different kinds of balance

In this particular take on the justice card we have a scale, unbalanced it would see, or perhaps simply in the process of swinging back and forth. We have a card of contrasts and juxtaposition: light and darkness, clear skies and raging storms, peaceful nature the man-made cities, towers, factories. What does it mean to have all of them portrayed just so? The hand move holds what looks to be a clock pointing at the number twelve, noon and midnight, beginnings and ends.

Balance... it was equilibrium that I focused on so many times last year, with Justice as my year card. Balance, the idea of trying to be even-handed, of trying to find that right place in between extremes, of adjusting and carefully weighing and getting it all to just enough, yes, enough.

Life isn't all about things we can balance out through or own efforts though, is it? Part of this 'Justice' and weighing is more in the grand scheme...that some experiences will be balanced out by others, that painful events sometimes lead to good ones, that personal failings we have, but also talents...and so on. People often say things along the lines of evil or suffering being necessary, that there would be no light without darkness, no appreciation of the good times without the bad, and so on.

True enough, I find, though perhaps not as comforting a notion as sometimes put forward to be. There have been times when I have found very much amusement and pleasure from such insignificant things, if only because there was nothing else I could laugh about or focus on. These days...simple moments, the most pedestrian of experiences and such strong appreciation, satisfaction in what someone else might see as utterly unremarkable.

You appreciate how nice it is to go on a walk through a city you like, to enjoy the weather and look around at your surroundings without quite that constant background of gloom, idle fantasies (of say, throwing yourself in front of a car)t hat you could never quite chase away so familiar, ignored and unspoken, same old same old.

You feel so accomplished when you calmly finish a task a few hours or even days ahead of a deadline, rather than staring unable to think or write until it gets so late that you begin to panic as you think of the consequences of failure, of disappointing people, and then stay up for two days straight, not letting yourself do anything else, crying from stress as you make yourself write and write desperately.

You find it to be so wonderfully ordinary when you can let yourself sit in a coffee shop for a few hours alone, drinking a coffee and eating an oatmeal and reading for school because it is such a contrast to so many other experiences, an illusion of sorts and a glimmer of feeling what other people feel when in fact you have not known what it means to eat a normal meal like a normal person since you were fourteen years old and still don't, really.

A constant state of storm certainly does make clear sky days so much more amazing, but perhaps the same would also be true in reversed. Ordinarily I hate rainy days. So much inconvenience, forgetting umbrellas or proper shoes and spending hours wet and cold. It rained once during the ten weeks I spent in Tunisia and I ran out onto the balcony to feel it, because it felt so amazing, after so long without...

Darkness and light and a scale that tips back and forth, back and forth. Justice and balance and what can we have, if not all of both? Is there a way to have the convenience of factory produced gadgets without killing off all those beautiful whales swimming in the sea?

tarot with a bit of... Science!

So while browsing around the internet in search of a bit of a different kind of spread to try out, I came across The Newton Spread on Raven's Tarot Site. I'm not really familiar with the website as a whole, but this spread is the kind of thing that tends to strike my fancy - bit of a different perspective on things, combining tarot with an entirely different field, etc.

I admit physics has never been my thing (I passed that class in high school by the skin of my teeth) but I figured it would be interesting to do an abbreviated version of the spread. Rather than pulling cards for all three of the Newtonian Laws of Motion, I decided to focus on just the first:

"Newton's first law of motion (also known as the law of inertia) states that any object in a state of rest or of uniform linear motion tends to remain in such a state unless acted upon by an external force.

Card 1 is your inertia, the potential inside you that won't act up or get effective without another force or impulse that will bring it into activity.
Card 2 is that other force or impulse that will bring the existing power inside of you into action."

 ----

 1. 
What then, within me,  is in a state of rest, inert until something pushes it forward, gives it momentum? We have here the 9 of Flame Songs, or Wands per regular titles. A colorful image, cluttered with so many objects united by the theme of creativity and self-expression: dance shoes, crafting supplies, paints and musical instruments and pages full of written words. In the center of it all there is something that looks like a cracked egg, the yolk dripping out, connecting all those objects together, the bright orange energy also flowing out in a tornado above it all.

Creative strength, artistic impulses. I've always had them. I used to want to be a writer for a while, as a teen. As a kid art sets were among the most treasured of holiday gifts received. Sometimes I dabble in writing poems. For a while I picked up knitting, then forgot about it again. I used to make collages and graphics on photoshop quite a lot. I go through phases of sketching. I haven't done that in a while, though I do tend to doodle madly, in numerous pen colors, all over what ostensible should be my notes in class; I always have, helps me think and pay attention. When I set my mind to it and found the patience to draw the same thing again and again and again until I got it just right, I managed to design a tattoo which, now that it is on me, I quite love. I once took a ceramics class I quite enjoyed. I go in and out of phases of doing photography. For a while my senior year of college I would destress by drawing/coloring on paper with colored chalk, different entirely and quite fun. Now I impatiently away the silly UPS to actually bring me the watercolor pencils I ordered.

Artistic impulses which come and go, which I rarely stick to for long. I allow my attention to flit this way and that, stop doing things for years at a time. Unimportant, unimportant. How many ideas do I have that are never acted on, ideas that flitter around in my mind until eventually they are forgotten because I do not have the time or the energy. There are more important things to focus on, serious things, things related to trying to eventually procure some kind of gainful employment that is not mind-numbingly dull and deeply dissatisfying... and in that context, these artsy things always seem like distractions, like waste of time, self-indulgent and only ok in limited quantities. Enough to destress, enough to distract when thoughts get too overwhelming but then back to the real things, the real.

So much creative potential that is not activated nearly as much as it could be...

2.

What force or impulse does or could get that creative, artistic side of me moving? Well, the Wheel of Fortune certainly does represent movement, the world and life spinning in cycles, up and down. Here the circle is divided into eight slices, each one showing a different image: success and catastrophe, sadness and joy, the bizarre and the mundane. We find ourselves in a variety of different circumstances at various points of our lives. Perhaps this card is suggesting that certain life phases lend themselves much more naturally to artistic endeavors than others.
At some points, I was taking art classes and doing artistic projects to fulfill academic requirements. Other times I had so much free time on my hands in made sense to experiment with new things. On the other hand, being a student in grad school, studying Arabic, trying to get life in some kind of order and desperately applying to various internships and suchlike...perhaps not the most conducive.

On the other hand, I can also see this as pointing out the fact that life is always topsy-turvy, full of surprises and complications and so many things that must be dealt with. I find time to do other things I consider important in spite of that; hell I find time to do things I know I would be much better of NOT doing - so why not make the time to play around creatively as well? It might not take the same form all the time - perhaps sometimes its more about drawing and other times I have a poem in my head, or a story idea; perhaps right now I have a mad desire to play around with color. Why not? Find time, way, to work on some of those things, to improve my abilities in them. No skill gets better without practice. I can write well, when I try, because I have a hell of a lot of experience in writing. If sometimes I do something artsy and get frustrated because it doesn't come out the way I see it in my head...the only way to get better is to do more of it.

I have, despite my creative inclinations, chosen to try to go down a career path where artistic ability is unnecessary, true. That doesn't mean I should engage in it on my own time, for my own enrichment and pleasure. Perhaps more sometimes than others, perhaps in different ways depending on what is convenient or possible but...something to keep in mind, something to pursue rather than ignore, leave un-moved, for that oh so intangible "later".

color, wonder and ideas

I usually see the Ace of Swords as being the 'harshest' of the aces - new beginnings yes, but often ones that require cutting of the old, letting go and starting a new. Attitude adjustment, as I once wrote - not just forming new ideas but deliberately walking away from old ones.

In this deck though, the images is rather noticeably a gentler one. There is water in this images as well as air, starlight and a sun rising overhead. The light from the star and the sun seeps into everything, filling it with streaks of bright yellow and white. The girl holds a bowl and a wand, ready to fill and create.

Not just intellectual activity here, but creativity. Thinking new things and applying them in your own unique ways. There is joy in this card, inspiration, pleasure.

New ideas, new starts and new ways of thinking. My mind has been a bit all over the place in some good ways too, of late. I ordered some watercolor pencils and a coloring book. I want to experiment with a new medium, and since I love color this seems a good way to go. Perhaps if my attention holds I may work my way up to something more originally artsy than just coloring...

Still working on finding my way out of certain old ways of thinking...its kind of funny how you can make so much progress with some things and yet find it so impossible to get beyond that last bit - the part of things that has become so internalized you cannot even seem to find it, and how to deal with something that doesn't seem to be there and yet, driven you still are, to do the same stupid things again and again...

Academic pursuits still on my mind but also so much else. Random interests, more than there is time to pursue. Distractions and tidbits. Language stuff, stuff about history of my parents' country that I hated listening to when I was young but now find, from on objective historical perspective, quite intriguing indeed. So far quite unsuccessful attempts to figure out something useful to do with myself for the summer. Another self-help book procured. This and that.

Confusing and overwhelming some of this, but there are definitely pluses too, to having so much to do, possibilities, ideas even if there isn't time or energy to follow through on many of them. Good to remember that, it seems.

perils of the dreamy-eyed

We have here my first proper draw from a rather different deck I recently acquired - the Songs for the Journey Home Mini. Unlike the other circular deck I once had (Circle of Life), this one is small enough that it shuffles quite comfortably, and can be used for larger spreads without taking up too much space. Usually my preference is against completely redone titles, but every so often I do make an exception...

The image and title of the first card make for a rather different take, but the concept remains a familiar one. Wave Awakening, or the Knight of Cups in regular court terms, represents the idea of the dreamy-eyed romantic, a person overcome by passion, idealized ideas of what is or what should be. He rushes forward, dives into the waves so full of that lust, ready to see what he wants to see. The water must be warm and deep,  rich with rainbow-colored tones and just waiting to wrap him in its embrace. Everything will be perfect, in this starry-eyed vision of the world. It is a vision full of "should" and "fair", things imagined in so much detail, a sort of narrow, stubborn focus.

The Five of Waves songs, as the Cups suit is called, shows where such an attitude can so often lead to - disappointment, disillusionment, misery and moping. Even here, the way of looking at the world is not much changed: unhappy, but still with those ideas about how things should be, that perfectly imagined dream at the center of everything even if now it is broken to pieces and scattered across the floor. Look at those tea cups - pretty, with elaborate designs and vivid colors painted on. No doubt an expensive set; a sturdier set, with cups enough to spare for the occasional accident, could have been purchased at a far lower cost. But that, of course, would not have been living the dream, the romanticized idea of what life ought to look like and include. Now, instead of thinking pragmatically on how to move forward, how to clean up and continue on and learn what lessons can be learned from the mess in front of him, the figure merely stands and sobs, weeps. Woe is me he says, stares at what is spilt, broken, done with.

Though most of us have (unfortunately) encountered individuals who truly personify this outlook, and though we may be far more sensible than that by and large...most people, I think, struggle with this tendency sometimes, in some particularly area of their lives. The idea of the perfect relationship that never seems to work out, the job that is never what you are looking for in a job, the kid who doesn't act or look like the kid you always wanted to have...it can be many things. It's a struggle, to retain our optimism and dreams without falling into the trap of over-romanticizing things. It is hard to fully internalize and accept, without bitterness, certain simple facts: that the world does not owe you anything, that there are no real measures of what is 'right' in a partner or a job or anything else that are the same for all, that what you want to be is quite often not what is or what can be, that some things will simply never work out and that fairness has very little indeed to do with how things in the world tend to work out.

It is difficult to learn and to remember this: how to see the world for how it really is and still dive, not into some imagined, gleaming pool but rather into waves that you know are frigid and turbulent, will have you shivering, kicking and flailing madly just to stay afloat; to see the broken cup and simply sigh, pick up the pieces and toss them, bring out the mop, brew more tea and pour it again. It takes time to learn to drink from chipped and cracked mugs without that melancholy regret.