Date: Saturdays April 22, 29
Time: 2 pm - 4 pm ET
$99 Patreon Members / $110 General Admission

PLEASE NOTE: All classes will also be recorded and archived for students who cannot make that time.

Please note: Zoom invites are sent five days before the first class meeting. If you do not receive it, please email us at info.morbidanatomy@gmail.com.

This class, exploring the suit of Cups in the Tarot, is the third opus of a four-part series devoted to the minor arcana, their connection to seasonal change, and the philosophical allegories they present. Modeled after the concept of the Book of Hours, this Tarot workshop investigate the iconography of a specific suit, studied through the lens of art, history and mythology. Together, we’ll take a closer look at the story they tell, and see how these ideas can illuminate a path toward introspection. 

Water rising and tidal fluctuations: As we, land creatures, observe the ebbs and flows of oceanic movement, we contemplate them as an expression of our inner realm, a metaphor for our susceptibilities to the grand emotional dance. Submerging us, the waters of emotion drown our minds into gentle fantasies, sometimes against our will, often serving as a poetic refuge in which we drift away from rational perceptions. In the Tarot, the Suit of Cups invites us to visit the generative power of dreams and imagination, associated with the season of Spring, in which Nature autonomously reinvent itself. A slow, gracefully anarchic process of resurrection in which colors and shapes are in constant metamorphosis. 

In this two week interactive program, we’ll study the suit of Cups, its connection to the Spring equinox, the iconography of renewal, and the infinite emotional variations they conjure, from Lucas Cranach to Gaston Bachelard, Heraclitus to Melusine. Through evocations of art and history, parlor games, and discussions, we’ll also look at the narrative arch of the suit itself, and how to read these cards in the context of a reading or for more meditative pursuit.

Each student will be provided with private access to a virtual classroom, containing iconographical references, a bibliography, and a workbook containing daily journaling prompts and creative assignments to do in their own time.

French-born Laetitia Barbier is an independent scholar, as well as a professional tarot reader and teacher. She earned a Bachelor's Degree in Art History from La Sorbonne University Paris in 2009. Laetitia has worked with Morbid Anatomy since 2011 as a programming director, head librarian, and occasional curator. Her book Tarot and Divination Cards: A Visual Archive was published in 2021 with a foreword by Rachel Pollack. She is the author of the Tiger Tarot Guide Book, a unique Tarot deck by symbolist artist Lori Field. Laetitia has lectured, taught and read cards for various cultural institutions, such as Greenwood Cemetery, Fotografiska NY, the College of Psychic Studies in London or the Montclair Art Museum. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Images:

1. Melusine, stainless from the the Saint-Sulpice Church, 16th Century, Fougeres, France.

2. The Fountain of Youth, Lucas Cranach, 1546.

3. Ace of Cups, Formerly attributed to Antonio di Ciconagra, 15th Century, Victoria and Albert Museum.

4. St John’s Chalice, Hans Memling, 1483, National Gallery of Art, Washington