The Five of Swords? Seriously?

• 78 Degrees: one of the most difficult cards … it mirrors a real situation … all Fives show conflict or loss …
• Kitchen Table Tarot:  you’re thinking only of yourself and this is distracting you from the greater good …
• The Creative Tarot: The Five of Swords is a battle with no winners … but you can’t give up …

“Oh good grief,” I thought, “what the heck am I supposed to do with this?”

So, I turned to Angeles Arrien …

• The Tarot Handbook: The Five of Swords is fear of defeat … that history might repeat itself … yet the greater aspect of who we are, represented by white light, is attempting to break through fear …

Okay, I’m trying.

Early on, I envisioned that the Fives would stand for the body, for the possibility of physical harm and the need to be-ware. Prescient much?

It was also to be a sign of the need to break out or act, which is why I want to talk a bit more than usual about the symbolism that led to this card/collage. I was strongly influenced by the Thoth card pictured in Arrien’s book …

Texas Tarot swords are cacti and spiny plants, so I decided on lace cactus pictures from the original blog. The flowers were tempting, but not right somehow …

I ended up with a lace cactus that was uprooted on the flood plain, but even so had managed to push up a flower …

And this close-up of another lace cactus made me think of the moon’s white light …

I found a book cover with chaotic greens … and one with a royal purple image which had the additional feature of a book-like shape in the lower right corner, books being symbolic of Swords knowledge. But as I arranged them on the page, I realized that my recent trend toward linear grids didn’t feel right. So, I cut up one more cover, sliced into two of the three pieces and slid them together at angles.

It was quick work after that to put the lace cacti in their places …

Cacti, the survivors … protecting themselves from danger … resilient in the face of drought … defiant to the very end.

May all be well …

Spoiler alert: This post ends in a lighter place

The Nine of Swords is a dark card and two nights ago was very dark indeed. I made the mistake of watching way too much news before bed … Rachel Maddow eulogizing her friend and co-worker at the end of the show, bowing her head as the tears came. I won’t tell you what I searched online that night except to say there was no comfort in it.

• 78 Degrees: The Nine of Swords is the image of deepest sorrow, of utmost mental pain … it shows a mind that takes on itself all the sorrows of the world …
• Kitchen Table Tarot: this card is about anxiety and sleeplessness … your mind too full, your troubles vast and unmanageable and you just can’t put them down … [it is] the uncontrolled dizziness that comes when spinning around trying to figure out what life will look like
• The Creative Tarot: thoughts keep [us] awake … totally alone … this card feels like we’re being battered and pulled apart by the demons of negative thoughts … [we need to] find a way to get back to a place of flow

The images that came out of the book cover box were abstract and dark, with jagged, chaotic lines. Over them, an image of agarita, with its sharp pointed leaves … three leaflets per leaf, each with three points. Nine …

Except, as I put together the nightmarish bits, I was transported to this time of year at the Hill Country house. Recalled walking the land and catching the honeyed scent of agarita blossoms, presaging the appearance of the glorious red berries so beloved by the critters …

Spring is here. The world is turning. There is tragedy, yes … but hasn’t there always been? Not so immediate, so dire … at least not for us in this day and time. But still …

I go through the Kindred Spirits list in the sidebar of the old blog each day. Looking for each person in turn, looking to be sure everyone is okay. Looking for, and finding, joy …

Nancy posted a link to the Youngbloods’ Come Together, so today I’m returning the favor with another favorite Jesse Colin Young song, Darkness Darkness.  The lyrics are gentle, giving hope to the night …

Darkness darkness, be my pillow
Take my head and let me sleep
In the coolness of your shadow
In the silence of your dream

Darkness darkness, hide my yearning
For the things that cannot be
Keep my mind from constant turning
Towards the things I cannot see now

Darkness darkness, long and lonesome
Is the day that brings me here
I have found the edge of sadness
I have known the depths of fear

Darkness darkness, be my blanket
Cover me with endless night
Take away away the pain of knowing
Fill the emptiness of right now

Darkness darkness, be my pillow
Take my head and let me sleep
In the coolness of my shadow
In the silence of my dream

Darkness darkness, be my blanket
Cover me with endless night
Take away away the pain of knowing
Fill the emptiness of right now

So, too, the words of wisdom in Fiona Dempster’s most recent post.

Last night, after watching TED Talks and a PBS show about Frank Lloyd Wright instead of the news, I went to bed with a quieter mind … and slept better.

The days are now dearer … treasured. Each one a gift, as they should always be received. I find joy in Playing for Change on YouTube (thank you Nancy), Wendy MacNaughton’s giddy art lessons on Instagram, the free classes on CreativeBug posted by Jody Alexander. There is so much to be grateful for.

May it ever be so …

It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Today we had planned to be walking the beaches of Port Aransas with our Texas grandkids, a first-time visit for us as we have traditionally headed to the Outer Banks of North Carolina for family vacations. But it wasn’t to be.

Nor will I be flying to St Louis this coming week to hang out with the Missouri grandkids during their spring break. Instead I am here, looking out a new window on a changed world. No wonder I’m choosing to travel back in time.

The Page of Cups was the card I had planned to be a Least Tern weeks before our new reality hit. It was a bit of a stretch since I hadn’t been to any Texas beaches outside of Galveston, but I wasn’t worried. I had done my travel research and planned to take great pictures of Texas shore birds for the Cups court cards in plenty of time to use them. Little did I know.

The Least Tern, inhabitant of both the Atlantic and Gulf costs, seemed a perfect Page based on these descriptions …

• 78 Degrees: The Page of Cups is younger in spirit, child-like … indicating a time in which contemplation and fantasy are very proper … the fish of imagination looks at him … as his talents develop
• Kitchen Table Tarot: flowing in the wind … the ocean behind him … he is the card of art and inspiration
• The Creative Tarot: the (imagined) fish represents the parts of us that came from the sea … intuition … feelings … deep down we already know the answer to the question we are asking

Because I had a story to tell, one that connected the Texas part of me to the Shelter Island part of me … a story from a long time ago, when I was a child … when we went to Louie’s Beach every day in the month of August, living in the water except for mandatory lunch and “wait 30 minutes or you’ll cramp and drown” time … which as a parent I came to understand as code for, “I’m tired of watching you in the water and besides, your lips are blue so you need to warm up.”

One day, walking down to the end of Louie’s, we encountered a family with a Least Tern named Teddy. The story of how they came to adopt him when he was but a small ball of fluff eludes me now, but by the time we walked into the story, he had learned to fly.

Not yet proficient at fishing, he was assisted by his human family, who used a net to scoop up tiny fish called shiners for his lunch. Intrigued, our family started to set out our beach gear beside the L– family each day, the better to become acquainted with them and their little bird.

I never tired of watching Teddy hang in the sky, his head turned down toward the water … and it’s not a stretch to say those were halcyon days.

The story had a sad ending though. After trying unsuccessfully to reintroduce Teddy into the wild, the L–s chose to take him home with them to New Jersey. There he met a tragic end, never to return to his Island home.

As our own kids grew up, the beach was always the place where I could let myself be a kid again, if only for a little while. It became an annual pilgrimage that we have never before missed, especially as each of our six grandkids has joined the family. Until now. And so, this card/collage is intended to honor childhood and memory and the eternal sea …

with the hope that we will all return again someday.