Answering a few questions

So I notice that quite a number of my blogger friends have been doing the whole 30 Day Challenge thing. I admit there is no way that I could stick to that all the way through, nor do I find all of the questions interesting. I figured that answering a few in a single post might be a nice little exercise...

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My parents were never super religious, but I spent a fair amount of my childhood in [catholic] church. I always had found the masses incredibly boring and never listened. At around age 12 or so I realized I did not agree with and could not believe in anything the priest was saying, so I went to my local library and started looking into other religions. Wicca was the only one that really intruiged, so I studied/'practiced' it for a couple years before realizing atheism was the path for me.

Anyway, some of the Wicca books discussed tarot cards, which intrigued me. I bought my first deck ten years ago at a local Barnes and Noble at the age of 14 - the Universal Waite deck, specifically. I disliked the art from the very beginning, but it was apparently the 'proper' deck to learn on and so learn on it I did. I consulted lwb and a book titled 'Tarot for Beginners' or something similar. I had a couple periods of totally forgetting about the deck, going back to it, etc. It wasn't until a few years later when I was in high school that I got my second deck, carefully chosen based on aesthetic appeal - the Gilded tarot. I remember opening it with such excitement on the ferry ride home and almost losing one of the King cards...eventually I gave both decks away. :0

The first spread I learned was the Celtic Cross. I found it overly long, complicated, often confusing and just unnatural. In fact, it wasn't until I totally stopped using it that I found my reading improve significantly, and my interest in and attention to the cards became more stable. I've never gone back to it since. I know its 'tried and true' and all that but really just is not the reading method for me. I am generally averse to spreads that are more than five or six cards unless there is something really interesting/intriguing about them and...this is none of those things for me, at all.

In general I don't have a favorite spread. Other than structured reading exchanges on forums and times where I deliberately choose to use a spread because it looks interesting/really relevant/I just want to experiment, I tend to play it fast and loose with spreads. Make one up on the spot that seems appropriate, or not use one at all. Sometimes just pulling cards I find that they organize themselves into 'spreads' for me...not all decks are like this, but for example with the Thoth...it almost seems an insult to the deck to force it into a spread when it is so obviously able to do that itself...

I sometimes use reversals, though much less than I used to. It mostly depends on the deck. In general, meaty/complex/unusual decks tends to mean no reversals, whereas 'simple' RWS variations tend to be better for using them.

I prefer reading for myself than for others generally, especially offline... mostly because I feel not so confident in my 'people skills' as they relate to tarot, and because I know my verbal communication skills are and always have been noticeably inferior to my writing skills so that...even when I KNOW what the cards are saying, getting that phrased right, on the spot, can be tricky indeed.

I know some people say they cannot read for themselves, but in my case it has always been MUCH easier to read for me than for anyone else. After all, I know all the details of my life and situation and so can make all kinds of analysis and connections to specific things, whereas for other people it is...poking and guessing and talking in a kind of general way and hoping it means something to the other person - it feels like grasping in the dark, whereas reading for me is more like picking up a tool and using it to examine things I know of in a new way. Also, reading for free on any kind of scale would be too much of a time suck, whereas reading for money feels like too much pressure and stress, worry about whether they are getting their 'money's worth' and...yeah. Not for me, at least right now.

Oh, and I have absolutely no 'special' time or place or rituals around my tarot reading. I read/do draws for myself absolutely anywhere - in bed, on the floor, in the car, on the bus, on the train, at a cafe, in the library, in a hallway, really just anywhere. Why not? In my experience it makes absolutely no difference.

When I was in Tunisia I kept doing daily draws for myself when we were on the bus visiting the south of the country. At one point the director of the language school asked me for a reading and I obliged... he spent the rest of the summer calling me 'Deghaza', which means fortune-teller in the Syrian dialect. At one point we went on a field trip to the national TV station and he introduced me to the staff as 'Deghaza', to their amusement. I chatted with several of the employees and none of them ever learned my real name...

Away from Judgement

What does it mean, to be walking away from Judgement in the new year? In the previous part of this exercise I saw walking towards fulfilling potential ideas and dreams...in the Judgement card, I see a couple of ways that kind of momentum can be halted.

Taken most literally - yes, judgement, the internal critic. You have an idea and then you start to question it, question yourself, your abilities, your ability to convey your worth, if any, in applications and such. It's easy, from the perspective of those on the ground, to look up at the shining angels, the golden glow around them, and think: I can never be like that, that good. There are too many things holding me back. Why bother dreaming, trying.

On the other hand, in the sense that this card is often representative of the idea of 'the call' I can see the issue being one in which...you hear it, yes, recognize that you must make a decision, take action; recognize and stop at that - dither, overwhelmed.

Lastly, Judgement can be a card of rebirth, renewal, entering into a new Aeon and starting things all over again from scratch. The idea that change must be radical, all or nothing, go away from the familiar completely...that it is only by throwing out all of the old that you can move forward...this can either lead you to lose far more than you really needed to or, unable to give up so much at once, end up doing nothing at all.

Obstacles yes: self criticism, indecision, all or nothing attitudes. All things that I have been guilty of in the past. Better to walk away from these indeed.

Towards Creative Potential

I decide to take a page from the book of Elendil and some other Deck of the Week folk on AT and do two part new years reading: What I am Walking Toward/What I am Walking Away From. This be the first part, with second tomorrow.

Here we have the page of cups and that seven of pentacles again, the roses. The youth in the page card sits in front of a young woman playing what looks to be some kind of organ instrument. There are elaborately carved pillars behind them, and both are richly, fancily dressed. The youth isn't looking at the musician girl however, but rather longingly glancing back. What is he thinking? Longing for her, or for her abilities, her talent, her creativity? For his own past, lost opportunities, abandoned dreams? The woman plays and focuses solely on the music, her fingers and the keys

The page is about creativity and expression, a dreamer. The woman in the pentacle card too can be seen as having a certain sentimental touch - she appreciates the beauty of the flowers she tends. She works and works to watch them bloom. The page can imagine ways to express his creative potential; the woman in the seven knows how to tend to it, to allow it to grow.

In the new year, I shall try to move towards a synthesis of these. To leverage what I can do, what I can think and write and dream, into something concrete. Like the roses: something to enjoy, and something to ground me.

a juxtaposition

The woman in this picture stands in her garden, pruning the bright yellow rosebush. I do like the color of the roses - not bright red or even pink, no romance or dramatic gestures. No, we have yellow, a neutral color, good for many occasions. The woman's dress is loose, allowing for more movement than that of many others in this deck, from that time period. She can move and work, bring out the full potential for beauty in her flowers.

Roses tend to be finicky plants, especially the kind pictured here, the ones we most appreciate in bouquets and arrangements. They require patience and perseverance of effort. You work and you wait for that work to mean something, to show. It takes time and a certain amount of faith - in your own gardening abilities and in the idea that you will be around to reap the rewards of your labors. Is it worthwhile, what we are doing? The roses certainly do look nice in this image.

Sometimes it isn't so easy to be sure; things get in the way, cloud your vision, fill your mind with more possibilities and calculations and fear than you know what to do with. Sometimes the absence of certainty and of roses to remind you of how beautiful the world can be can feel too heavy a weight.This card struck a cord even in the first edition but in this updated image especially...

This was me, once. A few years ago, my last semester of college... I would climb out from my dorm room window to the ledges that led up to the the roof. It would be in the dead of night when almost no one is already up or still not asleep, when I knew there would be no one to see. I would stand at the ledge and debate with myself whether it was time, whether I was ready to do it. Not if it was a good idea or what I wanted, but rather - was now the time? Was it ok yet?

Stand and stare down, racing thoughts and a distinct lack of clear emotion...and step back. Night after night, I would stand on a ledge under a darkened sky and finally step back - go inside and get back to writing and writing that thesis, those papers, always so much work. I never told anyone about these nocturnal escapades and soon graduated with some fancy latin words besides my degree. Sometimes, later, I would wish that I had let myself fall.

These days I mostly try to focus on the roses. May the new year bloom, in many colors.

gifts in thinking

I've never been much  on the whole holiday spirit thing, this  one or any other, and this year was really no exception. That said, I figured that doing a draw on the general theme of 'gifts' would be appropriate enough...

The Ace of Swords comes up....an interesting response to this reading.  Thoughts, ideas, a way to start something new, an intellectual challenge. You can give other people gifts, trinkets, money - you can even do all kinds of things for them...but thinking, perspective, approach to life...that is something you cannot impart to anyone else. You can try, sure (as many a lecturing parent would know)  but fundamentally you cannot directly influence what anyone else has going on in their head. Your thoughts, perhaps more than anything else in this world, are your own.

A change in thinking, in outlook, has to come from within. It's something that generally doesn't happen suddenly - rather, a slow shift over time, a series of small realizations; sometimes, it involves conscious work. It can be one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself though, if you can manage it -  to work through some of the  self-defeating, negative thought patterns and find the way of intellectually doing things that works best for you. There is so much more you can do in life if you are not constantly standing in your own way...

In certain ways I think extremes can be a blessing. If something very difficult or challenging happens in your life - whether external circumstances or internal  mental health type issues or both - it forces you to become aware of a lot of those problematic trends in thinking. When things are small and never quite a real obstacle individually, it is much easier to leave them as they are, let them accumulate. When they seem overwhelming, all encompassing, you simply must find a way to deal with them - you become too tired to go on with the status quo.

And so, a rest, and a reminder that attitude adjustment and growth in how  you think and how you see is a constant process, something you can always work on improving. I have a bit of time now to ponder on this kind of 'gift' as it relates to me, and some time to focus on aspects of my interests and ideas that are not related to school-work.

Of course, in terms of actual gift-giving...in my house we have a long-established tradition of my parents simply giving me some cash for the holiday rather than anything physical and wrapped up.  I didn't really exchange gifts with anyone else this year so that is all and that is quite enough. I have a plan, you see. I am working on a design for a fourth tattoo, something to represent, actually, a lot of the ideas behind the Ace of Swords...freedom, flight, new beginnings with old experiences in mind and going forward and possibility and suchlike. I haven't gotten in quite right yet but...soon.

shipwreck that's not a disaster

So I finally got my copy of the new 2nd edition Victorian Romantic tarot. I got the mini, seeing as how I already have a full sized Russian version of the 1st edition, and have a disinclination towards owning decks that are too much alike. Must say, it is indeed quite nice, and the changes that the made... I approve. Finally have some time to properly blog with it, too.

I rather like the way there is a very distinct theme in these two cards. Both deal with a ship in water. In the first we have a gloomy, darkened sky; in the second, a raging storm. The woman in the first wears a red skit, and the same color again shows up on one of the folks in the second.

The Tower in the Victorian Romantic is really one of those cards where...the more I work with it, the more I come to appreciate the image. It's an unusual take - no tower or building of any sort at all but rather two figures, cast adrift, hanging off of the remains of a wrecked ship amidst waves, a storm torn sea. A sudden shock, a disaster of sorts it is.

Except....is it really, when you look at these two cards side by side? Unlike many, I tend to see the Tower as a mostly positive card. The woman is tied up, stuck. Perhaps she could work those knots loose, free herself if she was determined enough. She doesn't though, has become so used to the thought of herself bound that doing anything else feels impossible, unthinkable. So she sits at that dock, waiting to be herded onto the ship - a plaintive look perhaps, a wish, but no action. She sits.

How long would she go on like that? Who knows. The storm hits. The waters rage and the ship falls apart. There is cold and there is being soaked, tossed about. There is the sound of lightning and there is fear, yes, fear of drowning, of so many things left undone, so much inspiration lost. It never is very fun, at least not the whole way through, when the tower event or situations hits. It isn't fun to be thrown off balance, to see the systems and routine you have gotten used to gone. It isn't fun to be forced to change and adapt and learn how to deal with the new.

Change can be terribly, terribly hard - especially if you aren't even sure that you want it. Sometimes, though, that storm doesn't turn out to be such a disaster at all. Perhaps you will find yourself back on the shore, clothes soaked and torn, possessions gone, shivering and alone. But perhaps to, you will look down and see that your hands are now free - that there is so much more you can now try to do, see, learn.