I’ve been sitting with this one for a while, the Three of Wands …

Threes being about journey, Wands being about action and, in the Texas Tarot, wildflowers.

At first, I thought Spiderwort, a flower I loved in Virginia and was happy to find growing in Texas. But as I wandered through the Wildflowers on the blog, I happened across Prairie Nymph. How could I have forgotten? I loved this flower, which appeared for such a brief time at the Hill Country house, in a corner of the yard that I always cautioned Don to avoid cutting until the blooms had come and gone …

But journey and action. What to do with them? I riffed on Prairie Nymph, and thought of Prairie Schooners. Wondered if Texas settlers arrived in those storied wagons and yes, yes, they did …

Further back, though, the Spanish who found their way to Texas in the sixteenth century. Did they come in schooners, I wondered? Well, it turns out many came in tri-masted naos, which are not exactly schooners, but close enough for this landlubber …

Threes. Three books that said …

• The Creative Tarot: this is a card of travel and transition
• Kitchen Table Tarot: it’s all about perspective … it often has to do with itchy feet, but you might be held back by other people, circumstances beyond your control, or by yourself
• 78 Degrees: the boats represent that part of us which explores deep experience … the importance of rooting ourselves in deep reality … until the boats carry us into the unknown areas of the self

Okay, what about printing the prairie schooners and tri-masted Spanish naos in sepia on vellum to make them transparent? And what about a backdrop? As has been my habit of late, I quickly latched onto a bookcover …

but it was the back, not the front that drew me in …

Because Threes …

 

The differences are striking in these two versions of the Six of Pentacles.

Here the Smith-Waite version …

as compared to the Cosmic Tarot …

When I see differences this significant, it feels like being given license to freestyle a bit more than usual, although I always turn to the books for a reality check.

• Creative Tarot: The Six of Pentacles is a card about value
• Kitchen Table Tarot: about generosity … the ebb and flow of community … when you give of yourself
• 78 Degrees: [it] illustrates the idea of sharing, generosity, charity

In that spirit, I chose Sideoats Grama for the Texas Tarot version of the Six of Pentacles, easily finding six examples of its generous spirit:

The beauty of its efflorescence …

Its provision of food for butterflies and birds

Its usefulness as nesting and denning material for birds and mammals

Its rootedness providing a path for water into the aquifers …

Its ability to lay down during heavy rains, shielding the soil from erosion

But most of all, its invitation to touch, to run one’s fingers along each stem, gathering seeds, the better to strew them onto bare ground, to begin the cycle anew …

Sideoats grama was a great favorite with our grandsons especially. They loved the idea of sowing seed, of giving something of themselves to the land …

And much as I miss our Hill Country home, I take heart in this final word on the Six of Pentacles in the Seventy-eight Degrees of Wisdom:

“the value of studying the tarot lies not simply in the specific knowledge gained, but also in the frame of mind created by the act of doing it … the work itself changes us.”

Revisiting the land in this way, creating a Texas Tarot, has deepened my appreciation for all that I have been given and all that is in me yet to give.

What the Smith-Waite Seven of Swords communicated to me …

required a bit of juggling with what the books had to say …

• 78 Degrees: an image of taking action against problems … a daring act … this card can indicate craftiness, but with the flaw of hiding one’s true intentions
• Kitchen Table Tarot: there are some lies we tell to protect ourselves or others … but lying chews on your soul … becoming ill at ease if you wander too far from the truth … which will come out

My take-away was the sense that you might get away with something in the near term, but it’s gonna bite you in the butt eventually. Hence the post title.

So why choose the Horse Crippler as the creature representing Seven of Swords? Well, the seven spines per cluster was a good start. But it was also its habit of hiding in wait, as described here …

from this book, a duplicate purchased on sale for the purpose of illustrating much of the Texas Tarot …

Going through the bookcover box, I found myself drawn to arid, sulfuric, hellish imagery, the better to depict what awaits those who dare to think they can get away with stuff …

May they get their just desserts sooner rather than later.