THE TAROT WHEEL
GROUP 2 - HARDSHIP OF LIVE
The second group of seven cards is representing the many influences and difficulties you can encounter in life, both from within your own character as from the outside world. We call this group "Hardship of Life". Life is full of pitfalls, and you have to be strong to face them all. The Plague was still ravaging parts of Europe. Illness, accidents, murder, poverty, war, nobody knew what would come up next to make life like Hell on Earth. 16th Century painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder was a master in expressing this Hardship of Life, like in the painting here below, called "the Beggars".
Here below a second painting of his hand dealing with the Hardship of Life called "The Blind leading the Blind". He made this painting after an 15th Century original of Heironymus Bosch.
These paintings make you feel pity for the people struck by these disasters. The Tarot is warning you that any day you can be the next one.
Again we will encounter three pairs of cards, the first representing your desires, the second representing time and the cyclic nature of life, and finally two cards emphasizing that everything has an end. The message of the hand-painted cards of Visconti Sforza deck is a clear one that does not leave place for misinterpretation..
