inspiration vs. organization

It's the contrast between these two cards that sticks out most to me: female and male, casual and formally dressed, standing and seated, flowing and rigid, flower wreath and crown. The page parties with her creatures; the Emperor commands his.

A juxtaposition in concepts as well, here. The page is about creativity, about imagination, inspiration, youthful and naive energy. The page begins, playfully touching on this and that - she can visualize ideas that others would dismiss as impossible. She stands in a sea shell, bringing to mind the famous Botticelli painting of the birth of Venus, or Aphrodite. She rises from the waves, with so much romantic notions - the playful faeries of so many tales. A tortoise carries her, and why not? What rush is there, why not take your time and see and imagine and explore?

A far cry from the Emperor, with his ram-headed stave and throne, his eagle shield, his crown of power. Since getting this deck I've wondered about that panda, something that distinguishes this Emperor card from most others. Apparently, in Ancient China emperors were known to keep them as pets. These days, endagered as they are, it takes a fair bit of organizes effort to keep the species from going extinct, I suppose. The emperor sits up straight, and rules over lands, mountains, sky and stars. Discipline, authority, responsible management of your resources and time.

The conflict between these two has, I suppose, always been a sort of theme in my life. Part of the reason I don't have the negative reaction to the Emperor archetype that many in tarot seem to is because I have always WANTED to have a firm grasp on the best of what he represents: discipline and self control, getting things done, organizing properly what needs to be organized, authority of a reasonable sort. I try and I try, and yet nonetheless so often I find myself rather stuck in the position of the page, a scattered kind of brilliance, imagination without much direction, so many ideas on so little of the concrete to show for it.

A source of frustration in particular as of late. So many examples abound. I am quite clearly more advanced than my classmates in Arabic. I spend hours listening to news clips, political talk shows, historic documentaries to improve my comprehension skills. For a long writing assignment I wrote literary analysis (former English major skills, ha) of Soviet dissident literature that I like...in Arabic, and it was GOOD if I do say so. My professor is impressed with my enthusiasm for learning the language, and yet she has told me that my grade will suffer despite that because I cannot keep from being constantly late. A valid criticism indeed. Another professor is consistently impressed with my written work, but is currently displeased with me and gave me a lowered grade on an assignment because I submitted it twenty minutes after the stated deadline...and again, quite right of him. I don't mean to do this. This isn't me not caring - I write my to do lists and I try and yet things slip away and slip away and slip away. How often to I forget to do something, forget to bring something, lose something? Constantly. I feel like I put far more deliberate effort into trying to be organized and disciplined than many people, and even so I am far more of a flaky, scattered mess.

Without some firm-handedness to things, riding that turtle will get you exactly as far as one might think - very close to the same place you started. How does one find the proper balance then? How?

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.

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?

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.

finishing up

Decided to do a little reading for advice about getting this last final paper completed, using the 'shadow' card from bottom of the deck to start off the reading, a kind of background card.

I think there can always be a lot of ways to 'see' the imagery on an unillustrated pip card...you could see this background as rich, golden and flowered - or you can see in it the color of wheat, harvest, fall, the end of a cycle; the flowers cut from their stems, not long for this world; the cups laying on their sides, used.

In the RWS we usually see this card as a man walking away from things, his back turned as he goes forward into the night. In the Thoth this card has a darker scheme - Indolence, it is titled. Both are true enough in their own way, in this context. I'm having trouble getting this done because a part of me doesn't much want to - it's tempting to lay about in bed, waste time on silly websites, read, catch up on episodes of shows online I haven't had proper time for in weeks. I want a break already, to leave all this work and responsibility for a while. This marathon of reading and writing and more reading and more writing has left me rather tired of it all. 

Cannot, of course. Must get this written and done and very soon. Must write and submit some cover letters, internship applications. Must pack for some visiting. Now is not the time for indolence, for running away, no matter how much, as this shadow card indicates, I might like to.

The next two cards here indicate, I think, that finishing up this last paper of the semester will not in fact be as challenging as it might seem. The high priestess with her folds of robes, her moon, her book in hand shows how much of what I want to write I already have in my head, perhaps not well formed but intuitively there - and backed up by the research I've already done, the reading. Deep down, beyond the tiredness, I do find my topic quite interesting. This isn't a paper I am only writing because I must.

Women's issues here, too, this Priestess reminds me - I am writing about use of technology to map and record incidents of sexual violence in ongoing conflicts, about the potential use of that to help prove, prosecute, prevent the widespread use of rape as a weapon of war. About how the internet allows us access to information that would otherwise be impossible to gather in a war zone too dangerous for outsiders to enter, from which people flee by hundreds and thousands every day. Instead of suffering for however long in silence a woman can go on youtube, her face covered, and tell the world: this is what they did to me. It allows for empirical patterns analysis to prove what would otherwise be merely a gut feeling - that these crimes are deliberate tactics, that they are used in a systematic fashion in pursuit of specific aims, that the same tactics can be seen again and again in various parts of a country and that this has meaning, is not simply 'war' or 'boys being boys' or any such nonsense.

Even as I write that summary here I feel myself channeling more of this Page of Wands, standing with her powerful, flexible bow in the field of green. She stands under a tree that is full of ripe fruit ready for picking, eating. She is young and full of energy and ready to handle anything. I need to channel that energy, the confidence. The words, that fruit, are already in my head. I just need to write them, edit and revise until they sound right, add all the proper detail and citation. This is something I care about. This is something I want to do, when I let myself forget to think about how tired of DOING I am.

life as an adult

A puss in boots, sword at the ready: a new adventure awaits. The feline page of swords in this deck reminds me, in more ways than one, of childhood. I think of the story books I used to read, the ones that were never quite just about entertainment - Polish language all of them, first read to me and later on, me made to read them myself, out loud, language study drilled into my brain. I remember cassettes in the same language, stories listened to in long car rides back and forth between New York and Pennsylvania.

I remember playing at sword fighting with my then best friend, searching for perfect sticks, fallen tree branches we could use for our duels, pretending we knew something about proper posture and movement. Sword fighting in her grandmothers backyard and next door in mine as rain drizzled over our heads.

Everything felt so much more possible when we were kids. The first time I met her I insisted that I was a witch - according to my child logic, the fact that I could balance on my stairwell railing and jump off the side of it, several feet down, without hurting myself was somehow evidence of that. So many plans and possibilities and dreams that seemed real, then.

Perhaps it is because you have yet to collect so much baggage, as a child. So many memories and experiences, anxieties and fears, habits, compulsions. There aren't yet so many chains wrapping themselves around your body, trying hard to hold you down in the same place. The cat with the sword moves forward with confidence, ready to take on the new, sure of its own mind and intentions. The plain in front of it is so wide, so empty of obstacles. Clouds dance and sail through the skies.

When you are older you do not look so far ahead. You set small goals, reasonable hopes and even so...trying to conquer a single thing can be so draining, feel so impossible. You find so many tangled knots unwilling to be undone. A string of self-defeating behaviors and habits and issues and each time you try to leave one behind you find, after a time, that you have merely replaced one bad with another.

And all the while, trying to balance dealing with those chains with new beginnings of a different sort. Will they hold you back from moving forward in other ways? Or will it be a step forward here, a stasis there, all dichotomy and juxtaposition? Life is rarely so very clear, once you get beyond a certain age.

power of vision

We have here the page of swords - her head, her face, is concealed, outside the image. What we see instead is her body, arms wide open, ready for whatever may come. A bright red dragon tattoo stretches across her skin. Dragons, power, confidence, strength. In the red we have passion, fire. This page has intellect to guide her, too, ingenuity, imagination. She is young, ready to venture into the world, ready to take on challenges, ready to prove herself.

But for what? In the three of wands we have opportunity, potential. Red again, for energy and passion, for vision. The snake slithers and travels up, the other two wands taking on various complex forms. The ability to see what you want, to believe that it is possible to achieve. Inspiration, from above or from deep within yourself. The tools to make that idea real.

I have a lot of reading for my classes about insurgents, rebels, terrorists. Readings about what drives radicals, why religious terrorist groups are more deadly and dangerous than the secular leftist and nationalist groups that preceded them. Quite often, these groups are made up of many young men, pages, somewhat well educated; many leaders, historically, have been trained as doctors and engineers. And what drives them to take such extreme action? What motivates recruitment? Why do some groups succeed in preventing defection, infiltration  internal disunity? What drives someone to sacrifice their life for an abstract cause?

Vision, vision. There is so much power in a clear vision of what you want, what you believe in. If you can so clearly see it is easy to do so much to grasp it, to take the power within yourself, that dragon, and harness it ruthlessly - especially if you are young, without the baggage of so much experience to weight you down.

In less extreme circumstances too. One of my main meta-issues right now is a general sense of feeling adrift in life. One would think that being in a Master's program is a pretty clear indication of knowing, at least in a general sense, of where you are going or what you want, but I find that isn't the case at all. I question more and more why I am doing what I am doing, what, if anything, it is going to get me, besides a mound of debt I can't imagine being able to pay off. I question why I do most anything, sometimes.

Those times in life when I have had that vision, a sense of knowing what I want, and believing that I could get it, seeing a way...I have managed to do much, even when faced with significant challenges. I love learning, thinking, analyzing, writing, trying new things. All of that can serve me well. But when the vision isn't there, when everything is such a blur, it's easy for pessimism to set in. Then, even the simplest things can seem so tediously pointless.

I think this is a reminder for me, a push to think and clarify. What is important to me? What do I want? What do I think I can achieve in the short-medium term? Crack that eye open again, at least a bit.

the falling away of dreams

Funny that these would be the cards that come up for me today...

We have two dragons in this seven of cups, unreal creatures having a tea party, giggling, dreaming impossible things - stars around them, seedlings growing out of the teacups even as they play...

Impossible dreams. I have a good friend. We met in college - she was one of the few people who bothered to really draw me out, to get beyond those walls I build up around myself socially, especially back then. We became friends in large part because, for a couple of semesters, we were basically in all of the same classes - we had remarkably similar interests and yes, dreams, things we wanted to do, work in, achieve...

For me, even back then...the awareness that the highest of those dreams would almost certainly only ever be pipe dreams...too many factors, many out of my control, standing in the way... With her though, it was different. I watched her over the years pursuing those dreams, better-suited to it than I could ever be...and recently, especially, she was awarded an opportunity, one that would put her on a near-certain track to...doing it, getting there. And I was so proud of and happy for her, because I know her, know how good of a job she could do, how her amazing people skills and charisma and compassion would be great for that kind of role.

Last night, I ended up spending quite a while on the phone with her, listening, trying to be supportive. She just got some news, a decision that might...make all of that impossible. There is still the chance of an appeal, but...whether that would work is highly uncertain, to say the least. And she is so upset, afraid, angry at herself for small mistakes made years ago. It's hard to know what to say: I could try to tell her that even if the worst happens, it's not the end of things, that there will always be another beginning, something else to pursue; that life will fall into place somehow, that she can pursue other routes. And yet, I know how hard it is to hear that - not to mention actually believe it - when you are so distraught, so focused on the one disaster unfolding in front of you now. It is hard to see the other possibilities you might still have to grow, to learn, to become a better version of you, when you are so viscerally experiencing your dreams spilling and leaking away all around you...

You keep going. You keep going and you wait for the disappointment to mellow out into a kind of indifference, a resignation you can live with. You keep going and you laugh and joke about pipe dreams, about a younger, sillier you.

I look at the last card and think that maybe I should send her something - a card with a book or a poem of some sort. Will have to think a bit, about what might be appropriate...

death, change, musing

I am reminded here, of that well known fact of life - all things come to an end, eventually, a kind of death. All things appear, come to life, and then, sometimes quite quickly, die off as well. That is simply the way things are, unchangeable.

Life is full of little endings. My week working with a particular deck. I put the thing aside, grab another. A good book; I sigh and close it, remember a bit, move onto something else.

And larger - this time in Tunisia...it feels like so short now, with only a week left before I must go back; it doesn't feel like enough time. People you know, have met, who wonder into your life suddenly and then exit it again, perhaps never to be seen, existing only in memory.

And so it goes, the wheel spinning and spinning as it were. Change and death, so very much tied into each other. Nothing can stay the same for very long, unmoving, and yet to accept new developments is to necessarily allow some of the old to wither, fall away. Let the vultures feast on the remains.

So it goes. Climb out of the water and onto the rocks - or is the other way around? Yesterday we visited some more ruins - funny how close I live, here, to the remains of an ancient, burned out city, Carthage. We visited what was once the port of that place - in ancient times they considered it strategic, able to fit two hundred ships of war or trade.

Now it looks more like any lake in the countryside - filled with little boats with funny names. A old man wearing a straw hat sits across from us at the other side, fishing line in hand. Trash in the shallow parts of the water, cigarette cartons and plastic bags.

All things must and will die, change. Nothing to do but move forward, ready to see what the next stage has in store for us.

A mind like a feather perhaps, ready to float from one place to the next, light and unburdened and free to see. A mind like a feather, always ready to be picked up by a stray breeze. Ready to learn and to see.

Death comes from the sky and a wheel spins somewhere and a single feather blows away, in search of a new adventure...

page pondering

This page of wands has shown up in draws twice in as many days... a phenomenon I generally take to mean that I should pay attention to the message here.

The thing is, I actually had to double check that a page was, in fact, what this card is. It's a bit funny, for a page card - a deeply androgynous figure, bearded with a a wise, old-man type gaze and yet youthful and sprightly in posture, build. Instead of clothing or armor it appears the figure is made of wood...a tree become human? It carries a rod, but far too long and bendy to be of much use as a weapon...so a walking stick then, but with a head, a child's head, growing out of the top.

Behind the figure we see a background of leaves, green. That goes with the generally woody appearance of the figure, the growth theme. So we have trees, leaves, someone neither man nor woman, neither young or old...

What insight does that offer, then, in considering this card through the lens of the knowledge of what a page of wands is 'supposed' to mean? New beginnings which we should approach with a certain flexibility, energy, openness of mind and spirit but also...the wisdom of your past experiences...openness without naivete. Let the external details fall away, focus only on what really matters. Let new things grow from what you already have; don't be afraid to sculpt them into what you need them to be.

"fake it till you make it" / personal responsibility

So one last daily draw to type up before I switch off decks again. This one is really from yesterday, but it's been bouncing around in my head since I saw the cards so figured it was the one worth writing about.

We have here a rather interesting juxtaposition of the Page of Wands and the Three of Swords. We have in the first a youth, putting himself out there, innocent, inexperienced but confident in his abilities - at least enough so to want to prove himself, to gain external validation; and indeed, a rather impressive young lad he is. In the other card we have a woman, older, worn down by life, suffering. Crying with grief or frustration or just plain for-no-particular-reason sadness. What strikes me here is both the isolation - the way she seems to be hiding deliberately behind a cliff so that no one will witness her pain - and the dog, a loyal companion, a constant source of comfort even in the most difficult times.

Put together, these two cards paint a picture I find especially familiar. Thinking about the draw, it also helps me realize better the real source of some of my current frustrations, not-too-serious though they may be. In particular, I find myself recently getting inordinately annoyed hearing a few particular people make excuses, again and again, for their own poor behavior or failure to fulfill certain responsibilities. To me, there are explanations, which may or may not be relevant and even worth getting into, but very rarely do those truly amount to being excuses. This is a pretty well understood idea, but it doesn't in and of itself explain why I get so EMOTIONALLY frustrated in such situations, especially when the excuses weren't even directed (or directly effecting) ME.

Looking at these cards though, I see a lot of myself and how I tend (and try) to operate in them. To me, the things you must do are a long list, and whether you consciously realize it or not, you do prioritize them. Although I definitely do have an ongoing issue (that I AM trying to work on, if to very varying degrees of success) with not getting many of them done... the ones I have the most trouble with are the ones that, for whatever reason, de-facto aren't the highest priority. The things I really prioritize - doing all my schoolwork, getting reading and assignments done, showing up and performing adequately at any job I may have, paying my bills on time, etc - those DO get done, regardless of difficulties I may be having. And even though I don't like to get into too much detail here...sometimes difficulties can feel...very intense and difficult indeed.

Sometimes these two cards are exactly how I feel. Inside despair, frustration, perhaps physical pain I am trying to ignore, hopelessness. Outside I smile and go about my day trying to get the things I NEED to get done, trying not to seem like a downer because its not fair to other people to take out my personal issues on them, or on our interactions. I remember once, years ago, literally having to leave a class to go to the restroom, have some kind of anxiety/panic attack for a few minutes, then returning and quite normally participating actively in an intellectual/academic discussion on the subject matter, as if nothing was wrong at all. And so on and so forth. Sometimes, or often, you may not FEEL like acting like the page at all and yet...there it is in front of you, the need to do so, to at least try...

And in my experience, I guess, regardless of how busy, hungry, sleep-deprived, or distressed you are...the top two or three important things, your strongest priorities CAN get done, if you are determined enough. Which is why I don't like making excuses for myself - if I didn't get something done, regardless of the circumstances, at a fundamental level, it wasn't the highest priority for me. I could have prioritized it better, organized my actions differently, and I didn't, and that is MY responsibility. The best I can do is to sincerely apologize and politely ask for generosity/patience of whoever my unfulfilled obligation was with. Hearing others do otherwise...

But of course, judging other people is a pointless exercise that can only contribute to your own inner negativity. Enough things in my own life and actions to get upset about, no need to add others to that if I don't need to. So going to work on letting go of those unnecessary feelings, and focusing instead on being more responsible in my own life with getting things done.

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These weeks with the Victorian Romantic have been GREAT, I must say. The deck has lovely cardstock that's a true pleasure to shuffle, and the readings I've been getting have been quite awesomely deep. There's so much to plumb in the rich imagery of this deck. Looking forward to working with it again in the future!

ready for the new

The Page of Swords is a figure that stands with the sword in hand - but he doesn't charge forward recklessly like the knight, not quite. There is still the bit of the dreamer in him, the bit of whimsy.

But this page is ready for the new, especially mentally, intellectually. He is intrigued by the challenge of the unfamiliar: it is a puzzle for him to solve, something to think on, to ponder. How else would he learn? He wants to see, to analyze, to observe. Perhaps he can stand there so calmly in the face of whatever because, air-like, he really does feel a certain sense of detachment, of being in but not a part of. Laughter comes easier that way, regardless of circumstances. But the challenge to the mind, the challenge of taking on the new, is so much a part of this. He wants so very much to grow stronger, better.

A very relevant card for me, as I ease into routines and get properly settled in to my new surroundings. There's been some unrest the last few days, Salafi riots and military curfews and the like, but nothing too serious. Like the page, I probably find this more exciting/amusing than I should because well, new things, observing, detachment.

Enjoy exploring, walking around, seeing much. Enjoy the little challenges of everyday life. Really getting into the arabic study. It's a change, to be focused so very much on learning one thing rather than having a whole load of classes to split attention between. Many hours of studying to be had.

This card makes me think of communication and messages too. Have been having fun sending postcards to all over. (Speaking of which, one or two people who I also know from AT I am already sending to, but if anyone would like one - postage here is pretty cheap - i just need a mailing address: oracletodisaster at gmail dot com), and posting pictures and the like. Trying to keep up communication is a bit hard, with so much to do/grab my attention here, but trying.

looking for a bright spot

I feel like as much as I try to maintain a bit of a cordon-sanitaire between the tarot blog and other aspects of my life...a lot of posts recently have had the theme of I Am Overwhelmed. What can I say? I am indeed quite overwhelmed by so many things...

Well. Decided to step away from the thoth and my deck of the week(s) and just...my favorite, my comfort deck. A quick one card draw: show me I bright spot, in all of this muck. Show me something to focus on when I just want to give up, give in, stop.

The fish in the cup. That little, silly fish popping out the place you would least expect it to be - that is, if you are all serious minded, no nonsense type...

Flights of fancy. Wishes and dreams and little acts of creativity. Small things that perhaps amuse no one but me...

Trying to maybe plan a trip to the Library of Congress with a friend on Saturday. That would certainly be a place to find inspiration, imagination...

Little things. Perhaps I shall wear my Ravenclaw shirt to class tonight. Lots of blue in this card. The Ravenclaw shirt is blue too. It makes me smile, every time I put in on, even if most people around me wouldn't get why.

Imagination, creativity, the little poems, ideas...I feel very uninspired in writing this paper I have to get done by tomorrow...far too tired and stressed to be inspired to do that arabic presentation I'm supposed to have done by tomorrow too...another night of no sleep, no dreams at all and yet...

The fish is still there, waiting. Maybe you are tired to really see it right now. But it is still there. If you can get through, this last big, seemingly impossible challenge...The fish that you will chat it, the way you sometimes talk aloud to yourself, in funny accents, just because. The way you sometimes amuse yourself while walking to wherever you need to go by trying to say the same thing in english, polish, arabic, french...

New things, interesting things, inspiring things...an entire ereader to fill with books, to read, so many things, fishies, wild ideas, possibilities, wonders...new things...if you can only get through, hold it together a little bit longer, yes.

(Randomly written at work yesterday. Seems appropriate to this, come to think of it...)

and on and on we go...

Nothing too long, deep, or insightful to write today. Perhaps not the most coherent...haven't really slept in like a day. Still at it, type type, read read, trying to get it all done before this evening.

Pulled this card this morning. Had a very encouraging little quick draw from my Thoth last night right when I really needed it, and this too, seems to me along the same lines. I love how very, very dynamic the princess is here. Love the goats in Thoth-influenced decks, I must say. Goats are one of my favorite animals. But yes, love how she is running with it, slingshot read, bold, ready to learn and explore by doing, out there with nature, out in the world, challenging herself. On the one hand, the metaphorical student-me I see, in this card. I always kind of associate the more studious parts of my life with this court, actually. On the other hand, with all the movement in the card, a very apt additional message indeed:

Yes, sure, you can succeed and handle this challenge. If you get to DOING it. Why are you pulling cards instead of writing now? Act act, run run, go go. Intellectual athletics this is, yes.

The details in this deck really are great, though, if you take the time to really look at the cards...

Anyway, before I go back to my goat, er, work...following up on this reading from last week...my new shiny, in a pretty case from Etsy, named Logos Tehuti (I name all my electronic devices, ha. My ipod is Aleister...)

story time, take three

Here's another go at the three card story-writing exercise, this time with the Harmonious tarot.

There was once an old man who was a fool – royal fool, to be exact. He would dance and contort in front of the King and the courtiers. He would joke, play with words, play with props exotic and mundane. The royal family adored the fool; the king was generous and gave him all manner of expensive trinkets over the years as gifts. The fool always wore the same plain clothes though, and lived in the same simple shack with his son. In this way, no one paid much notice to the old man; no one envied him, nor acted to make his life more difficult, as was not uncommon a pastime in that court, at that time. One night, Death came for the fool, ethereal, dressed in black robes. Death carried the hourglass whose grains of sand marked the Fool’s lifespan. As the last of them ran out, the Fool began to dance – the funniest dance he’d ever choreographed, in fact. In his last moments, the old man was spry again, free.

After his father’s burial, the fool’s son found the chest where his father had kept all the gold he had ever received from thing king. In this way, the old man had ensured that the son would not be forced to take up the Fool’s mantle in his father’s place, and instead could follow his own path, whatever path it was that his turned out to be. The young man, uncertain at first, opted to join the ranks of the king’s pages. But there was Fool’s blood in the boy, and he didn’t make a very good page at all: he spent too much time dreaming, sketching ideas for contraptions he might someday create in the dusty ground. He was a curious young man, one who wanted to learn more than there was to learn among the pages and knights of the court. One day, a member of the king’s Academy of Science saw one of the boy’s sketches; impressed, he offered the page admission and apprenticeship instead. Thanks to his father, the young man could pay the fee, and so joined the ranks of the king's inventors instead.

Freed of the military garb of the page, his mind allowed to run wild in the halls of the Academy, the Fool’s son began to dress not unlike his father once had, and as his training progressed he created ever more interesting gadgets. One day the King decided to hold a contest – he erected a large obstacle course and decreed that whoever could pass all of it would be granted a boon. The Fool’s son, using his inventions, won out against the knights on horseback and the noblemen who competed, and as he was crowned winner asked the King for the hand of one of his daughters. The king shrugged – if one of them will have you, fine, he said. The king had two daughters, and the women were intrigued by this strange young man who had beaten their father’s challenge. So together they went to meet the young man. They talked with him, asked to see his laboratory, examined his strange clothes. Afterwards, they conferred. The older sister decided first – I don’t see a husband for myself in him, she told the younger, and shrugged; in truth, she already had her eye on another, a prince from a neighboring kingdom. Then the younger pondered a bit, and after a while nodded. Yes, I like him, she stated. I’ll choose him for a husband. And so she did, and the two youths were married, and to the surprise of much of the court, turned out to be quite well-matched. At the wedding feast, the groom even danced for a few moments just as his father once had, all those years ago.



things that need to be dealt with...

So today, it seems, the Thoth would like to really call me out on my nonsense...

I notice right away the continuity of the color scheme between these two cards, the mucky sick yellow-green which pervades the 7 of Cups and which the Princess of Swords is confronting. The same muddled, grey background in both cards too - tired and dreary and difficult things about...

The more I work with the Thoth, the more I come to like it's court cards. They take some getting used to if you are coming to the deck from a primarily RWS (or even TdM) background, but...the courts have always been a bit of a challenge for me to read, especially the pages. There is a certain lack of...clarity, distinctness at times, or at least that was my experience when I was first learning the cards. In the Thoth, though, I find it's much easier to get a grasp, and each court card is very much its own, quite clear message. In  this case, the princess of swords is about confrontation - both kinds. On the on hand there are external issues, diffuclties, obstacles that you might wish you could avoid or run away from but which in fact you really should stand up and face; and on the other hand within yourself, that need to turn the sharp sword of logic and critically examine your own actions, perceptions, approach to things. This princess has an airy, transparent dress and wings - she is young, flexible, able if she chooses to adjust, adapt. And despite all the chaos around her, she is bright green - for youth, renewal, spring, growth, possibility...

The 7 of Cups is titled Debauch and indeed, we see a see of muck, poisonous slime dripping down from those cups, the two downwards triangles, the tigerlilies... We have Venus in Scorpio, in a way bringing together the worst traits of both of those signs - overindulging, self-indulging in destructive impulses, turning a certain intensity in the exact wrong direction. We have dark skies, mucky seas, venom drip...the entire scene makes me think of nausea...And actually, its perhaps for that reason that I know exactly what this is referring to. See, I kind of have a cluster of problems involving a bunch of dental issues, the most serious of which is a tooth which had been causing me pain since last September, and which I was told in December needs a root canal or extraction. I've been ignoring the issues, and it's gotten to the point that taking TONS of ibuprofen doens't help enough and prescription pain medication dentist gave me makes me so nauseated I cannot eat anything which given my already less than ideal eating habits...and yeah.

Why don't I do anything about it? Because I am stressed with other things, because I am moderately paranoid about doctors and dentists, because I don't have dental insurance and I KNOW trying to get into a lower cost dental school clinic will be a bother, because I just don't feel like I have the mental energy to deal with the issue. Same reason I've been all kinds of other issues as well, but well. This has become a bit of an acute problem, I suppose, and Thoth has something to say to me about it:

Deal with it. Just deal with it. Put on your big girl clothes, grab your logic-sword, and do something. Take a good look at what you've been doing and why that isn't working for you and what you should do instead. Realize that yes, this is going to involve some external hassle and dealing with obstacles and things and/or people you may not want to deal with and that...you need to do it anyway. Fight the slimy-icky things because constantly taking so much pain medication that you feel too sick to eat is not a long-term solution for success. In this case, continuing to do nothing about the problem is very much Debauch, self-indulgence in a very self-defeating sense. Fight that impulse: just deal with the chaos this is causing already.

Trying out Court Couples exercise

So this is an exercise from Tarot Thrones that I found by way of Inner Whispers. I quite like the idea of it, and since I like doing these various exercises in general, thought I'd give it a spin with my Thoth. Though writing it up in a rather free-write type way...

The princess of wands, child-like still, sometimes, young. She launches herself into new things, leaps this way or that, excited for a new adventure. The world is full of adventures to her, things to explore, see, learn. Upwards, she sees herself flying, up. And she doesn't worry yet, about leaping into the unknown and the dangers that lurk there, of putting herself out there in the world perfectly unclothed. She is full of wild passion, energy, the tiger that is and becomes her and from which she feels formed. Look at her power, the sun-wand, the light that flows and flows - why shouldn't she be confident? She loves the andrenaline of the first great leap and trusts that whatever place she lands in, she will be able to handle herself. This princess loves the flickering heat of the flame, of dancing just on the fire's edge, quickly flicking her hand in and drawing back again: fire play, fire play. Oh, but the world is full of so many interesting things, experiences, opportunities if you only have the boldness to grasp them. She hears music in her head as she dances her way up that path of light. Her focus is on the things ahead of her, the possibility.

The Queen, on the other hand, is well aware of the things that can lurk beneath the surface of the shine. She is older - if not so much in years, then certainly in experience. The queen never leaps. She ponders, considers, waxes nostalgically. The queen of cups knows the value of caution, of hiding your real self behind shroud and illusion; she knows that others do this too, that what you see is not necessarily what really exists, beneath the surface. The queen scries and dreams. She is sensitive, perceptive, likely to notice to smallest of details. She knows herself well enough to know what can hurt her, out there in the world. Given the choice, she may well prefer to stay right where she is, the the land of comfort, home, in imagination, dreamscapes. She notices nuance, and is flexible enough to negotiate and adjust when she needs. She prefers to be a bit beyond the spot-light, to allow someone else to take the lead. Not her forte that, and she knows herself well enough to recognize it. She has a gentle touch though, empathy. She wants to care for and protect those close to her heart.

And so it goes: the princess leaps forward, focused on the latest adventure, on what she can see and do and achieve. She is easily excited, easily amused, unfrightened. Her back to the queen she goes, barely giving a thought to the older woman. The queen notices the princess though, looks on at her actions in consternation, worry. The girl will get herself hurt, going on like that, barely thinking. There are signs of it there in the ripples of water. The queen sees them. The queen is afraid that others will see too much of that open-hearted girl, that they will percieve her nakedness much differently, not innocently at all. The queen worries about the naïveté of the princess. She will get hurt, and what if that happens and the fire dies and the tiger loses its strength? Will the Queen be able to heal that? Yes, the queen watches and wonders and worries as the youth goes into the world.

She keeps the doorway to the safe place open, in case the princess needs to return there. I have a shroud for you, to cover and hide yourself when you learn of the need; I can teach you to speak softly, to speak without saying much at all. I can teach you to obfuscate, to prevaricate, to smile nicely when you don't mean it and keep your true self hidden in dreams.

But the princess doesn't hear - there is music, a symphony playing and she is too busy flying on up, roaring.

dream-skating, transformation

It seems rather apt, to have drawn these this morning. Busy, stressful, and frustrating day yesterday. Especially frustration with myself. I have a long history of not dealing very well or in healthy ways with such feelings, especially when its such a pile of one thing on top of the other...

Last night after getting home (from EIGHT straight hours of class >.<) I decided, quarter to midnight, to go rollerblading to deal with some of my nervous energy. Perhaps not the wisest idea, objectively, some might say, but...it was very nice. The streets are almost empty of cars in the middle of the night near me, so skating was very enjoyable. I went from my apartment to the Capitol, then round and round in circles in front it, that great symbol of this nation's goverment illuminated by night lights...I skated around the Air and Space museum, other Smithsonian buildings, up to the Washington monument...

It's really relaxing to just move your body and let your thoughts flow where they might. Imagination, triggered by all the architecture of the museums, monuments, government buildings...thinking about dreams and possibilities, what is and isn't in your grasp, lives and other lives, this world, alternate worlds - fantasy and reality, optimism and fatalism all a jumbled mix in the brain. The image of this Princess of Cups so very much reflects how I felt last night, skating in the warm breeze at night, moving and flowing in waking dreams, reality and disreality, those moments where anything feels possible and nothing feels fully real...

And of course, Aeon, the new age, the Judgement call, time to make decisions about which way forward, to commit to something...what do you want to take with you into the future? What have you already left behind? What have you mostly moved past, that should stay there in past, in memories... It's tempting sometimes, to go back to silly habits we had when we were young, the way that, I imagine, a former smoker might, in times of stress, wish for a cigarette even decades after dropping the habit. They're like that, aren't they, addictions and habits and less than ideal coping mechanisms that are nonetheless familiar - always in the back of your mind, a wisp, sensory memory, a little bit of an itch? The old horus figure in the background of this card, symbol of the old age, sitting there - you can never really forget who you once were, the actions you once took...but you can move forward. You can decide what you want to do NOW - the new figure, transparent, still forming.

Finger to lips, shush. There is no need to speak of it, to make bold declarations. Think,  weigh and ponder and plan and then act, DO. Actions speak louder than words. Who do you want to become, now? Which of the multitude of floating thoughts in your mind do you want to try to make tangible? I woke up this morning surprisingly energized considering how much sleep I actually got - perhaps this cup princess night skating should become a new habit. Transformation - aeons past and aeons future and action and choices and dreams....

Tarot's Take on Election-Time

So, in a fit of whimsy I decided to do something I ordinarily do not do much at all: read directly about current events; and do a reading with a predictive aspect to it. That is to say, amateur fortune-telling (ha!) about the upcoming US Presidential elections. Decided to use the Master for this as it has a kind of 'wordly' feel to it.

(A note: a am unabashedly biased liberal and this reading will reflect that. This is just for fun, and I'm really not even trying to maintain some semblance of political neutrality.)

So starting from the left, we have the page of wands. This card makes me think of the current [Republican] contenders for the nomination/potential opponents to the President in the election. The page is young, inexperienced - he may have a lot of passion and ambition and ideas, but mostly his ideas are still just that. He wants to prove himself, his message. There is potential there, certainly. However, he is quite young, and looking at him, the word 'childish' comes to mind. Combine that with the dog behind him, which makes me thinking of the dog in the Fool card and well...let's just say this is a pretty close approximation to my feelings regarding the Republican candidates in general this year. Ego driven, immature, ignorant - hell, the fact that candidates that have no realistic chance of winning are still in the running, weakening their own party's chance rather than withdraw and consolidate support is just so...the childish me, me, me impulse. But, less negative take on the card, this seems to be showing the current stage of things, the untried with 'fresh' messages proving themselves...

The center card, which going in a kind of chronological fashion would seem to represent the election in full swing, is the six of swords. The six goes back to the Lovers in the major arcana, a card of choices and decision-making... interestingly in this deck the Lovers card shows a blind-folded cupid about to release an arrow...which I think is a rather interesting metaphor given the fact that imperfect access to information is such a major component of democratic elections. No one really knows what candidates are going to do once elected - some level of obfuscation if not outright dishonesty seems to be expected these days, where you have candidates blatantly tailoring their position to their audiences and, well. So choice of ideas, a battle of ideas which yes, seems to describe this political season rather well. Idea against idea,words, communication battle which is so much of what elections are these days, with imperfect information and someone will win but who and at what cost? Look at those swords stabbing downwards through the victory-wreath...

Lastly we have the Chariot...to be honest, I have a hard time trying to read this removed from my bias because...well, the Chariot is about winning a battle, short term victory, success and to me, the only outcome I would consider as such would be a re-election of the current President. Backing me up in this assessment, at least, is that well...it's the chariot, rolling forward. Victory that has momentum of time, not a sudden shift or change...even though this card has no horses in sight, the old phrase about not switching horses mid-race comes to mind. Also, the Chariot tends to be about uniting opposites, harnessing the power of black and white, masculine and feminine, yin and yang to your advantage; in politics, that kind of uniting requires taking on some semblance of a moderate position, which, in the primaries at least, seems to be the last thing the Republican candidates are concerned with. How can unite all those forces if you are spouting racism, misogynistic, classist, vitriol? So yes, I am - tentatively - predicting a re-election of President Obama...

If anyone disagrees with my read of these or has anything they want to chip in, feel free :]

A Deck of Quirky Courts

So I tend to try to stick to writing here about the decks that I am actually currently working with, but now and then...an exception.

I decided to take advantage of my access to a scanner here to get my de la rea deck on my computer for future such blogging purposes, and was reminded again why this is one of my favorite decks. It's on odd one, to be sure: offbeat art style, very Marseille based but everything is masks, pip minors with odd elemental associations illustrated differently than the usual Marseille patterns. Gold and silver paint on the cards, and they are so very pretty...this is most definitely an art deck, a deck for collectors, and for some at least, that's more or less what it is.

I have a rule though, about reading with all decks I own. If I cannot read with it, I do not keep it. And indeed, I've found a way - a very specific way - to get this deck to give me brilliant readings. I only ever read with it using the Comte de Mellet spread, no reversals. With this method, readings vary from short, with only one or two pairs of cards to read, to quite longer. In fact, after my scanning spree I was inspired to do a reading for myself with it...it ended up being six pairs, for a total of twelve cards, much more than my reading usual. As usual, utterly on point, accurate, and thorough. That reading is too long and too personal to post here, so instead I thought I would linger a bit on one aspect of this deck I find particularly charming - the courts!

It is of course an extra challenge to take the courts - often considered some of the trickiest cards in the deck to read - and show them as these masked, abstracted figures. Yes, what I love about these is just how well the 'feel' of each court is expressed. I love the knight of wands, for example, because he isn't quite the bold rushing forward figure of other decks...yet actually, expression not unlike that of the RWS really...uncertain, heading into unfamiliar territory perhaps, encountering some surprise, the ridicule of the horse...and yet he goes anyway. What's that saying about courage being about feeling fear and proceeding anyway? I like this queen too...majestic in the way she holds that cup, her hood over her like a canopy, the influence of intuition, mind...

I also quite like these two courts. The starkness of the coloring on the King of Swords really highlights the kind of harsh, unyielding intellectual nature of this figure, the width of his collar and garb how much space he takes up, his authority...everything black, white, red. Those shoulder masks... As for this page...the garb of a scholar, or at least it seems so to me, and the curious up-tilt of the head. She likes learning new things, this page, exploring, inspecting, enriching herself. Love the detail of the sprouting plant in the background.

But yes, love the quirky courts in this deck, and shall definitely be doing some exercises around them eventually, when I get back to working with this deck more regularly. It really is such a treasure: the majors are, too, quite awesome :]