Amazing Aces: Cups

So, to continue with the favorite Aces series, we move onto the second of four - the Ace of Cups. In contrast to the Ace of Swords, which as I wrote before, tends to have that kind of dual nature - new starts but also cutting away the old, severing, the cups Ace tends to be more uniformly positive in meaning - then again, the cups suit in general, one could argue, is a more positive suit.

What does it represent in readings, this Ace? For me, it's usually about new beginnings, opportunities which will be emotionally fulfilling - things that call to your soul. It can be the beginning of a new relationship, a new friendship or romance; it can be the start of, or an addition to, a family. Good feelings, intuitive growth, taking things to a new level with something or someone you care for. So which decks, from my current collection, do I feel represent these ideas best?

Swedish Witch

I really like how the Swedish Witch tarot presents this Ace. Like the rest of this deck, the card's artwork is rich with symbolism, without seeming overly-cluttered or busy. It takes the traditional Ace image of the large cup and really spices it up with a lush background - pond with reeds and lily pads, frogs and fish and colorful birds, even a mermaid sitting at the base of the cup. You get the sense of a warm, comfortable, nurturing environment. It's an ecosystem, symbiotic, natural, everything coming together, each creature with its own niche in the grand scheme of things.

The sun rising up out of the cup really shows the positive energy that the ace often represents, the light that these kinds of opportunities can bring into your life. In the unicorn that decorates the cup, I see just a bit of whimsy, a bit of the fantastical - permission to let yourself dream, to let your fancies take you wear they might, to let your guard down and simply enjoy what's here in front of you today. 

Victorian Romantic

The Victorian Romantic's take on this ace is another firm favorite, taking a rather different approach to the card. One of the things I really enjoy about this deck is the balance it strikes between maintaining a firm RWS influence while having enough of an original aspect to each of the cards that there is plenty to read in the images without resorting to purely standard meanings. Here, we have a lovely picture - the artwork itself is just incredible - of two nude figures meeting under water. One sits in the shell, the other meets her from above, bathed in a shaft of sunlight.

Is he approaching or being pulled away? It's a bit hard to tell, open to interpretation. The bond though, the strength of their connection, is obvious. They are willing to overcome obstacles, the pull of the waves, to meet. If this is a beginning, what will follow? The possibilities are many. In their nudity, they allow themselves to be vulnerable, to see each other as they really are. The old-style natural body shapes here a welcome relief from too many decks with too-perfect slim and tones and bustily presented forms. The color palette is incredible.

Golden Tarot of Klimt

Finally, we have an ace from the Golden Tarot of Klimt. Unlike the others, there is no elemental symbolism in this card, or in the minors of the suit generally. The color palette too, is rather different. Usually I like my Aces to be watery, so why pick this one? Honestly, I though the image we are presented here was perfect, conceptually. What's interesting about this deck is how both this card and the two of cups have couples. But whereas in the latter the couple in naked, familiar, intimate, embracing each other in what seems to be a time of distress, here we have a picture of the relationship at its beginning.

Here the couple, though firmly drawn to each other, is still at the start of things. They are dressed rather formally, as if for show. Their embrace is likewise proper, with a certain element of stiffness, distance - they aren't yet, in spite of their developing feelings, quite comfortable together. And there are the roses everywhere, beautiful, tokens often given at the start of courting. They still mean something, here. Later, simply a touch, the presence of the other would be enough. There is potential, still undeveloped, here. The relationship can grow, like a well-tended rosebush; or wither, a plant neglected. 

My Favorite Majors: The Star

This is, in just about every way, one of my favorite cards. In terms of artwork, it is very often one of the most excellent of the majors in a deck - in fact, I can think of several decks I don't particularly like overall, but which have amazing star cards. I love the concepts behind the star (not least because it often comes up in readings right when I most need it) and love seeing how it is executed in various artistic styles, color palettes, etc.

I kept putting off writing this post, in fact, because I didn't want to have to CHOOSE between a handful of favorites from among my decks. Like I really, really had trouble narrowing it down to just TWO. But, those are the rules I set down for myself with this post series, and so...

XVII. Star

Favorite
I realize I have quite a few cards from the LotD up here in the favorites; in my defense, the majors are my favorite part on that favorite deck of mine (have a more issues with minors/courts) and...well. What can I say, I guess. I really, really like this card both on a visual and on an intuitive level. The colors work perfectly for me...blues, with just the right amount of white light, the right amount of shadow...this is a card served really well by those fade to black borders, methinks.

We have ruin at the bottom of this card - some kind of ancient structure, or perhaps the wreckage of a ship, jutting out of a pool of stagnant water. The way things can fall apart and then stay there, in pieces, as if to remind us of those previous failures. But then we have the woman, the fairy, whatever the figure is, really, real or unreal, drapes in scarves, pulling a stream of stars out of the water and connecting that with the stars in the sky above. Salvaging, healing, renewing, guiding. So many ideas to build off of in a reading from this one image. The card really speaks to me.
 
Runner Up
As I said, it was really difficult to choose just two favorites for the star card. Ultimately, I went with this as my second, the Star from the Golden Tarot of Klimt. It hews pretty far from the traditional star images in the RWS/Thoth/TdM traditions. It doesn't even, arguably, at first glance present the same kind of mood/feeling that the star is usually associated with. But as I wrote a while ago when working with this deck, that's kind of what I really appreciate about it. This card speaks of the realities of hope, realities of the times you need it, realities of where you can find it. It presents the less idealized, less stylized representation of this major. It speaks to be very viscerally on an intuitive level, and presents a nice change and a challenge in a way that the traditional image of a pretty woman pouring water does not. Also, especially in real life with the gold foil...this card just is artistically stunning.

Remembering and Forgetting

So, as things start entering into a new phase, new ventures and adventures and major changes, wheels spinning, all of that - decided to take a moment to reflect a bit on the recent past, the last few months. A simple two card spread reading:

What is worth Remembering - What it is best to Forget

I. Remembering...

Seeing this card, I am reminded of just how difficult a few months it has been, in many ways. I try to stay positive here - the cards, after all, are my outlet for gaining perceptive and insight as well as motivation for self-improvement, and so using them to just dwell on the negative is not what I am wont to do - and yet...it has been hard, sometimes. Between being overwhelmed with schoolwork, not having the best time with mental or physical health, frustrated by attempts to rectify either...

There have been times when I really wanted to give up - wanted to say that this was all just more than I could handle, that there was no way I could get through all this without failure, defeat... The woman sits here, curled up, naked, those cold swords in front of her and yet...she looks back. Her eyes aren't buried in her hands, crying in pure despair...even here, she looks for a way out, a way to make the best of her lot, assessing...

And indeed, I have worked and tried, begged for extensions and apologized when needed, foregone sleep, sometimes resorted to not the best or healthiest methods of coping, but carried and and carried on and I have gotten through. Academically, I am confident that my performance will be nowhere near failure. As for other things....yes, ongoing problems and issues I must still work on but...not defeat. As long as you keep trying, keep struggling, force yourself on...you can move past, move beyond, claw your way up through even the most difficult...

It also occurs to me though, looking at this card...well, she had to get to that position somehow, didn't she? Perhaps if she had tried to do things a bit more wisely, she wouldn't have ended up naked in front of those swords. How much of my stress could have been avoided if I had...dunno, taken on less, managed my time better, tried to deal with more of the underlying issues...worth further consideration, but that exactly is the point: what to take away from situations like not is not only wisdom about DEALING with them, but also some consideration about how to PREVENT/MITIGATE them before they get to more distressing levels...

II. Forgetting...

It's interesting how, in contrast to the woman in the previous card, this one - with the same hair, same coloring - is fully clothed. And so properly clothed, at that - stiff and formal. Putting on appearances much? Pride?

She looks forward - at first it seems she is very focused, but looking more closely...appearances again. Perhaps in fact she isn't 'there' at all. Look at the body language: day-dreaming, stuck inside her own world, her own head. Too many things going on.  Too many distractions. Too many options and possibilities and cups, floating around her. Too many thoughts and too many things to do.

This card is indolence in the Thoth and turning away, moving somewhere new in RWS...here it's neither of those, quite, and yet a bit of both. Unable to fully be in the moment, a certain kind of disconnect, floating, there but not really engaged, the distraction...

True enough of my experiences really, at times. I can really connect with the idea of...SEEMING to be there, focused, proper and yet really...not 'there' at all because there just so many things going on... The less useful aspect of the same circumstances described in the previous cards. Dwelling on those distracting things, non-proactively, will only distract further. Best leave them behind. The whole mindfulness concept: really be in the moment of the moment you are in.

So, officially:

So yes, I have been hinting and alluding to, but as it is a strong tendency of mine to...not like to talk about potentially exciting things too explicitly, or even much at all, until there is a real element of certainty...

I sent my deposit via wire transfer this morning and I'm in the process of figuring out/booking plane tickets, so I suppose this is pretty near-certain, now -

I am going to Tunisia. Ten weeks, from the start of June until mid August. I will be in a language school studying Arabic in Tunis. I found it myself and worked it out on my own, so its significantly cheaper than anything I could have found arranged through my school or the like. Still a bit irresponsible, in that...I am using student loans to pay for the whole thing but...

Sometimes you really just have to purse the things that call to you in life. To make things happen, to DO instead of just thinking or wishing or dreaming of doing. I am going to Tunisia, alone, so that I can study Arabic and practice French and explore and take pictures and maybe find somewhere to volunteer and yeah...

Very exciting stuff.

Sadly, there is still a LOT of things I need to take care of before I go, and not so much time to do it all. Yes yes, we know, that seems to be the story of my life lately...

Got this card twice in as many days. The message is apt. There is that mask of anxiety, of fear, of feeling so incredibly overwhelmed. But it IS a mask, something to hide behind, something I hold out in front of me like a shield.

Behind it, if I dig deep enough, there is that stubborn, stoic face. Beneath the mask of panic is the cool head that can face anything, can somehow manage to deal with all of the things that MUST be dealt with. Just need to...find the strength, and the wisdom to...remove that mask. To find the edges where it splits, where one reality separates from the next - the inner and the exterior.

Yes, it is time to find and channel the me that exists beneath that all too easy, desperate gasp of this is too much, I cannot handle this.

variations on hope

These cards...the effect of the gold emboss that just can't be translated onto a computer screen...definitely more stunning to have them in front of you...

Anyway, I really, really like this take on the Star, I must say. Usually the star is such a positively drawn card, so hopeful...and yes, it is after all, the major that deals most specifically with the concept of hope, and yet...in a way, by illustrating it so nicely, it almost takes away from the flip side - the fact that, when you need hope most...the times when seeing that star card's message can be most helpful...those are the times when things aren't going so well at all.

We see two figures here - bony, scrawny, near-naked. One of them buries her head in the embrace of the other who holds her, comforting. Sometimes that's what hope is: the person or thing that you can turn to, when things are most difficult. The shoulder you can cry on. Reasuring words. A hug, a pat, a friendly squeeze of the hands. More, less. The knowledge that someone is there, listening; that someone still cares enough to stand there with you in the dark, among the small, glittering stars.

And sometimes hope can be found in the other end of that too. Sometimes, when you just can't seem to find it for yourself...the act of helping someone else, the act of offering support, of having to reassure, say nice things because someone is crying, upset and you want to make them feel better...it can brighten, lighten things for you too. If you say it to someone else enough, it may start creeping back into your mind too, bit by bit, the light. Things you may not be motivated to do for 'me' you may in fact get done if it is 'we' that you can focus on...

Hope in giving and hope in getting, in being alone and in finding someone else. Hope born of difficult, of shivering in the dark, of learning to do without clothes. Hope in a touch, hope in breaking away, hope in the promise of something more, eventually. Hope etched into skin and hair. Hope in the distance, in the abstract. Hope in memories and dreams. Hope hidden in the corners where you'd never think to look, normally. Hope from the people and places you'd least expect. Hope from within you, long after you thought you had none of it left. Hope that blossoms in the moments when you are certain you have nothing left to spare. Synthesis, Symbiosis. Hope in touch, in sound, in the glittering gold detail.

making things happen

Having those two options in front of you - the choice, those possibilities - is certainly difficult. You ponder and write and try to figure out what exactly it is that you want, and how to come to a decision...

But what about after, when you finally settle on an answer, finally commit, in your own mind, to truly putting your all into making that vague plan into a concrete reality? It is easy to stare nervously, anxiously at the doorway in front of you. It dwelling on the sudden realization of all that you still have to do with a certain sense of dread. It is easy to wish and to dream, and it is easy to worry and fret. Yes, it is easy to stand in place doing all of those things.

What is harder - necessary, but certainly harder - is actually buckling down and taking care of all of the concrete details, the tasks ahead of you. To look down at that long To Do list, take a deep breath, and start to actually take care of those things, one at a time.

What is necessary now, once you've determined that you WILL pursue this, is to slog on through the muck, to trudge forward through all of the little obstacles, the difficulties, the tediousness. A pragmatic approach is necessary, and a certain bit of determined stubborness. Force yourself on even when you aren't feeling it,  when you just feel overwhelmed. Force yourself forward even when you fell terribly, terribly tired.

The truth is that yes, I have decided, truly decided, to try to make something that would, to me, be an absolutely amazing experience a reality. And to do that I must get very many [often frustrating] things done in a very short period of time... I find  that I don't read as much with reversals these days as I used to, but with this deck, doing so feels particularly appropriate:

The Tower is usually about great, sudden, painful change. Necessary trauma, the tearing away of the old... Here, reversed, we see a different kind of transition: they are not falling, these haunting, skeletal figures, so tired and starved. No, instead they are floating up - floating on a stream of the etheral dreams, floating away from below, the suffering etched onto their bodies, their skin.

Sometimes when that sudden traumatic change just isn't possible... Another approach: the slow building up of something new, brick by brick, limb by limb. An escape, if only for a time, from the familiar, those thorned restraints. Perhaps this cannot be that true, permanent shift, the violent knocking away but... it is a hint, a taste of that freedom. It is the chance to see how it feels to fall, to throw yourself into something higher up.

new deck, on action

Working with the Golden Tarot of Klimt this week. The deck is a lovely one...sadly, due to the nature of the gold gilt, scans can never quite do it justice... :[

"Life is very short and what we have to do must be done in the now."
- Audre Lorde

“In each age men of genius undertake the ascent. From below, the world follows them with their eyes. These men go up the mountain, enter the clouds, disappear, reappear, People watch them, mark them. They walk by the side of precipices. They daringly pursue their road. See them aloft, see them in the distance; they are but black specks. On they go. The road is uneven, its difficulties constant. At each step a wall, at each step a trap. As they rise the cold increases. They must make their ladder, cut the ice and walk on it., hewing the steps in haste. A storm is raging. Nevertheless they go forward in their madness. The air becomes difficult to breath. The abyss yawns below them. Some fall. Others stop and retrace their steps; there is a sad weariness. The bold ones continue. They are eyed by the eagles; the lightning plays about them: the hurricane is furious. No matter, they persevere.”

- Victor Hugo

“There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.” 

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Why Do I Collect Decks?

So I wrote a post response to a question on AT, and I liked what came to mind enough to want to expand on the idea here so....

Collecting Decks

So I have some 30+ tarot decks at the current moment, which I do not think is a particularly notable number by the standards of Aeclectic membership but which is, by the standards of the wider world, quite enough to be called a 'collection' and to qualify me as someone who can reasonably say that I collect tarot decks.

And I suppose I do, though for various reasons I don't really think of myself as a Collector the way some people are: I keep all my decks in simple bags in a large sack (after fire last fall, I like the idea of being able to quickly grab and take them all in an emergency), and care about boxes not at all - the only reason I keep those these days is for possible trading purposes, as other people seem to like keeping their decks in proper boxes with proper LWBs. I don't care about keeping my decks in 'mint' condition, even some of the rarer, OOP ones - if I think it will look better trimmed, I trim away, and gilt them too. I do not keep decks I cannot or do not want to read with, no matter how pretty or rare - all of my decks must be reading decks, working decks, because what the hell do I have them for, if not to read with?

And yet, nonetheless, I have enough that one might reasonable ask: why so many decks? Couldn't you read just as well with one or two? Does anyone ever need over thirty tarot decks? And to be fair, no I do not need them. And yet I am an INTP, and there is some underlying logic with which I justify my purchases. It comes down, I guess, to that one great love of mine in life - the love of learning, of gaining knowledge, expanding what I know and how I can think about the things I know of.

See, we all call it 'tarot reading' but in many ways that seems to be mostly a metaphor, figurative language. Do we really think of it as the equivalent of reading a newspaper, a book? And yet, the more I think about it, the more I want to say...perhaps yes. What is written language, after all? From the earliest pictographs to modern, current alphabets in a way, if you think about it broadly, writing is about visually representing abstract concepts. We have these little symbols we call letters, and we string them together this way and that, and suddenly that MEANS something to us, because we have been trained to automatically interpret them as such. So when you come across DOG, you do not see random squiggles: your mind automatically brings up the image or the idea of a certain canine animal. And when you learn other languages, you apply the same concepts. PIES brings to mind the same animal for me, because my mind has been trained to make that associated. So does كلب because again, written language acquisition is about training the mind to correlate visual symbols with sounds with abstract ideas.

Reading tarot is, in a lot of ways, is just the same. You have 78 cards with distinct images, and each card has a range of meanings attached to it - the exact details depend on which system(s) you follow, whether you read intuitively or whether you are deep into studying historical esoteric symbolism or whatever, and so on. In any case though, its a recognizable system with widely applicable card meanings, and as you get more experienced with working with the cards, and more familiar with them, the process of eliciting messages from the cards becomes easier. When you first start off, you draw a card and look at the picture, and maybe you have some vague concept of what it could maybe mean, but you aren't quite sure, and so you check in the LWB or whatever book you have, and you read the keywords and then you kind of stumble along, in broad strokes, trying to make some kind of connection that makes sense to you. The image and the abstract ideas are still separate and you are trying to bridge that gulf.

Later on, it just comes. I draw the 6 of cups and I automatically think of nostalgia, of childhood, of looking backwards, of longing, of people you used to know and things you used to do. I draw the 10 of coins and I think of houses, of families, of the people you love and the people you are tied to, of responsibilities and duties and burdens. A draw an Ace of Wands and I think of opportunities, of growth, of creative energy ready to be channeled, of new projects, of starting thinks, taking the plunge, boldness. I do not have to sit there and struggle to remember - it simply comes when I look at the image in front of me. The images of the cards you see, have been married to a whole range of concepts in my mind. It really is quite analogous to reading, except that what you are reading is a deck of cards...

Which brings us back to the idea of why so many decks? If you have a deck with which you have grown familiar enough to have that kind of connection, isn't that enough?

But you see, to me it does make a difference that what you are reading is not words but images, ART. Art, which can be created in so many different styles and mediums, which is both so inherently personal and so universal...Having many decks means working with the same core concept represented in a plethora of different ways. It really does broaden the scope of your knowledge, the pool of meaning from which you draw when you read. You'll see a card you feel you know so well drawn in a different way and it will trigger something in your mind, another way that you could approach the idea. It adds nuance and shade. Working with the Thoth so much recently has been doing that a lot for me - it really isn't so far removed from the RWS meanings, and yet it comes at them from different angles and perspectives and it makes me really THINK. It widens how I see the cards. Like Aeon instead of Judgement opened up that card for me in a way I never really got just from the standard christianity-based images of the Angel blowing the trumpet and resurrection. Or the post the other night about the Wheel of Fortune and the idea that life is made up of many wheels - wheel of career, wheel of love, wheel of emotional health - that all move at their own pace. These are ideas that would have never occurred to me if I had just been working with the ONE deck, and which once they do I can internalize and apply to all my future working with tarot, regardless of which deck it is that I happen to be reading at the current time.

And yeah, in a way each deck is also it's own 'dialect' because each one has it's own artistic take, little details that you can pick and pull apart as you interpret. Sometimes the answers the cards give can be QUITE literal, and that staircase or the hat or whatever in the deck you are working with happens to be exactly applicable - it wouldn't be there in another deck, but its here, in this one, an answer just for you.

Besides that, decks draw on all kinds of influences - each other, early 20th century occultist groups, ancient mythology, various cultural practices, astrology, numerology, qabbalah, various animal groups, whatever, and they do so in various ways and proportions and so, having many decks can also be a nice way to become at least a little bit familiar with other ideas or systems or whatever which for me - well, more learning is always, always a plus.

And so that is my overly long explanation about both what I think tarot is and how I justify spending all kinds of money on tarot decks when, one might argue one or two would be more than enough :D