Saturday Talks
2019-Jan-05, Saturday 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
felicitygsThis is perhaps a weekly thing I'll be doing with a new 'tarot' deck, to get back in the habit of trying to have a conversation from beneath the ocean of Korea's spiritual landscape. Will it go anywhere? I'm not sure. Will I keep up with it? Who knows. But I've felt the urge to try reconnecting with a spirituality I have let linger, and I think having a way to touch base again is for the best.
This deck is the 스티치래비타로카드 deck, which is just the Major Arcana done up in absolutely adorable watercolors of this little bunny doll. I don't even know how I noticed it, but I did and it felt right, so here we are.
A branching path this week; where we are is the Empress, and where we are going is Temperance (Rán) or The Hanged Man (Vali).
It is Rán, isn't it? That chat log is long lost to the bowels of tumblr, but the name feels right; whoever she is, she is of the sea, protected by the little wooden duck her pearl is nested away inside. Temperance.
Maybe this isn't so much a choice as it is an introduction, a conversation this first week I sit down with them all. Temperance, Rán. Vali, The Hanged Man. And me--Empress.
The Empress is the card on the box art--all the boxes of this deck had different cards on the front, and I crouched for a long time in that tiny aisle, moving this way and that to avoid blocking the way, and it was this art--this card--that I kept going back to. I knew, rationally, they would all have the same cards inside, and yet--I had to pick the right one.
It was this one.
This feels right; this isn't a foretelling so much as an introduction. This isn't what will be; this is what is.
Forgive the dramatics. I'm pondering.
So, what can I take from this then, these introductions?
Let's start, first, with Vali. The Hanged Man makes sense, there's a whole year and day of blog entries that back up this card being his card. A god-child, caught forever in the endless cycle of birth-monstering-attempt to change. He is tied so thoroughly to the little bits of text we have that it would be impossible to escape. And that is what the card is--being tied to a situation, or a situation turned on its head.
You can embrace that which holds you; sometimes you can even find contentment.
I can't help but notice that this card, unlike most of the other decks I've used, the hanged rabbit's legs don't make a four. Perhaps that's intentional; the deck was created by a Korean artist, and 4 is a number strongly associated with death.
Next, we have Rán. I admit--I know nothing of her, except she is of the sea, and so what I slowly tease out of this card will be... the extent of it. The duck the piece of her is inside is beautiful though.
This card though, feels right. Under the bunny is the sea itself; not a stormy one, but a gentle one, calm. She works with focus, mending together a variety of different patterns. This is a card of steadiness and of work--Work? In the back, an owl--that's interesting, too, because I've been carrying around a broken necklace watch with a lovely owl on it, and just recently hung it up. It feels right. I had thought, perhaps, Athena, but maybe that was only informed by reading The Odyssey so recently.It is something to keep in mind going forward.
Through the window, there is more water, a sun (rising or setting? that can matter), stars. An island--maybe it's not an island, but I feel that it is, and that's important too.
So--a goddess, water, oceans and stars and work (or Work) and patience. The steady guiding hand of stitching together.
Which leaves the last: me. The Empress.
That is... an odd choice of card, it feels, because for so long I most strongly associated with Strength, and was associated with that card by my decks. And yet, here, with this one, Strength feels all wrong.
I have changed though; in the years and ages and time since then, I have changed so much, that while I can find the foundations first seeded by that year of study (and love) with Vali, it no longer makes sense to have a card so strongly associated with survival and taming be my card.
So--the empress. This one. She is confident, happy--god is this bunny happy--and self assured. There's a kindness in the softness of this deck, on every card, and here it is all warm glows and delicate little holly berries. This is a good card, a warm card, and I love it so much. Some of it is it has what I wish to be--that warmth and kindness--and some of it is it is what I am--the confidence.
I have changed so much, and so much has been growing into a self-assuredness, refinding my way and who I am. I am, of course, still a creature of habits and routines and patterns, and that was never ever going to change, but I spend so much more time considering myself, but also, so much less time doubting the things that I love. And I think, at it's core, that is why it's no longer strength but might--the strength in knowing and refusing to feel guilt is very different from the strength of taming and pacifying it.
I am, for the most part (but not all things; even in this I'm still growing), much much more confident and sure in what I love, what I love it, and what I'm doing. I back down less when confronted with things that I dislike. Learning to fold kindness into that--to fold in some patience--is vital.
Well then.
Hello to you too.
I hope these conversations keep going; I hope that I'm able to get back, a little, of the spirituality that has felt so distant since I moved here.
Thanks for coming.
This deck is the 스티치래비타로카드 deck, which is just the Major Arcana done up in absolutely adorable watercolors of this little bunny doll. I don't even know how I noticed it, but I did and it felt right, so here we are.
A branching path this week; where we are is the Empress, and where we are going is Temperance (Rán) or The Hanged Man (Vali).
It is Rán, isn't it? That chat log is long lost to the bowels of tumblr, but the name feels right; whoever she is, she is of the sea, protected by the little wooden duck her pearl is nested away inside. Temperance.
Maybe this isn't so much a choice as it is an introduction, a conversation this first week I sit down with them all. Temperance, Rán. Vali, The Hanged Man. And me--Empress.
The Empress is the card on the box art--all the boxes of this deck had different cards on the front, and I crouched for a long time in that tiny aisle, moving this way and that to avoid blocking the way, and it was this art--this card--that I kept going back to. I knew, rationally, they would all have the same cards inside, and yet--I had to pick the right one.
It was this one.
This feels right; this isn't a foretelling so much as an introduction. This isn't what will be; this is what is.
Forgive the dramatics. I'm pondering.
So, what can I take from this then, these introductions?
Let's start, first, with Vali. The Hanged Man makes sense, there's a whole year and day of blog entries that back up this card being his card. A god-child, caught forever in the endless cycle of birth-monstering-attempt to change. He is tied so thoroughly to the little bits of text we have that it would be impossible to escape. And that is what the card is--being tied to a situation, or a situation turned on its head.
You can embrace that which holds you; sometimes you can even find contentment.
I can't help but notice that this card, unlike most of the other decks I've used, the hanged rabbit's legs don't make a four. Perhaps that's intentional; the deck was created by a Korean artist, and 4 is a number strongly associated with death.
Next, we have Rán. I admit--I know nothing of her, except she is of the sea, and so what I slowly tease out of this card will be... the extent of it. The duck the piece of her is inside is beautiful though.
This card though, feels right. Under the bunny is the sea itself; not a stormy one, but a gentle one, calm. She works with focus, mending together a variety of different patterns. This is a card of steadiness and of work--Work? In the back, an owl--that's interesting, too, because I've been carrying around a broken necklace watch with a lovely owl on it, and just recently hung it up. It feels right. I had thought, perhaps, Athena, but maybe that was only informed by reading The Odyssey so recently.It is something to keep in mind going forward.
Through the window, there is more water, a sun (rising or setting? that can matter), stars. An island--maybe it's not an island, but I feel that it is, and that's important too.
So--a goddess, water, oceans and stars and work (or Work) and patience. The steady guiding hand of stitching together.
Which leaves the last: me. The Empress.
That is... an odd choice of card, it feels, because for so long I most strongly associated with Strength, and was associated with that card by my decks. And yet, here, with this one, Strength feels all wrong.
I have changed though; in the years and ages and time since then, I have changed so much, that while I can find the foundations first seeded by that year of study (and love) with Vali, it no longer makes sense to have a card so strongly associated with survival and taming be my card.
So--the empress. This one. She is confident, happy--god is this bunny happy--and self assured. There's a kindness in the softness of this deck, on every card, and here it is all warm glows and delicate little holly berries. This is a good card, a warm card, and I love it so much. Some of it is it has what I wish to be--that warmth and kindness--and some of it is it is what I am--the confidence.
I have changed so much, and so much has been growing into a self-assuredness, refinding my way and who I am. I am, of course, still a creature of habits and routines and patterns, and that was never ever going to change, but I spend so much more time considering myself, but also, so much less time doubting the things that I love. And I think, at it's core, that is why it's no longer strength but might--the strength in knowing and refusing to feel guilt is very different from the strength of taming and pacifying it.
I am, for the most part (but not all things; even in this I'm still growing), much much more confident and sure in what I love, what I love it, and what I'm doing. I back down less when confronted with things that I dislike. Learning to fold kindness into that--to fold in some patience--is vital.
Well then.
Hello to you too.
I hope these conversations keep going; I hope that I'm able to get back, a little, of the spirituality that has felt so distant since I moved here.
Thanks for coming.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-05 06:31 am (UTC)I don't think this is dramatic at all, I think it's very thoughtfully written. Thank you for sharing it, I hope your practice grants you all that you're looking for and helps you grow.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-07 12:37 am (UTC)I've been dabbling with some form of tarot for pretty much my whole life.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-01-05 06:49 pm (UTC)