memory of games

What does it mean - to win, to succeed, to level up?

There are quite a few extra cards, optional, that come with the Silicon Dawn. Being rather traditional with my tarot preferences, I kept most of them out, but the 99's were among those I kept. The culmination of a suit, its essence developed, a sort of opposite to the Ace. The king can be seen that way, is in many decks, but in a way this idea makes more sense - Like the Ace, this is a card representing forces, situations, opportunities rather than people, the personal.

Fire-Disks, the practical in life combined with energy, light, destructive potential. The metaphor in this card is a great example of why this deck so very much appeals to me. I grew up playing video games - Sega Genesis, SNES, several generations of playstations and gameboys and computer games. Books you could get for free from the library, huge stacks of them - video games were what saving up money was for. You fight and walk and solve puzzles and dig around in virtual garbage cans for hidden treasures.

My favorite games were the ones where you could customize your character. Pick a race, a class, skills to put points into. When you leveled up you could further specialize: would you be fast, or strong? Shoot fireballs, or learn to heal yourself and save a ton on potions? In some games, later on, you would have many characters on your team for storyline reasons, and you had to further choose which ones would be the ones you fought with, developed, allowed to level up again and again.

There were the difficult games where you had to grind - to walk around in certain areas fighting monsters again and again to gain experience, go up levels until you were finally strong enough to face this or that boss without being defeated. There were games where you had to strategize how to develop your character, what would help against this or that opponent. Brute force? Picking them off at a longer range? Status effects, attrition?

I still remember my first ever computer game. It was called Rise and Rule of Ancient Empires. You picked a civilization, built cities and roads and armies. I liked being the Indian empire best because of their elephant units. Strategy there was in that, yes. Which buildings will you choose, which advantages, will you lay seige to that city, take the offensive early on or bide your time and hope your neighbor doesn't build up his forces faster than you? There were the city building games too...Egypt, Ancient Greece. You start with a few hovels and farms, and expand. Build temples, mines, bathhouses, theaters, tax collector's offices. A garden next to houses will allow them to evolve, a mine will lower the property value - even in video games no one wants to live next to a mine. Can you level up that city enough, build the infrastructure needed to harvest the resources that will allow you to advance to the next part of the game?

You would calculate and think, in those games, trial and error. Trade offs, budgeting, this for that and you can never have everything. I played three generations of Sims games and even now my thinking about interpersonal relations is so very influenced by them - sometimes I imagine those bright green bars indicating hygeine level, social need, energy. The bars that showed relationships. Talk on the phone to advance, except if you don't have a strong enough relationship that person will not want to talk to you on the phone. Have you leveled up your skills, schmoozed with your coworkers and boss enough to gain a promotion?

In media video games often get so much flak - the violence, the time waste, the people with the
'video game addiction' and 'no life'. They are not mindless though, not all or even most. I read like mad and played video games too. And life too, has leveling up, of sorts. My social skills have certainly leveled up over the years. My ability to prioritize, my confidence even. Some things still need work...even in the Sims it was rare to have, without some kind of cheating, an elder with all their skills maxed out. That was a simple game. Always you can improve, grow, use energy to become more.

Achievement and pride, but fleeting. There is always more to be done, new beginnings, chances for gain and for loss. Some skill and some hard work and sometimes, luck, or lack thereof. I remember sitting in the air-conditioned computer room in elementary school, playing Oregon Trail. Perhaps if you prepared well and chose a good course and prudent actions you would make it to your destination. Other times, you would be mauled by a bear, your comrades would catch a disease and so it goes, game over. When you can you level up, and then you keep going at it.

advice about another blog

So, writing the answer post last night got me thinking a bit, and I decided to start using a new tag on this blog: free-form reading. Going to use this for readings that are meant to be more in-depth/focused than the 'quick draw' or 'day draw', ie. just randomly pulling a few cards, but in which I do not use any kind of formal spread and let the cards just sort themselves out as they will. As I wrote, with certain decks I sometimes like not being beholden to any predetermined card positions, and figured I might as well systematize that a bit here.

That said, I decided to do such a reading to get some advice about an idea I've been pondering - restarting the Arabic writing blog I hate created over the summer and abandoned soon thereafter.

I.

A fairly unconventional portrayal of the Emperor, wearing a dress and a mask. His real face is turned away, gazing towards the background. We see there a silhouetted scene, a two sides of a precipice connected by a carefully constructed bridge. It was proper planning, organization and management that allowed that bridge to be built. Now he leans on a sword, something to steady him as he looks beyond the horizon, still supervising.

The long view, organization and discipline. This is the crux of why I am thinking of the blog. I was a bit ahead of many of my classmates even before I went to Tunisia, on account of having studied Arabic several years ago; even if you have forgotten most in the meantime, coming at something for a second time really does make it easier. I expected to be ahead last fall and I was - and still am, even with a new professor who is noticeably stricter and better at teaching. I understand concepts faster and am much more comfortable with many of the grammar structures and have noticeably more vocabulary. Part of it I think too is the age difference - being older and more experienced and having a bit of a different attitude towards classes and learning...

That being said, I KNOW that one of the best ways for me to practice, improve and remember things is by writing. Unfortunately, writing assignments longer than a paragraph or so are rather rare indeed. If I could discipline myself to do it on my own, I would gain much. Of course, the Emperor also points out my weakness in such thing - being organized in making time to keep doing it, not getting distracted. I know it would help build up my language skills further, but can I get the proper grip on myself? I tend to start projects and then...take ages to finish them... *cough*thatLenormandIwantto*cough*

II.

The Queen of Cups, like the rest of the courts in this deck, is freed from the constraints of typical imagery. There are no thrones for these folks, no horses or chariots. Instead we see more natural habitats. The Queen is depicted under water, as comfortable beneath the waves as most people are above them. She carries a cup, unselfconsciously enjoying herself, being where she belongs.

Writing has long been my comfort zone - the thing I feel I am good at, the best way to work through complicated thoughts and emotions, me at my most eloquent. Apparently this extends to all languages - when I studied French I liked writing essays, and even in Polish, where my spelling is rather terrible...what I write tends to sound far more sophisticated than my typical speech.

I like writing, learning, challenging myself intellectually. Intuitively, this does feel like a good idea, something I want to do.

III.

Whereas the majors in the Silicon Dawn by and large hew to the RWS tradition, the minors are quite noticeably more Thothy - a common theme in several Thoth inspired decks, come to think of it... In any case, the image here very much calls back to the 6 of Cups in the Thoth, titled Pleasure. We see a figure, half woman half sea serpent, her upper body in almost the same posture of enjoyment as the Queen. The cups here vary - beer pitchers, water glasses, coffee mugs; it all mixes together below. Pleasure can take many forms - the crux is her, at the center, reaching towards the light.

In terms of how to approach this project, this card advises me not to take things so seriously. Yes, in the grand scheme of things it is about building language skills, being methodical and organized in my learning, the understanding that if you really want something it is about more than just the time you spend in the classroom...but that basis does not mean I have to be Super Serious in how I go about it. It is not, after all, homework. It is not an assignment of any sort. The Arabic blog is for me, and we all know it is much easier to stick to doing something if you actually like doing it. The reason I am still writing in this here tarot blog is because I enjoy blogging about tarot cards.

So if I want to rant about the world, if I want to write silly short stories and fictional character studies, if I want to write about tarot cards even (which is another idea that has definitely crossed my mind), I can. I can include pictures, prompts, whatever. This is for me, and why not be as silly and random and self-indulgent with it as I want? As long as I am writing, I am doing things right.

IV.

Summarizing the reading up we have the first of the three 'official' Fools in the deck. The image is all black and white, its perspective jarring. This fool is a mere sketch, not even properly inked - so very tentative and yet already she is jumping off of that cliff into the unknown and uncertain. The similarly newly-sketched dog behind her yaps. You cannot see it on the scan, but the actual card subtly shows that even this first, virgin leap is not so wild an act as it may seem. Like the other fools this one too has wings, only visible when the card is held at a certain angle; in fact, the UV effect covers all of the woman, the dog, the cliff. Just sketched in they may be but they are, in that way, more real and solid than anything else...

There are three fools in this deck and yet it was this one that came up: the first, the youngest, the seemingly just barely there it. My Arabic too, in many ways, is like this. A year ago what I could write was so simple - short sentences, a few at a time.There were so many thoughts and ideas I just did not have the vocabulary to even begin to try to express. Even after years of study, language is such a tricky thing. The Polish I don't think I could ever really forget, though ability might deteriorate... though my English is far better, it was in fact the first language I learned to speak. French, though - I spent six semesters in college actually LEARNING it, after three years in high school spent going to classes learning not much at all. I can still understand when people speaking it, can watch programs and read news articles and get the gist. When I try speaking...Arabic words come out of my mouth. I struggle to find the French. My mother has the same thing...as a schoolgirl she studied Russian for years, and now when she goes to the hospital she gets her medical care at the nurses speak to her in Russian and she comprehends but responds in English because after living in America for twenty six years the Russian words no longer come. You can spend so much time learning and then watch it all spill out of your head again from disuse...

Tentative then, both my abilities and my confidence or comfort with them, but perhaps more solid than I think. Perhaps solid enough that I can engage in a writing blog where I am accountable to no one but myself, where I can go on about anything at all just because I want to. Perhaps it is time for me to take the leap and commit myself to trying. Let us rush and fall and fly.

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...

the whimsical and strange

I have to say that I really, really like the backs of the Dreaming Way tarot. That particular shade of green is one of my favorites, and the aesthetic of it as a whole...it has this vintage, 60's or 70's kind of vibe in my mind, a touch of gaudiness that just...very much appeals.

A gaudy kind of whimsy. I admit to having rather unusual tastes in some many ways. Sometimes in old houses with walls painted in white or pastel tones you can find areas where the paint has chipped off and beneath some kind of older, bright colored wallpaper with a flower design - it looks vaguely ridiculous by today's standards and I very much wish the whole of the house was still like that. As a kid I slept on sheets that came with the house my parents had bought - bright blue with bright yellow and white and green colored flowers, quite nicely drawn. It was a disappointment, later shopping for sheets in stores, to realize that such designs simply aren't sold anymore. Tacky, people might call them. So I settle for black, an all-black contrast to any room because I need that sense of the visually vivid in some form.

I would wallpaper a room with the design on the backs of these cards. I would hang such curtains in my windows.

Just about everyone who spends any amount of time with me in person, and around whom I feel comfortable enough to act like 'myself' rather than carefully work on the facade of being what you want to see, ie. 'appropriate adult', sooner or later tells me that I am strange, odd, bizarre.

Whimsy. I especially like the whimsy shown in this particular Page of Cups. It fleshes out the idea of the fish in the cup, takes it further - this cup has polka dots and she wears a tea pot on her head and the fish are swimming through the air and why not, all of this? Why not?

Whimsy. If not for the presidential inauguration making bus tickets to expensive, I would have gone to visit friends in New York for the weekend just passed. I had a brilliant idea of going to a bakery and having them decorate us a Martin Luther King day cake, and roping everyone into an impromptu MLK day party - because why not celebrate a federal holiday as you would other holidays, with cake? Why not feast on processed sugar to commemorate the accomplishments of that great civil rights pioneer?

I hate the idea of driving a car and hope I never have to, but if I did and if money was not an issue, I would totally choose to drive something odd: a tiny, clunky Eastern European car from the 1960's painted, perhaps in burgundy or a nice blue, for extra effect. I want to adopt rats and give them funny names when I move again, somewhere that allows pets. I want to one day have at least two cats, and have one of them be a hairless sphynx because they look so bizarre and it makes me squee in delight to see them. Phone conversations with closest friends tend to take very particular turns, often stemming from some random subjects I have recently used the vast power of the internet to learn about in detail: the life of bearded ladies, the unassisted childbirth movement, the process of draining abscesses, a particularly 'yucky' but highly effective treatment for chronic anti-biotic resistant bowel infections, the history of counterfeiting in the United States...

And, after all, why not?

lenormand prospects

While visiting my parents I made use of my father's color printer and ready supply of cardstock type paper to print myself a simple, no-frills version of the lenormand deck I'd made. I brought it to my local tarot meetup last Saturday, and read with it a bit which went quite well. Several people expressed interest in purchasing a copy if I'd be willing to print it, and since it is all public domain art I used, I could, so I said I'd look into it and bring in some more copies next time if it turned out to be doable. Thinking more on the idea...well, what better way to explore the prospects than to ask the deck itself?
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(This was  a simple five card line reading, but I can't take proper pictures at the moment so reading is posted here the way it is...)

In the first two cards of the row we have the Tower and the Rider. In this case, I think the whole stable, solid foundation is best meaning for the tower, and with that, a message, a forward movement. I have the right foundation to move this project forward. I have the cards all done, I was careful when making it to only use public domain images, and I even have some spare money to print some copies, assuming costs are reasonable. I live in a city so finding somewhere simple to do it, kinkos or some similar, should not be very hard at all.

The third card, in the very center of the reading, is the Lady, here no doubt representing myself. What I want and what I am willing to do, how much energy I have to devote to this, is central. This card is next to the Rider on it's left...I am the one who would have to be the rider her, moving things forward, walking around to find a printing place, doing the legwork, all of that.

On the right of this card we have the Snake, for deception and trickery and such. Given the placement and lack of other obvious influences in the spread that makes me think of self-deception. Am I telling myself this will be less work/hassle than would really be the case? Am I scaring myself off from trying by over-emphasizing those aspects? Both are possible...

It might indeed be that printing some copies of this deck, to bring to my tarot group and maybe offer online, wouldn't be as simple and casual a thing as I would like. I've never done something like this before, so I really do not know. I made this deck on a whim when severely sleep deprived and stressed. I quite like it, and my motivation for considering this is not any kind of money-related. If I did this, it would be because I like the idea of having something creative to do. If other people actually like what I did, then for printing costs + a bit for my time, if it were reasonable, would be great to offer some copies for this. If it does turn out to be more complicated or stressful than I imagine...I could see  the scythe being the end, yes. Suddenly deciding to just give up this whole idea, maybe doing one or two small batches and that's all folks, because well...I have more important things in my life to stress me out and suck up on my time, and if this were to become something other than I nice change of pace, some experience and a bit of fun...well, yes. Cutting it off and moving on.

It's interesting, that contrast between first and last card. Tower and Scythe. A strong foundation but also easily ended. Actually, that seems like the best argument for giving it a bit of a go...I can decide not to continue with this at any time. It's all about what I want to do, as the lady shows.

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Also, in thinking about this, I threw together a few more cards...a back I'd like to use, as well as additional reversed and renumbered Lady and Gentleman cards, for folks/readings where two same gender cards would preferable:

snapshot of a day

still too busy finishing up to get to properly working with my shiny new victorian romantic mini tarot deck... so for now, this.

I drew these three lenormand cards this morning and they turned out to be more on-point than I expected. A day full of travel it was indeed: what is normally a four and a half hour bus ride took seven, then more time in the car getting home, my father taking a different route that had us wondering through a very Hasadic section of Brooklyn...

Productive though, in spite of that. Made much progress in completing my work on that long bus ride. The camel here looks to the right, at the sun; the ship, too, sails towards the light. Not quite there yet, the Sun in the center rather than at the end of the line which has this ship, the ongoing journey, but the light at the end is visible now.

A positive slant. The rider and sun together can mean receiving good news, news of success brought to you. I get home after all my moving about and find an email from professor whose paper I had slaved over all of last week. His comments on it were all positive - in fact, apparently I managed to impress him enough that he actually decided not to penalize me for submitting it a day and a half late...something he really seemed to be a stickler for. Sun type sign indeed. Pride, validation.

Sun in the center, and a push. The ship too, is nearing its goal, its day almost over, a journey coming to an end. Finish this paper and put the journey of this semester behind me - if I can force myself to stay awake, sleep deprived one more time...I think I can.

personal lenormand - short reading

So yeah, even when I am working very hard on getting something done and very stressed about it, I seem to have an inability to really stay focused on only one thing throughout. Add to that a need to distract myself from a kind of panic attack today over still not being done with this now-late-in-spite-of-extension paper, and...well. I sort of threw together a personal use lenormand for myself, using public domain art (wiki paintings is useful place :0).

Mostly this is inspired by the fact that my tastes apparently differ from most as far as lenormand is concerned. Granted I am a mere dabbler at this point, but.... I've heard a lot of people say that whereas they like complex imagery in their tarot decks, a simple straightforward art style for lenormands does it for them. While I don't necessarily NOT like that...well. What can I say? I've always been a very, very visual person. Besides that, doing this was a fun little distraction indeed because it allowed me to really think about what felt right to me, to find images that together hold I kind of universality which is rather lacking in most lenormands especially. Like the house card: yes, for some a house is a nice square building with big windows and a garden out front; for others, a house is a yurt. Both are houses aren't they, the same idea? So why always show only the one?

Anyway, wanted to give this a quick test drive. It's all digital for now though I may try to print me a copy eventually. No in depth reading...really have not the time or the mental capacity right now.

First row of cards quite accurately captures my current predicament. House, Book, Moon. I have barely left my house for days other than venturing out to grab beverages when I get too dehydrated. It is a mess, calling for attention. I must pack in the next few hours to go to another house, my parents', for the holidays. I feel stuck in this house, in the house with that book that taunts and taunts because I only have this one thing left to finish, this one final paper, and yet it never seems to end and my mind is not being cooperative and on and on it goes. The moon on the other side of this book, yes. My mind jumps and skips around so many things. Wild thoughts, crazy ones - creative too, inspired, except not about the THING THAT I AM SUPPOSED TO BE WORKING ON. Stuck in the house working on finishing this book work and feeling like my sanity is wearing away...

After that I decided to draw two more cards - since the first three described my situation, the last two, for a nice five row whole, to provide me a solution. A contrast here, with the Fish and the Star, the positive energy as opposed to the negative overall feel of the previous cards. Like the Moon the fish can be seen as creativity, but also work, momentum, succeeding by keeping on. The star indicates positive things indeed, success, completion, getting it done. A reassuring message for me, here. Part of my issue is that I keep thinking about failure, and well. Hope, yes. And a reminder to take better care of myself, I think, between the star and the fish....I won't get into details but last couple days with all of this I have not been...good about that, at all. Touche.

A good first reading, I think. Now to get back to doing appropriate things....

another tarot-prompted poem

(Needed a break from this...desperate academic writing I am still stuck doing. Another attempt at this particular exercise/idea....)




the strife

within us burned. 

we glowed, golden 

in our fury; shined
as we scratched,
sliced, fought.

higher, always
we climbed as the flame inched up.

it laughed in our belly. a mind
tickled the soles of our feet -
we tried to grow wings
but could not rise,
lacked speed.

now we dance,
fold into each other blind -

now we fly,

alight.

Lenormand dabbling

So yes, after long-resisting the idea of branching out into anything but tarot (too many decks already!) I first got an oracle and now...a lenormand, too. Pixie's Astounding Lenormand, in the 2nd edition, specifically. Confronting a whole new system of reading...it's comforting to have the familiar art style, which funny enough I actually appreciate more in this than in the actual RWS...

Anyway, a sample of the dabbling -

So, to go by the lenormand style, which seems to be much more about reading the cards together in string rather than individually, and then make connections, the way one does in tarot...

The ship and the moon together seem to reflect the way my mind is right now, moving about, unfocused, now daydreaming this and that, distracted by anything - I should be cleaning! Studying! Instead I am playing with Lenormand cards, flitting from this and that, anxiety and feeling adrift, yes. Aimless, foggy mind-sailing.

Which is in fact interfering with my studies, the books and readings I need to be doing, the learning I ought to be absorbing - as the book and the cloud together right there indicate. Of course this ship-moon-book combination, this lack of focus, only make me feel more stressed, the clouds thus forming a bridge between the book and the stars, the whole cycle of stress and anxiety making me feel worse which makes it even harder to do anything useful and yet...

The reading ends of the stars, the card of hope, inspiration, imagination in the Lenormand as well as the tarot. Stars, the awe of looking up at a perfectly black sky and seeing those pinpoints of light...hope, need to focus on that, finding the motivation behind the clouds even in times like this...

harmony and discipline

So decided to do one more draw before switching back to a regular 78 card tarot deck, a bit experimental in taking one card from my Mix Deck and one card from the Oracle of the Radiant Sun and reading them together.

We have here the Emperor, in rather classic form, sitting in profile on a throne, with a scepter of power in hand, a shield at his foot engraved with the emblem of a majestic bird. I like the color palette on this card, I must say - primary, essentially, and yet with just enough tone and shade to be interesting. A bit of a stark image here, but it gets across the essentially message - this is a man who is powerful, authoritative, organized, disciplined.

In contrast, the man in the Harmony card is naked, laying about casually in a bush of flowers, playing with a flock or birds which flies through the sky between the man and the bright sun above. Sun and Libra makes perfect sense for the concept of Harmony, for how best to get it if not through balanced, measured, moderate approach combined with a positive and optimistic attitude and the energy to follow through?

Sometimes, when situations challenge us, that kind of balanced, positive attitude requires self-discipline, strength of will. And so we see that these cards are not, in fact, all that opposed to each other at all. Harmony, nice as it is to be able to experience, doesn't just *happen* on its own. We can make it or we can break it, as it were, depending on our own attitudes and approach to things. I've been a close witness to several incidents this week that illustrate this especially. Sometimes the people around us take liberties, or push our buttons, or fly off the handle for no good reason; sometimes we may be tempted to quibble about little things, to insist on getting our way, to refuse to compromise even a bit on pride or principle.

Of course that option is always there; to me, the question is more - but is it worth it? Is it worth it to get your way in one particular situation if it means making your relationship with someone more conflicted in the long term? Is it worth the negative feelings it will engender? If someone screams at you or otherwise fails to act like a mature and reasonable adult, it may be tempting to scream right back - but is it worth it to escalate the situation, when remaining calm might, instead, diffuse it that much faster? Is it worth it to hold onto so much negative feeling when you could instead take that deep breath and see how much of that you can just...let go of?

A lot of these things aren't necessarily anyone's first instinct, and that is where the Emperor comes in handy. The self-discipline to think before you speak, react. The self-discipline to look at the bigger picture - not just how am I interacting with X today but how much will I have to interact with X in the future and what kind of relationship do I want that to be? The discipline to do the mature, balanced, fair thing even if you have to be the first (or only) person doing so.

Those birds that connect the naked man to the bright, warm sun didn't come to him out of nowhere. He had to build up that trust, that connection, bit by bit. The discipline needed to create your own little bubble of harmony, regardless of what is going on around you or what other people do.

Focus On: Achievement

At the top of this card we see the Capricorn ram as a monument, gilded and posed, surrounded by stylized star-flowers. Below, under the auspices of the Sun-coin, we have well-maintained buildings, just a bit luxurious, perhaps 18th century in style.

Achievement: the fruit of the stubborn work ethic of the Capricorn combined with the optimistic energy of the Sun.

I am reminded by the images in this card of how easily it comes to us, as larger societies, to celebrate achievement. We build monuments and statues everywhere. We name bridges and highways after famous figures. We open museums. We create national holidays, produce action figure toys and stylized, glorified movies, put images of famous men on bills and coins. Everywhere you turn, if you are looking for it, you can find some reminder of the past, what 'our' people or 'other' people achieved. Currently I live within walking distance of a bunch of different roman ruins, lots of signage helpfully pointing out the way to this and that, look what they build here once, across centuries...

And yet when it comes to our own personal achievements, our own lives...how often do we dismiss, belittle, take for granted what we have done, what we have gained and over-come, what we have struggled against and survived? We don't want to seem arrogant, to 'brag', so instead we laugh, say "oh, that was nothing" when in fact it was NOT nothing - it was something important, something significant, something that required our efforts, determination, skill to achieve.

How often do we take the time to build our own, personal monuments, to pause and really think about what we did and tell ourselves - why yes, I did do that, and that was quite awesome of me?

a jumper and a shadow card

So one interesting this I've noticed...well, I make it a point to only keep decks that I 'connect' with and can read pretty easily, and with most of my decks I can shuffle, do whatever spread or exercise strikes my fancy, interpret, usually use reversals and voila. But with some, often the ones I have a deeper liking for and connection with...well, they are 'special snowflakes'. They refuse to be read reversed. In the de la Rea's case, one and only one spread. And, I am noticing, with the Thoth...it doesn't like to be read in spreads at all. For exchanges fine, it will comply, but when I am working with it personally...I have tried numerous times to read with it in a spread and just...oh, it will give me a message, sure enough, and a GOOD one, but it will have nothing to do with the spread in mind. I know instinctively if I have to draw one or two or three cards, and really I get the best results by just shuffling, drawing, and letting it 'speak' to me as it may.

Tonight was interesting in that, in addition to the core reading (which speaks to a personal problem I'd rather not get into detail on here) of two cards, I also had a 'jumper' card that fell out not once but twice while I was shuffling, and felt obliged to use a 'shadow' card, from the bottom of the shuffled deck...both of which are concepts I generally don't hold with/do much, but which made perfect sense here, and, taken together, came to a sort of reading within a reading of their own...

So this card was the insistent jumper, and in the context of the whole reading it was rather appropriate. Kind of saw it in the 'high' position above the two main cards. Those basically referred to a Devil type issue interfering with my Science striving, an issue I was thinking about earlier in the evening (this is what I mean by random draws from Thoth tend to be SO ON POINT), and its a card that came up a few days ago, when I was feeling particularly fatalistic minded and needed a good kick in the right direction, ha.

Basically, the message here as I see it, in this queen, is that you can overcome those problems, the obstacles to your success and fulfillment. This queen actually mirrors the RWS version of Strength in some ways, with her hand on the leopard - normally a rather wild, dangerous animal but here perfectly tamed, obedient. She sits on a throne of fire, again in control of the heat, emboldened by it rather than burned. The orange and red and yellow energy in this card both focuses towards her, rising up through her from within, and radiates out from her, a crown of light illuminating her path. She holds that pine-cone staff, ready to make things grow, to create. To me, the message here is to have more confidence in your own inner passions and ambitions, in your own creativity and drive. Instead of focusing on shortcomings, on things you could have done better or areas where others handle things better than you, focus on YOURSELF. What you want, what you are capable of, how much you have accomplished in spite of some rather serious problems and obstacles. Its that creative passion that drives you, burning from the inside out. You want more from life, you want to DO something, have a positive impact, go places and see things, write something of value, and not just in small everyday ways. There are minors that have a similar message but no, here, with the queen, the bigger picture. Self-assurance, self-confident drive...and especially the image of a self-assured, confident WOMAN asserting herself, acting, striving for what she wants when so much of societal messages still have so many negative correlations and obstacles to THAT...

Below, as the shadow card, we have the Tower. A card that's been all over my life and reading this year. In truth, because it needs to be, because I still haven't really done the hard work of knocking down things that need it, of making true, major, difficult, painful, and very necessary change. A shadow card, in the background, thematic - because yes, in the short term if I harness the energy of the Queen I can mitigate some of that issue, but really...that feeling that I could be getting so much MORE out of those Science aspects of my life I so love if there wasn't that big Devil problem coloring everything, draining so much of my energy, time...it's a logical assessment. Even the Queen....in the current circumstances, channeling that means finding the energy to stay afloat. Stay afloat with difficulty, with stress and frustration, because of those IDEAS that float around in my head, because no matter how difficult other things are reading and studying and discussion still sets my mind ablaze...but if there was that Tower change, that could mean more. Those rays of light from her crown could extend so much further...

The eye of Shiva watches the destruction in this tower, knowing through the lens of eternity that it is necessary, illuminating it. Flames, like those of the Queen, from below and within but here, under the influence of Mars, they are not burning with positive passion but more aggressive than that, stronger, they cause that old stone structure, with the bars on the window, with the misery inside, to fall. Crystal-like figure are falling out, the painful tumble downward, so fraught that it is tempting to stay within that tower, but to listen to the dove, the reassurance, the glimpse of the next arcana to come if you can just hold and get through this...

It strikes me, the similarities between these: the flames from below driving the action in the whole card, the crown or the eye above radiating light, the color palette of fire, white-themed in the Queen for the positive energy and black-themed in the Tower for the necessary destruction, the darkness that must be faced, fought, dispelled. Fire for action, Mars for engagement, the Queen for accountability...yes, these two together added a very necessary layer/message in regards to the core issue described by the other two cards...

An Ode to the Thoth

She painted you over the course of five years. She painted you while bombs rained down on the city of London the way that raindrops pour out of darkened clouds, soaking through everything below, earth. You were sketched, drawn, perfected as gleaming planes pierced through the skies overhead; they zoomed, heavy with incendiary disaster tucked into their bellies.

A mere twenty years ago those same planes had still been such delicate, fragile things, constructed, it seemed, of paper, sticks, cloth. They were liable to fall back down to earth at the slightest of provocation, and yet men still climbed into them – out of boldness, thirst for adventure, the need to realize that collective dream, old as humanity itself, of flight, of dancing into the skies. Remember the myth of Daedalus, flying too close to the sun? Now men could soar, fly across oceans and continents, race, meet time limits, set records, go further and faster than ever before...

But they had evolved by the time she painted you. Now they were plated with metal hulls and painted with bravado, the slogans of war. They spit bullets and dropped payloads on cities by night and by day; they fought each other among the clouds, shooting and crashing down. The men inside of them died and new men appeared to take their place. Smoke and ash, the newest dimension of war.

She painted you, mindful of HIS direction. She painted three Magi – again and again until finally the one that captured the proper essence appeared. She painted careful lines, geometric forms, colors laden with meaning, esoteric significance, thought. She painted you boldly and brightly among blackouts, among rubble and deaths and air raid sirens’ shrill blares.

She painted you through global disaster and now, decades later, I hold you, shuffle, set cards down on black bedspread. Now you lead me, push, through my own life-disaster, so insignificant in the grand scheme of everything, and yet, nonetheless: keep going you tell me, keep moving forward and faster.

*And yes, I am aware that this is not the 'final' version of the Magus, but it is the one that I like best, personally

thoughts on the marrakech

So I don't ordinarily comment at length/write up a whole post when switching between reading decks...but since the Marrakech isn't one of the easily available mass market decks that everyone and their ma has a copy of, and since i got it with specific reasons and expectations, I though I'd have a go at it in this case.

This is another one of those instances where I pick cards I feel are appropriate rather than pull them and interpret... See, I think what this deck does with the Fool is rather interesting. There are two fool cards in the deck...both have a reinterpretation of the classic symbolism, the man on a journey (though interesting that he isn't a youth!), scorpions and snakes at his feet instead of a dog, a hyena lurking in the background...danger, danger but also that sun and the rainbow, hope, optimism, opportunity awaiting. In one card, he is entering a veil, in the other leaving it...the beginning and end of some kind of journey, then? Running towards vs. from something? Seeing clearly ahead vs behind? Many ways to interpret this. My mind goes to the symbolism of oroboros again - all beginnings have an end, all ends are in their own way a new beginning.

I also like this take on the wheel. I looked up the meaning of Mektoub, and essentially it is the idea of fate, predestination, so it is written, so it will be. But yes, it fits here, the idea that larger wheels spin, things always moving and changing and sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse and you roll with it. I like the utter ridiculousness of the imagery - that sometimes things just happen and sometimes they are and you cannot explain it, cannot make logical sense of the why, why is this happening to me, it just IS this is where you ARE right now. But it's all on the back of an elephant, who moves forward, change, motion, always.

Yes, it's an interesting deck, especially the majors. Those I very much like, and there is a lot of food for thought even though they aren't very busy. The use of primary colors by and large is striking. Love the North African influence of the art. The courts...I don't quite know how I feel about those. The deck plays around with ethnicities (arabs, asians, indian, white) but there doesn't seem to fully by a rhyme or reason to it (as in, it doesn't go by the suits) and...yeah. The minors are not very illustrated or expressive...less approachable than even regular marseilles minors I'd say. I can see them giving people used to reading with illustrated minor decks trouble for sure. Actually, though, I must say I was pleasantly surprised at how well I was able to read them. Apparently my style for such is a mish-mash of relating to majors and number meanings and suit meanings and traditional rws meanings and marseille tradition meanings all wrapped together depending on context and accompanying cards and it...works for me, and makes me realize just how much I've progressed as a reader in the last few years.

So yeah, interesting deck. I like it, but I do admit its more an intellectual like than that kind of gut reaction, instinctive/intuitive type like. Will definitely work with it some more in the future. For now, going to continue with Thoth, whose awesomeness I am realizing more and more, and also, I think, with the Fey, another pretty recent acquisition of mine :]

favorite card backs

An often overlooked aspect of tarot decks, the backs are...well. for me, i can't say they are necessarily a deal breaker - i have several decks whose backs I quite dislike but which I got anyway because well, the actual deck more than made up for that particular drawback. but I must say, a nice back really does add to the awesomeness of a deck as a whole.

For me personally, i like my backs to be reversible if possible (since I read with reversals), for them to somehow thematically or visually 'go' with the card fronts, WITHOUT being merely a print of one of the cards (this tendency on the part of LoS particularly is rather annoying...) and just general aesthetic prettiness. I thought it'd be fun to just list some of my favorite card backs from within my tarot collection. Interestingly enough, they don't correspond all that much with which decks are my favorites overall...

Lookit, shiny!

The Fenestra tarot has what is probably my most favorite of backs...very nice, subtle color, a bit of an art-nouveau feel to it, nicely reversible, and goes perfectly with the art style of the cards themselves. As I said, not really corresponding with my deck preference generally...see, I love the minors in this deck, and it'd probably be much higher on my preferences list if it wasn't for the HUGE, UGLY, UNTRIMMABLE borders the publisher felt the need to take onto all the majors.

I traded this deck away because of that, and the universe recently saw that another copy of it came back to me, so holding onto it this time because I do like the art style and colors generally. And yes, the backs are a major plus.

Other cool backs:

     
I like these two a lot, the Crystal/Vetro back and the Balbi. The Crystal back doesn't really go with the art style of the deck per se, but I just really like how it looks. Reminds me of some old playing card backs I vaguely remember from when I was a kid. Nice and reversible too.

As for the Balbi, again, simple and reversible. Colors do a lot for me too - I've always liked the purple and green color combination, and the particular shades of purple and green used here really appeal. I like the vague vine type design, and the general style and bright colors perfectly encompass the nature of the deck overall and yeah, likey.

Now here are two backs that AREN'T quite reversible, but which I really like anyway. One is the Thoth back. Like the rest of that deck, it is chock full of esoteric symbolism I currently only vaguely/half-understand at best, but I can appreciate it's significance. It definitely gives you a nice feel for the rest of the deck, and visually, it just works. Plus, its not THAT badly un-reversible, so I can still read my reversals without too much distraction.

The Tarot de la Rea back, on the other hand, is very non-reversible, but given that this is one of very few decks which I DON'T read using reversals (in fact this deck likes me to use one very specific spread to read with it) that's not too much a bother. It very well represents the cool mask-filled nature of the deck as a whole and like the fronts just has a...unique, special feel to it. This deck really is one of the little treasures of my collections, and that includes the backs.

pondering self-perception...

So this card was drawn as part of a larger reading i did while killing some time in a coffee shop the other night, but it was the part that stuck with me most, so figured i'd post about it a bit here.

It came up in a spread, in the position with the question of How do I see myself?

The funny thing is - well, Silicon Dawn is an interesting deck, in that it comes with 99 cards rather than the standard 78, and there is lots of room for a reader to decide what to keep when reading with it and what to take out. For me, being a bit conservative with such things...I kept the three fools and, after some consideration, the 99s, but nothing else. Even these I almost took out also but...there was just something about them, especially this one that asked to be kept in...

And the first time one comes up in a reading, it's this one, and for...well, this.

I knew immediately that it was appropriate though. Almost laughed. This deck, in fact, has a very remarkable ability to make me laugh by being so bluntly on-point.

Yes, yes this is me in so many ways. Perhaps that's what drew me to the card when I first saw it, subconsciously. First consider the figure: a little black creature thing, young-looking, odd. There are times, moods when...if you asked me to visually represent how I felt about myself/experienced my interaction with the world...this would be
a good approximation of that indeed. Means well, harmless, but not quite appropriate, or proper, void of color, stark contrast and...

Then there is the balloon, the longing focus on things lost, floating away, things that are gone let go of accidentally, focus on the past, on losing more, and more. It's actually been a weird thematic thing in my thinking lately...

       The art of losing isn't hard to master;
       so many things seem filled with the intent
       to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

       Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
       of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
       The art of losing isn't hard to master...

And then of course there are the rockets, the sense of impending doom, disaster, the sense that no matter what you do it isn't good enough, doesn't matter in the end, the tendency towards fatalism, towards seeing everything in the worst possible light, and especially everything relating to my own actions...

Story of my life, much? In many cases, at least. And the connection to the swords suit is obvious: its over-thinking everything that gets you in such funny situations, mentally.

Finally, the wide gap between the girl and the balloons and the rockets and the rest of the world. The sense of isolation? The fact that yes, indeed, it is all IN YOUR HEAD dearie.

Touche, deck. Touche.

--

*Poem is excerpt from One Art by Elizabeth Bishop. A lovely villanelle.