Day 8

I detach myself from preconceived outcomes and trust that all is well.

Anita Moorjani

I have been watching the Sea Priestess again. She addressed the question of “street magic” vs the magick practised or experienced by those who view it as a direct influence and reality in their lives. She spoke of the frustration people feel when the art of illusion and deception practised by theatrical “magicians” is confused with deep magick and perceived as being only a child’s entertainment. But then she picked up the two apparently separate and unrelated concepts and brought them beautifully together by reminding us that the human being is incapable of understanding the infinite and is therefore required to arbitrarily create limitations and boundaries – chunks of meaning that can be categorised, processed and understood. Thus, our “reality” is in fact an illusion – of our own choosing? Magic – or Magick – is the ability to recognise and work with the illusion of separateness, in the knowledge of true Oneness.

Her words are with me strongly now, as I contemplate the apparent randomness of events and the meanings I choose to draw from them. Yesterday was the Dark of Moon, and so last night I drew a card from the Tarot of the hidden realm. Last month, I think it was Wild Moon Tarot (?) who put forth an idea of drawing a card each month at the New Moon and then trying to undertake an activity connected with that card in the coming month. Now, I have absolutely no desire to bring any more “activity” into my life, but I rather liked the idea of learning from a card each month, allowing it to sit with me and speak to me for a month. How could I connect what was happening in my life with what the card had to teach? I chose the Tarot of the hidden realm for this particular purpose and drew The Hierophant. And so, for a month, I have been thinking about my role as both student and teacher, discovering that I appear to have resisted learning anything deeply meaningful or useful and that I have no confidence whatever to teach anything. And discovering also that I am at once both very susceptible to “dogma” and “ritual” and at the same time wary of it.

Last night I drew again. Because this month is like no other before it in my life, and because I want everything about it to be profound and significant, I looked deep into the dragon’s eyes on the back of the deck (for me it is a dragon) and asked for a message that would help me illuminate either my current situation, or, better yet, the way forward.

I drew the Nine of Pentacles. Not quite what I had in mind. I can think of a few pertinent cards right now, including The Tower, The Hanged Man, Death. Strength even (to represent what I need in this situation). But the Nine of Pentacles??? And so I ponder my own tendency to seek meaning in the random. In Tarot, of course, it is a deliberate choice to recognise the messages of the cards as major archetypal forces in life and to use the tension of the apparently unrelated and irrelevant to force myself outside my comfortable pattern of awareness – my comfortable illusion of separateness. But, as I sat and looked at this card, trying to work out what it could possibly have to say to me in this moment, I wondered at my own preparedness to rewrite my story according to a card I had drawn. And that made me wonder about all the habitual or automatic choices I make on a daily basis with no conscious awareness. How often do I ascribe meaning simply because my brain is wired to seek structure, order and logical solutions? How often do I create or hold to meanings for the strangest or most tenuous of reasons, through random circumstance or simply through the aspects of a situation on which my senses have learned to habitually focus? What do I see? What do I edit out? What do I decide is Truth for no good reason other than that it is what my brain has processed in the moment?

And so I look again at the Nine of Pentacles, feeling both a little rebellious and strangely drawn. What can I learn from her this month? First I decide to ignore whatever the book may have to say, creating my own story from the picture. There is a serenity and still calmness about the woman I see, one born of wealth and abundance. Her hair is glossy, her dress rich, her forehead adorned with jewels. Around her, a forest harvest and in one hand, a blackberry. On her other hand, a beautiful robin, a bird that, because it is not found here in Australia, reminds me forever of The secret garden. And the more I look, the more my resistance melts. Is it my mind playing tricks, wanting meaning and therefore finding it? Or have I truly seen a connection never previously noticed? Because what I see is two things – no – three. I see that, within all the vibrant flurry of activity suggested by the harvest, this woman is still and utterly at peace. She is not worrying herself with ceaseless production but is resting in stillness. Her bearing is entirely confident – she knows exactly who she is and she does not need to rush. She is herself, quiet and alive in her rich surroundings. The second thing I see is trust. The robin shows no fear, no hint of flight. It has come to her in full trust, happy to take the food offered by the woman. There are many more blackberries available in the safety of the bushes behind her, but he chooses instead to alight on her finger. And finally, I see the intensity of her gaze. In all her confidence in herself, her attention is caught, not by what she has, but by the world she sees. Her full attention is on the robin and the life he reveals to her. For this moment out of time, she is the observer – the emptiness amidst the richness. Vibrantly and fully herself, and yet fading in the background as she allows the robin to take centre stage. Her fulfilment seems to come from her surrender to what is.

Also, although I know it is not the case, the way her hand hovers over her belly, I cannot help but imagine life growing within. She has everything she wants and needs, and now new hope, new life, is nurtured within her. In her own fulfilment she becomes the tree that will bear the fruit of the future. Her very state of abundance appears to create the conditions for creative possibility.

The book is initially less helpful in connecting me to a sense of my own life. It alienates me once again, because it talks of gratitude for a rich harvest – a rich harvest brought about through one’s own hard work. It is about enjoying the fruits of one’s labour and earning the reward for having done “the work of your heart”. “This,” says Barbara Moore, “is about the life you’ve created for yourself.” What am I supposed to see in this? What I haven’t got? What I haven’t done (i.e. worked hard or created anything)? But it’s kind of interesting – there’s a tension between Barbara Moore and Julia Jeffrey’s depiction of the card and the interpretation of the same card created by Maggie Stiefvater in The raven’s prophecy tarot. I know this instantly because, strangely, I drew the same card in that deck just the other day. I didn’t think anything of it at the time because I have been drawing cards almost daily, not for guidance but for familiarity and a sense of the message being conveyed by the artist / author. But now I wonder at the coincidence. Random chance to which I falsely choose to ascribe meaning? Or synchronicity, showing me that the illusion of separateness is just that – an illusion?

Maggie Stiefvater sees the energy of the card from a whole other angle. Where Moore sees the reward for life lived in accordance with Truth, Stiefvater sees abundance as a key to the doorway of possibility. Having gained sufficient material security, the door is opened to “career choices based upon what is artistically exciting or spiritually enriching for you, rather than what will put bread on the table.” How very differently these two authors view this same idea! One feels that richness is the natural result of living the life one is meant to live; the other sees the creation of wealth as the key to becoming who you are meant to be. What do I choose to take from this right now? Firstly, that I am reaping the fruits of my labour. I have created the bitter (is it bitter? I am no longer so sure) harvest I now “enjoy” through my own choices. Where I am now is the result of the life I have lived. Second, I get to make a choice. I could decide that, since I do not have material security, the door to my true life is closed (I could read Stiefvater to be saying that creative possibility comes only through material abundance). Instead, if I take the two cards together and look primarily at the Tarot of the hidden realm, since that is the one to which I deliberately turned as the focus for the month, then I could believe that I do in fact have all the abundance I need. I have created the harvest – and the resources – that I need and that the moment is now pregnant with the choice open to me. The reward comes from doing “the work of your heart” and “always doing what you know to be good and true.” I can look at this beautiful lady and see the silent observer, the rich emptiness. I can see choice, trust, possibility.

One thing is certain. Every time my atheistic roots rudely cry “bunkum!” and I am tempted to abandon the art of Tarot in disgust, I find that, once again, if I truly look, it opens me. It simply does not matter what I believe to be true. If I look at the cards deeply and enquiringly enough, I find they are telling me a story about myself. A story related to who and where I am right now. As indeed, anything I choose to approach with true enquiry might tell a story. And since my personal knowledge of them is so limited and the collective wisdom surrounding them so vast, I know that, if I choose, these stories will grow and expand with me, carrying me through a lifetime.

I think I could get lost in stories. Drunk on them. So immersed that I could forget to find my way “back”. Is there a “back”? Or is it that I truly travel and find new ways to define my illusion of separateness? Why do I find stories so much richer and fuller than “real” life? Or is that even true any more? For I have now learned to dance and to feel the rhythms of the universe sung out beneath my feet. And I have walked between the worlds of night and day, revelling daily in the silence and the majesty of the sun’s dramatic offering of hope and renewal. I am learning to “read” the world – and my body – as stories written on a gigantic scale. I feel them, scrunched beneath my toes and in the trickling of sweat that comes with the heat of midday. I live and embody the stories I choose to create.

And I return to the cards. Those endlessly fascinating stories that tell me what others have thought and believed, and yet which somehow all relate to some universal knowing that defies borders and individual perspective. Jung might call it the “collective unconscious” but I think I prefer the idea of a supra-conscience. That which goes beyond.

The card I have just drawn from The raven’s prophecy tarot (for fun, not for a month-long reflection) is The High Priestess. At first I wasn’t sure I liked the idea of the High Priestess as a mirror, but the more I look, the more I see the connection between it and The Hermit. In this deck, the light of The Hermit comes from within and the world outside is dark. It is the inner journey that is of significance. And in The High Priestess, the mirror reflects back sunshine and cloud – fascinating shapes and colours from which to define the mystery of existence. The universe beyond the mirror, the external world, is, by contrast, dark, illuminated only by the pin point puzzle and curiosity that are the distant stars. I actually find myself disagreeing with Stiefvater’s explanation of her own artwork. She describes the card as “revealing the dark corners of your soul…”, despite the fact that the mirror reflects, not darkness, but light. The light is internal, the dark external.

The High Priestess knows you cannot truly be yourself without searching for these hidden parts of yourself…[She] speaks in the wordless, strange language of dreams, a power that can only be harnessed by accepting that you won’t always understand where your intuition is coming from.

But my favourite discovery of the day comes from Shadowscapes tarot. To be honest, that deck is creeping me out. For all that I love its colours, patterns and artwork, there is a strange energy that seems to come from it. The figures are just a little too fantastical in the sense of reminding me of old-fashioned goblins and the pre-sanitised, adult versions of fairy tales, filled with horror as much as with redemption. This deck does not choose to sugar-coat its messages, telling you that everything, even the most devastating events, can be seen within the context of something higher, more beautiful, more eternal. In this deck, evil seems as fully present as goodness and I feel almost helplessly caught within the web of its complex forces, as dangerous and potentially destructive as they are seductive. And I feel also somehow judged by them, as though they are warning me of the danger of sin and encouraging me to seek my own salvation fast.

To be fair, I have only just bought the app, so it is way too soon to form an opinion of any kind. But, for the moment, I am glad I have bought only the app and not the real deck. I’m not sure I want the energy of that deck in my home and life. It is perhaps not an aspect of Oneness on which I choose to dwell or around which I choose to shape the meaning and purpose of my life.

Thus I so nearly missed seeing this card entirely. Almost, I abandoned working with the app, but something made me draw just one more card. And I drew The Devil. The card itself does nothing to encourage me. The devil lightly and gloatingly mounts a growing mass of sorrowing, suffering souls. Some are shaded and appear to have given up, while others, even amidst their torment, still reach out graspingly towards the lure of gold, suggesting how they may have ended up in this mess and suggesting also that even the ultimate horror of hell has not caused them to shift their perspective or the fixations that have proven to be their own undoing. The devil has ensnared the human heart in a web between his fingers, and there he waits, eager to gather more and more to himself.

I nearly missed the focus of the card. The woman curled up in misery, buried amidst the tormented souls. But, as Stephanie Pui Mun Law is at pains to point out, her prison is open on two sides and the tether that binds her is light – so light! Even more poignantly, the key to the tether’s padlock rests right within reach, just above her head. Just – out of sight. But if she were to look up… But she doesn’t. She remains caught within her misery.

Suddenly, as I looked at the card, I was carried back to a high school debate on suicide. The “anti” side talked of the wonderful human beings who thrive in the most unlikely of circumstances, proving, over and over again, that the human spirit is invincible and unlimited. They talked of paraplegic athletes, quadriplegic surfers and people with profound disabilities who still enjoy loving romantic relationships. People, in short, who teach us that there is nothing we cannot “overcome” and that there is no excuse for despair.

The affirmative side, interestingly, also chose to speak of obstacles, as if the only valid reason for suicide could be tangible circumstances. They simply described “invisible” bonds, such as domestic tragedies and dramas – the “hidden” disabilities that might make the sufferers appear to be privileged and fortunate without actually being so.

The counter was that such people should not isolate themselves. They should reach out and find a solution. I don’t even want to touch that whole debate, it frustrates me so much. It’s like neither side even understood the picture they were looking at. But then, I should take a lesson from that and know that, just as surely, I also cannot see the picture. Still, I want to stamp my feet and grind my teeth just thinking about it.

But here again, is that pivotal choice presented within the card. If the girl could just look up and see the key… For me, the difference between the all-conquering heroes described in that high school debate and the “privileged cowards” who take and supposedly waste their own lives, has nothing to do with the challenges to be overcome. The difference between them is that one has a deep passion within his or her soul, a reason to greet each morning with enthusiasm and desire. The other – does not. S/he has no passion, no purpose, no meaning. No reason to greet the morning with optimism. The world holds nothing. It is not about the challenges that must be overcome, but about whether there is in fact a reason to overcome them. Just like the drama faced by Sheridan in Babylon 5. He fell to his death, but was ultimately able to return to life and continue his heroic struggle to end the war of the Ancients. The choice of life was given to him and he could not understand how that power could possibly lie within him. But it did. He was able to return from the dead, into the challenges and beauty of his life, at the point when he discovered within himself a reason to be alive. That was his power and his choice. It was never about the height of the mountain to be scaled. It was about one thing and one thing only. He had to have a reason to live.

The key in the Shadowscapes picture, for me, represents, not will power and determination, but a reason to exercise them in the first place. If the girl chooses to look up and see her avenue of escape, it will be because she has discovered a reason to be alive.