Terrifiee vs. Terrifior

Daily Draw: Etruscan Tarot ~ 7 of Swords

Terrorist.

We don't know who they are or where they are.
Terror is achieved because it lives in the mind.
Which breeds distrust. And anger. And fear.
Right where they want us. Terrified.

"The terrible thing about terrorism is that ultimately it destroys those who practice it. Slowly but surely, as they try to extinguish life in others, the humanity within them dies." ~ Terry Waite 1939-

Naked Rebellion

Daily Draw: Etruscan Tarot ~ 6 of Wands

A slave accompanies a mare to be gifted, a master able to gift both an announcement of status. Ever had to stand up for yourself when naked? Try it sometime. I don't remember what doctor or why but I remember where and when, vividly. I got dressed and went home.

I'm reminded by this card getting dressed and going home isn't an option for a slave. There are many ways to oppress someone, to lord it over someone, manner of dress is one of them.  On the other hand, if he were being sent with clothing it would have been a more powerful statement of wealth.

"Seeing is believing, and if success is to count for anything in the world it must be clothed in the raiment of property. As often as not it isn't the money itself that means anything; it is the use of money as the currency of the soul." ~ Lewis H. Lapham  1935-

Guardians

Daily Draw: Greenwood Tarot ~ Knight of Coins/Stones

In my long term efforts to reduce my footprint upon earth I've shucked a lot of stuff. Including the need for stuff. The last ten years I've also been shifting the stuff of inheritance to those I hope will also be guardians.

I'm reminded by this card of the square cake pans and pressed glass creamer of my fraternal grandmother's, all I have of dad's parents.
They had twelve children I think, plus fostered dozens of children. I've been baking cakes in those square pans for forty years, and believe me, they show Grandma Ruth baked in them for forty years before.
I'm mailing them to Texas next week, to live another life, with a cousin who was  practically lost from the family until recently. I hope she thinks they are a special as I do, but if not, I hope she can let them go if they are just the weight of stuff. I'm good either way. There are many ways to fulfill guardianship.

"Memory is the treasury and guardian of all things." Marcus Tullius Cicero 106 BC-43 BC

Calling Dead Numbers

Daily Draw: Greenwood Tarot ~ 10 of Cups/Vessels

I've only got six photo albums but I've been creeping through them to pull images to share with a family facebook group. This is amazingly difficult to do. I know a lot of dead people. Many of them are still in my phone.

I'm reminded by this card and the couple in it I have an arrangement with Rob. If I can't be with I won't be without. It gives my mind and heart great peace.

"Grief is the price we pay for love." ~ Elizabeth II  1926-

Jack Sprat And The Mrs.

Daily Draw: Greenwood Tarot ~ 6 of Wands

Abundance. We've been away four days.

Can anyone say zucchini? Today is errand day, how many places can I leave a cord of zucchini?  Rob is a dab hand at cooking it. I can eat a plateful every day. Abundance indeed...

"The trouble is, you cannot grow just one zucchini. Minutes after you plant a single seed, hundreds of zucchini will barge out of the ground and sprawl around the garden, menacing the other vegetables. At night, you will be able to hear the ground quake as more and more zucchinis erupt." ~ Dave Barry 1947

Primitive

Daily Draw: Greenwood Tarot ~ 8 of Swords

I'm a complicated dreamer, last night it was about being a part of a small new settlement, full of conflicts. The rabbits wouldn't reproduce, and I couldn't get help holding raw planks against the curve of a boat project.

I'm reminded by this card of the PBS program Frontier House and how the families ultimately did and did not choose to prepare for the long winter and how cooperation was pretty much kicked to the curb. Different mindset though, they had come from modern times, electricity, automobiles, and well stocked grocery stores.  And I'm still worrying about rabbits that won't reproduce...

"We have planned breeding of our domesticated plants and animals, but we have been rabbit-like in our unplanned breeding of ourselves." ~ Arnold Toynbee 1889-1975

Attitude Adjustment...work in process

Daily Draw: Greenwood Tarot ~ Judgement

Potter created this deck based on her understanding of European shamanic practices and the Year Wheel. I share that because her unpublished companion book coverage of Judgement is outstanding and I'm sorry I can't find the WayBack link to the page in order to share it.

I'm reminded by this card of the standard image; people rising up out of their coffins to an angel blowing a horn. I searched my blog for that image of Judgement, undoubtedly because I meant to make mock
I searched my blog for Judgement, spent too much time reading and realized I've written so many words about Judgement and don't seem to have learned a thing. Here I am again judging the coffin/angel mindset. I have zero interest in that concept, why does it bother me how or why anyone else sees themselves in that image?

Oddly enough, my very first blog post was based on the Judgement card. And obvious to me, on vacation I'm not watching the bandwidth clock but rolling in the WiFi trough. I've been working, in a manner of speaking, on this post for over two hours. Am I a better person than when I got up? I hope so, a two hour class in judging surely seeded something in my underbrain?

Solzhenitsyn and Knight

Daily Draw: Greenwood Tarot ~ 7 of Coins/Stones

We were on the road at 4:30 AM yesterday, put 538 miles of beautiful America under our wheels and were tired when we got here. First time this has ever happened, I literally did not sleep a wink. So of course I thought this draw was all about me...

I'm reminded by this Healing card, of books I've recently read. Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Finding Me by Michelle Knight, both prisoners in very divergent ways and places. I doubt either one of them were ever allowed a peaceful sleep or a good meal or a day free of pain. Who was I to be cranky as I drank my fresh brewed coffee and ate my fresh muffin, and walked my doggies in the gorgeous morning...I wish the hope of Healing to all unjustly imprisoned and tortured, the world is full of their tears.

"After years of being in prison a crazy thing starts to happen: the locks move from off of your wrists and your ankles and up to your brain." ~ Michelle Knight 1981-  Finding Me: A Decade of Darkness, a Life Reclaimed: A Memoir of the Cleveland Kidnappings

Mercator Projections

Daily Draw: Greenwood Tarot ~ 9 of Cups

Heart open to the giving and receiving of abundance. In many decks this includes awareness of the tendency to swagger, be over self-satisfied, and plain old, I'm better than you, my dad's bigger than yours, my marbles my rules.

My 8th grade class must have studied Mercator Projections when I died and then spent a month in hospital learning to live again.  How did I NOT KNOW you could fit America, China, and Asia into Africa with room left over. No wonder we are known as the big headed peoples.

I'm in Missoula Montana tonight, five hundred miles from my home, which is so influenced by the Ice Age floods originating from Missoula 12,000 years ago.

Proof Of Life

Daily Draw: Roots of Asia ~ Ace of Cups

The breadth and depth of emotions. Is there anything in our lives that doesn't trigger emotion?
Red cover on the mouse. Like. Reminds me of a red blouse I had when I was in one of my thinner modes.
Blue blinking light on the printer. Mild irritation. Reminds me of being hurried.
Big coffee cup. Appreciation for it's beauty, sorrow the shop it came from burnt to the ground.
Wrist gleamers gleaming as I type. Joy in the beauty of man and nature to combine their works. Deep sorrow, each were purchased as turn-around tools to pull back from the abyss.
Lime paint in this room. Laughter, because it is meant to kick (Y) into work mode, not succor serenity.

Go ahead Ace. Make my day. Emotion is proof of life.

"It is the mind which creates the world around us, and even though we stand side by side in the same meadow, my eyes will never see what is beheld by yours, my heart will never stir to the emotions with which yours is touched." ~ George Gissing 1857-1903

Flounce From The Room

Daily Draw: Roots of Asia Tarot ~ 5 of Swords

Lack of faith in our self, oblivious to the truth, invested in illusions, inability or refusal to concentrate. Poor decision making = distress and failure.

I'm reminded by this card I was tripped up by the assumption mode this week.. First I was ticked, then sick to my stomach, then I realized the answer is the exact process I outlined as the probable steps in the beginning. But here I was, all sweaty and angry..because I'd made up my mind it was all easy. And it wasn't. I admit, I wanted to slam the phone down and flounce from the room. Hard to do on Live Chat...so I got over it and we parted as friends.

"Most of our assumptions outlive their uselessness." ~ Marshall McLuhan 1911-1980)

It Isn't Enough To "Think"

Daily Draw: Roots of Asia Tarot ~ 2 of Swords

Four peacocks sitting on a head with a sword at its center balanced at the central pivot point of the second. And I'm not completely convinced that isn't a bear nose rather than human. Definitely not donkey or elephant. More right thinking required here, the question being when there is a choice to be made can we rely on our own brain and experiences to know right from "oh crap"?

I truly don't know. Because some decisions can not easily  be taken back. I'm confident in my decision...but then I see acres of other people thinking the opposite, just as confidently, and I question what am I missing? Then I relax, knowing there really is only one choice and ....is that top wing a combover?

"Each makes this cosmos and its construction the pivot of his emotional life, in order to find in this way peace and security which he can not find in the narrow whirlpool of personal experience." ~ Albert Einstein 1879-1955

Nipping At The Bud

Daily Draw: Roots of Asia Tarot ~ Hermit

Klanpracher's Hermit recognizes and overcomes outer unworthy actions and attitudes, then goes  inward to build confidence and healthy habits that are a credit to our life.

I freely admit before knowing better, to nipping unhelpful habits in the bud by just stopping. It can be done, but with stunted results, the nipping leaves a void and something worse can come forward. Condensed version of tamping down my bossy:
What do you think you are doing?
Stop, that is wrong.
Wait, we need to rethink.
If I were doing it I'd...
Will you try...
Good job, well done.
Amazing it has taken thirty years to arrive at well done. Sometime I feel my head getting bigger like a red balloon with bossy trying to get out. Detach from the outcome and well done works just as well as a sharp pin.

"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different." ~  Kurt Vonnegut 1922-2007

Realistic Right Mindedness

Daily Draw: Roots of Asia Tarot ~ 6 of Swords

There is the boat but what a tempestuous ride is offered. We need earnestly to recognize all swords can be lost.

I'm reminded by this card, this deck is about right mindedness in all situations. I wonder if maintaining that mindset is credible for living in the real world rather than the monastic life. Clear insight and understanding will promote better personal decisions but we will always be cheek and jowl with those who have an aggressive stubborn opposite mindset. The art of self control and compromise are key tools to cultivate and in no way equals surrender.

"Not being able to govern events, I govern myself." ~ Michel de Montaigne 1533-1592

Hindsight Is 20/20

Daily Draw: Roots of Asia Tarot ~ 8 of Wands

Consciously choosing our path. Do we understand the reality of those decisions or are we focusing on hopes and plans that are illusory and slow to show progress?

As far as achieving success in the practical sense, one of the worst decisions I made was leasing a station as an independent contractor after beauty college rather than going to work as an employee for a national company, taking advantage of their advertising, on-going training opportunities, up to date techniques and products, and clientele building support. By the time I realized my mistake I was thousands of dollars invested in equipment and advertising and was loath to turn my back on my investment.

"Done bun can't be undone." ~ Stephen King 1947-  Insomnia

Every Single One Of Us

Daily Draw: Roots of Asia Tarot ~ 6  of Wands

Right Minded. The fast track to success. Can also be described as narrow minded or bloody minded and it absolutely depends on who is doing the naming and which people pod we happen to be passing through at the moment.

A government study announced yesterday children who identify as transgender have a more difficult time in school. HELLO...what planet were these adults raised on? Any child marked as different has a more difficult time in school. And life. Being different (as perceived by me) has often made my own life difficult. But a million times more interesting and fun than if I'd hid under the umbrella of once a sheep always a sheep. And in truth, aren't every single one of us different in our minds and hearts?

"The only rule is don't be boring and dress cute wherever you go." ~ Paris Hilton  1981-

From The Ooze

Daily Draw: Roots of Asia Tarot ~ Ace of Wands

The current incarnation of mindful life on earth is reckoned as coming forward from 195,000 years ago. With the discovery and application of how electricity is naturally created modern culture took a big leap which is still producing wonders with more to come.

I'm reminded by this Ace of Wands, which is always the underpinning of creative life, to wonder what Benjamin Franklin, Leonardo Da Vinci, Nicolaus Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, might have accomplished with the aid of a computer. When the earth goes dark, as it always does eventually, I wonder what great minds will pull us out of the ooze once again.

"Human subtlety will never devise an invention more beautiful, more simple or more direct than does nature because in her inventions nothing is lacking, and nothing is superfluous." ~ Leonardo da Vinci 1452-1519

Anger Management

Daily Draw: Roots of Asia Tarot ~ Strength

The lion is in our mind and its name is anger.

I write this journal for myself and in doing so expose to the air self inflicted wounds
I write this journal for myself and in doing so excavate wounds I didn't know I carried
I continue to write this journal because through it I once managed to erase a black rage that colored and controlled my world
Strength, by any other name, is still anger management here

Life Punctuation

Daily Draw: Roots of Asia Tarot ~ 9 of Coins

The fruit of life ripens. Ability to appreciate the good fortune of others along with our own.  The ability to distance ourselves from results oriented life and enjoy the journey.

I'm reminded by this card, results are fulfilling, and give us the periods and exclamation points of life. They also give us the question marks, because by the time we get where we thought we were going we've mentally moved on. I said something yesterday that even shocked me, I thought I was more well than that, but doesn't have to be writ large, permanently. Perhaps a  semicolon moment, to be viewed out of the corner of my eye while I sneak up and soften the edges.

"The most intense conflicts, if overcome, leave behind a sense of security and calm that is not easily disturbed." ~  Carl Gustav Jung  1875-1961

Small World

Daily Draw: Roots of Asia Tarot ~ 7 of Wands

Equanimity. Calm and composed in all situations. Would that we could. Because the grass is always greener on the other side. We have the tiger, too heavily invested to leave. The peacock walks both sides. The frogs and geckos have made a game of it. The big fish in the little pond thinks the pond is limitless.

I'm reminded by this card and life, and world events, there is only one pond, size is immaterial.

"It is foolish to guard against misfortunes from the external world and leave the inner mind uncontrolled." ~ Hindu Prince Gautama Siddharta 563-483 B.C.

Self-Philanthropy

Daily Draw: Roots of Asia Tarot ~ 6 of Coins

Are the coins the gift, or are the elephants the gift? Is this heart mind soul hanging from the ancient tusk? In times other than these, the coins managed properly would become the elephant.

Self-Philanthropy has become the elephant on America's back. Piled on and on and on until the elephant collapses with us under it. We just can't see it yet.

"Somewhere, in the shuffle of living our self-absorbed lifestyle, we have forgotten why we felt compelled to give in the first place.". ~ Lindsey Williams Posh Seven

The Other Savings Account

Daily Draw: Roots of Asia Tarot ~ 7 of Coins

Developing, attaining, maintaining and sharing the seven Noble Treasures of the id, ego, and super ego.

I'm reminded by this card, most are happy to receive our 6 of Coins material treasures but what of our spiritual side of conscience and conduct. Who wants advice? And why do we feel obligated to give it?

"Where id was, there shall ego be." ~ Sigmund Freud  1856-1939

Obsessions

Daily Draw: Roots of Asia Tarot ~ 10 of Wands

Obsessions and the ties that bind us. In Buddhist practice there are many ways to get to this point, the one that rings bells with me is a false view of individuality.

I'm reminded by this card of all the ways I lemming in spite of fervently trying to distance myself from the crowd. Did I go wrong at birth?

"Teach me to speak the language of men." ~ Edgar Rice Burroughs 1875-1950 Tarzan of the Apes

Spots

Daily Draw: Tarot of the Sephiroth ~ Queen of Swords

All sworded up with no shoes.

I'm reminded by this card we all have a soft spot, a blind spot, and a trigger. May they always balance each other.  I was going to add an image of See Spot Run, a Dick and Jane first reader in primary school. On a brief perusal though...there was a lot of passive aggression in those books. Who knew?

Light Bulb Moments

Daily Draw: Tarot of the Sephiroth ~ Sun

How many bright ideas do we have in a week? Usually a couple for me, but no time to translate each one into something concrete. Nothing would ever get finished if we hared off after each lightbulb moment.

I am reminded by this card as I mentally walk around house and property, I've carried out a lot of good ideas to great effectiveness. I think the key is the simpler the brighter. No need to create a  new wheel, small adjustments make for the smoother ride.

"I am convinced all of humanity is born with more gifts than we know. Most are born geniuses and just get de-geniused rapidly." ~ Buckminster Fuller 1895-1983

Whisper Of Malignancy

Daily Draw: Tarot of the Sephiroth ~ 7 of Coins/Disks

In the Thoth system, this seven basically mean all is lost.
In the RWS system, this seven is well ordered harvest via structured development.

I'm reminded by this card of our veg gardens here. In twenty+ years we've never had a good hearty crop. The potatoes and tomatoes often blight, the corn gets blown over, the lettuces are tough, the beans are a funny shape. We are born and raised gardeners, we've amended the soil all those years. Our new potatoes look great this year, but they don't keep. It is a puzzle. I'm tempted to say the former owners left a malignancy but this RWS 7 in a Thoth deck doesn't seem to agree.

A malignancy converts all it takes into its own nourishment." ~ Joseph Addison 1672-1719

Hagiography

Daily Draw: Tarot of the Sephiroth ~ Hierophant

Teach me, for I am empty.

I'm reminded by this card my single cup of coffee isn't even finished and I've learned a new word. Hagiography, an admiring or idealized biography. Life is good.

"What we need most, is not so much to realize the ideal as to idealize the real." ~ Francis Herbert Hedge? Bradley?

Thnk Lsn

Daily Draw: Tarot of the Sephiroth ~ 6 of Swords

The ability to think clearly, to discern both sides with no malice of forethought.

I'm reminded by this card it is easier to say than do. First impressions can imperceptibly alter opinion which colors how we react, with no discernible thought at all.

"They are not our loudest but our stillest hours” ~  Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900

Tower of Function

Daily Draw: Tarot of the Sephiroth ~ Tower

Two days of the hurry card and here I am at the Tower. Who wants to hurry here? Because this is the card of form adapting to function.

I'm reminded by this card of my current adaption. We have a nice entry. Walk in turn right, start upstairs. We took the first half of the stair rail out shortly after we moved in. Ugly, and it was always in the way. Because my depth perception is off now, I need to put a rail back up. Adapt to function I will. A small tower is preferable to a big tower...

"It is the function of creative man to perceive and to connect the seemingly unconnected." ~ William Plomer  1903-1973