one card ramble-writing

these are mine, all mine, you see, right? MINE. these I can hold, can clutch to my chest. these no one can take away from me, no, never. will not let them take away, cannot.

but you must watch where you are going! you're walking straight into that furnace, too busy looking behind you. you cannot live life like this, always fearful, always suspicious, waiting to be robbed. what kind of living is that?

that's what you'd like me to think, sure. let my guard down, loosen my grip and then... no, no i know what that's all about. i've worked too hard for these, gave too much of myself to acquire my wealth. i must hold onto it. that's what it's all about.

but look at you, walking alongside death to keep it, flirting with skeletons, wild-eyed. there are so many factories producing wonders, trinkets, curiosities to mesmerize the mind - if you could free your hands, go there, see...

see what? you think i don't see this skeleton-man, this death specter, always in my shadow, always waiting? do you think i am blind? this is what the coins are for: when everything else falls away, what i can grasp to my breast is what i will have. the material will comfort me. the metal is always worth the same: i can lose friends, can lose health, and sanity, and love, but gold? it is reliable, mine.

and you can lose all those things anyway, faster, by clutching too stubbornly, too desperately at what you already have.

simple pleasures

I wanted to try out the Marrakech a bit more, plus it's one of those days where I could really use a message that's just meant for the here and now and not tied to bigger themes/things, so here we have it -

Sometimes it really is about the simple things. Sometimes greater pleasures and comforts are simply out of reach: there are things that can't be fixed in a snap, burdens that cannot simply be thrown off, problems that tie themselves into your life like stubborn knots at which you pick and pick with little effect. Sometimes, in the moment, the best thing is to focus on what you have in front of you.

Like this Sun card, which is really a rather unusual take and quite interesting. The water carrier...a modest profession, it would seem, yet in a desert country, in a place where the sun's brightness is as much a danger as it is a source of light and warmth...how valuable is water then? How amazing the moment when the man comes to you and your friend, pours a cup of cool liquid, offers it to you to drink? How nice it must be, that first long sip, the feel and taste against parched lips? Suddenly the sun can feel nice again instead of overwhelming.

Sometimes you may have that friend with you, or a partner: someone to hold your hand, to rub your back, to tell you everything is going to be okay and keep you company. And when you don't? Make do with what you have - simple pleasures. Make yourself a cup of your favorite tea. Let it steep, cool enough to drink. Sweeten it just so. And then drink it slowly, mindfully. Enjoy the taste of it on your tongue, the way it fills up your belly. Or have a cup of your favorite wine, sweet and white. Enjoy the smell of it. Drink the glass bit by bit, savoring the flavors. Take your time, focus in the moment. Let all the bigger problems fall away for just a bit. If it's day, maybe take a look outside at the sun and enjoy the light; if it's night, maybe light a candle, let the scent of lavender waft across the room.

Yes, simple pleasures sometimes.

"Equilibrium" - Roots and Branches

So I found this idea I quite like on the AT forums, about choosing a word for the year - something to work around, keep in mind, perhaps meditate on or write about or whatever. After spending a few days trying to think of an appropriate word I decided to take a cue from my year card, Justice and go with Equilibrium.

I like that word because it speaks of balance and fairness and all the stuff I wrote about in my year card post, and there are a LOT of areas in my life where I could really use some positive changes in this direction. Also, there's a kind of objective, logical quality to the word equilibrium that I like - it makes me think of my economics courses in college, the fact that on graphs, equilibrium was the point at which supply and demand met at a sustainable rate. Otherwise you'd have shortages or surpluses, problems, but at equilibrium, things are sustainable in the long term - even if things aren't perfect, at equilibrium you can let out a breath and know things are ok like this for a while. Again, something I could use more of for sure.

Decided to pull some cards for how to bring more Equilibrium into my life in a kind of roots/branches spread I've seen variants of on the forums...roots being the heart of the issue, the foundation, and branches being possibilities, outcomes, next steps.

Ace of Wands seems rather apt, in terms of foundation for trying to work more equilibrium into things...one thing I have to say about the Deviant Moon is...the majors are nice enough, sure, but this is one of those decks where it's the minors that really seal the deal for me. I love the Aces in this deck especially. Here, the ace of wands is a kind of wood/nature spirit woman. She holds a baby swathed in leaves, a kind of seed ready to grow, sprout. Her wand burns with possibility. Nurture it she needs to, though, right? Some work is needed, real work. And butterfly wings on her back, for transformation, transition, growth. Wands for energy, creativity, passion. Aces for initiatives and new beginnings.

Changes, even modest, realistic goal changes like 'I want more equilibrium in my life' (rather than more ambitious phrases like renewal! recovery! transformation!) don't just *happen* to you all on their own. I need to do something to make them happen, really approach this as something, a new initiative to follow through on, apply myself to with the best of my abilities.

This I find interesting as a branches card, because at first, it doesn't really seem to...well, stem from the Ace. If making positive changes is a project like this, like growing a garden, something that requires positive energy and creativity and drive, then why would the result, the branches, be this? We have a sad figure, sitting with his mask still on, in a comfortable enough place, well lit, orderly, looking not very happy at all...

But thinking about it more, it makes sense. See, just because you can recognize that change is necessary, that taking this and that step would improve your life significantly, doesn't mean that doing so is EASY. If it were EASY, you would have done so already, right? You are a creature of logic after all, or at least strive to be. If something is advantageous and easy, you go for it. But sometimes things aren't easy at all. Sometimes, letting go of what is familiar, even if it is not good-familiar, is terribly difficult. Sometimes you don't want to risk the crushing sense of defeat if your serious efforts at improvement don't work out. Sometimes you don't know where to start. Sometimes you make a great start and then don't know how to sustain that forward movement; you run out of energy, you sink to the ground in frustration and say, well I've already done this one thing, isn't that enough? But it isn't of course.

This card says to be realistic in expectations, and it commitments - it's not only about the Ace at the start. It's about continuing on even later, when that initial burst of start-energy dissipates. It's about continuing even when the motivation feels like such an ephemeral, intangible thing. It's about if you are serious about things, you need to know it won't always be easy, that things might get worse before they get better, and you need to be prepared for that. It is a clear-eyed, non rose-tinted vision.

lord of the root -
curl around us, here,
in tear-blackened earth. 

we are waiting for you,
waiting to sprout, to climb
higher, grasping for sky - 

we want to know you, 

wish to become
better than what we are
now, a sort of seed,
rough-edged and small. 

Nourish us.

Appreciated, cards, and duly noted. We'll see how this whole Equilibrium word thing goes...

for today - goodbye and hello

So yeah, today is one of those occasional days where I actually feel like doing a 'daily draw' type thing - you know, picking a card for the day. I'm also about the switch off the two decks I'm working with, so I figured it'd be interesting to pull two cards: one from one of the decks I'm about to put away that I really connected with, as a kind of goodbye message, and one from one of the decks I'm looking forward to working with, as a kind of hello message.

The Swedish Witch, a deck I always thought was cool, and which I was quite happy to be able to go on an adventure to buy when I was in Sweden, ended up being an even better reading deck than I could have hoped. I really enjoyed working with it, and with all that symbolism, I feel it'd make a great deck to study/work with exclusively, one day...

Anyway, my daily message from this one is the King of Swords...a card of action, of passion, of in control kind of DOING. We have two horses here, ready to move things along, and flames to add urgency to the situation. There's a horse on the King's helmet too...a card of movement messages indeed.

Very apt, in fact. This wasn't the best of weeks for me in many ways, including very poor sleep patterns, and as a result I didn't wake up until 1pm, which is VERY late for me. It's after five in the evening now, and I still haven't done anything meaningfully productive. Don't plan on going to sleep until very late, so there's still plenty of time, but I think this card is a very CLEAR message to get my arse up and start doing things. Run to the store, clean, laundry, schoolwork...the list is long. In fact, this being a King and not a knight, and thus subject to more organization and discipline, makes me think I ought to update that list and then really make myself start doing things on it and crossing it out. Get moving, this card says. Now.

Yes, I posted about this deck before, when it first came, and the time has now come to devote some time to getting to know it. There are many reasons why this deck really calls to me, though there are some drawbacks too - a few years ago, the very simple, uninspired pips might have been a major challenge to me. Fortunately these days, I can work with unillustrated pips just fine, and the majors and courts more than make up for it, methinks. We shall see.

In any case, the message from here is the lovers...an interesting take to be sure. We have the Marseille tradition image of a man surrounded by two lovely ladies to choose between...one is dressed in the fashion of the Islamic conquerors of the region, Islamic culture, North African variant (makes me think of the ladies on the streets in 'Battle of Algiers') while the second lady wears traditional North African Berber dress. Sun shines brightly behind them all. Of course, there's an interesting component here, not present in the European tradition, of the fact that If the dude is Muslim as well, he COULD actually marry both of these ladies...

In any case, choices choices, eh? Overwhelmed with choices. In this case, with what to do. This is one of the reasons I've been awake for several hours and haven't gotten anything significant done. What to start with? The mess that is my floor, my desk, my bed? The lost debit card I need to try to locate? The readings I need to do for my classes on Monday? The Arabic homework? Spinning around and everywhere a something that needs to get done and I get dizzy from it all so I say, in a bit, and go back to trimming some cards. Choices choices. Neither of these ladies is a bad option, right? Just pick something and start with it. Whatever you get done, that's progress, thats one less thing on the To Do List. Choices choices - sometimes any decision is better than indecision.

a door opens, a door closes

I found this absolutely lovely little spread on the aeclectic forum that I totally thought was worth trying out, so.

When One Door Closes Another Door Opens Spread (2) by Glass Owl

"When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us." - Alexander Graham Bell

What Is Behind The Closed Door: This represents what has come before or is out of reach. You keep returning to this closed door but you no longer have the key to open it. It is time for you to move on. I suggest placing the rest of the deck on top of this card so it can not longer be seen and then turn your attention to the next card in the spread.

What Is Beyond The Open Door: This represents possibilities and what is within your reach. This door is not only unlocked but it is wide open. What lies behind this doorway deserves your time and energy. Imagining yourself walking through this open door and embracing what this card is offering you. 

 So, I must say, quite interesting that the Hermit shows up here as the closed door. It makes sense, though. The Hermit is all about going off and doing things alone, people who needs people, and introspection, and really learning and growing a lot and maybe finding some things you need to find but yes, alone being the key word. Solitude.

Being an introvert, I don't think it's all that shocking that uh, yeah I very much have some Hermit like tendencies. I do spend a lot of time alone, and especially when I am really stressed or overwhelmed or unhappy, I tend to isolate myself even more: the bigger the problem, the stronger my feeling of this is something i should keep to myself, deal with myself.

I was also just thinking, recently, about how I really need to update my own perception of my social skills and abilities. See, I didn't really have friends in high school (I was the kid who sat in staircases reading books. constantly.) or the first two years of college, and even though so much has changed in my life since then, a part of me still sees myself as that sixteen year old kid, terribly socially anxious and socially awkward, not knowing how to speak to people, what to say, muddling about. The thing is though - these days, in *most* situations I'm not really like that at all. I can hold conversations with a variety of people, even if I don't really like them or care about what we are talking about. I can be funny. People seem to like me well enough after we socially interact. I HAVE interacted with people, adults, who really do have serious social skill impairments and...while I am not and will never be a social butterfly, I'm really not that bad at all these days. That is, I guess this card is trying to say, an aspect of my identy, The One Who Is Alone, or The One Who Cannot Connect With People, that isn't true and that i should work on letting go of...

And what door should I open instead? Well, the King of Cups is, first of all, a mature man, an adult. This is definitely an aspect of it, learning to navigate the world of "adult social interaction" which is a bit different that 'young adult social interaction' as it were - the cup here is particularly apt. Until about a year or two ago, I didn't drink alcohol at all - didn't have a taste for it, wasn't interested in the whole getting drunk for the hell of getting drunk scene, whatever. But realizing that drinking is SUCH a part of so many adult social interactions and get-togethers in some way, and that it was so much more natural to just figure out something that worked for me rather than the whole 'oh, but I do not drink' song and dance...well, I have now, figured out how to have a casual drink with other adults at a bar or a restaurant or a social event. Moderately of course, as the upright of this card suggests. More generally, though, I think, its about trying to connect more with people - not just acting the logical outside observer of human interaction. The word "networking" comes to mind. If Queens are the crux of the suit turned inwards, Kings are turned outwards and so it is here: my grad program, for example, is always telling us about how important it is to network, and I've seen with my own eyes how helpful can be to careers...it doens't come naturally to me at all, that, but perhaps again, at least some of that is just perception, perception of me as only the Hermit, never the King, that I need to let go of.

In my personal life too...well, I have been pro-actively connecting more, already, a bit. I've met a couple friends from online in real life in the last year or so, and that was all really nice. I started going to monthly meetups with a local tarot group largely because it's a way to meet people, interact with folks I'd ordinarily not interact with at all and with whom I share some common. Considering maybe trying to find some activity or interest meetups/groups when I actually have some free time energy, that kind of thing.

So yeah, this reading makes perfect sense - let go of that self-image of me as alone person that was never really quite accurate and has grown increasingly less so with time, and focus on maintaing/improving current friendships/relationships and being pro-active about forming new ones, both professionally and personally.

 

a very appropriate quick draw

What can I say? I drew a pair of cards today, a very rushed/casual thing done with the intent to have something to ponder on throughout the day. what do i get? i perfect, perfect reflection and description of the story of my life right now, not just in the themes of the cards but quite literally in the imagery. a lot of this has to do with things that are more the territory of my personal journal/that I don't want to get into in detail here, so i'll keep this succint...

last night, two in the morning, chechen dude article finally written, finished. for a number of reasons, physically and mentally exhausted. staring at the brightly lit computer screen, so tired you want to cry except that doing so would take too much energy. tired of feeling like drowning, of so many silly self-defeating tendencies...

but you've a list. reading you very much need to do. arabic vocab to study. more info you need to absorb. work you need to go to, do with some basic level of competence. and more, higher goals. dizzy with exhaustion you distract yourself by playing artistically with old pictures in photoshop. need to get batteries, you say, for the camera - thinking of more images to capture.

wake up in the morning, three hours of sleep. bleary-eyed, force yourself to read about computer network defense. no time to eat, bits of poetry drifting around your in head in the shower. character ideas, magic systems, story worlds floating about as you drag yourself outside, force tired body to walk over cobblestone sidewalks. this morning is so pretty. the weather is so nice. wishing you could paint, because these things your eyes see look so beautiful.

the ten of swords does not inspire the empress, but neither does it stifle her, really. that juxtaposition: how much of a garden can you grow with stubborn will and limited water and limited sun?

My Favorite Majors: The Hierophant

So I have a kind of funny relationship with this major. See, the Hierophant is actually my birth card, which has always seemed kind of funny and not right to me, largely because I associate it a lot with the traditional RWS image, the Marseille tradition Pope, etc. And let's just say organized religion is as far away from 'me' as you can get. But on the other hand...as the previous post focused on...I do actually do a lot motivated by duty, obligation, external sense of necessity etc. so...

Well in either case, one nice thing is that this is a major that comes with a lot of variety in between decks. Many artists take quite a few artistic liberties or come up with some really interesting and thought-provoking spins on the concept. That said...

V. Hierophant

Favorite:

There's a lot I really like about how the Shadowscapes tarot does this card. I love the concept of the Hierophant as a tree - steady and grounded, hard and strong and unmoving, unyielding, old. It's made better by the fact that it does have a kind of severe face/expression, and that wizard's staff, amusingly enough. It kind of brings together a lot of the underlying concepts of this card while completely removing the religious connotations/imagery present on the RWS and its closer clones. Which is useful to be because a lot of the time, religion is quite not what this card is really about in religions, and yet that has so many connotations for me personally it makes it a bit hard to separate from while reading. And of course, I love the nuanced details here, the colors used as well. Creator of this deck is an amazing artist and it really shows in this and other cards.

Runner Up:

Well, makes sense to pick a traditional take on the card that's all about tradition among other things, right? I may not like the RWS version of it very much, but the Thoth? Yes, I do quite approve of Crowley's approach. I like the ancient Babylonian look to this hierophant. Like all the cards in the Thoth deck, this one is chock full of esoteric symbolism. I'd be doing it a disservice trying to detail what I only half-understand but I do love that it's there, adding meaning to the card and waiting for me to study it/know it better when I get the chance. Mostly though I love this aesthetically - the orange and dark tones, the lighting effects, that window in the back, the masks - it all really adds to this image of forbidding, powerful, sacred, removed from the world, construct. Very much brings to mind a whole bunch of ideas and concepts associated as soon as I look at it, which is helpful in readings and yeah. Thoth. Does it right.

Free Association Draw

This is exactly what it says on the tin: draw one card, write whatever comes to mind.


This is actually a card that comes up a lot for me in readings - not to represent me, quite (that remains, I'd say, primarily the Queen of Swords) but rather...my approach to life, generally.

The knights, you see, are about doing. About going forth, acting, getting things done. The knight of swords is passionate and rash - he flings himself towards whatever captures his attention at the moment, heedless of who might get hurt. Sometimes you really do need to just GO after something like that, without overthinking, with everything you have but that card comes up for me more as what I should be doing than any tendency I actually have. The knight of cups is a dreamer, the romantic, ruled by his heart, ruled by idealism. The knight of wands is passionate too, but more measured, more pursuing ambitions and goals than the impulsive sword knight. 

But the Knight of Coins? The knight of coins goes forward steadily, slowly, more weighed down by his armor, careful of his footing. The knight of coins moves forward mindful of his duties, his obligations. The knight of coins moves forward because he must. It is a pragmatic forward-movement...if passion isn't there today that's alright - there is routine, there is this map, there is this or that short term goal to move towards. If there is mud in the road you plod forward nonetheless. You trudge. You muddle through. Keep calm and carry on. If you cannot manage ambition, or idealism, or passion it's alright - there is necessity to keep you moving. 

Perhaps he goes slower than the other knights, not motivated the way they are by those strong feelings, calls, but neither is he as easily stopped. The ambitious can burn out; the idealistic can become disillusioned; the impulsive can get distracted. But the one who moves forward out of a grim sense of MUST, MUST, MUST? Pragmatic necessity is not so easily dispelled. Do you feel sick today, exhausted? Get up anyway. Have a cuppa. Go do what you need to do. Do you feel apathetic towards everything? Get up anyway. Pretend. Go to what you need to do. Did something you were hoping for not work out? Disappointed, sad? Shrug it off, go focus on what you need to do. And so on.

And sometimes you find that, having far fewer passions, dreams, ambitions - lacking real motivation and energy and drive, that kind of joie de vivre that so many people seem to have - when you step back and look, you see that you've accomplished just as much if not more than quite a few of them anyway. Why? Because you don't let all that distract you. Like this knight, you can take or leave all of it. At the end of the day, regardless, you put on that big suit of armor, grab your coin-shields, get on your faithful horse and plod on anyway. And you keep plodding, and keep plodding, and keep plodding forward. Step by step, day by day.