Of course, after yesterday’s Cosmic Tarot Two of Swords with its bobcat imagery, what else would I pick today but the King of Pentacles? Which I had weeks ago decided would be represented by a bobcat. I love that the universe has a great sense of humor (or synchronicity … or maybe both).

Anyway, the problem was that the only bobcat imagery I had on my phone was taken at the Austin Nature and Science Center, which has a small menagerie of injured and human-imprinted critters that can’t make it in the wild. Unfortunately, my imagery includes wire fencing. Not the look I was going for.

That’s when a long-unused synapse fired and I remembered my days working the Government Documents section of the university library at Texas State. There I learned about the high quality, copyright-free imagery on USA.gov, bobcats included. In fact, the images are so good, I may use USA.gov images even when I have some of my own.

All that by way of saying this regal looking cat …

was a perfect match for the word-imagery in my supporting cast of Tarot guidebooks:

• 78 Degrees: satisfied with life … generous … courageous, though not especially given to adventure … his success has justified his life, allowing him to relax and enjoy it … enjoying life means closeness to nature … the very leaves seem to merge with his robe (coat) … life is good to him and he means to enjoy it.

• Kitchen Table Tarot: he has an intense presence … a very strong work ethic … one with land … loved by his family.

• The Creative Tarot: look at what is, not what could be … what is actually there, in front of you … a pragmatist … living in the real world … understands value … what is can be exchanged for and how it can assist others … the value of time and the limited amount we are able to do with our lives … the value of work and how it can turn us into better people … survey the lay of the land.

I initially pulled out sunny, bright book covers to go with the feel of the Cosmic card, but upon reading that bobcats are nocturnal, I switched to a dimmer set of options. Likewise, I learned that bobcats often hunt at the edge of wooded areas, climbing what is known as a “sentinel tree” to better survey the small critters that are their prey. Which is why these images made the first cut …

Although the final composition featured just two of them, the better to focus attention on the King …

 

Warning: this is going to be a lengthy post … if you’re just interested in the imagery, I humbly suggest you do a fast scroll through the verbiage.

————————

I’m still very new to tarot, so I was pleased to find Acey’s post about getting to know a new deck. In the short time that I’ve been into it, I’ve managed to draw the Two of Swords four times. So, I’m gonna go out a limb and suggest this is a personally significant card. At first (second and third) glances, I found the Cosmic Tarot version to be visually appealing …

The figure is calm, at ease … there’s a gentle sea and a full moon … the bobcat(?) is snuggled up close with a bird nearby … the sky appears to be clearing after an awesome sunset. Heck, even her shoes are easy-going slip-ons. And the swords, buried in the ground, seem almost to be an afterthought.

It’s no wonder that I took exception to what I was reading in the books.

78 Degrees: the blindfold (in the classic Rider-Waite-Smith card) …

shows not confusion but a deliberate closing of the eyes (okay) … ready to strike anyone who comes close (what?) … crossed arms close off her heart, the imagery of blocked emotions (uh, not me) … tension (no) … choppy seas (not)

Kitchen Table Tarot:  there is strength in solitude (that’s better) … the “shut the hell up so I can think” card (okay, I can relate) … all her other senses are cut off (that would be me when I take out my hearing aids and take off my glasses) … she doesn’t need distraction … she is alone and okay with that … this is something she needs to figure out for herself (well, okay, that’s better)

The Creative Tarot: indecision (um) … she has cut herself off from her intuition (not me) … you have reached a kind of stasis of indecision … because of making a decision logically rather than intuitively (me logical? no way!)

This was where I reached for The Tarot Handbook by Angeles Arrien, recently recommended by Grace and seconded by Acey …

It seemed to reflect more of what I was seeing in the Two of Swords: peace … meditative mind … satisfaction, clarity … Moon … the deep subconscious place [where] there is a sense of balance … a very deep spiritual place … renewing and regenerating …

My introverted self loved this. So I got right to work, quickly finding these two book covers, one with a crescent moon that went along with my newly discovered “Personality symbol” and the other with layers of sedimentary rock symbolizing the shallow sea that once covered the Hill Country many millions of years ago (giving new meaning to the Corona ad “find your beach”) …

And once again drawing on the cacti for Swords, I found a couple of good candidates on the blog …

But when I put them together, it wasn’t quite right …

The moon seemed too big, so I tried another configuration …

Ugh.

I gave up and decided to sleep on it. And when I woke up, I realized what was “off.” The moon wasn’t too big, it was waning instead of waxing. And I was being way too literal putting it at the top of the page, “in the sky,” so to speak.

I also realized it was time to explore the reversed card meanings of the Two of Swords. Something I’ve avoided doing up until now. This time the books were a little more helpful.

78 Degrees: the blindfold is given up for the purpose of either seeing truth or communicating

Kitchen Table Tarot:  the Moon in tarot tells us to be cautious … to seek deep inside of ourselves to look for pitfalls and traps, especially the ones we lay for ourselves

The Creative Tarot: relax, go with your gut … your ability to choose gives the situation meaning

I decided to move the original dark-sky moon to the bottom of the card/collage, which not only made it a waxing moon (for the Northern Hemisphere), it also reinforced the notion of depth. I also looked for a different cholla, one that more nearly approximated two swords. And I copied an assemblage of Don’s entitled Rising, depicting the World Trade Center (which also made the title on the original moon book cover take on new meaning) …

I modified the image to make it more ghostly, like an imagined reflection in the memorial pool at Ground Zero. Then put it all together thusly …

 

And while there’s more I could say, I think this is more than enough for now … I’ll save the rest for the journal.

Of course, since I mentioned not drawing any Cups or Major Arcana, what should appear next but Judgment. No pressure, right?

I read the books carefully … they had a lot to say and were most instructive:

78 Degrees: all of life as filled with spiritual light … awareness of eternal truth frees us from all illusion and fear … we feel, like a call from deep inside, the urge to dissolve ourselves completely into spirit … wondrous life contained within every being …

And here I pause to note: what could be a more perfect example than a caterpillar being moved to create its chrysalis?

78 Degrees continues: we feel the call in our deepest selves as if the very cells of the body were filled with a shout of joy … a call to rise to a more meaningful existence … to make some great change … something within has already decided and the only choice … is to follow … we are bound by our short lives … and the emphasis rests not on death but on resurrection … coming to terms with past experience as a part of going beyond it … the important thing is the call …

Well, phew.

Kitchen Table Tarot: you just have to accept that all of these little (or huge) screwups have made you the amazing, shiny person you are today … it’s about release … we can continue the way we have been or we can challenge ourselves and find our authentic path … if we accept the flaws … maybe we can feel lighter and move onward and upward …

The Creative Tarot: judging your past wrongs, dealing with the ramifications, and making amends … a karmic restart … Judgment does offer a new beginning … a life after death.

Period. Full stop.

Okay then. I went through the box of book covers …

Then searched and found my own photos of a monarch and a milkweed pod. It all went really fast after that …

And if you look closely at the Kenda North photo reproduction on the bottom of the page, you will see a hand … reaching up … and out …