Response to a Challenge

Earlier this week, Carla commented on a post of mine:

"You've made me actual consider ordering the Mary-El, and I didn't think that was possible. If you can write an entry reconciling me to that Hierophant image, I am sold. :)"

This, I suppose, is my attempt... ;]

---
 "It was granted me to carry away from my prison years on my bent back, which nearly broke beneath its load, this essential experience: how a human being becomes evil and how good. In the intoxication of youthful successes I had felt myself to be infallible, and I was therefore cruel. In the surfeit of power I was a murderer and an oppressor. In my most evil moments I was convinced that I was doing good, and I was well supplied with systematic arguments. And it was only when I lay there rotting on prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirrings of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either - but right through every human heart - and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us it oscillates with the years. And even within the hearts overwhelmed with evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. And even in the best of all hearts, there remains…an un-uprooted small corner of evil. Since then I have come to understand the truth of all the religions on the world. They struggle with the evil inside a human being (inside every human being). It is impossible to expel evil from the world in its entirety, but it is possible to constrict it within each person."
― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956

The image for the Hierophant that we have here is, to say the least, rather unusual; some might call it uncomfortable, disturbing. Indeed, we have a woman, bony and sorrowful, awkwardly holding two deformed infants to suck at her swollen breasts. A stained glass window, murky, behind her; a golden key dangles at her chest. What to make of this image?

(The book offers an explanation tied to the deck creator's own vision/system, calls the woman Babylon. I have a firm tradition of only taking what works for me from such book, however, and much of the deck's underlying system as described is not for me. And so....)

Well, who is the Hierophant, really? What is this major meant to represent? Almost always depicted as male, he is sometimes called the Pope, or the High Priest. Though usually depicted as a religious leader, he represents more than just the influence of established religion. He is authority - not personal, familial, organization, like that of the Emperor - but rather moral authority, systemic authority, the pull of duty and obligation. All those rules and taboos, established and implicit, that we are pushed to follow. He can be a teacher and a guide, wisdom of time and experience collected so as to be passed on. He can be tradition, institutions that hold sway, a regimented, routine way of doing things, the path of least resistance, the path of doing what you 'should' do, what you are 'expected' to do. He can teach, and he can guide, and he can forbid and command, our Hierophant.

But is it only religion and institutions that can do this, that can push us this way? Is this the only aspect of our lives that this card can represent? What teaches us, sometimes gently and sometimes with great pain, clawing into our skin, our minds? What do we suck at, in life, to find our moral center, the traditions and routines we end up following? How do we learn which expectations to follow and which to reject, which are the duties that bind us, call to us? Only from teachers, mentors, religious leaders?

No, no. What greater teacher is there, in life, if not our own experience, our own suffering? What can build and nurture compassion more than our own pain? How can we understand the sorrow and grief of others, had we never felt it ourselves? How could we learn to forgive, if not for having made our own mistakes, sometimes careless, sometimes ignorant, and sometimes pettily deliberate? We are molded and shaped by our experiences, our traumas and troubles as much as by our triumphs.

Who is that woman, that monstrous figure of suffering that holds the key to wisdom, enlightenment, transcendence around her neck? Her hands are frightening, but is it she who causes so much pain in the world? Or is it us, our own hands that do these things, the terrible and the wonderful both? Two infants, duality. We build beautiful cathedrals and mosques that stand through the ages, feats of engineering; we help those in need, raise money, give food and clothes to those without. And we burn people and stone people and slaughter them with machetes in churches, calling them roaches. This is humanity. This has always been humanity, the two sides of the coin.

When did I really become aware of the world outside of myself and those I knew? When did I really start thinking about the bigger picture, the grand scheme of things? It wasn't during childhood Sundays in church, daydreaming about stories and characters I had made up; it wasn't anything a teacher said to me, or a parent. It wasn't the early teenaged years I spent alone with books, absorbed in my own inexplicable sadness, my then-need to hurt myself deliberately again and again. All of that may have tilled the earth a bit, opened my mind, but no.

It was me at seventeen, in high school, always the student of history, deciding, for some reason, to read Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago, unabridged, all three thick volumes. So much painfully detailed recollection and recording; so much suffering, decades and decades of unthinkable injustice, brutality. We learn about the Holocaust in school, sure - see so many movies that to a degree we become desensitized; and anyway that is a story with a happy ending, relatively speaking. We fought the big bad Nazis, defeated them, liberated the camps. We had the Nuremberg trials and the formation of the Jewish state and we had bold declarations of never again, never again. This was something different. This was the suffering of twenty or forty million people (not counting victims or forced famines or war) killed over decades, and even more with lives destroyed. This was suffering without restitution, without justice, even without recognition. Who can speak of the gulags in any detail in this day and age?

I was seventeen and my eyes were pulled open. I read about genocides and wars and human rights. I went to university and studied international relations, economics. I wrote a thesis about the security implications of failing to protect human rights.

What shapes us, for good and for bad, if not suffering? What makes some people bitter and others kind? Why do some people grow and others remain the same, small in thought, in feeling, in self-awareness and understanding of the world? Why do some people bend and others break under pressure? What is religion, really, if not a system meant, for better or worse, to help people come to terms with the most terrible and terrifying aspects of existence?

Do we reach for the key, do we find it? Do we swallow the bitter milk we are fed and use it to grow stronger, better than we once were? It is a choice, for each of us; always there is a choice.

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. 

supportive influence

I really like this deck's Emperor. Usually he's presented as a harsh, imposing figure, full of authority, sitting on a throne of some sort. Here we are given a much more intimate perspective, zoomed in. We see an older, fatherly type of man, a more gentle wielding of power. But yes, mastery also, the symbols of the elements, the fish sword...

I quite like the image, the feel of it. As I've written before, unlike many I've never really had negative reaction or feelings for the Emperor. On the one hand, perhaps this is because I've never really had issues with my father. Growing up, he always seemed like the more reasonable of my parents, temperant, less easy to anger. My mother was the one who would scream, who I had most of the conflicts with. Likewise, in school, many of my favorite teachers were male. There was one English teacher in particular in high school who took notice of me, did little things that meant a lot at a time of my life when I was rather troubled and rather withdrawn... gave me book suggestions since  I was always reading, feedback on my writing even after I finished with his class, support with college application.

Even moreso, the conceptual meanings behind the Emperor, that of discipline, organization, management, ordering...these are things I long for, want in my life. Not because  I am naturally an organized, on time, on top of things type of person; no, quite the contrary. Left to my own devices, I tend to descend into chaos. Things get away from me, forgotten, lost. My living spaces and bags grow so disorganized and messy I can barely move, find anything. I start to lose my ability to think straight. I could easily sit, curled up and withdrawn from the world, for days on end, doing nothing in particular, staring at walls, wasting time on the internet.

Self-discipline and organization is what allows me to function - a gentle kind of support that I need. Part of the reason I gravitate towards ridiculously busy and stressful schedules, I now realize, is because it doesn't leave me the long slots of unstructured time that I so rarely manage to use well. Having classes and work shifts I need to get to gives a structure to my life that makes it easier to get things done than if I had the whole day to myself. Having to-do-lists, everything I need to get done neatly written down and categorized, a whole system around that, helps immensely. When possible, I try to schedule busy days exactly - class, then library to work on a, b, and c, then run this errand, then go to that appointment, then go back to another class, and so on. It's easier to get done when I am following [my own] directions. Even eating, when I am trying to do that well, so much of it is just...what ought to I eat at what times. Pre-plan exactly, bring with me as necessary, follow through. I like routines, going the same way and eating the same thing at the same time every day because it spares me the need to make decisions, so difficult even, especially, when it is about small, meaningless things.

The emperor helps me. When I write an academic paper  I follow a particular routine I have now - outline, where I write out my ideas, general organization of everything. First draft, the most painful, getting the words all down on paper. Revision, organizing things, making sure everything flows. Add citations, footnotes, fill in numbers, specific information. Revise again, take out unnecessary words, make sure everything is clear, concise, logical. Print, submit, go. It serves me well - he does, the Emperor.

I see in him all the things I need to strive for - the forces that help keep my life from falling apart.

two sides to everything

A tall, glorious city looms high above the ocean. A kind of sunset or sunrise motif to it, almost shining up high but dusky at its base. Below the waves, the angry waves crash into pillars, black and white, threatening to overwhelm. Everything has a cost...when you build a magnificent city near the sea that is the risk that you take. The head of a divine being rises out of the city's peak - protection, insurance, or an illusion people cling to when faced with very real fears? A raven flies overhead, an omen, a messenger...

A raven with a gem it its beak, a shiny bauble stolen at a cost; always a cost, always a tradeoff for everything. Nothing in life is truly free, in the grand scheme of things. The pearlescent serpent curls around the bird, ever-present, vaguely threatening.

Victory snatched from the jaws of defeat, it seems like. A natural disaster gives me additional time to write a far better paper than I could have managed in that originally allotted. I read about a city I love, soggy, start to set itself right as I polish off the last words. Always with the worry, this thing or something else. Worry and hope and desperate grasping. This for that, jewel and snake. Something that makes my thoughts clear, set right; and brings a certain breathlessness when I walk, even slowly.

Always the contrast, the juxtaposition, the dual-edged nature of things. What do you choose to focus on - the god bathed in light or the waves? The jewel in beak or the snake?

after the storm

Supposedly I am resting. Two days of unexpected rest, from classes and commute; an extension for that paper that was supposed to be due yesterday. Two days to sit curled under a blanket, drinking hot coffee, taking a break from the world.

A knot of worry, anxiety in my gut that will not go away. I watch pictures of the city I will always think of as home flooded: tunnels and normally busy avenues filled with rushing water, facades of buildings falling off. This is supposed to be the stuff of movies, dramatic scenes you watched with a skeptical air. I think of all the people I know, scattered around the East Coast - were they all as lucky as I, my power humming along as always?

The sky is still this unnatural, pure-white color, uniform in its gloom.


you watch seasons pass, each one stranger than the last:
hot when it should be cold, and massive storms.

you watch as global warming becomes climate change,
which in turn becomes the Thing Of Which Mainstream Politicians Do Not Speak.

(meanwhile, automobile sales in the third word soar,
unregulated factories spring up, ready to produce cheap goods.)

instead they discuss legitimate rape, 
suggest that government should control the most intimate functions of your body,
heap contempt on being poor.

working through doubts

So today we finally have some minors come up to write about. To be honest, the minors were a large part of why I hesitated to get this deck for as long as I did - though increasingly I find that I appreciate some variation from the standard RWS tradition images, the ones in this deck are particularly...out there. Would I even be able to even read them?
I find that with a bit of support from the book I can, and with much greater ease than I've had reading many a more conventional deck.

We have for today the three of disks, a family cloaked in folds and folds of shining reddish-gold, holding their newest addition, a baby newly born, newly created, newly entered into this world. Traditionally, this image represents work, but not of the mundane sort - rather artistry, craft, a labor of love, doing things you enjoy. Works, in the Thoth. I've been using that deck too, for personal draws, and that card along with the Knight of Disks came up as advice for this paper I'm writing. Work, find a stable foundation and expand outwards, keep at it as long as you must. A family is hard work too - birth, of course, but also after, the sleepness nights, the many costs and sacrifices each member must make to achieve some kind of harmony. Even gold, this card reminds us, is valuable not just for its beauty: how much effort, especially in ancient times, was required to dig it out of the ground, to smelt it into the form we are used to.

A labor of love. I wouldn't exactly call writing this paper that, but it is a labor that requires much of me, a struggle to create something I desperately want to be proud of, or at least satisfied with. This brings us to the second card, the seven of cups. Here we see a wolf, black, potentially frightening  making his way through the night. Fear, yes, apprehension surrounding him, and this. What if I fail? This professor, who is also the director of my program, a well known expert in the field - what if I fail to meet his clearly stated high standards, and what if I disappointing myself? What's more, the same professor sent out an email about a job opportunity assisting him, and as per my post yesterday about channeling that Magician energy more, I decided to apply to that as soon as I am done with the paper. That means again, putting together a cover letter, updated resume, the work that goes into trying to make myself sound qualified. Always the lurking wolf there, in corners of mind, when we make ourselves try for things we don't really believe we can have.

But the wolf also represents wild, primal energy, inner power, untempered by societal expectations, over-thinking, doubt. The wolf represents potential, what you can do if you unleash your abilities, allow them to roam freely in your life. The biggest obstacle to me finishing this paper and getting the application for the job sent is not a lack of ability, or work ethic; no, it is fear, and doubt.

Manifesting the Magician

The Magician in tarot represents will, manifestation of energy. He draws inspiration from above and acts with it, makes it real down below, in the realm of the everyday. Anyone can have great ideas, but the magician is about applying your skills, your talents, your time and energy into transforming those ideas into something tangible. He holds power in his hands, esoteric, exoteric, his. He can be any one of us, all of us an none at all.

Will and action, and confidence, the ability to believe that we can, that those actions are worth taking, that we have the strength in us. More often then not, when we hesitate, when we hold back, when we give up or refuse to even try, it's not because the thing we are facing is truly impossible, that the limitation is total and external. No, it is our minds, those powerful, amazing machines, telling us: this is too hard; you aren't good enough, smart enough, strong enough, worthwhile enough. You will fail anyway. so why waste the time? And the truth is, we can only have as much power in our lives as we permit ourselves to have. We can only achieve as much as we allow ourselves to try for.

Some of my proudest accomplishments - and certainly those that are probably most impressive to others - are things I didn't really believe I could do, succeed at. The queen of swords mind told me to try anyway, the costs of doing weren't so high, I didn't have much to lose, might as well. And then, to my shock, I succeed. Not always, of course. There are failures and disappointments, plenty, but such is the way of trying, risking.

In other aspects of my life that has been harder still to do - particularly those where the outcome is only partly dependent on me, when I can't even comfort myself with the knowledge that much of the situation is in my control. The challenges I still have to overcome, even in this one aspect of my life, are complicated and plenty, but the step I took Monday...I resisted that for so many years. Irrational fears, bad past experiences, distrust, unwillingness to give someone else (what I perceived to be) power over me, a strong avoidance to admitting weakness, and most of all, a fatalistic fear that it couldn't possibly work out well anyway. For all of that, it was not, is not, a disaster.

I'm better at manifesting the Magician in some areas of my life than others. Action, doing not just thinking about doing, taking risks, trying even when you cannot help but fear that you will fail. fall down on your face. I have a kind of system that I've been using for years, that has helped me do, even when having a quite difficult time of things. I have a special to do list notebook in which I write down all of the things I must do, from minor chores and errands to major life steps. These are valued differently, but for every three small things or one major thing, I get to put a sticker on my calendar. At the start of each year I make a point of getting myself a special calendar I will enjoy, and I've started collecting pretty stickers since that makes the process funner for me. A visual representation of the action of I have managed to take, productivity.

I will continue trying to expand the ways and areas of my life where I do this, particularly if I continue to feel better, so that doing more is actually manageable, possible. Impossibility should be something that life proves to you, not something you tell yourself is true.

small leaps towards balance

A note: this is definitely one of those relitively few decks where I very much feel the need to read the book/get the creator's perspective before I approach reading the cards, and thus what I write will surely be influenced accordingly.

Two majors to start off the week with the Mary-El tarot - a rather appropriate set, on a couple of levels. Though the card in this deck is titled Justice, I see in it more of the Thoth Adjustment influence than the tradition of the RWS. We have the Egyptian mythology here, Maat with the feather to weigh, to judge. The point of life, in that tradition, was to seek balance, equilibrium, to live and act in such a way that, when the time to be weighed came, your heart would balance out with the feather and your soul would not be eaten up but rather allowed to continue on to the afterlife.

Equilibrium is what strikes me, and reminds me of that word of the year project/idea I wrote about back at the start of the year. A word to focus on, an idea and a goal - I chose Equilibrium because this year is also a Justice year for me, as far as year card calculations are concerned, and I felt that its very much something I could use more of in my life. I must say, on the whole, though I have had some amazing adventures and experiences this year, particularly this summer, up until this week I would have to admit that I don't really think I have made much progress on the whole bringing more balance into my life goal. We have the Fool next to this Justice card though, a dynamic fool, full of energy and passion and most importantly, movement. The waterbearer, dancing with dragon-gods from Mesopotamian mythology, the earliest of human civilization beginnings, and butterflies for transformation. Air is the element of this card, the association in the Thoth. Air can represent intellect, thoughts, the swords suit in the tarot, but also freedom. Is there any greater freedom than the feel of flying through the air, the sky?

I think I may have made progress this week, small, limited, much-caveated but nonetheless real progress. I feel more capable of taking on some things than I did just a few days ago, and that is something.

Speaking of which, the other level at which these cards seem relevant deals with the academic - a very important paper I must write for my Terrorism class by Monday. The fool here I see as myself, at the beginning of my writing process, some ideas spinning around my head but much work still to be done. We had to pick one of six questions to respond to and I wrote a vague outline of an idea for two of them yesterday, since one answer I had to run by the professor and I wanted to have a backup in case he vetoed it. He approved it though, leaving me debating which idea to go with. In the Justice card, I think I have an answer. A prompt to compare the professionalism of two terrorist organizations. My thesis is a rather nuanced, balanced one - that neither was more professional than the other, per se, but that they are/were fundamentally different. Organization A was a hybrid terrorist group and insurgency, with significant conventional force at its disposal at its height. It's armed forces were quite well trained, as were its suicide bombers, etc. It controlled territory and governed it to some degree. Other group, on the other hand, is more professional at pure terrorism, a transnational network with no set location, its leadership having a history of moving when necessary, outsourcing to affiliates around the world, etc. The more conventional nature of the former group was what ultimately allowed it to be defeated, while the more purely asymmetric and loose network structure of the latter why it continues to be a major threat. They were both very professional, but different natures, strengths and weaknesses, etc.

Well, now that I have an idea even more worked out (I do love it when tarot helps me do my academic work), I suppose I should apply some of that fool energy and write a proper outline/draft.