Lost in Archetypes

Knight of Cups

First of all, yes, I realize it's been more than five months since my last post. I encountered a few hiccups in my life, and unfortunately this blog was one of the first things to suffer. But now I'm back in action, baby!

Anyway. I pulled the Knight of Cups several days ago and have waited to post about it because it's taken severeal days of meditation to get the most out of it, really get a handle on what it means to me at this time in my life particularly. Cups represent emotion, love, creativity. Sometimes communication, particularly in this card. Learntarot.com says its keywords are: romantic, imaginitive, sensitive, refined, and introspective.

Unlike the rest of the knights, the Knight of Cups is all stagnance; sitting on a horse that is trotting slowly if indeed it is moving at all. Everything looks weighed down, flat, listless. There is a sense of an inability to move foward, as though he is hanging on to something. One interpretation of this, going along with the above keywords, could be that he is reflecting, taking his time, sucking the marrow out of life, lost in thought and pondering his own self-improvement. But what this card frequently represents for me (and what I think is the most important for me right now) is communication.

The knight has a winged helmet, like Mercury, the Roman messenger god. And as he is at a stand-still, one would venture that the flow of communication has stopped, or at least pause. Or (and here's the kicker), that it should. That more reflection and less chatter should be present in one's life. This is what I think I have to learn from this card.

4 of Pentacles

Yesterday's card was the 4 of Pentacles, much to my amusement as I'd just spent a lot of time wondering if I ought to be a little more stingy with my money. Pentacles represent the manifestation of the things we desire (that is, in accordance with perfect will); the way we choose our reality; and, on a less abstract plane, money. The three keywords learntarot.com have for this card are "possessiveness, control, and blocked change." I like to refer to it as "the Ebenezer Scrooge card."

We see a squinty little man who sits on a big sturdy chair, surrounded by bags of money and with what is presumably his property looming in the background. He seems to be very wealthy, very powerful, and very selfish. He has four pentacles on his person: one under each foot, one at the crown of his head, and one clutched tightly between both hands. He seems to be somewhat of a hoarder. Here's a paraphrase of what my dad said once about this card:

"He has literally cut himself off from the ground, the earth. He has actually insulated himself from the earth, and he's done it with money."

Not a particularly admirable thing. But where's the good in this card? It teaches us thrift, I imagine. But it also does warn us to be careful. I have a tendency to be rather free about lending money to people, now that I have it. Growing up I often didn't have any pocket money and usually had to borrow from people if we were going out, and now I think I'm constantly trying to make up for all the money I borrowed over the years. People have warned me to be careful, but I know that if I became thrifty and budgety I'd go too far the other way. That's the kind of personality I have. So I need to keep an eye out for the middle ground.

All right, blocked change. Refusing to see the possibilities for a new and possibly better way of doing things. Not just financially speaking, but in terms of manifesting reality. I've been studying Wicca and witchcraft for a while now, and one of the things holding me back is that I feel completely powerless. Perhaps there's just a better way I'm not seeing? I will definitely try to be open-minded.

And that's about it for that card. No big opportunities to use its energy yesterday. I promise I'll try to post an entry about today's card today.

7 of Wands

This is yesterday's card; that is, Friday 30 May 2003. (By the way, for these daily one-card readings I'm using the Comparative Tarot deck, which features images from four different decks on each card. I'm specifically using it because it contains the Universal Waite deck, which is pretty straightforward and traditional in its symbolism.) Wands are all about the practicality of day-to-day life, the basics of being human. According to learntarot.com, three keywords for this card are "aggression, defiance and conviction." It's all about taking a stand. Here's what I wrote down at work yesterday:

A man stands alone, brandishing his staff against six others just like it, which stand in the foreground. The look on his face is one of fervor, conviction. He is not a fighter, but he will fight for this because it is something he believes in with all the strength and passion in his being. He is not thinking of whether or not he will win; he knows already that he must, and has put that aside. We do not see the people behind the six oppising staves; they have not assigned the same importance to this battle. For them war is impersonal; an act of coordinated brute strength - it has no face, no individuality. The man opposing them, however, forces them to look and see his face, his perfect solitude. It is the face of the everyday man determined to make a difference.

I think one thing I could stand to learn from this card is how important it is to have opinions. There's a lot of things I'm undecided on, especially when it comes to politics and the like. I'm one of the most indecisive people I know. I did try yesterday, however, to be more assertive when it came to my opinion and decision-making. I'm not sure whether or not it worked, though. It's a hard thing to do.

Introduction

Let's see - where to begin? I've been studying the Tarot - first not-so-seriously and then somewhat-more-seriously - since December of 2000. Which is not a long time by any means. But we all have to start somewhere, right? Anyway, having read about the history behind the Tarot and philosophy about how it works, as well as having done readings (with a fair amount of success, all things considered) for many people and having hours-long conversations and debates with other interested parties about the meanings of the cards, I've decided it's time to tackle the card-a-day method of study.

A lot of sources recommend this, as well as my own father, who's been studying the Tarot for 43 years. The source I'm working most closely with right now is learntarot.com, which is linked over there in the links area on the right. I will do my best to give credit where it's due whenever quoting this or any other source. Not a particularly big fan of plagiarism.

Why keep this journal as a blog? Well, I have friends who are studying the Tarot as well, and I know they might like to read up and comment on the things I learn about it. Also, I hope to be able to glean insight from anyone else who might stumble upon this thing and think, "Hey, I have something to add to that." Hence the upcoming comment link, which should be showing up shortly. Woo, aliteration. Plus I just really, really like blogging.

This isn't, however meant to be any sort of tutorial. That's what learntarot.com and the like are for. In addition to that website I can recommend some very good books on the subject: The Intuitive Tarot by Richard Gordon and Dixie Taylor, and Tarot by Mouni Sadhu. The latter is sort of hard to find, as I believe it is out of print, but definitely worth it if you can get your hands on a copy. I do recommend reading the former first, though, if you're not already somewhat experienced with the Tarot, because Sadhu's work is pretty intense.

Since I'm not by any means attempting to teach people how to use Tarot cards or about the history of them, I also don't feel obliged to defend my belief that they are neither silly nor evil. Suffice it to say that I believe they are a very useful tool for looking inward and being honest with ourselves, and we'll just leave it at that.

All right, I think that about covers anything. Let the over-analysis begin!