I Got No Pomp In Me

 Legend the Arthurian Tarot ~ Empress

"her throne looms over her" Ferguson's book says. The trappings and symbols of power and influence. Would I expect them if I were empress? The sheer weight of history would have provided them, passed down. Would I want them? A three legged stool is more my style, closer to the ground, to people, to the action. Would I want or need a scepter? Scepter is related to a Greek verb meaning to prop oneself or lean on something, just a cane in other words. A crown? Just hell no. 

But I have my kryptonite...gleamers. Yes, squatting on my three legged stool, wearing my simple Christopher & Banks duds, I'd be agleam with historical brooches, bracelets, and rings. Do trappings have anything to do with how an empress rules? Probably all of it, they do it differently than I would because they are mostly groomed from birth to embrace the lifestyle and pomp. I got no pomp in me. Just as well, I acknowledge I was groomed for the stool. 

Slugs In The Garden

 Minchiate Etruria ~ Ace of Swords

This deck dates back to 1725, sounds even older if I say early 16th Century. Tarocchi being created as playing cards back then. Were our brains functioning any better then? Let's check...

Indians were being scalped for the bounty in the US. Still figuratively going on. The Black Watch is raised as a military company, as part of the pacification of the Scottish Highlands under General George Wade. Still figuratively going on, as I understand it. Mir Mahmud was mysteriously killed after going mad. Afghans started to lose control of  Persia. Still killing.  The first fossil salamander was found in Germany. It was first identified as human. Check, narrow vision still alive and well, my way or the highway. 

We aren't much better than a pack of slugs in the garden. And RIP RBG

I Laugh At Your Devil

 

Tarot of the Origins ~ Devil

The Devil made me do it. Not. A human construct to excuse us for being human. Flawed. Obstructive. Perverse. Wicked. And mostly dumber than a box of rocks. Why do we do the things we do? 

Because we are human to the core. Amazing we've made it this far this time around. We haven't risen above our basest instincts even faced with a world encompassing crisis. Ha. I laugh at your Devil. It is humans that petrify me.  

Never Say Never

 Lover's Path Tarot ~ King of Cups

Never say never. I made an account at Twitter yesterday. To follow one person because his calm measured instant response to blatant flummery asshattery made me laugh loud and long. 

Never say never. 

No Whole Without The Ones

 Haindl Tarot ~ Hanged Man

Card 12. Opposite of Card 21 where the same figure is upright. My own actions and thoughts put me in this position when I lose sight of how good life is and choose to drown in the down. 

Easiest thing in the world, to become complacent, to forget priorities of life and country. To condemn the whole in pursuit of self. I'm only one person is the wrongest I can be, because there is no whole without all the ones. 

Easy to forget as we hang there. In our bubbles of self-induced pity or rage or euphoria, easy street or hard times. Surrounded by nothing but self and mirrors of ourselves we don't realize the record is cracked, the message is bent, the story has been rewritten to suit; shackles on the eyes and mind are still chains. 

Stepping Up To The Plate

 Rosetta Tarot ~ 10 of Swords

Ruin. Devastation. Buzzard pickins comes to mind. And that it took me three tries to get the image uploaded, terrible internet connectivity. So where does that leave many of our community children and on-line learning? Mexico has the better plan, teaching via TV, also via radio. 94% of the population there has access to a television, probably higher here. What Kalama has done is the library has a dozen wi-fi hotspots that can be checked out for two weeks. Eeh? The last time I had one a library card here was $85.00 because we aren't within the city limits, which is true of most of the school population. On-line learning? They don't have a clue. At 7 or 10 or 15, left to my own devices, I'd have been not learning. Parents, those who do and can care are in a 10 of Swords situation. 

It will be another reflection of the have and have nots, who gets left behind and the real why. The hexagram for this card is number 10, the Abysmal. Flow like pure water through difficult situations. Children don't have the reasoning power to see the goal. Will adults step up to the plate?

Recognition Of The Crux

 Game Of Thrones Tarot ~ Queen of Coins

I didn't see the show, but I'd recognize Diana Rigg anywhere, RIP. There are millions of ways to connect with this Queen in the course of a life on any scale; respect for duty, moral and practical leadership, adherence to the rule of law, courage in the face of all life presents. With that power also comes the ability to interfere, destroy, make back channel deals, and every one of us is this Queen. 

Me, on the home front... stay calm and carry on. Our air quality is the worst in the world, hovering about 233+ this morning, it has been as high as 400. Normal is 25. We are about 40 miles from the nearest wildfire at the moment, not imminent danger other than our lungs. Please spare a thought for all those who are in harms way. Being the Queen of Coins isn't just about a castle full of stuff. She is holding her coin with confidence, not a death grip, she recognizes material things can be replaced, people can't. 

Edited to add photos from May and September 2020

Dislodge

 10 of Wands ~ Zillich Tarot

She actually has a butterfly on her back, the bulk of the burden seems attached to her head which is where oppression lives. Wands being the suit of action, with this card we have to do the work to relieve the weight, thinking and wishing won't do the job. 

We can change jobs, move across the country or revert back to the home cocoon, get counseling, join or leave groups, but it all comes back down to, what is the burden we carry with us? Most 10 of Wands commonly show a figure carrying a huge burden up a steep hill, or toward a far distant goal. A mental burden is no less heavy, or less difficult to carry. We are the only ones who can dislodge it with Wands action. A change within ourselves is the first step. 

Where Compassion Begins

 Telluric Tarot ~ Ace of Cups

The stone of compassion. Wards off fear and nightmares. Wisteria, a symbol of sensitivity. 

I'm trying to keep politics out of my journal. That sort of leaves me wordless... In ten years when I do a search for "Ace of Cups" I don't want to see a post spewing anger. I want to know what those days and cards did to inspire me to be a better person. Some days thinking about trying is as far as I can get. 

To quote myself from an Ace of Cups post a few years ago "If my cup seems empty I will curl up in the base and work on refilling the well".

Where Strength Begins

 Telluric Tarot ~ Strength

 Opal, colors derived from water, will crack under sudden temperature change.  Diphylleia, turns transparent when wet. Where is the Strength? We are packed for evacuation. No fire near, but the area could be ash tomorrow, towns have burned overnight, homes and businesses of people we know, places we've been. If we need to we can be out of here in 45 minutes or less, chickens dogs cats people, toothbrush. Racing down the road to... where? There is no safe direction to travel, the air is choked with ash. And Americans who believe Covid-19 a hoax. 

"the instinct to bolt has nowhere to go". Emma Harris, The Atlantic September 10, 2020.

What this card speaks of instead is accountability. Almost written as a Step 9. Maybe that is where strength begins. 

Flawless

 Telluric Tarot ~ Star

Aquamarinus by it's original Latin name, often completely flawless. Can you imagine? Could I even make it through a morning flawless? While I was sitting here watching the cursor blink I've already failed. A stone sits there, unchanging and unchanged, we can't do that. Just as well. Being flawless would be pretty boring. 

The Star offers us that suggestion though, to filter and sieve, let the dross flow away. The history books will judge the big stuff, the small stuff is just that. Borage offers healing properties, but I can say from personal experience, it also self seeds everywhere...so perhaps a warning against navel gazing. Too much of a good thing and all that. 

Wouldn't Turn It Down

 Telluric Tarot ~ Empress

My perception of Lapis lazuli has seeped in reading so many books on ancient Egypt. Dark blue, sometimes with tiny flecks of pyrite, they considered it the night sky jewel. This morning's research tells me it is Mohs scale 6.5 and mined in Afghanistan since 7000 BC. Never owned any, even with all my years of beadwork. 

Never used saffron either, never eaten it to my knowledge, or maybe once, Kathryn's saffron chicken in Wales? Yes. Working out the maths to make five portions of dessert, good laughs that night. 

Never was a mother in the general Empress sense, maybe that's why I have an ambivalence about this card. Along with the Emperor, High Priestess, Hierophant, Devil, Lovers, Justice... by this stage of life I've accepted I'm a minors sort of girl. But I wouldn't turn down a Lapis wrist gleamer, never think it, I'd lavish it with Empress Love. 

Perception vs Truth

 Telluric Tarot ~ Knight of Coins

Zircons are old as time itself and popular as gemstone jewels across all colors, blue being the current favorite. But the secret is the blue comes from heat being applied to brown zircons. So are they real? Of course they are. Are we real at 13 or 40 or 80? Absolutely but we aren't the same across that time, the fire and ice of life bring us from Fool to Knight and beyond. 

Our air is the dirty brown of forest fire smoke today, acrid to breathe. Doesn't mean the sky isn't blue, only our perception of it. Perception, a good think for today. Are mine based on internalization or critical thinking? Analysis and unbiased fact checking or believing what I want to believe because it is convenient or comfortable? 

Blue. Eee-uuuu.

 Telluric Tarot ~ World

Tourmaline. Mohs 7. Found all over the world, in so many colors until the mid-1800s they were often misidentified as other gems. Sort of like people. Passing. Posing. Posturing. Pretending. Preening. What can I say, we're human. 

Which brings us to the orchids of the world. I learned when we grew cut flowers as a sideline, there weren't any blue flowers although I always thought delphiniums came close. Probably why we got $5.00 a stem for them. What I know about orchids comes from Nero Wolf...but when I see those horrible blue orchids in the grocery store, oh eeuuu. Why dye a plant, why do that to something so naturally beautiful. But there we go, tourmaline and orchids, hardening into something that can't change and changing into something that shouldn't even be contemplated. Humans. The World. Too busy to polish our own colors because we are so busy judging someone else's choice of blue. (tourmaline image courtesy of Gem Select)

Malachite And Sweet Peas

 Telluric Tarot ~ Page of Coins

Two favorites. I grow sweet peas each year along our entrance fence, raspberry colored ones in a vase in my kitchen as we speak. My father made stunning cabochon jewelry with malachite, I'm going to get mine out, I feel the need of a healing stone today. 

Education and practice move our Page of Coins along. I've been thinking about wake up calls and how they sometimes cause people to turn their life around. I've had five. the first at age 13, what does a kid know, didn't even have enough life experience to call for a do-over. Yet it has affected every day of my life since. 

Three cancers but blahblahblah. One in 1994 probably had the most generalized effect, I was literally 2 seconds and 4 feet from being crushed by a falling fir tree, the grill and hood of my Jeep proof every time I walked by it. The point of all this, and my pondering over the past few days is I think I live my life like someone who has had a wake up call. I make a point of spending my mornings in a productive or learning manner, and my afternoons enjoying the heck out of life. Simply. I have have no desire to climb the highest mountain, or swim the deepest sea. I appreciate Life as I'm living it.