A Tarot treat

My friend Francesca did this spread for me on my birthday with her 'Philosophers' Tarot' pack.

The top card represents me - the MAGICIAN! - and the three below are past, present and future. Present. That makes me think so much of the blog post I wrote for the 28th December about the shadows lengthening. This card in some other packs has a heart impaled by swords - a reminder that grief is always collective. The meaning in Francesca's pack is so perfect.

She suggested to me that the symmetry of nines in past and future is indicative of some kind of reflection. Maybe the difference between the two nines is important. The cups nine is about achieving of getting things that leave you empty and come at a cost. The wands suggests a need to have inner resources to deal with the adversity.

In the Philosophers' Tarot, the Magician represents or is represented by the philosopher Felix Guattari. This is synchronistic as he had come up in our conversation before she did the spread. He believed in the rhizomatic nature of existence - the complete interconnectedness... or intra-connectedness, to harp back to my post on MWe. Guattari suggests not just a transition but a metamorphosis is required.

I read in that Common Ground book about how the red admiral caterpillar metamorphoses... the dissolution of one body, essentially eaten by or absorbed by itself and forming into something entirely new. Alchemy! What would that mean for human civilisation? Imagine, Homo sapiens mulched up into a cocoon and transforming into psyche. It's frightening.

I decided to see what my Crow Tarot had to say about these cards... The Magician, is, well, pretty amazing. It starts, 'Now is the time for the words of power. You speak your mind and your wishes become truths.' It is about creating a new reality. Ha! It says, 'decide that you belong here, believe it of yourself that you have earned this place.' But... what place? What are my wishes?

The nine of cups is incredible in that it relates to three insights I had in 2022: one that more ethics wouldn't resolve things, one that those paused moments of absorption are precious and the feeling expressed in the moon poem - that knowing more isn't the answer. It says, 'say to the dark voice of skepticism and hesitation, "Begone. I have found hearth and home and you aren't wanted anymore."'

By the way, the moon poem arose when I was in a meditation and the guide suggested I float up to the moon, but the roots of an oak and the soil itself wrapped around me and said, 'Stay.' I felt safe, loved and at home.

The account of the three of swords in my pack suggests that one has to find a way to extricate oneself from the source of the pain. We have to remove the swords rather than focusing on the pain or on those who have harmed us. It's not about revenge. It's about changing the situation and moving on.

And finally, the future. Adversity. Fighting for what is right, even when your erstwhile companions betray you. Like the attacks George Monbiot gets for saying we have to stop eating meat. Like how the excellent Peter Marren in After They're Gone - which no one has bothered to review properly but was one of my best books of the year - says how even conservationists shirk mention of the elephant in the room, human population.

We hear what we want, see what we want and construct a reality accordingly. A reality that will destroy.

So, what does it all mean? Doom, I guess. And, like Zarathustra, I scream the unwanted message. Or just curl up on the sofa and metamorphose into a cat.