Euphor(b)ia (Four of Wands)

May 6, 2020May 6, 2020 ~ Liz A ~ 16 Comments

I just wasn’t sure how to approach the Four of Wands …

so I let it wait for over a week. Which was fine, as I had some commission work to do. First some more dollhouse bedding and a red heart pillow …

Quickly followed by requests for a Texas flag pillow and a “g” pillow for G (natch), plus a rainbow pillow, and a unicorn pillow for P (wasn’t so sure about that last one, but it worked out) …

Then I cleaned the house, because I still wasn’t sure. But I ran out of excuses, so I decided I really, really needed to look through all the bookcover boxes to see if I had missed any good ones. We’re talking major stall here.

But in the end, I went with my gut, using this photo of Snow-on-the-Mountain …

snow on the mountain

It was one of the first wildflowers to catch my eye when we moved to Texas … in July of 2009 … in the middle of a drought. Actually, it was the only wildflower, everything else having gone dormant. And sure enough, year after year, it would shoot up during the peak heat of summer, even on the sun-scorched rock of the floodplain. No competition, I’m thinking.

As is my wont, I did a bit of research as I put this card/collage together. Turns out Euphorbia marginata belongs to a very interesting group of plants, which are often confused with cacti. The most commonly known plant in the genus is the ever-present-at-Christmas poinsettia. And like all Euphorbias, they exude a toxic white sap that can cause all manner of discomforts. But more to the point, they are uplifting to gaze upon. And that turned out to be the perfect fit for the following …

78 Degrees: Four, with its image of the square, implies solidity [combined with the] Wands Fire of optimism, eagerness, celebration … a love of freedom carrying the people together, out of their walled city (umm, well no hurry on that, actually)
Kitchen Table Tarot: this is one of the happiest cards in the deck and also one of the simplest … there’s so much potential here, but we’re not moving yet (I’m definitely good with that)
The Creative Tarot: this is a card about remaining flexible and not too rooted … it implies a need for beauty as well as a need for community (more Covid allusions, but I confess to being perfectly, happily rooted these days)

So, squares for solidity, then …

the perfect counterpoint to euphoria (no “B”s please) …

Sorry, I couldn’t resist …

Here comes The Sun

April 28, 2020April 28, 2020 ~ Liz A ~ 16 Comments

Our Sweet P turned three …

Which we fully enjoyed, while keeping social distance of course …

So, what better card to draw than The Sun?

78 Degrees: simple, joyous, and physical … a sense of all life and all the world being filled with a wondrous light …
Kitchen Table Tarot: sunshine reaching into the deepest corners, burning away sadness, lies and distortions … it’s going to take a while, but that warmth? It will grow.
The Creative Tarot: clearly, we have an understanding of what our situation is … the easiness of [this card] allows us to enjoy ourselves again rather than struggle

It almost strains credibility to say this card was a random draw. I dare to hope it’s all true.

The imagery, once again, was a cinch. A bit of cloth from Moon Myth (yes, I still need to finish that project) …

sun 1

Including the back …

sun 2

And a vellum-printed image of the playhouse that Parker’s Mom and Dad got for her birthday …

play house

Lovingly painted by Pop Pop to match their house …

And when it was all put together, a random scrap from a previous collage jumped into the lower left …

because it fit somehow …

It’s all right …

P.S. While I was collaging, Don was busy, too …

Temperance

April 26, 2020April 26, 2020 ~ Liz A ~ 8 Comments

After finishing up yesterday’s card/collage, I drew Temperance. Unable to recall which creature I had chosen, I consulted my notebook. As I did, I sensed motion out of the corner of my eye, turning just in time to spot a tiny blue dragonfly.

“Don, have you seen any dragonflies since we moved here?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, I just saw one and you won’t believe what the next card is supposed to be.”

Yeah well, that’s pretty much how this project has unfolded.

Anyway, temperance is often associated with the rabid alcohol abstinence movement that led to Prohibition. But I’m a cook, and tempering eggs is where my mind prefers to go. As it did last night, when there was leftover rice. I doused the rice with milk and nuked it in the microwave for a minute or two (although it would have worked as well on the stove). Then I separated an egg, spooned the raw yolk in half, and stirred in a bit of vanilla extract, sugar and cream (the egg white and remaining half yolk got saved for scrambled eggs another day).

Stirring in one hot milky spoon-full of rice at a time, I brought up the temper-ature of the egg yolk … then folded the tempered mixture into the rest of the hot rice. I was careful to check with an instant read thermometer to be sure it got up to 160 degrees (food safety, you know). Then spooned the rice pudding into little bowls with a sploosh of cream and a dusting of cinnamon sugar …

Yum.

So, where was I? Oh yeah, Temperance …

78 Degrees: the ability to combine spontaneity with knowledge … a true and proper response to all situations as they arise … handling life’s problems with a joy that appears a magical … doing the correct thing … which may be doing nothing (another Covid reference)
Kitchen Table Tarot: one foot on land, one on water
The Creative Tarot: finding a middle way

The “joy that appears magical” was a perfect fit with Dragonfly, but I did go ahead and do a little research to be sure I was on the right track. Turns out that dragonflies spend much of their lives in water, then become flying creatures when it’s time to mate. A fitting analog to the Smith-Waite depiction of a winged being with one foot in the water and one on land …