Tarot II

Training to become a story teller…..

XXI The World: all encompassing, unity, existence, being. Feminine center, the source of creation. She seems pleased and at peace. The bottom of the encircling wreath looks like the head of a snake eating its tail. This would tie into the aspect of reality as a wheel. All completely connected, devouring one aspect for the emergence of another. I am not sure I have a good feeling for the four images in each of the corners. They each emerge from a cloud, suggesting their ephemeral quality. All the shapes the universe takes come and go, all forms of matter come from dust and will return to dust.

Number Quality: XXI, 21; 1 complete observer of two complete sets of 10. Sets of ten acting as interacting opposites create the observable world and the One outside gets to have the perception of their interaction. 1 observing 20, 1 observing two sets of 10, 1 observing opposites interacting.

King of Wands: Looks very typical “kingly.” Not overly adorned, but identifiable. The wand itself shows leaves growing out of it, and there is a small lizard accompanying to the king’s left. Also of note the gold column behind the king showing lions and lizards. These represent his connection to the natural world, his respect to the things that are certainly beyond his control. The King of Wands knows his power, but also accepts the incredible responsibility that accompanies real power. A look of discernment on his face supports this acknowledgment of duty.

XVIII The Moon: cyclic, balancing, other, reflection | dark, unknown, unaware, powerful.
The moon gazing down to interested observers below. The moon will never be known in her full glory to these creatures. They will only ever seen the part that is willed by the sun (they literally drew the moon as the sun). But those true followers and admirers can imagine what lies on the dark side of the moon. And they can certainly feel that there is much more than meets the eye. Through its mystery, the moon offers the chance to embrace feeling, knowing, and all that sits below our most superficial senses. Multiple creatures and complete lack of humans on the card suggests we humans may have a lot to learn from those who dedicate more awareness to the moon.

A Story: I just realized you could look at the cards side by side and then actually view them as one card. It was like a psychological and physical elimination of barrier. Create a panorama from separate images. Very cool

The king of wands gazes at the beauty of the the universe, the all, the world. Admiration of all the forms, exemplified in the clouds that surround her.

There is a green/yellow color trend from each of the cards. From the moon, to the ground, to the wolf, to the river. Up the king’s cloak that covers his heart. Carried into and through his wand (lol patriarchy), but seriously, it is the king of wands. Anyways, the color pattern is continued into and around in the wreath that surrounds the feminine presence in the middle of the world (or universe). I feel this flow of color to be a natural representation of a flow of energy connecting these cards.

The king that admires the world, admires the moon. The moon is a great reflection of what flows through him and to him. All a piece of her, the world.

Best explorations

-Ryan 2/5/2021

Tarot I

Featured

Principal Assumptions:
1) story is medicine
2) we can learn to see new/different stories
3) the ability to chose our story resides within our autonomy

So I bought a deck of tarot cards a few weeks ago. They immediately became a screen for my projections (perhaps those of archetypes and the collective unconscious). I believe the major arcana (the only cards I have spent time with so far) allow us to project our story through a distinct set of symbols that have stood the test time (so far) and seem to carry meaning. In their best form, they carry with them those things that link us together, have linked us together, and will always link us together.

The cards will mean something a little different to all of us. But my current understanding is to just observe the initial image and energy associated with the reveal of the card. Immediately then, my mind starts to weave together associations about what the VI Lovers card represents for my life (at that point in time-space). Then realizing that this was the card that forced its way out of the shuffle just to show me something at that very moment!

It is only a guide, not a fortune, not a prediction, nor declaration. In this most applicable sense, it is an attempt for you to see aspects of yourself that are often forgotten. Every card represents some part of us. Through them, you can slowly reveal those lost, repressed, and projected aspects of yourself. Take from it what will help you move forward, simply acknowledge the rest.

best explorations

Cards Used: Voyager Tarot, only major arcana

The aging emperor is eventually made example of, the world is once again inhabitable for the fools and the children. All under the watch of the feminine, the moon, the unknown.

IV Emperor: society, identify, rules, growth, progress | dogma, narrow mind, confined, old

XII Hanged Man: a symbol of transition. A display in the changing of ideology

0 Fool-Child: beginning, potential, fire, promise | unknown, dependent, naive, arrogant

XVIII Moon: reflect, cyclic, unknown, potential | dark, dangerous, void, power

Story: The IV emperor is the story of society. The show of progress and conquest (typically over matter) allowing for movement into the future. However, the emperor, the father, society, becomes reluctant to change, citing its success in the past. Eventually the tides begin to synchronize and force a change in direction. A new way of thinking, believing, a new morality emerges. Eventually it becomes significant enough to make the lasting changes to an aging and failing system. Finally beginning its journey to become the next IV Emperor. During this changing of wind is the time of the 0 fool-child. That magical time when everything is latent with potential. It is a time of growth, wonder, and pain. Complete openness to experience is certainly associated with growing pains.

All this happens, of course, under the watch of the XVIII Moon. This is the event she so well embodies. The changing of the guard, the return of the dark, the pushing back of the unknown. This is the time of empowerment, and the time to embrace all that you are.

-Ryan; 2/4/2021

Synchronicity I

Synchronicity was a concept developed by Carl Jung. Through his many writings it has been defined in a variety of ways, most generally, synchronicity is an acausal connecting factor. We create a logical casual progression of the vast majority of things we perceive. The soccer ball moved because it was kicked. The apple falls because of gravity. The man took a job because he needed money. We see things take place in our world, and our conscious brain assigns the most logical train of causation, or story, to the event. This process is absolutely necessary. The world is infinitely complex and has required us to develop a way of reducing its complexity. We learn through associating groupings of patterns and simplifying them to a level that is useful for our survival in the world. The story is a way to symbolically encode trains of causation into things we can remember and utilize in our life. We do not need to understand the intricate biochemical processes of carbohydrate metabolism, but we are significantly benefited from understanding the abstract notion of causation that eating a strawberry gives us energy. Casual relationships are everywhere in our life, and they are what our sense making apparatus was designed on.

So with a good understanding of causality, let us return to its antithesis, synchronicity and acausality. Synchronicity can be seen when some outer aspect of life (observation of some event in the world) evokes some inner personal meaning. The connection of outer event and inner meaning can have no logical causal connection. For one exists in the realm of space and matter and the other in the realm of the psyche. The example I like to use for this is Déjà vu. For those that have never experienced Déjà vu, it is a profound sense of already having lived through a situation that is immediately occurring. In my experiences with this phenomena, it typically only lasts a few seconds, and I am overwhelmed with the feeling that whatever just happened has happened before. It is a visceral feeling, a knowing that you have had this experience before in another time or another place. It is the feeling that something has happened before, while logically knowing it has never happened before. This acausal connection of outer occurrence and inner reality is the structure of synchronicity.

Synchronicity is a difficult idea to wrap your head around. We have only barely sketched its borders, and I want to leave it fairly open at this point. I will conclude with a personal description of synchronicity in my life. The first part of this story was described in a previous post, but the synchronicity didn’t click until a few moments later.

I was walking outside, down a path that I had traveled more than 100 times. Suddenly, an epiphany. One of those curious thoughts or realizations that fundamentally alter the way you view the world, or I should say, they way you perceive your experience. I saw a tree, then I saw its trunk, its bark, its texture, its border, its repeating structure, its carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and electrons. Aligned in cosmic symmetry, the only way it could possibly be. The journey of those particular molecules had undoubtedly been incredible. Just as I was a product of my many ancestors, so was the tree. It was the genetic product of an interstellar journey spanning billions of years. The tree was at one point a seed, the seed of a tree before it. Just as I was a son of a father, who was the son of his father before. This was the epiphany. A profound sense of gratitude for the sheer impossibility of my existence along side the existence of this tree. The unimaginable history required in order for me to be here, experiencing this tree. Then the synchronicity struck, forcefully and beautifully elegant. Not seconds after these thoughts cleared my mind, my grandfather drives by in his truck. Right in front of me, no more than 30 feet away. Down the street perpendicular to the one I was walking along. He turns, smiles, waves, and continues down the road. The literal embodiment of my ancestors. An incarnation of the father archetype. I had made this same walk hundreds of times, but I have never seen my grandfather there. My grandfather doesn’t even drive much these days. The outer reality of his passing by was layered over my inner epiphany. This cemented the idea of synchronicity in me forever.

Synchronicity will be a common theme in my posts. I believe there is a deep and profound beauty in it. Hopefully this is enough of an introduction that you may see the patterns of synchronicity in your own life. It might just be the signposts of your path.

Best explorations

-Ryan; 4/12/2020

Previous post discussing synchronicity.