanted to include the cover of this book because in this image, and in its title, there is a whole key to reading typical of the arcana. A small detail – in this case an accent mark – can turn a “legàme” [bond] into a concentration of love, just as “lègami” [tie me up] becomes a gesture of constraint, limitation, the impossibility of choice – a condition Giulia knew very well. In the same way, this “knot of love”, taken from an ancient drawing, can represent a sacred bond, wishing to remain eternal, just as it can represent a constraint, “a slip-knot” that takes your breath away.
In this fight against the accursed coronavirus, Giulia has taught us well how to direct our strength; she has shown us that it is not muscles that win, but heroism, challenge and courage. Roberta Mezzabarba
