traps and being stuck

These three were part of a slightly larger casual reading I did for myself this morning. I thought the similarities in theme, differences in degrees were interesting to ponder a bit...

A bit of a bizarre scenario here, in this four of cups. It has a bit of an Alice in Wonderland type vibe, between, the juxtaposition of the fancy dresses, the sport turf next to the fireplace, the strange creature leaning over the chair with a class of something.

The woman at the center of the image holds a glass of wine. Her posture is that of dissatisfaction, boredom, apathy. We could call this scenario fascinating or uncomfortable, but the fact is, for her, the person in it, it isn't working. She doesn't want to be here, doing this.

She doesn't want to, or is indifferent. Dissatisfaction and yet she sits, keeps sipping from the glass. Ponders what she would rather be doing, but without actually getting up from the chair. Easier to sit and mope than to take action, create change.

Traps that aren't really traps except to the degree that we make them so. Times when we hold ourselves back out of lazyness, uncertainty, insecurity, caution. The trap that the path of least resistance can create. Perhaps change isn't even so hard to achieve here, but well - it won't happen without some effort, determination, will.

In the ten of swords we have a rather different image - a picture of despair, defeat, resignation. A woman sits in the middle of the floor, her dress pinned down by swords, another dangling just above her head. She sobs, face in her palms. Further away we see a letter, a bloodstained pen - and bits of red dripping from her hands onto her dress.

Was this a letter she received, some terrible news? Or was it a note she herself was trying to write, perhaps a last, melodramatic goodbye? What's interesting here is that, unlike in the classic RWS image, she isn't dead, isn't stabbed in the back ten times. Alive still but unmoving, ready to accept that fate, the final sword falling down onto her. There is no struggle left, only tears.

Why is that? This card is called Ruin in the Thoth. Ruin is painful, yes, dramatic, but does it have to be final? Are things truly as bad as all that? Despair and hopelessness - how they can paralyze you, blind you to any other options, possibilities, paths. Perhaps things aren't really so grim. Perhaps something can be rebuilt, or salvaged. But one needs to raise those eyes and look around first to find out.

Last perhaps is most difficult a way of being stuck. Another quite interest Devil image, we have in this deck: we see the goat hooves, ears, that goat that stands so central in the Thoth card. Here though it is anthropomorphized, woman and beast both. She wear's a fancy stage magicians garb, all show and effect. Not just the outfit too - the entire room we she is carefully decorated, classy with its tapestries, the detailed finishes on the walls. Black and white everywhere, two sides, stark contrasts.

Showy magician with so much control, sitting in the lotus position, balancing on her tail, almost floating. The barely visible occult circle hovers around her, behind her, power and danger you do not see until too late. The two human figures in her case must dance, perform like puppets. You cannot even see the string or chains that might bind them, control them. Whereas in the previous image, the woman could maybe move away if she would just stop sobbing and move the swords that seem so impossible to escape, here we have...the illusion of freedom, ease. We could stop it if we wanted. We could walk away if we wanted. If we wanted. Except the power of her influence is so strong, and the world beyond so frightening...and then, perhaps, trying to walk away and finding that it not so easy at all. Try and fail and try and fail. The devil does not care for our struggle. She floats and tempts and controls with so much confidence.

New deck free-writing exercise

This one is an exercise I thought of doing myself. In a lot of [creative] writing classes, instructors like to introduce the idea of 'free-writing' - essentially, stream of thought type writing. You take a prompt and you set a specific time frame, usually five or ten minutes, and you literally DO NOT STOP the entire time, just write write write and see what your brain pops out. I thought it would be a nice way to warm up to working with one of my recently acquired (and trimmed!) decks, the Dreaming Way Tarot. In this case, I shall give myself about ten minutes for each of the two cards I've drawn.
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I got this even though I feel that I have enough RWS tradition decks already because the art in some many of the cards enchanted me - something about the whimsical, fantasy-story nature of the images which nonetheless are not - unlike the Hanson-Roberts or Whimsical tarots - too childish or 'fluffed up'. The odd touches call to me, as odd things usually do. Like to like...

This devil is a perfect example. A female devil, which is fairly unusual (the only other deck that immediately comes to mind is the Victorian Romantic) who is wearing, of all things, a bright white dress. A modest white dress, at that. There is a straightjacket over it, however - what does that mean? Is the Devil herself, though holding the chains of the human pair, trapped and constrained? Or is is simply an affectation, a preference? I can think of two contexts for such bondage: mental health institutions in the recent past and the BDSM community. Repression or fetish or both?

She is dressed and the humans are naked, bare to the world. Nudity as vulnerability, clothes as power? When Europeans started colonizing the world they thought of many other cultures as savage for, among other things, they did not wear 'civilized' clothes. Look at the paintings of old, royalty wearing so many elaborate garments they could barely move. When cloth was expensive that was what power was. Today, celebrities wear next to nothing on magazine covers and that next to nothings still costs more than most outfits you or I could afford and so it goes. So much and so little changes over years.

A final observation - the two chained people, they are holding hands, clasped together, comforting each other. They have solidarity even in this dilemma. It is generally easier to bear things when you are not alone with them, isn't it? The reason why solitary confinement has always been seen as the harshest of punishments. Does the devil not care about this subversion, or is she too tied up to notice or stop them?

In contrast to the constraints, restrictions, chains in the devil, in the Two of Wands we see the familiar image of possibility, potential. The man is wearing white too but his garments are not so stiff - rather there are odd strings pillowing in the breeze, and checkered pants. He holds a globe in his hand, the world, all the places a person could see and go. The wands stand before him in the shape of a door.

Where will he go, then? This way or that, for him to decide and proceed; you can just barely see what seems to be a split in the road before him, two paths in different directions. In freedom, too, there is limitation: you cannot have everything, see all that there is to see. There isn't enough time, enough energy even for all of it. Jack of all trades master of none, they say about those who like to dabble and flit between this and that.

Potential needs energy, action to fill it out and make it real. Perhaps here on the right there are buildings, towers and houses, on the left there is fog and road and woods, and each have their advantages, different for each individual, but you cannot split yourself in half, go each way at once. In gaining you must also lose, let go, walk away. And after that, what good does looking back do, wondering if perhaps it was the other way that would have been best, questioning? Perhaps in real life not so bad as to turn you into a pillar of salt at a glimpse but nonetheless - a sort of chain.

If the thick stiff gown of the devil represents her overbearing power, the restriction inherent in dealings with her, and the nudity of her two subjects shows their vulnerability and desperation, then this man's clothes...we see individuality, a refusal to conform to any set traditions, the willingness to do something new. Who wears a hat with such straps, or checkered pants, or so many very long ribbons on their shirt? Not all are good ideas but that willingness to experiment, to do as you like and not care what people may think...admirable in its own way.

look at the semester ahead

So as I start off yet another semester of grad school and classes and suchlike, I thought it might serve me well to do a general reading about it - what too keep in mind, look out for, etc. Once again I am using my de la Rea tarot and the Comte de Mellet spread. This time, I got quite a few more pairs, and in reading them, a pattern kind of emerged: Major = Theme, Minor = Details.
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In the first pair we have the Devil, wonderfully illustrated here by the particular shapes of these masks (the gold paint really does look much nicer in real life) as well as the smoky effect in the background. In this pair, starting off the reading, we can see a kind of question: what is lost likely to hold me back, tie me down, limit me, take away my attention from the things I should be focusing on? In the minor, the five of cups, we can find that answer. In the Thoth, which this card reminds me of more strongly due to the colors (there too, we have the kind of bright orange-red, as the background), this card is called Disappointment. We have wilted leaves, a pentacle reversed - image often associated with the Devil card as well. In the RWS we have a figure weeping over spilled cups, focusing on what is lost rather than what still stands. Cup within cup within cup here, and on top what looks like a kind of egg or perhaps a pineapple. Shall we reach it, crack it open? Or is it too high up?

Devil is the tendency to focus on the negative, to get lost in feeling sad; a tendency to be blinded by obstacles; disappointment and resignation, weeping over spilt milk, over things that one may wish would get better but they don't, at least not much.

In the second pair we have the Fool as the theme question: Where and how should I be more like the fool, willing to go forward, willing to take risks, willing to have faith and to move forward even if it does mean being bitten in the shins now and again? The minor here is the seven of wands, seven wands firmly rooted in the ground stretching upwards, into the sky. Seven is the Chariot in the major arcana, a card of action and movement and small victories - and wands is the suit of personal growth, of ambition and creative energies. Valour, the thoth says, as as in here shows one powerful rod overcoming and controlling the rest, behind.

To be the fool is to take action and take risks, to DO even when the outcome would be far from certain. Face the world and face insecurities and be willing to challenge myself.

Our third pair presents us with Justice and the 2 of Coins, two cards that speak well to each other. In Justice, with her scales bound to her sword with a serpent that reminds me much of the Caduceus symbol used in medicine, there is the reminder that finding and maintaining equilibrium in life is important even if it isn't a Justice card year for me anymore? And how can I work on channeling this, balance, adjustment as needed. The two of coins, of course. The RWS image of the juggler, keeping the balls in the air with a steady hand: smart multi-tasking, prioritizing, focusing on keeping up with many things at once - and not just the obvious ones like 'x assignment and y application'; taking care of oneself is something that needs to be on the list too. In the Thoth the title for this card is Change, a reminder that life is dynamic, of the need to go with the flow. There are runes on the ribbon in this card - we can use them, and cards, and whatever else to help us navigate these twists and turns and that is fine, but do not resist or despair at the unfamiliar, the end of things and start of others. The snake eats its own tail into infinity because such is the universe, hello and goodbye, loss and starting anew.

Justice is balance, is prioritizing and juggling and switching back and forth as necessary; it is keeping track of things, not getting over-focused on the one task and letting others fall to the wayside. It is taking her of responsibilities as well as the self. It is working with the changes that may come.

Finally we have Death posing a suitably appropriate closing question: what should I let go of, put an end to, cut away? What things have passed their expiration date, their usefulness? Bits and pieces of once nice things lay scattered on the ground here, where the reaper walks and cleans, in his own way. The chariot racing into concrete action is advisable - the chariot racing around in the land of fantasy and dreams, not so much. In the RWS we often see a figure confronted with too large a selection of cups filled with two many things - which to pick, which to pick? Indecision is a a very great shortcoming of mine. Just this Monday I spent about fifteen minutes in the bread aisle while grocery shopping, unable to decide on what to pick to make sandwiches on because SO MANY OPTIONS. Feeling like there are too many options can be almost as paralyzing and difficult as feeling that there are no options at all. What to do, so many things, they spin and how could we grasp at just one, how could we decide? Old things and new clutter together, make a mess, and how can you pick out what it is that you really want, now?

In Death we find a need to sort and clear away the confusion, both physically (I have business cards in my wallet of people I no longer even remember at all 0_o) and mentally. In some areas of my life, it is time to step away from the abstract, to sort out a concrete plan rather than just think and dreaming and despairing. In terms of school assignments I would do well by just choosing a topic rather than wasting time that could be better spent on researching going back and forth with 'but i could do this...or This...or That!'. The blade is no worse than the clutter, and the time comes to make use of it, to cut through that fog that can erupt from the fountain of cups.

life as an adult

A puss in boots, sword at the ready: a new adventure awaits. The feline page of swords in this deck reminds me, in more ways than one, of childhood. I think of the story books I used to read, the ones that were never quite just about entertainment - Polish language all of them, first read to me and later on, me made to read them myself, out loud, language study drilled into my brain. I remember cassettes in the same language, stories listened to in long car rides back and forth between New York and Pennsylvania.

I remember playing at sword fighting with my then best friend, searching for perfect sticks, fallen tree branches we could use for our duels, pretending we knew something about proper posture and movement. Sword fighting in her grandmothers backyard and next door in mine as rain drizzled over our heads.

Everything felt so much more possible when we were kids. The first time I met her I insisted that I was a witch - according to my child logic, the fact that I could balance on my stairwell railing and jump off the side of it, several feet down, without hurting myself was somehow evidence of that. So many plans and possibilities and dreams that seemed real, then.

Perhaps it is because you have yet to collect so much baggage, as a child. So many memories and experiences, anxieties and fears, habits, compulsions. There aren't yet so many chains wrapping themselves around your body, trying hard to hold you down in the same place. The cat with the sword moves forward with confidence, ready to take on the new, sure of its own mind and intentions. The plain in front of it is so wide, so empty of obstacles. Clouds dance and sail through the skies.

When you are older you do not look so far ahead. You set small goals, reasonable hopes and even so...trying to conquer a single thing can be so draining, feel so impossible. You find so many tangled knots unwilling to be undone. A string of self-defeating behaviors and habits and issues and each time you try to leave one behind you find, after a time, that you have merely replaced one bad with another.

And all the while, trying to balance dealing with those chains with new beginnings of a different sort. Will they hold you back from moving forward in other ways? Or will it be a step forward here, a stasis there, all dichotomy and juxtaposition? Life is rarely so very clear, once you get beyond a certain age.

addiction metaphor

Maybe for you it comes in bottles, or neat little pills, or injections; maybe you smoke it out of packs with the large cancer warning labels plastered on the front; maybe it is too much or too little food, or both, by turns; maybe it's the way that you treat your body, hurt it, undermine it; maybe it's the way you let others take advantage of you.

Whatever it may be - the pull, constant, and the weight of that pull, comfortingly familiar and yet so damned heavy. Maybe there was a thrill of excitement once, at first, when you were younger, when the effects where still abstract, easily pushed aside, ignored. Maybe once you were impressed by your own cleverness - that it was different for you, not nearly so difficult or dangers as people were saying.

How easy it is to be fooled, by others or by your own mind, bit by bit. The puppet strings that bind you, the chains, grow tighter slowly. Patterns develop over years, habits that become so ingrained that it becomes near-impossible to remember how things were before.

You drag yourself forward through the grass, back aching, balancing that burden that is yours to bear, always. Do you see people standing upright in the distance? Yes, you can see them running and laughing wildly and you wonder how that can be, how they can move so quickly with so much energy when it takes so much determined effort for you just to crawl. How can they be so free?

How? You grow so tired of it. You tell yourself that enough is enough - today will be different. This time, I will stop, I will do something different, I will refrain, take control of myself, my life. You tell yourself and...hours, days, a few weeks and...there it is, that devil, attractive as always. You know damned well by now whats behind that handsome facade - the shame, the dozens of tiny humiliations that slowly wear away at your soul, the things you'd once have sworn you'd never do that now you brush off with a certain nonchalant air because what else is there to do, what choice do you have. You see and yet drawn you are all the same.

The devil you know. He crushes you - you body, your soul, your mind - in tiny increments that add up to so much over years, and long after you know damned well what he is all about, long after you grow so sick of the same, miserable repetition day after day...break away for a few moments and return. Do it again. Dance away from the big changes, breaking that chain for good because...the devil you know. That pentacle glow, that dazzling, false light which remains...so familiar.

quotes and a new deck

As much as I did enjoy this time with my most favorite deck, which was especially lovely as I was getting acclimated to my new surroundings, it doth be time, one feels, for another switch...

"It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways." 
-Buddha

“Every time you are tempted to react in the same old way, ask if you want to be a prisoner of the past or a pioneer of the future.”
-Deepak Chopra

"Hold yourself responsible for a higher standard than anybody else expects of you. Never excuse yourself. Never pity yourself. Be a hard master to yourself-and be lenient to everybody else."

-Henry Ward Beecher

My Favorite Majors: The Devil

So...this is clearly a pretty...dramatic major, shall we say. One with a lot of potential baggage for a reader to bring to the table - fortunately for me, no such baggage exists, and all is groovy so far as readings with the Devil are concerned :]

Another of those majors with an interesting variety of takes on it between different decks, some of which are quite stunning and others, in my eyes at least...rather disappointing. It's one of those majors where...a certain effect is really expected, to me. That said, I found it a bit amusing that my favorites for this are from what are probably my top two most favorite decks...

XV. Devil

Favorite:

Another win for my dear Nusantara tarot. What can I say? The card keeps the composition and much of the basic imagery from the RWS, but again, redoes the artwork in a way I much prefer over the original. Essentially, one of the things that this deck does that I really like is just...removes all the basic Christian imagery/undertones, something that has always...not connected with me particularly, in the RWS. Instead of that stiff, stern classic devil we have this figure, which SO draws my eye...he is dynamic, compelling, strange but not totally unlikeable, almost amusing in a way, with those pinstriped arms, the face. You could see how he might draw people in. And likewise, the figures here look suitably oppressed...the added modesty here is a bit funny, if you think about it, but the artwork flows so well that it took me a while to even really notice it. I love the color scheme over-all, and yeah. A definite favorite here.

Runner Up:

This card, which hews a bit further from the traditional imagery, is just perfect as a representation of this major. Why? Because the devil is sexy. Even as a computer generated image printed on a small piece of paper...he is sexy, physically appealing, alluring. An aura of danger and yet...and THAT, exactly, is so much a part of the devil, when you think about it. How would he get those followers to chain up, if he was only ever stern, foreboding, scary? And when you think about the issues this card often speaks to in a reading - addictions, abuse, self-destructive behaviors, manipulation - so much of that revolves around...that same concept, the terrible interweaving of that which calls to you and that which hurts you, that stupid appeal of things you should run far away from, the danger of things that would keep you stuck. You SEE here, even, how he is holding that fool captive, manipulating him like a little puppet, and the symbolism of the pentagram and yet...isn't he still appealing? That juxtaposition just captures the essence of this card perfectly for me.

Story Time Again

Decided to see what I could do with the Tarot of the Master and the story exercise...

There was once a demon. He was not a particularly large demon, nor a very clever one. He could not compete for any of the choicer territories, the rich little corners where a right-thinking demon could make himself merry and rich on the mischief he caused. No, this demon was shoved aside by his superiors. So he moved elsewhere, traveled far into the countryside until he found a little village where no other demons lurked, or other creatures which could cause him much trouble. The demon set himself up in a cave over-looking the settlement, used small magics to shape his new home to the image of his liking. There he sat, amused himself, argued with his own tail. He prowled and spoke in tongues. He rained any number of curses down upon the village: crops withered, dinners burned, valuables were lost; misfortune, once a rarity for the villagers, became an all too common occurrence. The villagers were not naive, not stupid: they figured out soon enough the cause of their trouble, the demon the lived in the caves, but none were bold enough to challenge the thing in any way.

Then the woman came. She was a village girl really, once an odd child that played with the boys and bothered the blacksmith rather than the baker or the village witch. When she grew old enough to be married, she chose to leave the village instead. She traveled further than any of the villagers could imagine, went on any number of quests and adventures. She learned to fight with swords and staves. She fought with men whose names the villagers would not have even been able to wrap their tongues around to say. She befriended a lion; utterly loyal to each other, the two hunted beats and creatures in forests and deserts. At night the woman carefully brushed the lion's mane. Finally she had decided to visit the village of her childhood, to make peace with her aged parents and see what had become of her childhood friends. The villagers eyes her lion nervously when she returned, told her grim tales of the demon, the troubles it brought. The woman listened, nodded.

At dawn the next day, woman and lion climbed the steep craggy hill up to the caves. The demon's cave, distinctive, was not hard to find. They strode into it. The woman called out the demon, who was shocked that mere humans dared to invade its cave. It opened its lips to utter a curse, but the lion pounced before it could speak. They fought - a short battle, for the demon cared much more of survival than of dignity or honor. It flew out of the cave, flew far away from the village. Satisfied, the woman scratched the lion between the ears. They set the demon-cave ablaze, watched its trinkets and magics burn. Then they returned to the village.

Seeing the demon cave burn. the the monster flying away, the villagers rejoiced. They threw a parade for woman and lion, wreathed them with laurels and colorful ribbons. The woman was given a beautiful sword made by the village blacksmith, and the lion the choicest meat from the village butcher. The woman went on to have more adventures, and the villagers settled back into a simple, contented existence.

Desire/ Defy/ Escape Spread

I saw this spread somewhere online a while ago...might have been Tarot Dame's blog...anyway, I liked it, so saved and decided to give it a go.

All three cards came up Reversed in the reading. That being that, reading them as reversed but posting here right side up for ease of viewing purposes...

Desire

Reversed Devil? Why yes, quite very appropriate here indeed. Terribly appropriate, actually.

I can't/don't want to get into why, here. Let us just say that it is a very much a 'Devil' type problem, one that I've had for a very long time, that just gets worse and worse and sucks in more and more of me and yet I never really do want to stop, do something about it; at least, not enough to make it happen. Things have been particularly bad in that front lately and as I commented on marina's blog a couple days ago...the metaphor of the tower that needs to be knocked down, but that you don't quite have it in you to do the demolition...has been on my mind.

Other things along the same lines ongoing issues too. A couple of people I don't really want in my life anymore and don't really know how to put an end to those relationships definitevly. Problems with roommate making me feel trapped and uncomfortable at home and trying my best to make that better and yet it...isn't, so far at least.

I just feel very trapped and very sick of so many things. Keep wishing I could just...run away. Be free. Unchain myself and not be here, like this, me...

Defy

Also quite appropriate to my situation right now. See, whenever I am having a particularly bad time...I really just want to withdraw. Isolate myself from everything. I guess it's the Cancer in me - shell, yes, crawl into shell.

I can't, though, not really. I have classes I need to go to, and once I'm there I have to talk and participate because well, grades are affected by participation and so is learning more generally and for the amount of money these classes cost...I better be making the most I can out of it. And I have work, and all the small talk that goes with that.

And really, even in personal life...I am trying, still, somewhat. The once or twice phone call or parents, occasionally actually calling back a friend, and online especially, posting and commenting...trying not to be so hermit-like. I could really be doing more in this direction though, and I know it. Have been letting myself slip back into that isolate isolate mode, which isn't great for many on any level, and I think that this card is trying to point that out.

Reach out. Try harder to connect. You don't have to handle everything alone all the time. Really.

Escape

Ha. Like I said...kind of have been overwhelmed with the desire to escape from...everything. Anything. The world as I know it, as I have constructed it around myself. The way that everything can narrow in around you to a small handful of issues that you can barely see beyond and those increasingly just become...so tiresome, too much.

Also, I suppose, reversed World is apt in that...this pervasive feeling that no matter how hard I try, or what I do, I'll never really achieve much, accomplish anything, go anywhere, do anything. That there will never really be the kind of self-fulfillment that I am looking for. No nice happy ending. That everything is essentially pointless. I think this is really, on a deeper level, why I lack the motivation to really do what I need to do to free myself of all those devil things...

By the same token, I think this card is saying that this kind of thinking is exactly what I need to 'escape'. If failure is inevitable and everything has no meaning then why bother freeing myself of those chains or engaging with people/world around me, right? But of course, you can never achieve if all you think about is negativity, the world upside-down...self-fulfilling prophecies and all that.

Want to escape from the tangible world around me. Need to escape from the faulty constructs of world i create for myself in my head.