more memory & card exercise

Yep, having another go with this idea because it led to interesting things last time and why not try it again with a different deck? So...

This is, I must say first, an interesting take on the Hierophant, but it does make a kind of sense. After all, what is religion and institutions if not that which is written and that which is ruled by old men? Ok, so maybe a bit of a cynical take, that, and yet...

It does bring to mind though, my own experience of religion and writing, way back when. See, my parents were/are Catholic, so we went to church and all that. From the youngest of ages I always just found the whole thing massively boring. Mostly I just daydreamed stories in my head the entire time and tuned it all out. At about age twelve or so, though, I'd gotten to thinking a bit more, and it was then that I actually tried to really LISTEN to what the priest was saying. And I realized I disagreed with all of it, that I was sure that he was just wrong, that what he was saying was completely at odds with my own moral values, and that therefore, this religion was not for me.

Young INTP that I was, this didn't cause me any angst. Ok, then, if you are supposed to have a religion, and this religion is not for me, time to research alternatives. So I went to my local library and started browsing books about religion and found a few about Wicca. Youngster that I was, long-time fan of fantasy stories and comics and tv shows, of course I was intrigued. So of course I read and learned about "real" witches and pagans and so much of it DID make logical and moral sense to me that I decided that yes, I would learn and practice THIS religion. I got a friend interested as well, and that was kind of how I spent most of middle school.

I got a red folder/notebook thing which I called my "Folder of Shadows" because every Wiccan was of course supposed to have a "Book of Shadows" or equivalent, right? I doodled the triple goddess emblem all over the front. And I read and read as many books about Wicca as I could find in the public library system of NYC and in Barnes and Noble occasionally and of course, online. I printed things out and copied diagrams and color coded and chose those parts that made sense to me and omitted what didn't because that was the cool thing about Wicca: you could choose exactly what worked and didn't work for you, there was no book you HAD to read and take at face value whether you agreed with all of it or not, no, you got to WRITE your own, do your own research, put together your own rituals, and wasn't that just the best? So I filled it up, that folder, wrote and wrote. It certainly kept my young brain occupied, if nothing else.

Interesting times, interesting times. Of course, a few years later I realized that no matter how much a religion's tenets might make sense to me, I was still fundamentally incapable of believing in any kind of higher powers or supernatural forces of concepts of an afterlife. Again, this didn't distress me. Ok, I guess I'm an atheist then, and so it was. Being a packrat, the folder still lives somewhere in my closet in my parents' house. It was, if nothing else, and interesting and amusing experience to reflect on from the perspective of an adult...