thoughts about thinking

It's been a while since I did something a bit different, a bit more experimental, so. This is a reading around the general theme of Why do I tend to cling/fixate so much on negative thoughts about myself? Rather than doing the usual process, though, this is going to be an exercise in free association - write down any thoughts as they come about each card, one sentence per idea. Also, it somehow turned into exercise in the second person...

3 of Cups

You tend to think less negatively when doing things with friends - it's a chance to get out of your head, to distract yourself with something enjoyable.

On the other hand, there is feeling alone even surrounded by people you know and like, and wondering why am I always like this?

Like many people, you can't help comparing yourself to the people around you, and noting the shortcomings on your part.

There is pretending you feel what they do, all of you drinking from your cups and talking about this or that, nodding, and not saying so much, never talking about so many things.

Sometimes, surrounded by people, you feel unreal; seeing them, and knowing yourself as only you can, you wonder if you are even really a person.

You enjoy time with people, the talking, the contact, caring and being cared about but there are limits - you are the one dressed in the monochrome, sitting a bit apart from the others.

You like to be amused and amusing, use humor to mask darker things, learn the language of minimization - make your problems sound not so bad, not so concerning, choose words carefully.

You enjoy the meetings and celebrations and interactions, but there is a burden to everything that needs to be left unsaid, the distance it creates, the juxtaposition of the you that drinks from the cup and laughs and chats and the you that they are not allowed to see.

The Empress

She walks through a field ripe with grain, with plenty, but there is something melancholy about this Empress, something detached or even uncaring about her demeanor.

No matter how rich and fortuitous and pleasing your surroundings and material circumstances might be, they cannot fix your internal troubles; there is a real limit to how much they can even improve your mood.

The symbolism here is a bit funny for you - pregnancy is supposed to represent positive things - giving birth to new endeavors, the act of creation - but you have always been profoundly uncomfortable certain aspects of the stereotypical feminine.

You have always been uncomfortable with the way some would reduce your function, your purpose, to that of baby-making machine; the idea of you yourself inhabiting the body of this Empress makes you want to scream.

There are so many small things about being a woman, and what that should mean and what that de-facto means and what certain old white dudes would like to say about it that you hate, that you rebel against intellectually and viscerally, and yet you wonder how much of that has shaped you anyway.

Sometimes you wonder if you'd have ended up the same way, if you'd been born a man.

Going back to the intended metaphor, you wonder too you are even capable of creating much of anything anymore and that bothers you, in a small, constant way.

Strength

The expression of Strength mirrors that of the Empress, but seems subtly different - calm but more positive, trusting, perhaps.

There is a difference between confidence and trust, and apathy and indifference, though the external expression of the two feelings may indeed look the same.

The lion is calm too, eyes closed, following, trusting, at peace. The woman's hand rests on his brow, connection, work.

If the lion is the beast of unconscious thought, of cogs of the mind that spin as they will, the woman has trained it, has learned to work with it, knows the nature of the beast and has learned to control it.

Knowledge and action are two different things entirely, and you have only ever excelled at the former; self-awareness does not mean self-control, and you have never been good at bridging that gap.

An animal does not become obedient naturally, by itself, without concentrated, focused effort over an extended period of time. Are thoughts too, then, trainable? If so, how much have you really tried, to train them, to relearn patterns? How much effort have you been willing to extend?

Though the lion, lets not's not forget, is a dangerous beast with sharp claws and teeth, and training and controlling one is hardly a safe and easy prospect. 

worries and avoidance

I thought I'd try a free-association exercise with a simple one card draw, just writing whatever comes to mind. Here be the result, using the Silicon Dawn, another of my favorite decks.

We see a woman standing in an open doorway, shoulders hunched, posture defensive. Behind here we see a pair of arguing figures, silhouettes, the tone of the conflict made clear but without details. The color here is red, although that is less specific to the card, and more a function of the fact that the Silicon Dawn is that odd deck that associates disks with fire and wands with earth. The Thoth would calls this card Worry, an appropriate jumping off point given the imagery:

Worry, perhaps, but also a discomfort, and that kind of smothering anxiety that makes you feel like you are crawling out of your skin, and dread. You hate conflict, hate being a part of it, especially the yelling, screaming kind of conflict; now that you are an adult you have the freedom to refuse that much, at least - reasonable adults should not resort to screaming at one another, and people that do are people who would scream at you are people you will refuse to continue to associate with. There are, however, so many other kinds of conflicts, calm ones, passive-aggressive ones you can't always even recognize with any accuracy, petty conflicts with strangers. There is the dull dissatisfaction found in absences, the conflicts you choose not to have for lack of energy or because it seems futile to get into it, the things you teach yourself to just live with. There are the things you did not want but agreed to, because to say no would mean conflict that felt, at the time, too overwhelming. There are, too, the conflicts entirely of your own making, the ones in your head, the ones that don't even make sense if you try to put them into words, but which gnaw away at you in your own brain.

That jagged slash of air across the woman's dress, that disconnect, that sense of dissociation that sometimes comes when things are too difficult otherwise, the way you can, for a while at least, stare at nothing and feel nothing regardless of what is going on around you. You can turn you back on the conflicts, the worries, the things you dread, for a time. You can distract yourself and try to pretend you do not hear them, but the doorway is open after all, and they are there, and eventually you will have to deal with it, the feelings and the thing that is causing those feelings. You can only stand hunched in a doorway for so long before you must choose, in or out, and go with it.

bit more tarot poetry

Another try at this particular exercise...
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change never does just sprout
forth; it does not bloom
in sudden bursts of brilliant color,
come spring.

no, change wildly spins
and be must grasped painfully with teeth.
it must be chased, pulled out
from deepest depths within.

Deck comparison, Three-Fold

So a while ago I asked for suggestions to do a deck comparison type post series on. I've not forgotten about it, and decided to start off with a couple of posts following up on an idea posted by thesycamoretree: something Thothy, something RWSy, and something Else. These will be done purely by my own intuitive readings, with no reference material. Why? Because anyone can look up the difference in these decks as written down in books, so why read me rehashing the same thing?

To start off with, why not begin with the actual Thoth and RWS (Smith Centennial ed., in my case) and add the Mary-El to that mix? 
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Starting off with my favorite of these, the Thoth. Here, the King has been transformed into a Knight - less the superior to the Queen than her equal, and more dynamic a concept than the King image. It can be confusing at first, but I find with this in particular its best to just roll with it, is what it is, and onwards.

The Knight of Cups rides his horse, a pure white pegasus, symbols of god and of purity and power. He rides it upwards, away, showing the kind of optimistic ambition that can be associated with this card. Take that too far and you have escape into unreality, escape into dreams, escapism into the cup or so many similar things. Here, more positively, he rides above the wild wave, controlled in his motion so that they do not touch him. Just sketched into one of these waves we can see a peacock: so much show, and isn't it true? Doesn't he grave the applause just a bit? Emotionally he does, for reassurance rather than ego perhaps, but nonetheless.

Emotional energy as power here: the glowing of the cancer crab in the cup, the wings that sprout out of his back. His armor is green, like the suit of the Fool: optimist, faithful, ready to push forward into the unknown anew, but perhaps sometimes less than fully aware of what he should be aware of. His strength is his heart, his connection to others. His horse looks back towards him, ready for the next command, ready to work together brilliantly, as they are wont to. The image scheme here (weird yellow tint of the digital image aside) is largely blue and white, appropriate for the pinnacle of the watery suit, and bringing out the contrast of the armor and the cup even more.

In contrast, the figure in the classic RWS is far more sedate. He sits on his throne, dressed primarily in blue es well. Waves surround this seat, and we can see him holding a cup in one hand, a lotus shaped scepter in the next. We see fish and a ship, just barely, in the water behind him. The ship for movement and fortune (it takes money to launch one, after all) the fish for bounty perhaps?

Looking at this card I am reminded of how, so often, people say that the courts are the hardest of the tarot deck to read. If one is talking about the RWS, I cannot say that I much disagree. We have a king on a throne, facing towards the right, holding a cup and sitting still. He looks comfortable there, I suppose. I cannot say that, from image alone and without my knowledge of memorized meanings, I can get much from this card. This is in major contrast to the Thoth's, where I am struck immediately by all the details and could go on and on about it for ages. This one evokes...nothing. I have to go back to what I 'know' this card to mean.

Color-wise, it is a nice scheme, blues and greens with just a bit of red makes a nice contrast, and I do quite enjoy the muted palette of the centennial edition.

Lastly, we have the Mary-El king. This deck dances to its own tune, its own internal scheme and ideas which are not necessarily drawn directly from either major tarot tradition. The deck creator had very specific meanings for the imagery in mind, but they don't jive with me, so I use my own take.

Immediately, I am struck by the composition of this card. I am reminded of the famous painting of Ophelia, drowned. Like this king she lay half-submerged in water, surrounded by lily pads, flowers. There are many things a king of cups can drown himself in, should the darker aspects of his nature overwhelm. But there is a different here, between this king and the girl: the trident. Poseidon carried a trident, in mythology, a tool through which to channel his godly might, and his symbol.

He does not drown, does not die, merely floats. Perhaps indeed this is merely a swim in the water, a moment of relaxation, a return to easier, less complicated times. Not all escapism must be destructive or dangerous. Sometimes a long bath or vigorous swim is just what we need to take our minds off of too stressful things, to get back the perspective we need.

The nudity of the King also works for me. It general nudity can signify great strength or great vulnerability. This king can exemplify both, at different times. A different take here, on the water element aspects of the card than in the others, but comes through loud and clear nonetheless.

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The message of the day then: to move towards what you want, and do not be afraid to let yourself move forward with optimism, or to take a but of a break for distraction - but do not let that distraction take over to the point of causing vulnerability, weakness.

memory of sun, outdoors

I suppose the Sun is one of those cards in this deck where its Swedish providence is especially noticeable - in the style of the clothes that the two children wear, and even more so in the prominence of the moose. It has to be a pretty northern country if such an animal is associated with sunlight and warm rather than winter, snow.

We have pictures of moose - from vacations is Alaska and, I think, perhaps Maine as well. I was too young then to remember much from those trips, and what does stick out in memory does not include any experiences with such creatures. Deer though, I do remember seeing, outdoors.

Its really kind of amusing how much of an outdoorsy scene this sun card is: children playing in the grass, roosters feeding, butterflies fluttering above it all. It's things like this that remind me of how much of a city kid I really am, both in experience and in outlook, preference and predilection. We had a house in the Pocanos in Pennsylvania for a while when I was a kid. It was a big change going out there - so very rural, foresty, quiet. There was lots of grass and forest, dirt roads, wildlife of all sorts. Yes, there were the deer that I saw, coming in twos or threes across the road to nibble at this or that plant. It was nice, sure, to be able to see them, something certainly not possible in New York City.

In America at least, I've only ever seen chickens and roosters at petting zoos, also in Pennsylvania. It was not they, but the goats, that tickled my fancy. For a while we used to drive down there almost every weekend, two hours in both directions, card trips I hated for the motion sickness they caused. There was so much grass to play on and forest to explore - I did neither, much. I was bored outside. It was boring and uncomfortable with all the bugs, the lack of man-made noise. I much preferred to stay indoors and play on the Sega Genesis: the Sonic games, street fighter games, that random game where you played a team of criminals, one short and fat and one tall and skinny, who had to successfully break in and rob various places. I read history for kids books about Pompeii and the sinking of the Titanic, about the life of Anny Oakley and about the Trojan War. I colored in coloring books or watched movies with my father, many of them (in retrospect) not especially age-appropriate but no one objected. I would sit at the table when my mother's friend, who lived nearby, visited and complained about her miserable job as a hotel maid and her husband, who was over twenty years older than her and who she had only married to secure a green card and whose grumpy ass she was now stuck with. He was nicer to his dogs than he was to her, she would say. I sat quietly and listened to them talk.

I did not see the appeal of that kind of outdoors. At home, playing in the backyard and in the street, on stoops and stairs of houses, always some other people around making noise, arguing, that was tolerable sometimes for our imagination games but so much quiet and trees and grass and bugs and why bother?

To this day I cannot help but feel this way. Place me in a city, any city in the world, and I will happily wonder round in it all day, on foot, and never grow bored. I love exploring cities, the nooks and crannies and changing style of the architecture of buildings, whether they be cities full of metal and glass skyscrapers or Eastern European medieval architecture or low slung white structures and fields of trash and wondering goats.  In a city I can enjoy the sun, and I love the contrast of trees and flowers to the man-made things all around them. Looking forward to taking pictures of the blooming cherry blossoms around DC again next week for just that reason. But in an actually rural place, the kind of naturey environs so many people find relaxing, a nice place to get away...I can appreciate PICTURES of such places, but actually put me into one and I will very quickly grow uncomfortable and bored and possibly very paranoid about bugs and feeling itchy for no reason and if forced to remain there I will very soon pull out a book or a game and ignore it all.

Different strokes, different folks and all that.

Story Time - Futility and Faith

Figured another go at this exercise was in order - it's a break from purely academic writing, at the very least ;]

Perhaps once they had struggled, screamed, fought back terror with sharpened swords. Perhaps they started out full of determination, a zeal that slowly transformed into frustration and, later still, simple exhaustion. Where did their armor go, their clothes? Abandoned, too heavy to carry; sold for a bite to eat, fuel to fight a bit more.

Now they no longer notice the hunger that gnaws at their bellies, the prickle of cold against their bare skin. The serpents they once struggled against fill the room, knot into each other as they slither round and round on the floor. Even the swords have defected, increasingly snake-like in form. The two of them do not care, do not look at each other, the snakes, anything else. Even disgust is gone from their senses - careless to the feel of snake against the soles of their feet. They sit motionless on top of me, watch time pass, breath, dream, disappear bit by bit into uselessness.

Even the stupid dog is better off, still scurrying on in search of half-remembered treats. He goes on, stopping at every tree for a sniff, a leap, a lick. Each time he finds only coins, dull and cold, where once perhaps a fruit had once grown. You think he would learn, stop trying, but of course dogs never do. On and on until he sees a single bloom, something sweet perhaps in a while, but how long will it take to ripen and mature, and longer still to fall - silly dogs cannot climb trees, after all. Why does he wait so long, so patiently, eyes never leaving the prize that may or may not come to be?

There are some in this world like that dog, with their faith, looking about and going on until hear the call, the trumpets blowing, the stork clutching a new opportunity, a chance to try again. They look up at the moon and the stars night after night, straining their eyes and their ears, ready and willing when it finally comes. They are willing, even after so much failure and loss, to deal with pain, the birth of a new aeon, so much necessary change. They find the fruit, finally: pain in the midst of so much sound and so many beautiful colors above them.

Others keep eyelids shut, see nothing, hear only the same endless hissing and slithering.

self improvement focus/task

Often, when there are so many things that need attention and doing, its hard to really focus on any one thing. I believe I did this once before here, and thought it'd be a good idea to do again: Pull one card, with the theme/query of one aspect of things or task that would be worth focusing on for self-improvement, right now.

I named this Magician as one of my favorites in an early 'Favorite Majors' series most, and I must say that I'm still of that opinion. I particularly enjoy the fact that the Magician here is a woman, but not in the overly feminized and/or sexualized sense seen in some decks - no, she is presented as powerful, and in many ways stylized, like so many ancient statues. This makes clear that what he have here is still an archetype, and idea depicted in human form, but at the same time it universalizes that idea: power and self confidence is not, nor should it be seen as, just a man's domain.

She wears a skirt covered in pentacles, has sword in hand, cup on the altar in front of her and wand held by the trunk of her elephant shield. What does it mean, that elephant? Wisdom, massive strength, a long memory? According to the almighty Internet, it is often used to symbolize mental and spiritual, as well as physical, power and strength. Interestingly, apparently there is a connection between the elephant and those storm clouds I hadn't at all known about:

"In Siam, Laos and Cambodia, the white elephant grants rainfall and plentiful harvests. But when ridden by Indra, Lord of the Heavens, the elephant becomes the Storm-God."

Other meanings include mastery, and unification of heaven and earth...well, apparently in many cultures the elephant has quite a similar significance as this very card. Since getting this deck I have been intrigued by how symbolism-dense it is, and this bit of research has got me thinking about perhaps looking into that more deeply...

In any case, we have the monkey from the Thoth as well, echoing those meanings, and the storm clouds that can apparently be tied to that elephant shield, but perhaps too can be read as...well, lightening is mighty powerful too, isn't it, and dangerous, but there is so much we would have never achieved has someone not figured out how to harness the power of electricity...

And what does this all mean, as related to my original query? What should I be focusing on in the very current moment in particular? On myself, it seems, on myself and what I can do, my abilities and strengths. I should focus on self confidence, empowerment, the active, can do, inner motivation and drawing on my resources, in spite of any storm clouds that may be lingering above, darkening the skies. Mundane and esoteric, environmental and personal...how can I empower myself?

True enough this. After quite decently long stretch of feeling quite on top of my game I'm afraid I have been slipping back into self doubt, questioning whether everything I am doing is on some level pointless. Career-wise, it's hard not to be discouraged when... no one seems interested in taking you on even for unpaid internships. Of course, the more discouraged and unconfident you feel, the harder it is to push yourself to keep applying and keep trying and that can only add to the problem...

So reminder here to focus on strengths rather than dwelling over much on the shortcomings. Perhaps in some areas of life I have not made much progress, but in others things have changed and evolved much indeed. There are some things you cannot change or cannot, at this time, overcome. Fine. Focus on what you CAN do, what you ARE capable of, and things that make you feel good about you.

another go at tarot poetry

It's an interesting exercise, if nothing else. For some reason, the Thoth works better for me with this than anything else.

Magus and Fool

empty and full -
where will you go,
rising from nowhere?
nothing will stop you, nothing will dim
that light in which you spin.

rise then, in ellipses,
in spiral rings that swing
without end, with the flutter
of butterfly wings and the chirp
of a dove beside you.

in fractal darkness you glow,
reaching on stretched toes -
what for? what chews
at your leg and tickles your soul?
fire and ice and purple glow.

where can you go, pushed
by air, wind that blows
unknown and chilled by faith, with
hands full of power, burns,
sharpened blades and golden coins?

can you find it,
the half-dreamt space
beyond edges, lines so carefully drawn?
full of nothing, staring at empty nowhere -
and do you dare?

 

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.

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...

New deck free-writing exercise

This one is an exercise I thought of doing myself. In a lot of [creative] writing classes, instructors like to introduce the idea of 'free-writing' - essentially, stream of thought type writing. You take a prompt and you set a specific time frame, usually five or ten minutes, and you literally DO NOT STOP the entire time, just write write write and see what your brain pops out. I thought it would be a nice way to warm up to working with one of my recently acquired (and trimmed!) decks, the Dreaming Way Tarot. In this case, I shall give myself about ten minutes for each of the two cards I've drawn.
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I got this even though I feel that I have enough RWS tradition decks already because the art in some many of the cards enchanted me - something about the whimsical, fantasy-story nature of the images which nonetheless are not - unlike the Hanson-Roberts or Whimsical tarots - too childish or 'fluffed up'. The odd touches call to me, as odd things usually do. Like to like...

This devil is a perfect example. A female devil, which is fairly unusual (the only other deck that immediately comes to mind is the Victorian Romantic) who is wearing, of all things, a bright white dress. A modest white dress, at that. There is a straightjacket over it, however - what does that mean? Is the Devil herself, though holding the chains of the human pair, trapped and constrained? Or is is simply an affectation, a preference? I can think of two contexts for such bondage: mental health institutions in the recent past and the BDSM community. Repression or fetish or both?

She is dressed and the humans are naked, bare to the world. Nudity as vulnerability, clothes as power? When Europeans started colonizing the world they thought of many other cultures as savage for, among other things, they did not wear 'civilized' clothes. Look at the paintings of old, royalty wearing so many elaborate garments they could barely move. When cloth was expensive that was what power was. Today, celebrities wear next to nothing on magazine covers and that next to nothings still costs more than most outfits you or I could afford and so it goes. So much and so little changes over years.

A final observation - the two chained people, they are holding hands, clasped together, comforting each other. They have solidarity even in this dilemma. It is generally easier to bear things when you are not alone with them, isn't it? The reason why solitary confinement has always been seen as the harshest of punishments. Does the devil not care about this subversion, or is she too tied up to notice or stop them?

In contrast to the constraints, restrictions, chains in the devil, in the Two of Wands we see the familiar image of possibility, potential. The man is wearing white too but his garments are not so stiff - rather there are odd strings pillowing in the breeze, and checkered pants. He holds a globe in his hand, the world, all the places a person could see and go. The wands stand before him in the shape of a door.

Where will he go, then? This way or that, for him to decide and proceed; you can just barely see what seems to be a split in the road before him, two paths in different directions. In freedom, too, there is limitation: you cannot have everything, see all that there is to see. There isn't enough time, enough energy even for all of it. Jack of all trades master of none, they say about those who like to dabble and flit between this and that.

Potential needs energy, action to fill it out and make it real. Perhaps here on the right there are buildings, towers and houses, on the left there is fog and road and woods, and each have their advantages, different for each individual, but you cannot split yourself in half, go each way at once. In gaining you must also lose, let go, walk away. And after that, what good does looking back do, wondering if perhaps it was the other way that would have been best, questioning? Perhaps in real life not so bad as to turn you into a pillar of salt at a glimpse but nonetheless - a sort of chain.

If the thick stiff gown of the devil represents her overbearing power, the restriction inherent in dealings with her, and the nudity of her two subjects shows their vulnerability and desperation, then this man's clothes...we see individuality, a refusal to conform to any set traditions, the willingness to do something new. Who wears a hat with such straps, or checkered pants, or so many very long ribbons on their shirt? Not all are good ideas but that willingness to experiment, to do as you like and not care what people may think...admirable in its own way.

"Scratch and Sniff" Senses Exercise

So another exercise from the Tarot Playbook: this one is called "Scratch and Sniff" and it is about engaging with a card with your senses, beyond the usual 'what do you see?' approach.

Sound

Bells - this Magician makes me think of the ringing of small bells; actually, a particular set of bells, the ones used during a Catholic mass while the priest is uh, doing the whole communion wafer ritual (I never paid attention when I went and I almost always went to church that was not in English so I don't know a lot of the proper terms for things). Bells, and chanting perhaps. The sizzle of a firecracker being lit, preparing to explode into brilliant color. The sound of a camera flash.

Smell

Incense burning. Frankincense, specifically. The smell of smoke from a just blown out scented candle. Strong smells, concentrated around the magician, the altar. Perhaps too, a splash of some kind of perfume.

Touch

The magician is exquisitely smooth: the feeling of silk, of really high thread-count bedsheets. Smooth and soft, but also cold. There is no warmth here, from the silk, no comfort. Smooth and cold so that it almost feels wet, slick, thought it is not. Cold and silky and perfectly pressed, devoid of wrinkles or creases. Like his robe, like the altar-top, polished and shined, cold metal to the touch; and his mask, too.

Taste

Wine, served chilled. Rich but not quite sweet enough to be truly tasty. Perhaps some kind of exotic liqueur, the kind the makes an impression when you pour it into a class, the kind that you have to drink slowly, rolling the taste around in your mouth and you aren't quite sure what to make of it, whether you like. A touch of anise and the way it ever so slightly burns as it goes down your throat.

Or perhaps coffee - not the kind here, in America. No, turkish coffee, or syrian coffee, whatever you want to call it. Served in tiny cups, black and incredibly bitter and strong. Thick with the grounds. You drink it in some cafe surrounded by the smell of cigarettes and shisha, vaguely nauseated but quite awake, drink the black and the grounds too, and try to ignore the aftertaste.

Poem for a Court Excercise

So I just got myself The Tarot Playbook, which I've had my eye on for a while seeing as how I generally quite like doing out of the box type exercises with my tarot cards. I decided to start off my just opening to a random page, which got me one called "How Do I Love Thee". Basically, the assignment is to pick a court card (I drew one randomly), find four traits you like most about them, choose four adjectives to go with each trait, and then compose a love poem for the court using those adjectives. I am very much not a love poem type person: not from the reading end of things (newest poetry book, which I got along with this tarot book, focuses largely on Armenian Genocide...) and especially not from the writing end, so a  challenge indeed. I don't think this is quite lovey but, well ;]
 ---

youthful rider:
offbeat, always confident -
silly, or focused?
we wonder, stare
at red robes so fiery,
royal and long
and yet your horse is winking.
how can you be the charming
knight with a hat so rounded?
can valour controlled
be so full of color?

perhaps it does not matter.
it has always enchanted us -
oddity, the knowing smirk.

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.

card-based musing on memory, the world

I wanted to do another memory exercise but when I look at this card it elicits not so much a single kind of memory to write about so much as...snippets and thoughts about various things...
----

The fields in the background here catch my eye. As a person who has always lived in cities, the shape and color of fields has always intrigued me - probably because I'm not familiar with the practical, mundane reasons behind why they are the way they are. I remember being on planes landing and taking off. In Germany and Poland especially, at that time of year at least, many fields like that, growing smaller and smaller as your rise up into the sky. The last time I was actually close to some fields was in Tunisia, that day our Arabic teacher took us on a trip to his hometown. We stopped for a bit at his older sister's house. She and her husband had land, fields in that beautiful, rich northwestern countryside. We say in her courtyard eating grapes from a nearby tree and sweet makrouch, cookies similar to fig newtons but so much tastier, not artificial. It was Ramadan and not sunset yet so they didn't eat but insisted we did, the whole that's quite enough no no have more dance. There, instead of the kind of trees we see in this image there was a row of cactus plants.

In the foreground we see the king, with his staff in hand, a gate and little balls of fire separating him from the land. A lion lays at his feet. I wish I could say this brings something more positive to mind, but well...

The lion: al-Assad, in Arabic. Bashar al-Assad - a lion, his name means, the image it creates. The lion-named ruler surrounded by balls of fire, like little bombs, sitting alone.

He has a dagger at his waist. Elsewhere in the Arab world, in parts of the Gulf, a man's dagger is a necessary symbols of his honor, strength. During the summer we had an assignment that involved listening to a news broadcast over and over until we could decipher the words, the meaning, the event being described. Elections in Yemen, the second since the unification of the country in the early 1990's. A victory for the incumbent, of course. There was still tension in the country, need for increased security. Voting guidelines were clearly described. Voters are not permitted to bring their daggers into the polling stations.

There are not daggers in most wars today. We have moved beyond such thing, such limited destructive capacity. There are no polling stations in as-Shams, the land of the sun as Syria is also known, in Arabic. There is a lot of fire, though. It's interesting how, for me at least, this particular card, unless I am reading with reversals, generally one I consider a positive sign, situation, description of a person. But what does happen when a king with this kind of passion, drive, need for attention and power, action-based orientation...what happens when he isn't a good person despite all, when he is driven by selfish intentions, when he is isolated and pushed against a wall? A air king might submit to logic, strategic considerations; earth can be pragmatic, cut losses; water is emotional but also flexible, adaptable. What does fire do, if not burn?
--
Bashar al-Assad stalks around his palace, despondent.

He fears he will end up dead no matter what he does, the Russian official says.

If he tries to depart his own Alawite allies will kill him. They fear what will happen to them at the hands of the Sunnis if his government falls. Oh no no, there will be none of that going off and leaving us to our fate, they say. They remember how they were seen, before his father took control; they know how they are regarded now.

If he stays he will be killed when, if, the rebels take control of the capital. Perhaps he has even seen the youtube videos of Qaddhafi's death, that same fate: the once great, once mad dictator begging and beaten; and later the same crowd yelling, smiling, fooling with his corpse.

An eye doctor once, he was, peering into others' eyes.

Now he paces in the palace and outside the bombs continue to explode; the shelling continues; the rapes continue. A Turkish university carried out a study in one of its refugee camps, an article on the Arabic BBC says. 71% of the children there have lost at least one relative in the fighting. By and large, their mothers care for them alone. Where are the fathers, the husbands? Killed, or fighting with rebels or army or perhaps both.

(Why did you defect, the officers were asked. al-ATfal, al-ATfal, they said. The children - I could not stand it, the killing of children.)

And so it goes, smolders and burns.

some more story time

So I figured it was high time I did another of the story writing exercises. I can't quite remember, but I don't *think* that I've done one with a pips deck before...

There were once two kings whose nations bordered each other. Though close to one another, the nature of their lands varied greatly - the first king ruled a mountainous region. His was a harsh domain, bitterly cold in the winter. His people were tough - they raised goats and they mined and traded. His resources were scarce, demanding careful, prudent management. He worried and thought and worked. His neighbor, in contrast, ruled over a land of rich and fertile valleys, rich with rivers and springs and rain. His people grew more food then they could eat, hunted plentifully, were surrounded by beautiful flowers in spring. This king had time not just to rule but to dream, to paint and write poetry.

One would think that these differences might lead to war, sooner or later, between the two countries, but here that was not the case. The two kings had long been friends, and as time went on they found themselves growing closer yet, looking forward to each of their state visits, diplomatic missions, negotiations. There embraces are meeting and parting went on longer than one might expect. Over time the two men realized that their feelings for one another were deeper than that of allies or even friends. There was love between them, passion repressed - for they both knew that anything else was impossible. The mountain king was twenty years older than the king of the valleys, and looked even more the elder, drained my so many years of work and worry. It would be unheard of, inappropriate, impossible yes, always.

And so the years passed. The mountain king would find himself thinking of the other as he climbed through mountain passes with his men, inspecting and giving orders. The valley king would paint his colleague, again and again and again, write poetry that was never heard. Neither married.

Finally, after many years had passed in this way, a terrible storm swept through the land, strong enough to bring creatures from the sea into the valley and wash away many structures. The mountain king ordered his people to go down and help their neighbors. The two leaders felt, then, a wild shift in their thinking, perspective. So many years wasted, gone by in longing. And so they talked and planned, and in the end they announced something great: a union of their two lands into a new, greater nation. They would rule together, partners in all things, and upon their deaths the mountain king's niece and the valley king's nephew, who had taken already to one another, would be married and take their place. The two kings held hand, embraced, and so a new nation was formed. Problems continued, of course, obstacles, minor and less minor disasters - but for the rest of their lives, the two kings would face all of those together.

Tarot Poem Prompt

I admit that I sometimes dabble in writing poems. By and large, I only write them when an idea for one pops into my mind of its own accord; doing anything else tends to just feel forced. That notwithstanding  I decided to see what would happen if I drew two tarot cards and tried using them directly as a prompt for a short poem. Here be the result...

victory in truce

a victory it is, of sorts -

not quite bartered away

or sold, that very last bit of your soul.

it lies here, between us - your dreams,

your words, your thoughts

only half-buried, tamped down

and heavily glossed.

it scratches at the back of your throat

as you stand in front of the waiting crowd,

smile, accept their applause.

cards-based writing exercise

So I hardly ever do any creative writing anymore - not enough time or energy, with all the other things I have going on, particularly the coursework. However, since that writing workshop on Saturday I've had a story idea stubbornly bouncing around in my head. Somewhat unusually, plot details keep coming to me - not in a short story/flash fiction kind of way, but actual longer work kind of plot. Kind of stressed about other things though, and didn't know how to begin doing something with all of that, so I decided to draw some cards and write around those.

I drew the 2 of Wands, 4 of Wands, and Ace of Cups from the Fantastical Tarot.

A door, an opportunity, a choice between security, the familiar, and emotional fulfillment, a new beginning.

---

Two cats: one black, the other a pale ginger-blond. That is what you would remember most of all about that moment, later on - the way those two cats slinked about, curling around the legs of the man you were speaking to, the man you had once known simply as an imposing librarian and who you now could not even look in the eye as you spoke. No, you stared at his cats, each one rubbing against one of his legs, perfectly ironed slacks forming a sort of door. A door, yes, and how very desperate was your need then to get out.

You spoke to his legs and to his cats because you knew that if you were to look up, to meet his pale grey eyes, you would lose your nerve. The words you needed to say would die as they reached your lips and instead he would find what he wanted, from you and from the rest: silence, submission, compliance. And you could not, would not, go back to that.

Even as you began to speak you were already aware of how much you would miss it once you left. The secret society had warmly accepted you into its fold, pried your darkest secrets away from you, saved you from the dreadful feeling of being alone always and in all things. You would miss the lectures about things you had not dared to dream since childhood were real, the glasses of wine shared afterwards with quiet discussion. Most of all you would miss the weekends, driving down, squeezed in the back of a van, to the little airfield outside the city, taking turns flying up in the plane, higher and higher, and of course the jump back down to earth again, the freezing thin air rushing at you from all directions, and the voices.

The voices, which had been so thin at first, pressed together, hurried and blurred so that you simply thought you were losing your mind again. Then later, as you returned week after week they stretched out into clarity, filled you with the most amazing kind of magic - the things you could do with that magic, those first few moments and hours after the parachute carried you back down to the ground. Euphoria  filled every inch of you once a week for months, until one of those voices became a name, a singularity you could distinguish from all the rest. It said: what do you think they are doing with all of the magic they take from us? Why do you think he collects it from you, in tithe? Look, snoop, discover.

You did. You discovered, and you retched, and a little later on you were standing in front of him, Elias, ostensible leader of all things. You stared at his cats and you made excuses, lied about feeling unwell again and needing time to yourself, away from all of these things. You were still too scared then, too tied to them, to say what you really meant: that you were done, that you were walking away.

No, not just walking away - you would find a way to fight against what they were doing; you would go on a mad search for the withered, bitter old man that a certain voice told you, as you were plunging down through the clouds, held the key to that fight: a magic from higher skies, the starry skies that once, for a short moment in time, men thought they could thrust themselves into.

You would go looking for space magic.

academic overview

I thought it would be interesting to turn the tarot-thoughts on a subject I haven't really touched on that much with them in a while - my academic life. Today's cards seemed to agree with that vague intention/seem to speak to that, and so...

This four of cups cards brings to mind my Arabic class, on several levels. I've been feeling rather physically tired overall lately - and mentally too for that matter - and the fact that this class, unlike all my other ones, is a morning class does not improve my enthusiasm for it. I've never been great with morning classes, and one of the thing I love about my grad program is that everything is in the evening. I CAN drag myself to class or work in the morning when I must, sure, but my performance is rarely what it could be later on in the day...

More significant here though, is the mood of the card as a whole, the tired sleepy posture of the figure on the chair and the studied apathy of the one standing up. Dissatisfaction - a why bother type of attitude? I am indeed, I must admit, rather disatisfied with the class so far. Over the summer, in Tunisia, I LOVED studying Arabic. It was challenging, interesting - we got to learn the patterns of the structure of the language, engage with reading and listening to apply that the teacher, even though his English wasn't as great as this new professor's is, could explain things really thoroughly...

As for her...she is a lovely person and, in my opinion, a rather terrible teacher. She doesn't explain things well at all, the haphazard way she assigns homework means I always struggle to remember what I am supposed to do, and really - I just don't LEARN anything. Fortunately most of what we are doing, I learned over the summer, and yet nonetheless - it isn't even a good review. Feels like tedious busywork and a waste of my time. But well - I am financially constrained by the language scholarship to stick with the class until the end of the semester and to, at the very least, do well enough to past with a decentish grade and so...a kind of tired apathy indeed :/

The ten of swords is a bit of a funny card to get in this context, but it does make a kind of sense. It's interesting that here the figure is...dancing among those swords, perhaps a bit melodramatic in posture, surrounded by so many dangers and yet, nonetheless, that graceful movement...

In my other classes, I find myself with a stack of reading to do each week, as always. And what do I read about? I read about the crimes and violence perpetrated by criminal groups, insurgents, terrorists, armies and militias. I read about these from an economic perspective, with complicated equations; with a security studies focus; from a humanitarian and human rights standpoint. Switch between reading about Sicilian mafia bombings to reading about LTTE suicide bombs and PLO hijacking, to all kinds of war crimes. The other week we watched an incredibly graphic documentary in my human rights class about the war crimes perpetrated against Tamil civilians in the final months of the war in Sri Lanka in 2009. And certain images stick in your mind afterwards, as you walk to the bus. The knowledge that people can do these terrible things and walk free with so much impunity because it is so much easier all around to just pretend...that did not happen. And so what if it did, over there, so far away...

I am also a but fearful of the kind of...difficulties that the 10 of swords can represent. I have a lot of papers and presentations due in rather narrow timeslots later on in the semester. I am hoping to get my act together a bit more and get a head start on things but...have been having some trouble focusing and doing that and last time I had multiple long papers and presentations all due within the same week or week and a half it was...a less than fun experience shall we say. Perhaps this is a warning to me in that regard, something to help me get properly motivated. Procrastination does not lead to great things, on the whole.

Starry Memory Exercise

Realized I hadn't done one of my memory exercises in a bit of a while. Seems a good way as any to start off a week I plan to spent with another of my most favorite decks...

Considering how much I like astrology, it's a bit funny how infrequently I actually pay attention to, or take time to really look at, the stars in the sky at night. Perhaps this is only natural - I have always gravitated towards and felt most comfortable in cities - NYC, Boston, DC...places where, well, at the best of times it isn't so very easy to see the stars clearly, the way that they are meant to be seen. Most of my closest friends in New York work in the vicinity of Times Square, so I find myself there at night quite a bit when I am back in that city and well...so much flashing light, bill-boards, advertisements, even pharmacies with huge colorful flashing signs and the stars, ha, what stars, there...

When was the last time I really...looked up and appreciated the stars, in all their natural glory? The second weekend of August, the Saturday when our Arabic teacher took three of us in the car with him on a day trip to see Dougga, his native city. We spent the day-time walking around old roman ruins and then in the car, being given a kind of tour of his early life. This is where my parents live and this village is where I went to primary school and this town is where I went to secondary school and that land belongs to my uncle and that store belongs to another uncle and so on. Mostly in Arabic, for practice.

Later, at night, after we had the iftar meal at his parents' house, we took a walk around his hometown. Rural, small, no streetlights, rudimentary paving in the streets. We went to the cafe in the center of the town, which was really a field that they brought out tables and chairs for you when you arrived. There were several dozen people there, and I was one of two women, the other a foreigner as well, sitting several tables away. We had dark, strong coffee served in little cups. They smoked unflavored shisha and cigarettes, the scent of the smoke strong, curling around everything. After a while our teacher left to go pray, leaving us with his cousin, who spoke very little English, and we with not much Arabic - and certainly not enough dialect Arabic - and me with some French but not enough confidence, and so.

I looked up at the sky then, really looked. It was so clear, so inky black, so many bright pinpricks of light. I could make out whole constellations, easily. The sky was almost always cloudless in Tunisia, but now, at night...it just looked so amazing. Sitting in a rural cafe at night, after a day of ancient ruins, of farms, fields, cactus fruit, cows and goats and sheep and even camels seen up close or from afar, of eating fresh makrouch that made fig newtons taste like a joke and grapes fresh off the tree and now, the brilliance of the stars right above me...it was one of those moments where you are fully, acutely aware of the wonder you feel, the privileged of what you have been allowed to experience, the terribly temporary, fleeting nature of it all...

Moments like that, and you can understand why the Star represents what it does in the cards. It stops being an abstract concept....rather, a truth; something that makes sense in your gut, your soul.