By Christine Payne-Towler
ArkLetter 60, March 15, 2010
World Server's Spread
For an introduction to the World Servers' Spread see ArkLetter 5
Dear
friends, you were so kind to let me off the hook last month! Those who
tuned in wondering what had become of me learned that I was swept away
by a family health crisis that needed my care and attention in my old
hometown. Now that I'm back in the saddle, it's time to envision the
incoming energies of the Equinox, in hope that we can harness them to
help us awaken latent potentials that are poised to sprout and grow a
new future for us all.
Since we are so close to the first
day of Spring (in the Northern Hemisphere anyway), and because I got my
first mosquito bites of the year today (I live in a swamp!), it feels
like time to point our noses towards the rebirth and renewal of those
eternal joys that animate this mortal coil. Even as the last days of
Pisces dissolve the past around us, these burgeoning psychic tides are
receding, exposing dry land that promises solid ground upon which to
stake our next adventure. If, even despite our losses and the grief
they evoke, we can find within our hearts the hope and strength to
start anew, this should be all the proof we need that endings aren't
always fatal, and losses aren't always a tragedy.
The deck in
hand is a copy of the Florentine Minchiate, published by Lo Scarabeo.
This 97-card pack comes down to us from Tuscany and the Papal States of
Italy, where it has been in use as a gaming pack since the early
1600's. Here's my thinking as I shuffle: I'm using this extended pack
to allow the cards their widest vocabulary, in hopes of increasing our
chance to have a fortunate augury and receive divine wisdom as we
embark across the Pisces/Aries line into the reawakening agricultural
year.
Please note that I'm quoting the LWB of my Florentine
Minchiate in full. Since these little interpretive descriptions are so
terse, we will also be hearing from Brian Williams (God rest his
mystical soul) via his book The Minchiate Tarot, published by
Destiny Books in 1999. William's treatment of the minors isn't fulsome
either, but every word takes us deeper into the assumptions animating
the cards, so I'll include them.
An Overview of the Cards drawn for March 15, 2010:
I have to admit to being a bit disappointed with this throw at the
outset. If I were the type to manufacture a spread just to make it
beautiful to the eye, I'd have tossed the two cups cards back into the
pack and 'gone fishing'. This just isn't graphically interesting
enough, my manipulative ego opined. However, my Tarot reader Id wants
to think there is substance to any consciously shuffled lay of the
cards, so we're committed to play the hand we are dealt.
I laid
the cards into the spread "top down", as is my habit. This leaves me
with the impression that the situation being described -- as indicated
by the order of the cards -- most likely won't register much change in
the visible world. We start with the 5 of Cups and end with the 6 of
Cups. That's all of one step in a pack of 78, the type of move that a
Pawn makes in chess.
The twister, sandwiched in between these
two Cups, is the Temperance card in the Fool position. This suggests
that the real significance of current events is supposed to register in
the Imaginal, in the inner sanctum of the personal psyche, rather that
either the Ideal or the Real world. The response of the individual,
made in the privacy of one's own body/mind, is what determines the
meaning and value of this moment.
World Position (The realm of the Ideal): 5 Cups reversed
LWB: Possible losses; Justified fears; Return of unfavorable people or situations.
BW: Flawed or incomplete condition: union achieved, but still imperfect.
In
modern Tarot parlance, this is the card that reminds us not to cry over
spilt milk. In the pictured packs, one often sees two or three cups
upended, causing the loss of at least some of the potential previously
held in the cups. There has clearly been a setback, and quite a bit of
the resource that was once available towards one’s goals has been spilt
and wasted. Are we going to lose all our morale as a result of this
dismaying development? Or can we turn our attention to what has been
saved, that which is still available to us?
This problem is as
much psychological as it is literal. The suit of Cups as a whole
governs the emotional life. Things that affect us at the Cups level
have a handle on our feelings, our general gut-level sense of
well-being, and our mood swings. Negative events in the Cups world tend
upset us in ways that reach beyond current circumstances. Such setbacks
will sometimes unlock our historical pessimism, feelings of
abandonment, or whatever hopeless/helpless memories we have stored in
our nervous systems from past experience. With such emotions sloshing
around within us, it's hard not to look at the whole world with a
jaundiced eye. This souring of our outlook can carry on even after the
circumstance being pictured has been cleaned up and moved on from, at
least in the physical sense. Like earthquake survivors who dive for
the door with every aftershock, we can stay locked into a state of
dread, waiting for the other shoe to drop. It is this stressful
internal state that has the most power over us, whether or not we still
have "two full cups" at hand to go forward with.
Since this is
the card in the position of the Macrocosm, we have to read it in the
largest sense. It's easy to see how this could apply to the world
financial position right now. No amount of happy talk from the press
can hide the strain in the global economy as Greece, Spain, Portugal,
Ireland and other EU nation-states heave and writhe in the struggle
keep their economies from collapsing. In the US, we also have states
that are skirting the borderline of bankruptcy -- in particular my home
state of California. If this can happen in the so-called "first world",
what is happening to those nations whose economies are a mere fraction
of these? How will the 'little guy' fare when the big boys are
tottering right and left?
None of us know what to think right
now. We each have to take responsibility for our own fears and
vulnerabilities, find the firm center of our optimism, and rally our
will power to carry us through these unknowns. There's plenty of talk
about another crash due to hit come summer. We can quiver and cower in
response, fearing the future, or else we can make the necessary
accommodations, adjusting our expectations to suit the times. The
cards are pretty clear -- this is a period when we can expect to
experience setbacks. Knowledge is power, and forewarned is forearmed.
I'd say make your plans with possible challenges in mind -- if they
don't actually materialize, you'll be miles ahead and feeling good
about it.
Fool Position (The realm of the Psyche): Temperance #6
LWB: Transformation; Favorable changes; Rest; Healthy diversion; Serenity.
BW: The Virtue Temperance promotes psychic balance, moderation,
restraint and graceful equilibrium. The harmonious mixing of her two
vessels parallels the happy mixture of opposites and complements in the
individual soul, or in a given situation. Symbiosis is here expressed,
as two opposites or complements come together in harmony.
William's
mention of 'opposites and complements' puts me in mind of the Essential
Dignities of Astrology. Those terms are used to describe the special
relationships existing between the planetary groups Mars and Venus;
Jupiter and Mercury; Saturn and the Lights. Mars and Venus for example
are neighbors, governing adjacent signs in the zodiacal wheel (Aries
and Taurus; Libra and Scorpio). In this sense they are envisioned as
reciprocals, a pair, understood as complementary balanced partners,
like one's left and right hands. But at the same time Mars and Venus
also have qualities that make them direct opposites, making it easy for
them to polarize and fall at odds, taking contrasting ends of an issue
(Aries opposes Libra, Taurus opposes Scorpio). As one can see, such
opposites can use their difference-value to attract each other, but at
other times they spark in destructive ways and stress each other out.
It's all part of the delicate dance of relationship.
The
Temperance card represents the art of Alchemy, the specific work of
combining unlike things in such a way that they find their proper
balance, forming a whole that is greater than the sum of its' parts.
Violent attraction and repulsion are brought into a flexible
cooperation. Uncomplimentary aspects are defanged, while harmonious
aspects are enhanced. Alchemy offers the methods by which one learns to
derive sophisticated medicines from raw poisons, synthesizing vitamins
out of leftovers and cast-offs. Now we can see why Williams chose to
draw upon technical terms from Astrology to explain this image from the
Tarot. Temperance represents the long, slow process of combining
unlike things in such a way that they bond along the lines of their
highest compatibility, before their differences start to react in ways
that neutralize, denature and exhaust each other.
Putting all
of these ideas together with those raised in the previous card, it
seems that the best adaptive strategy we can take right now is to
willingly embrace whatever changes arise during this time of risk and
discomfort. Instead of polarizing into rigid right/wrong or good/bad
thinking, we need to learn to blend and co-operate with whatever is
coming at us, in the hope that we can find a way to befriend
circumstances and turn them to our favor. We want to avoid reflexing
into an offense/defense posture before we can even discern where the
advantages lie. If we can relax, put down our dukes and get into an
open-minded learning mode, then whatever developments are presented
will have the very best chance at a positive result. If lucky, we won't
be all taken up with making so much emotional "noise" that we miss our
cue, if something new and creative should arise within ourselves in
answer to the changed conditions.
Magus Position (The realm of the Real, in the sense of the body's here/now): 6 Cups reversed
LWB: Happy memories; Comfort from people or simple things; Self-analysis.
BW: ...nostalgia, remembrance, wishful recollection: the bittersweet enjoyment of experience, the valley after the peak.
This
is the card that Tarot shorthand has dubbed "the past", with the
reversed meaning being, by extension, "the future". I don't always
subscribe to these desiccated clichés, but there certainly is precedent
for this meaning. The LWB from my Le Grand Etteilla from Grimaud says,
"According to classical tradition this card brings back some events of
a former life and also reveals the future. Upright: a souvenir, or a
remembrance will be useful to you. Reversed; the future will correct
your past." (The LWB from my Grimaud Marseilles gives a different
slant, however: "Abstract meaning: Equilibrium. Practical meaning:
Assured and durable success because it is perfectly balanced
Immobility. A state of affairs which cannot be deranged.")
I
have two standard responses to this card. The first one is "It's never
too late to have a happy childhood". Wherever we stand chronologically
in life, our Inner Child is ever ready to leap out of our adult
costuming and enjoy her- or himself as of old. If we aren't too hung-up
and fossilized to respond to the urge, every day provides a new
opportunity for playfulness and fun.
My other response has to do
with the fact that the instincts of youth are all geared towards
learning, even though they are experienced and lived out in playful
modes. Watching any young animal, it's easy to see that the games
emerging from their innocence are the very ones that will, over time,
train their bodies for adult functioning. Thinking this through and
applying it personally, it follows that the urge to play is the urge to
refresh our skills and perhaps exceed past limits, to have a truly new
experience. The body's joy of living comes from the chance to live out
its physical fantasies in action, parallel to the ego's desire to 'make
a mark' in the social realm. This card suggests the relief of
recreation, as a doorway to finding new avenues of self-expression,
physically and psychologically.
In this time of stress which
rains down upon us from above, stress such as whole cultures are
experiencing right now, there is increased need for time out, for
situations where we can 'let down our hair' and remove the girdling
proscriptions of our over-acculturation. This doesn't grant us the
right to regress into atavistic savages, only the temporary surcease of
arbitrary 'shoulds' while we bring our Inner Child out to play.
Therefore
I'm taking this card as a reminder that we need to balance our serious
considerations with leavening influences, activities that can raise our
spirits and open us up to inspiration and creativity. For some, this
will involve getting outdoors and reveling in the elements, for others
it might mean getting together with friends for a music night, or even
the quieter occupation of getting lost in a novel about another time
and place. Whatever activity is chosen will the power to pull us out of
our limits and imagine ourselves into different identities. Otherwise,
where is the fun in it?
Regarding the reversal, take note of the
poignant nature of memory, which can just as easily bring back the
cringeworthy setback as the gratifying enjoyment. Memory-exercises
require us to be open and flexible, self-directing and quick on the
uptake, else we risk getting lost in miserable cul-de-sacs of regret,
grief and self-deprecation. Psychologists have become aware that the
mind always circles back to historical incidences that caused trauma,
searching for some little crack of light or understanding that could
lead to a different outcome in the future. Even when that tendency
expresses in obsessive/compulsive mind-lock, the origin of the impulse
is to find a lever that can flip a tragedy into a learning experience.
To the extent where we might be locked into low self-esteem because "I
can never get things to turn our right", this reversed 6 of cups seems
to be suggesting, as Etteilla does, that the future will correct your
past. I'd say that the best way to allow for that is to relax, hang
loose, stay open in the spirit of play, and let your Inner Child lead.
Summary
Let
me wrap this up by citing the personality of my little tabby-cat
Precious, who gave herself to us when we first moved to Southern
Washington. She was an unweaned, left-behind runt of a kitten who ate
bugs and mice to survive until new people moved into the trailer she
was living under. The new renter brought two dogs and two pregnant
momma-cats to the trailer, as well as the brother of the pregnant gals
(probably the sire of the litters). The momma-cats resolutely refused
to suckle Precious after their kittens were born, so she remained tiny,
an orphan despite the burgeoning tribe of cats around her. But she got
to sleep in the pile with them all, so that was something anyway.
I
don't think their human keeper was really regular about feeding the
brood. When Precious discovered us across the street, she started
running circles around us around in the yard and trying to figure out
ways to break into the house, where she could see our giant neutered
tomcat Morton through the window. One time, for example, she was
halfway up the screen door, peeking through the mesh when the outer
door closed on her. She had to hang there for half an hour by her claws
till we got back from the store to rescue her. (She was absolutely
none the worse for wear, by the way. There was plenty of clearance...)
Anyway -- you get the gist -- one would think this little kitty should
be neurotic and weedy, full of fears and phobias from her early-life
challenges.
All I can think is there must be a huge number of
fabulous nutrients in bugs, which advanced her light-years ahead of her
dullard companions. Against all odds, the philosophy of this cat seems
to be indomitable; she's steady as a rock and simply fearless. A
great watcher, she'll sit where she's invisible and then study
everything as the fly on the wall. Then, once she's singled out the
part of the action she wants to join, she will enter in with 100%
commitment, manifesting a balls-to-the-wall Olympic spirit of play. It
doesn't matter the size of the playmate; whether it's her massive
cat-buddy Morton, the larger doofus dogs she used to live with, or even
her local crop of domesticated apes, Precious will take on all comers
and remains full of humor whatever happens (though she will cuss with
fiery venom when anybody tries to restrain her for more than a minute!)
Every member of the household becomes the subject of her
ongoing kitty-joke. There are toys all over the house that she's
constantly swatting between my feet, or sitting on to dare me to take
them away from her. She even has a 'tie me up' game that is played by
looping her in the coils of a long knotted rope, which she bites and
fights very ferociously before making a triumphant leaping exit just at
the point you think she's hopelessly tangled.... This and her fetching
game have me wondering how she would do in a circus act.
She's
a fabulous mouser too, dominator of all that she surveys. Matter of
fact, she hunts and herds us all around the house like a sheepdog. If I
sit too long at the computer, and might be in danger of letting the
fire go out (her favorite sleeping spot and playtime plaza), she'll run
right up the back of my chair to stand on my shoulders and munch my
hair. At any moment she might come roaring out from under the couch,
ready to capture the toes that are walking by. I watched her coiling as
if to pounce on a young hawk that came close to the dock a couple of
weeks ago, and all I could think was -- does that bird realize what
he's risking here? I don't think raptors at his station of the food
chain worry about being pounced upon by tiny tigers, but it really
looked like she was willing to take a shot....
So, this is the
sophisticated and somewhat counterintuitive message that you can take
away from this World Server's Spread. One can thrive in the most
unexpected situations, but you have to be good-natured about it and not
develop a sour attitude. We don't always have the most conducive
situations to work with, but if we will only play along with an open
mind, there's a chance that we can find our niche and enjoy the passage
of time until conditions become more positive. And if there's something
you really want that you haven't fulfilled yet, then never stop
"as-if-ing" yourself into it. There's always a chance that one of
these days, the door will open and you will be let in!
Happy Equinox to all. May the new season bless each one with the joy of free expression.
ArkLetter 60
March 15, 2010
copyright christine payne-towler 2005-2010, all rights reserved
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