| What Do I Want |
[Mar. 10th, 2008|07:11 pm] |
This evening I did a reading on a tough situation at work involving a co-worker I have a hard time being honest with. It's not that I'm dishonest, but rather take the third road of silence; letting her say what she needs to and then letting her leave. I am terrified of telling her what I think. There's no rationale behind it; I just have a hard time telling people what I really think. I am ALWAYS afraid of hurting their feelings. I don't like rocking the boat, I don't like tense discussions, which means that I'm not good at honesty, even though I know from experience how important and satisfying it is to be honest. And if I could somehow beef up that part of my brain that knows how satisfying honesty is so it could topple that part of my body that gets so afraid in these difficult conversations, I would. Then I wouldn't have this problem and I wouldn't be writing.
So, I did a tarot reading about the situation. I started off with two questions, leaving space for a third clarifying question, which I'm glad I did. It was accidental, but it helped out. The first question was, "What do I want in this situation?" The second question was, "What is necessary for me to have what I want?". Then I laid out VII the Chariot and the 9 of Nature. The quick and dirty on this reading is that I want control/mastery of the situation and what is necessary for that is patience. I think there's more in that, and I'll get to it in a moment.
When those two cards were revealed my response was, "Well, fuck you then. Like I didn't know that. Shit." Then I realized that what I really wanted to know was how to take care of myself in this situation. The first two answers addressed what I already knew, the third did not, at least not in the same obvious way the first two did. The third card I drew for "What do I need to take care of myself in this situation?" was the 4 of Nature, not a card I know well and one I do not know the meaning of. So, we'll explore it below.
VII The Chariot
- Description
- A blue hand (like the hands in XVII The Spark and like the hands of 0 The Fool) hovers below a stone wall or a clay tablet, grasping a primitive stylus. Apparent on the tablet is a simple drawing of two wheels (one with five spokes, the other with six) and the main compartment of a vehicle of some sort. There are no horses, there are no oxen; only the schematic of the chariot. The background is flat black.
- Interpretation
- This is another one of Toppi's subtle twists on traditional tarot themes. VII The Chariot is always about control and mastery of the situation. ATA says The Chariot is "clearly a card of force and of control." Aeclectic says that within The Chariot "control is required over opposing emotions, wants, needs, people, circumstances." But none of those types of control are here displayed, especially quizzical considering the primitive and often savage nature of the cards (the Animals of Blood and Soul come to mind). Moving in such a contrarian direction, I think Toppi almost heavy-handedly pointing us towards another kind of control and mastery, and one that is hinted at in traditional chariot depictions, but a meaning that is buried (as so much of the tarot's meaning can be) beneath the otherwise burly symbolic imagery that is layered so thickly onto the cards.
What Toppi's illustration gets to is the necessity for invention, innovation, mental strength in concert with physical and emotional strength when uniting the disparate forces that lay before the querant. It's not enough just to be physically and emotionally strong; that's the kind of weathering of a storm that can lead to the breakdown shown in XVI The Tower. There has to be a strong mind as well as a strong arm to achieve the kind of mastery and control that VII The Chariot promises.
- Application
- I'm just going to go with something simple here, that a strong mind and a steady hand will allow me the kind of freedom that I'm looking for in this relationship, and that having a plan doesn't hurt when going into a situation like this one.
- Traditional Meanings
- Aeclectic Tarot
ATA
 4 of Nature
- Description
The card is dominated from upper right to lower left with the image of an unidentified animal skull in some state of decay. There are traces of decoration along the gum line, indicating that this was perhaps a skull of some significance once used in rituals or ceremonies of some kind. In the upper left hand of the card is a bearded man staring down at the skull. The man is wearing a large pendant reminiscent of the medallion from XIX The Sun, and dressed in furs and apparently intricately decorated clothing.
- Interpretation
- This is certainly a card of discovery. The man uncovering the skull represents for me the sun; he is bringing light to the situation where only darkness was before. That's the first level of the card. The more difficult piece for me is what he is discovering. The skull is three things to me: as a piece of the skeleton it is a foundational piece of some greater whole; as a decorated object it may be a ceremonial object, and therefore a talisman of some kind; as a bone it is old, and represents age and death. The Booklet suggests that this card represents "Reality," which I don't disagree with, but doesn't go far enough to satisfy me. I sense that the man hasn't just happened upon the skull, but has encountered something he was looking for. This doesn't strike me as a random encounter, but one that took time and perseverance. That said, I can't tell if the skull is some missing component to something that the shaman wants to accomplish, or some malignant influence causing a disturbance that he seeks to end. Either way, I feel that this skull is the key piece to something that the man is seeking to resolve.
More numerologically, the fours tend to be cards of balance and steadiness. While three is the magic number, fours are totally dependable, often times to their own detriment. I suppose it's not without merit that the uncool are labeled squares, or that the innovative are always trying to think outside the box. That said, we need the box to stand on in order to get outside of it, and I prefer tables with four legs to three, and a car with four wheels to a motorcycle with two. I think that's part of the reason why the discovery of the skull suggests resolution to me, because of the steadiness that comes with four.
- Application
Can't see this very clearly, but perhaps I've not discovered what it is that will bring me resolution. My talisman may still be hidden in the brush. But that the item bringing closure is occluded from my eye resonates with my recent study of the occult. I've been reading Aleister Crowley's Toth Tarot by Lon Milo Duquette, which I'd recommend to anyone beginning a study of that deck, as well as Qabbalistic Tarot by Dr. Robert Wang, which despite its hokey cover has been an informative and exciting introduction to the Western Hermetic Qabalah (not to be confused with the strikingly similar Jewish mystical practice, the Kabballah). It's a stretch, based on a flimsy similarity, but it's what I've got and for now that's enough.
- Traditional Meanings
- Aeclectic Tarot
ATA
|
|
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
epymetheus's journal