learning journeys

Trying to get back into the swing of things with properly posting here, working with more of my decks, etc. The Crystal (Vetro) Tarot is one that I've had for a while, and love artistically, but have not really worked all that much with. I think it's high time it got some attention...

We have here, in this subject-less draw (I do want to get back to doing more spreads/exercises...) the six of swords and the Hermit. I must say, spending some time working with both RWS and Thoth traditions really does enrich the reading experience as a whole. The six of swords, which can be about journeys, movement on to better things, new experience; and also about science, logic, discovery, mental and intellectual expeditions. We have waves in this picture, behind the swords, and something that at first looked a bit like a boat but upon closer inspection seems to be a crab or lobster of some sort. The moon is there too, in the sky - actually, beyond the sword arrangement the card as a whole seems to have a bit of an unusual resemblance to the Moon major. What to make of that? Stepping into the unknown, the unclear, the obscure...being willing to venture for not just into new things, but things that are so unfamiliar as to be a bit frightening...

And next to it we see the hermit, who himself tends to go off, on journeys not unlike those in the six of swords card. He goes off alone to ponder, to think and to see, to gain wisdom without distraction. He withdraws into himself, but this is not stagnant introspection - he is not the Hanged Man, sacrificing his body for knowledge. No, on the contrary - he frees himself from the binding of society so as to walk his own path. He relies on himself - his stick to steady him, his light to guide the way. The sky is so rich behind him, dusky orange, beautiful.

We learn most by challenging ourselves with the unfamiliar, by moving forward even when staying put would do, be tolerable. And it is so much easier to make external progress when we can truly say that we know ourselves, are comfortable with our own abilities and strengths.

I've always been one for movement and doing, but often, to be honest, it has been driven largely by the need to get away, start over, lose myself in unfamiliarity so as not to think of things far too tiresomely constant. In some ways, now, I feel like things are beginning to be more about moving forward for the sake of it - because I love learning, love the new, want to experience beauty, things that thus far I've only managed to see in pictures, reflections, always distant...

And as, over the last few years, I've been training myself to communicate, to engage with the world and with people...I realize that in many ways, the years I spent mostly withdrawn, largely alone, internalizing everything, reading and reading, doing my own somewhat unusual thing...there is value in that. I find in conversations with friends that I tend to be...a good bit more self-aware. An understanding of how my mind works and how to work around that efficiently, a well-developed worldview, empathy and perspective and a certain logic to apply broadly.

Forward forward, then - metaphorically, physically, creatively.