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.

A deck I could not resist

So my tarot absence of the last half-year or so has extended not just to this blog and working with the cards, really, but also to other tarot websites I usually frequent, and to buying any new decks. After all, if I am not currently even USING the ones I have, I surely should not procure any more until that changes.

So that has been that, up until a few days ago. I was browsing online is a general way, about decks and things and somehow found myself on the Kickstarter page for a new tarot deck. I've browsed Kickstarter before, but never have been tempted enough to actually join in on funding a project. The Light Visions Tarot, it turns out, did indeed tempt me in such a way. I pledged enough to get a copy of the deck because well, it is the first deck in many months to really strongly call to me. Love the art technique and the recognizable but not just a RWS clone nature of it, and yeah.

It is also the first deck in a long time that I have bought without first reading various talk of it on blogs here or on Aeclectic. No idea about anything around this other than what the Kickstarter page says. Fortunately it is relatively easy for me, with things like this, to kind of forget about it entirely for a while, so the wait at least should not be a bother.

On and Off

When people ask how long I've been reading and collecting tarot cards for, I usually say 'ten years, but on and off' or some variation thereof.

This is what I mean. It's like a switch goes off in my head and suddenly for no particular reason I just cannot get my brain to...work with the cards. It slides, drifts about into other things. Later, later it says, and days and weeks pass and my decks sit there, sadly untouched.

I haven't forgotten this blog though, or those I read. Did a series of readings that were kind of an interesting challenge - a character in an online D&D game I DM, reading cards for fictional characters played by other people, except me actually pulling and reading cards for it. It was like pulling teeth actually reading them, but was interesting. Perhaps will repost here once I finish with the last bit of that.

Hope everyone is well, at least relatively speaking. :]

bit more tarot poetry

Another try at this particular exercise...
----

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.

tarot's take on some nerdiness

So recently, some friends have drawn me into the nerdy cliche that is the world of Dungeons and Dragons. Very unsurprisingly, I quite like it. Due to difficulty (different cities, conflicting schedules) of playing in person, I've recently joined a game online. Character building, story telling, writing, lots of fun and silly dice...whats not to love?

The idea of using tarot to help flesh out a fictional character is one that's been floating around my head for a while, and this seems to be a perfect opportunity to do so, using the one I've made for this roleplay game, so.

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Shedding some light on Iara Carnagos, Tiefling Wizard (Mage)

I. Crux of the character's strengths:

Restriction, restraint, interference: the woman in this image is tied up and held still, both by her physical bindings and by constraints of her mind - the self-doubt, or fear, or hopeless resignation.

One does not necessarily think of this card as a source of strength, but if can be. Restraint, restraint. So many things that you could do if you were willing to pick up one of those swords... In the D&D universe, in this edition at least, Tieflings are of a demonic heritage, their ancestors having made some kind of pact with demons. They can make things burns, have tails and variously shaped horns. Many are known for being all kinds of destructive and evil.

This character of mine...she had a twin brother once, who chose to go down that path. She did not, and ended up killing him in what was mostly self-defense...a pivotal moment for her. She is chaotic, random, capricious, but she is not evil - there is a line she will not let herself cross, though she could; there are actions she simply will not take, even when refusing puts her in a quite difficult situation. She will even, on the rare occasion, actively refuse to let someone else do so.

In the everyday too...she puts up the facade of being impatient and impulsive, and do some degree that may be true, but...anything of real importance, she does consider, weigh, wait if she must. Restraint, restriction, a much bigger part of how she interacts with the world than most would realize, than she would like anyone to know and...a vital part of what could be called her better nature.

II. Crux of the character's weaknesses:

The juggler hops around, foot to foot, two coins to balance, two boats on two waves to choose between - always moving, juggling, flitting about.

The character too. Class-wise, she is a mage that focuses on both pyromancy and illusion, both blasting attacks and controlling/debuffing powers. A focus on purely one of the other could potentially be more powerful, but how could she commit herself like that?

Otherwise too - she flits from group to group, short relationship to one even shorter, job to job, town to town. Tries this and that, grows bored, moves onto something else. Worked mercenary jobs involving use of knives even though that does nothing to advance her primary abilities. Studied under several wizards even though these kinds of arrangements are not ideal - some wizards only acquiescing to idea of temporary apprentice for cold hard cash.

This lack of commitment, lack of focus and attention, in so many aspects of her life...certainly it is limiting, in many ways.

III. The character's fears:

The queen sits comfortably in her domain, with her wand, her flower, her cat. She is self-possessed and confident in her place. What could one fear here?

Iara does not have or want any of these things. She has not stayed in one place for any significant amount of time since she was sixteen. She does not keep pets, or gardens, does not care for fancy robes and does not hold onto many possessions at all - in fact, one could almost call her an ascetic in the latter regard. Keep few things you do not need, be willing to let those go and start anew too, if you must.

Her friendships and flings do not last more than a few months or weeks, nor do her working partnerships and teams. And why is that?

Fear of that kind of domestication, of a place where you feel safe and things that comfort you and people you trust and feel close to. The more you have the more of a shock it is when the world starts to spin and shake and everything starts falling apart around you. The more you have, the more there is that you cannot control. If you have nothing, just your physical body, your skills, your knowledge and magic...there is so much less that can be taken from you, so much less of a chance to feel helpless.

IV. The character's hopes:

The Hanged Man rest upside down, in some ways resembling a butterfly in its cocoon, waiting in stasis as it develops and transforms. In other ways he can be seen as a mirror of Odin, hanging in sacrifice, losing something to gain more. Perhaps a useless sacrifice, needless waiting around when movement is needed.

This character certainly hopes that all of her work will be a worthwhile sacrifice, that all the hours studying and reading dusty tomes, and all the times and gold she spent with her various masters will pay off.

She hates reading, only went to school as long as she did because her twin hated it even more and quit it - she wanted to show that she had more self-control, or something. She never reads but for the magic books, for what other way is there of learning, always learning and it is just a task sometimes, flipping through so many pages as her mind wonders, another job or adventure tempts... there were other paths to magic, ones that would have been easier for someone of her temperament but she chose this one and yes, she hopes it will be worthwhile, utterly so.

IV. Crux of the character, a snapshot:

The man in the eight works, creates, engraves and molds with care for his work, though it may not be easy at times, is his craft, and his love, and his calling.

Perhaps a compulsive wanderer, perhaps not the biggest fan of the book learning to which she is obliged, perhaps a lot of things but what it comes down to: love of this lifestyle. Love of uncertainty and risk, love of seeing new places to explore, new people to work with or fuck or taunt, without the 'burden' of knowing you might know them long enough to get attached. Love of adventure and jobs and quests.

Most of all, though, the love of magic. Wonder - she can still remember the day as I child, when she first saw magic being done. Her and her brother both, a rare moment of utter unison. Pure, sheer, stunned wonder because what could be more beautiful, more awesome, than magic? She knew from her first glimpse at it that magic is what she wanted to do, her calling as it were, and though attention to it may have wavered, that certainty never did. For all that may change and all the tedious work learning might involve, nothing can touch the feeling of pure inner joy she gets when she summons a fireball, makes something change color, uses a trick to get someone to say yes where otherwise the answer would certainly be a no.

walking, going, beginnings and ends

"What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."
-T. S. Eliot

"March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life's path."
-Khalil Gibran

 The End and the Beginning
Wislawa Szymborska

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won't
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall,
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it's not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

We'll need the bridges back,
and new railway stations.
Sleeves will go ragged
from rolling them up.

Someone, broom in hand,
still recalls the way it was.
Someone else listens
and nods with unsevered head.
But already there are those nearby
starting to mill about
who will find it dull.

From out of the bushes
sometimes someone still unearths
rusted-out arguments
and carries them to the garbage pile.

Those who knew
what was going on here
must make way for
those who know little.
And less than little.
And finally as little as nothing.

In the grass that has overgrown
causes and effects,
someone must be stretched out
blade of grass in his mouth
gazing at the clouds.

Deck Suggestion Post!

So ever since I finished with my Favorite Majors/Aces series, I've been trying to think up another similar type of thing, a series of exercises I could do on a semi-regular basis, not quite reading the cards but interacting with them...

I now have an Idea, drawing on some of the things my fellow bloggers have done - card comparison exercises. To start off with at least, drawing a card from one deck, finding the same card in another, and writing a comparison/contrast/interaction type of post about the two. May branch out/mix in some other things eventually, but that is the basic idea. At the very least, I'd like to do one or two such posts to see how it goes.

I was going to just use a random number generator to choose decks for me, but then I thought, why not ask for some suggestions? :0

SO, if anyone wants to chime in... any two decks that I currently own, that you think would be interesting to see in a kind of comparison exercises of some sort together? Any pair, any pair at all!

different kinds of balance

In this particular take on the justice card we have a scale, unbalanced it would see, or perhaps simply in the process of swinging back and forth. We have a card of contrasts and juxtaposition: light and darkness, clear skies and raging storms, peaceful nature the man-made cities, towers, factories. What does it mean to have all of them portrayed just so? The hand move holds what looks to be a clock pointing at the number twelve, noon and midnight, beginnings and ends.

Balance... it was equilibrium that I focused on so many times last year, with Justice as my year card. Balance, the idea of trying to be even-handed, of trying to find that right place in between extremes, of adjusting and carefully weighing and getting it all to just enough, yes, enough.

Life isn't all about things we can balance out through or own efforts though, is it? Part of this 'Justice' and weighing is more in the grand scheme...that some experiences will be balanced out by others, that painful events sometimes lead to good ones, that personal failings we have, but also talents...and so on. People often say things along the lines of evil or suffering being necessary, that there would be no light without darkness, no appreciation of the good times without the bad, and so on.

True enough, I find, though perhaps not as comforting a notion as sometimes put forward to be. There have been times when I have found very much amusement and pleasure from such insignificant things, if only because there was nothing else I could laugh about or focus on. These days...simple moments, the most pedestrian of experiences and such strong appreciation, satisfaction in what someone else might see as utterly unremarkable.

You appreciate how nice it is to go on a walk through a city you like, to enjoy the weather and look around at your surroundings without quite that constant background of gloom, idle fantasies (of say, throwing yourself in front of a car)t hat you could never quite chase away so familiar, ignored and unspoken, same old same old.

You feel so accomplished when you calmly finish a task a few hours or even days ahead of a deadline, rather than staring unable to think or write until it gets so late that you begin to panic as you think of the consequences of failure, of disappointing people, and then stay up for two days straight, not letting yourself do anything else, crying from stress as you make yourself write and write desperately.

You find it to be so wonderfully ordinary when you can let yourself sit in a coffee shop for a few hours alone, drinking a coffee and eating an oatmeal and reading for school because it is such a contrast to so many other experiences, an illusion of sorts and a glimmer of feeling what other people feel when in fact you have not known what it means to eat a normal meal like a normal person since you were fourteen years old and still don't, really.

A constant state of storm certainly does make clear sky days so much more amazing, but perhaps the same would also be true in reversed. Ordinarily I hate rainy days. So much inconvenience, forgetting umbrellas or proper shoes and spending hours wet and cold. It rained once during the ten weeks I spent in Tunisia and I ran out onto the balcony to feel it, because it felt so amazing, after so long without...

Darkness and light and a scale that tips back and forth, back and forth. Justice and balance and what can we have, if not all of both? Is there a way to have the convenience of factory produced gadgets without killing off all those beautiful whales swimming in the sea?

Back to [tarot] blogging

So I guess I've taken a bit of a break from the tarot blogging thing again, without really meaning to. Got distracted by other things, but planning on getting back into things now. There are some decks and exercises in particular I've been wanting to write about/try out...

What have I been doing? Many things, some less interesting than others, but among them, I did take the advice of the previous post and let myself go wild with the artsy coloring thing. I can be quite...obsessive when it comes to color, ha. Since watercolor pencils are a new medium for me, experimenting with them in a coloring book made sense.

My most recent page - took forever to complete :0

But yes, time management and balancing things is good so...actual tarot related posts coming soon!

color, wonder and ideas

I usually see the Ace of Swords as being the 'harshest' of the aces - new beginnings yes, but often ones that require cutting of the old, letting go and starting a new. Attitude adjustment, as I once wrote - not just forming new ideas but deliberately walking away from old ones.

In this deck though, the images is rather noticeably a gentler one. There is water in this images as well as air, starlight and a sun rising overhead. The light from the star and the sun seeps into everything, filling it with streaks of bright yellow and white. The girl holds a bowl and a wand, ready to fill and create.

Not just intellectual activity here, but creativity. Thinking new things and applying them in your own unique ways. There is joy in this card, inspiration, pleasure.

New ideas, new starts and new ways of thinking. My mind has been a bit all over the place in some good ways too, of late. I ordered some watercolor pencils and a coloring book. I want to experiment with a new medium, and since I love color this seems a good way to go. Perhaps if my attention holds I may work my way up to something more originally artsy than just coloring...

Still working on finding my way out of certain old ways of thinking...its kind of funny how you can make so much progress with some things and yet find it so impossible to get beyond that last bit - the part of things that has become so internalized you cannot even seem to find it, and how to deal with something that doesn't seem to be there and yet, driven you still are, to do the same stupid things again and again...

Academic pursuits still on my mind but also so much else. Random interests, more than there is time to pursue. Distractions and tidbits. Language stuff, stuff about history of my parents' country that I hated listening to when I was young but now find, from on objective historical perspective, quite intriguing indeed. So far quite unsuccessful attempts to figure out something useful to do with myself for the summer. Another self-help book procured. This and that.

Confusing and overwhelming some of this, but there are definitely pluses too, to having so much to do, possibilities, ideas even if there isn't time or energy to follow through on many of them. Good to remember that, it seems.

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?

 

traps and being stuck

These three were part of a slightly larger casual reading I did for myself this morning. I thought the similarities in theme, differences in degrees were interesting to ponder a bit...

A bit of a bizarre scenario here, in this four of cups. It has a bit of an Alice in Wonderland type vibe, between, the juxtaposition of the fancy dresses, the sport turf next to the fireplace, the strange creature leaning over the chair with a class of something.

The woman at the center of the image holds a glass of wine. Her posture is that of dissatisfaction, boredom, apathy. We could call this scenario fascinating or uncomfortable, but the fact is, for her, the person in it, it isn't working. She doesn't want to be here, doing this.

She doesn't want to, or is indifferent. Dissatisfaction and yet she sits, keeps sipping from the glass. Ponders what she would rather be doing, but without actually getting up from the chair. Easier to sit and mope than to take action, create change.

Traps that aren't really traps except to the degree that we make them so. Times when we hold ourselves back out of lazyness, uncertainty, insecurity, caution. The trap that the path of least resistance can create. Perhaps change isn't even so hard to achieve here, but well - it won't happen without some effort, determination, will.

In the ten of swords we have a rather different image - a picture of despair, defeat, resignation. A woman sits in the middle of the floor, her dress pinned down by swords, another dangling just above her head. She sobs, face in her palms. Further away we see a letter, a bloodstained pen - and bits of red dripping from her hands onto her dress.

Was this a letter she received, some terrible news? Or was it a note she herself was trying to write, perhaps a last, melodramatic goodbye? What's interesting here is that, unlike in the classic RWS image, she isn't dead, isn't stabbed in the back ten times. Alive still but unmoving, ready to accept that fate, the final sword falling down onto her. There is no struggle left, only tears.

Why is that? This card is called Ruin in the Thoth. Ruin is painful, yes, dramatic, but does it have to be final? Are things truly as bad as all that? Despair and hopelessness - how they can paralyze you, blind you to any other options, possibilities, paths. Perhaps things aren't really so grim. Perhaps something can be rebuilt, or salvaged. But one needs to raise those eyes and look around first to find out.

Last perhaps is most difficult a way of being stuck. Another quite interest Devil image, we have in this deck: we see the goat hooves, ears, that goat that stands so central in the Thoth card. Here though it is anthropomorphized, woman and beast both. She wear's a fancy stage magicians garb, all show and effect. Not just the outfit too - the entire room we she is carefully decorated, classy with its tapestries, the detailed finishes on the walls. Black and white everywhere, two sides, stark contrasts.

Showy magician with so much control, sitting in the lotus position, balancing on her tail, almost floating. The barely visible occult circle hovers around her, behind her, power and danger you do not see until too late. The two human figures in her case must dance, perform like puppets. You cannot even see the string or chains that might bind them, control them. Whereas in the previous image, the woman could maybe move away if she would just stop sobbing and move the swords that seem so impossible to escape, here we have...the illusion of freedom, ease. We could stop it if we wanted. We could walk away if we wanted. If we wanted. Except the power of her influence is so strong, and the world beyond so frightening...and then, perhaps, trying to walk away and finding that it not so easy at all. Try and fail and try and fail. The devil does not care for our struggle. She floats and tempts and controls with so much confidence.

drifting, climbing and falling

Drifting, drifting a part of you always feels, paddling in this half-world limbo between dusk and dawn. You cradle the moon that holds and that menaces with its scorpion tale - careful, no sudden movements and always that bit of the madness the why not if it does...

The the moonlight reflects in the waters below. How deep are they, these waters? Who can really see beneath the waves, beneath the darkness and light reflected, stillness and ripples that spread across as you paddle and swim, head above and breath and breath, remember, that part it is important, yes.

There is a kind of calm here too in the stillness, the silence, the familiarity. You close your eyes. Are you tired, exhausted? Is that apathy showing, resignation to the things that cannot be changed? Or is it merely a momentary shutting of the eyelids in preparation for something else? Hard to know anything for sure. The darkness and moonlight are full of illusion, fog that covers and obscures, questions.

There is more, of course, then the Moon, the sound of splashing waves. There is the real world, the world around you that you can see and touch, explore. Here you would climb onto rooftops, work carefully, wielding those tools, building up towards...something.

So many waves here too, of a completely different sort. Invisible waves which fill the air and the sky with signal and knowledge, so much knowledge spread in so intangible a form. Waves and waves that connect you to people in little houses and windows so far away. You spread your own words and find that of others. Speak and listen and learn. How much possibility, opportunity did you gain from those waves, from voices and images broadcast over such distances? Where would you be without them?

A contrast to the moon, to isolation, to meditation with a focus on within. Here is the world, close by even when it is so very far. Here is reaching out and grasping and forcing yourself to learn to do things so you can grasp all that much more. Waves in air - you will never see them, never splash and swim in them and yet...here you are, windows open in a room, listening to a poem recited in another language as you pull cards because it is beautiful, calming.

And farther out still from yourself, from the world around you, there is space, the universe, things so large and so abstract as to be impossible to truly quantify or imagine - for you at least; you will never be a physicist, a mathematician.

Tree trunk and leaves and fire-colored flowers, earth and whimsy, fall through that space, the glittering darkness. You laugh while falling, laugh at all you cannot see and cannot control. What are you falling towards, and does it matter? In a way this space, this absence of, makes all things at once quite close and very far away indeed. Like memory - the smell of jasmine flowers, the little potted plant on your dresser starting to bloom; nostalgia for the bush that grew on the wall of your landlord's courtyard under the hot summer sun, the little boys who tried to sell necklaces and bushels of the plaited, aromatic flowers, "one dinar, one dinar". Close and far, you fall away from things and into other things and you laugh though sometimes, often you land ungracefully, with a thunk, with pain and groans.

Dreams, abstractions, ideas, memories, flights of fancy, carelessness. Which is more overwhelming - to be drifting through waters of you, you, so much you or to plunge downwards through so much vastness, the realization that you are really so very small and there is so much you will never see or know? A matter of perspective as always - you live all three at these at once, every day.

kings and knights and pondering technology

In a quite distinctly modern take on the King of Swords, we have the man piloting what looks to be a fighter jet of some sort. I say that based solely, of course, on my experiences in the Smithsonian Air and Space museum. One thing I love about DC is that there are so many completely free museums...

But yes, planes, jets, bombers. It's amazing when you think of it, how rapidly aerial technology developed. We spent thousands of years never more than dreaming of flight, and then suddenly two brothers put together a flimsy contraption that manages to take off and stay in the air. Less than two decades later planes are being used in the first world war, with stunningly high casualties for pilots. Scouting missions at first, but well...someone gets the bright idea of shooting from the plane and then everyone does it and then there is bombing, gassing, machine guns mounted on. By the second world war they are made of cold metal, different types, models worked by nascent air forces, day and night bombing, the blitz, firebombings that kill so many millions in certain cities, nuclear bombs dropped too... Now we have drones, man-less aerial craft that can go across borders, spy and kill who knows what and where and why...

Isn't he all about precision, focus, this King?  Isn't he all about coldly judging what to do, using logic, and getting it done? Efficiency, detachment.

And quite similar to the Thoth knight he is too - the same armor but now of course it is a shirt with a modern decal. Instead of the golden steed we have the jet, its windows tinted yellow, the screen in front of the knight so that he may measure, analyze, target. No more need for extended daggers and swords. Now you point and click and things are destroyed, accomplished, undone.

Now you point and click. It boggles my mind, how much of a pain focused, graduate-level academic research must have been before the advent of computers. I have a topic and I type a few words into some search engines and pull up numerous articles going back decades, pull up a list of relevant books, many of which have the parts I need available on google books, others downloadable, or easy to reserve so I only have to stop by the front desk of the library. I can pull up newspaper articles from any number of publications. I can even find documentaries in other languages, programs from the National TV station of Algeria and from Al-Jazeera, and sit back and watch. All of this in a single afternoon, and save everything that looks relevant to my oh-so-easily-searchable gmail account, and voila the bulk of the legwork for an important project is taken care of, to be continued at my leisure.

The same spirit and drive this knight has, in both depictions, and the same goals and purpose. But means change, presentation changes, even attitudes change. Technology does have its drawbacks and I think many of them have more to do with attitudes it engenders than anything else. Why memorize when you can always look up, right? And yes, in many ways memorization is not efficient these days but stretch the brain muscles it does in interesting ways, to be able to recite things at length from memory, lists of names and poems. Even worse is the way so many people use computers and tablets and such in class. I've tried it both ways, and granted, my note-taking is always questionable - but my mad doodling helps me think, and more importantly paper and pen do not offer nearly as much opportunity for distraction and shortcuts which undermine learning processes. I had a classmate in Tunisia who would look up words while speaking in class on google translate, his laptop always open, and yes so you never search for a word but you also never remember the ones you use afterwards.

But so it goes and so everyone chooses for themselves how to use the tools they have, and in many ways, if you are like the king of swords...there is so much you can do with it. There is so much possibility. You can fly so fast and so unimagineably far. Goggles and gloves and glittering wings; even with so much power, he still enjoys the experience, the forward momentum of his ability.

Answering a few questions

So I notice that quite a number of my blogger friends have been doing the whole 30 Day Challenge thing. I admit there is no way that I could stick to that all the way through, nor do I find all of the questions interesting. I figured that answering a few in a single post might be a nice little exercise...

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My parents were never super religious, but I spent a fair amount of my childhood in [catholic] church. I always had found the masses incredibly boring and never listened. At around age 12 or so I realized I did not agree with and could not believe in anything the priest was saying, so I went to my local library and started looking into other religions. Wicca was the only one that really intruiged, so I studied/'practiced' it for a couple years before realizing atheism was the path for me.

Anyway, some of the Wicca books discussed tarot cards, which intrigued me. I bought my first deck ten years ago at a local Barnes and Noble at the age of 14 - the Universal Waite deck, specifically. I disliked the art from the very beginning, but it was apparently the 'proper' deck to learn on and so learn on it I did. I consulted lwb and a book titled 'Tarot for Beginners' or something similar. I had a couple periods of totally forgetting about the deck, going back to it, etc. It wasn't until a few years later when I was in high school that I got my second deck, carefully chosen based on aesthetic appeal - the Gilded tarot. I remember opening it with such excitement on the ferry ride home and almost losing one of the King cards...eventually I gave both decks away. :0

The first spread I learned was the Celtic Cross. I found it overly long, complicated, often confusing and just unnatural. In fact, it wasn't until I totally stopped using it that I found my reading improve significantly, and my interest in and attention to the cards became more stable. I've never gone back to it since. I know its 'tried and true' and all that but really just is not the reading method for me. I am generally averse to spreads that are more than five or six cards unless there is something really interesting/intriguing about them and...this is none of those things for me, at all.

In general I don't have a favorite spread. Other than structured reading exchanges on forums and times where I deliberately choose to use a spread because it looks interesting/really relevant/I just want to experiment, I tend to play it fast and loose with spreads. Make one up on the spot that seems appropriate, or not use one at all. Sometimes just pulling cards I find that they organize themselves into 'spreads' for me...not all decks are like this, but for example with the Thoth...it almost seems an insult to the deck to force it into a spread when it is so obviously able to do that itself...

I sometimes use reversals, though much less than I used to. It mostly depends on the deck. In general, meaty/complex/unusual decks tends to mean no reversals, whereas 'simple' RWS variations tend to be better for using them.

I prefer reading for myself than for others generally, especially offline... mostly because I feel not so confident in my 'people skills' as they relate to tarot, and because I know my verbal communication skills are and always have been noticeably inferior to my writing skills so that...even when I KNOW what the cards are saying, getting that phrased right, on the spot, can be tricky indeed.

I know some people say they cannot read for themselves, but in my case it has always been MUCH easier to read for me than for anyone else. After all, I know all the details of my life and situation and so can make all kinds of analysis and connections to specific things, whereas for other people it is...poking and guessing and talking in a kind of general way and hoping it means something to the other person - it feels like grasping in the dark, whereas reading for me is more like picking up a tool and using it to examine things I know of in a new way. Also, reading for free on any kind of scale would be too much of a time suck, whereas reading for money feels like too much pressure and stress, worry about whether they are getting their 'money's worth' and...yeah. Not for me, at least right now.

Oh, and I have absolutely no 'special' time or place or rituals around my tarot reading. I read/do draws for myself absolutely anywhere - in bed, on the floor, in the car, on the bus, on the train, at a cafe, in the library, in a hallway, really just anywhere. Why not? In my experience it makes absolutely no difference.

When I was in Tunisia I kept doing daily draws for myself when we were on the bus visiting the south of the country. At one point the director of the language school asked me for a reading and I obliged... he spent the rest of the summer calling me 'Deghaza', which means fortune-teller in the Syrian dialect. At one point we went on a field trip to the national TV station and he introduced me to the staff as 'Deghaza', to their amusement. I chatted with several of the employees and none of them ever learned my real name...

the whimsical and strange

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

And, after all, why not?

doing the things that need to be done

The Tarot de La Rea, I must say, is a bit of an unusual deck when it comes to my reading with it. It's a TdM in structure, but between the switched elemental associations and kind of odd illustration of the pip minors, I initially had a bit of a hard time reading with it. Some might call it an 'art deck' but I don't believe in that concept: I either read with a deck, easily and regularly, or it does not stay in my possession.

Then someone introduced me to the Comte de Mellet reading method. Historical one, it basically involves separating the majors and minors, and placing them in two stacks. You count up from Ace to King, and at each count turn over the top of the non-majors stack as well as majors...if the number you say matches the number on the minors/courts, you but the major-minor pair down as part of the reading. Otherwise you put them both in discard stacks and continue on, restarting the smaller majors stack as necessary until you finish the larger stack. You basically never know how many pairs you are going to get. I've gotten as many as eight and as few as one. Theoretically you can get zero, but I've never had that happen. Using this method with this deck, I've that the readings I get are consistently very, very accurate. It's interesting too because rather than asking a question, the deck just seems to...address whatever it is you need to know about/hear.
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This morning, the spread gave me the following two pairs to ponder: Tower and Ace of Coins, Emperor and 8 of Cups.

Now, a Tower paired with the Ace of Coins is not a very reassuring combination but, upon reflection and given the second set of cards, I am pretty sure this is not an omen of impending financial disaster as much as a not so gentle nudge. See, I had a pretty standard plan on starting grad school that would have had me graduating at the end of this spring semester. Late last Fall, after pondering some things, namely my rather unfortunate lack of professional experience in my field of study, I decided to spread out my classes so that I would be finishing last (thesis) course in the Fall so as to use extra time in Spring/Summer to get some real internships. A rather scary change in some ways, because as much as I feel confident in my ability to DO work well...job hunting, particularly in my field, is a whole other story. And well...the progress in actually applying to internship positions so far has been rather....lacking. Very lacking in fact. Opportunity, or disaster, this pair reminds me - what do I want?

This is a plan that can get me far, or nowhere at all, depending on  what I do. Applying to 'real' jobs is intimidating and not something I have much confidence for, but Change often requires the frightening - falling out of that tower, hitting the ground hard. The Tower of Academia, we could even call it here. I love school. I love learning, reading and writing and I feel confident in my abilities as a student. But staying in the tower is not enough to get me the kind of career I want. Academic experience alone is not enough in this economy, this field. I need experience, professional experience, internship experience. The Ace of Pentacles opportunity requires a Tower experience, making that change, getting out of the comfort zone, venturing out into the tower beyond the familiar confines. Am I doing enough with that? This pair reminds me that, despite the free time I've had over the last couple of weeks, the answer thus far has been No, No, No.

The Emperor here, for me, indicates a need to take things in hand - a need for some organization, control, self-discipline. The cancer symbol confuses me a bit, as this major is definitely not usually associated with THAT sign, but also makes me smile because well, cancer I am. In the RWS system, the eight of cups is usually depicted as a figure departing, leaving something behind: what fears, insecurities, excuses should I be walking away from? In the Thoth this card has a backdrop of dark, cloudy skies and a title of Indolence. Haven't I been a bit indolent as of late? I need a break, I tell myself. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow. Days pass and cover letters do not get written, applications remain unsent. Personal time is necessary, sure, but when there are things to do...well, self-discipline, time management indeed. The number eight is associated either with Strength or Justice depending on the deck. In this one it is Justice, Adjustment - to balance out self-care, emotions, creativity with the getting done that need doing. A tall order, this walking away and overcoming indolence and balancing? Perhaps, but the Emperor shows that it can be down. Firmness is needed, a systematic approach - break things down into steps, write the to do lists, go.

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 ;]
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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.

Away from Judgement

What does it mean, to be walking away from Judgement in the new year? In the previous part of this exercise I saw walking towards fulfilling potential ideas and dreams...in the Judgement card, I see a couple of ways that kind of momentum can be halted.

Taken most literally - yes, judgement, the internal critic. You have an idea and then you start to question it, question yourself, your abilities, your ability to convey your worth, if any, in applications and such. It's easy, from the perspective of those on the ground, to look up at the shining angels, the golden glow around them, and think: I can never be like that, that good. There are too many things holding me back. Why bother dreaming, trying.

On the other hand, in the sense that this card is often representative of the idea of 'the call' I can see the issue being one in which...you hear it, yes, recognize that you must make a decision, take action; recognize and stop at that - dither, overwhelmed.

Lastly, Judgement can be a card of rebirth, renewal, entering into a new Aeon and starting things all over again from scratch. The idea that change must be radical, all or nothing, go away from the familiar completely...that it is only by throwing out all of the old that you can move forward...this can either lead you to lose far more than you really needed to or, unable to give up so much at once, end up doing nothing at all.

Obstacles yes: self criticism, indecision, all or nothing attitudes. All things that I have been guilty of in the past. Better to walk away from these indeed.

Towards Creative Potential

I decide to take a page from the book of Elendil and some other Deck of the Week folk on AT and do two part new years reading: What I am Walking Toward/What I am Walking Away From. This be the first part, with second tomorrow.

Here we have the page of cups and that seven of pentacles again, the roses. The youth in the page card sits in front of a young woman playing what looks to be some kind of organ instrument. There are elaborately carved pillars behind them, and both are richly, fancily dressed. The youth isn't looking at the musician girl however, but rather longingly glancing back. What is he thinking? Longing for her, or for her abilities, her talent, her creativity? For his own past, lost opportunities, abandoned dreams? The woman plays and focuses solely on the music, her fingers and the keys

The page is about creativity and expression, a dreamer. The woman in the pentacle card too can be seen as having a certain sentimental touch - she appreciates the beauty of the flowers she tends. She works and works to watch them bloom. The page can imagine ways to express his creative potential; the woman in the seven knows how to tend to it, to allow it to grow.

In the new year, I shall try to move towards a synthesis of these. To leverage what I can do, what I can think and write and dream, into something concrete. Like the roses: something to enjoy, and something to ground me.