Saturday Talks - Connections and Reflections
2019-Jan-12, Saturday 11:51 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
felicitygsA series of small conversations using the 스티치 래빗 타로.
It was a little surprising, drawing these cards and finding that this time, there's not a particular one that's for me. This week feels.... about connections, but also depths, and like a closer dive into both Rán and Vali and how they (might) interrelate within my practice--and that, too, is important to work out.
The left is for Rán; the right for Vali. The initial impression I have of this particular layout is one of surface and depths--and the depths are also how they both relate and conflict with each other. It is significant, I think, that both Vali and and Rán have celestial bodies; equally significant they both have cards that so strongly tie to binding, and the... way these are flipped, too--Vali's celestialism is on his sleeve, a front facing part of his nature, while Rán's binding is, too, part of her front facing.
Where to start, then?
Let's start with Rán's front facing aspect, then--Strength.
Strength is, typically, not a card about bondage, or rather--it's never been that in any of my other decks, and yet in this one, it very very much is. It's a gentle binding, make no mistake, but that doesn't change it is still restraining in a real physical way that most strength cards do not. But, and this is important, that restraining is also healing--note the fact the bunny stitching the ear is also fixing it, putting things back the way they should be.
The binding here is for helping; it is there as a safety measure, the way a cat is tranquilized before a surgery, or a person looks away before a shot. Once the fixing is done, there's the impression a person can get up and move away. Rán's relationship to this sort of binding, then, is one that is ultimately fluid--which ties to the inner self card of the Moon--but let's come back to that in a minute.
Strength's mirror, then, is Vali's inner truth--the Devil. And, immediately, it strikes me the central figure is healing too; she has a sewing needle in hand, and pins, and she is carefully stitching closed a torn open stomach, central in her focus. But, and this is very important to the card, this is a card of obsession and focus to the detriment of other aspects of one's life. The other rabbits are hung from the ceiling (a reference back to last week's Hanged Man, perhaps?), and there is nothing here but darkness, this attempt at a healing, and candles to attempt to hold that darkness at bay.
And doesn't that ring painfully true for Vali, forever chasing a way to undo what happened-happens-will happen? Attempting to put a family back together.
(Not to mention the devil as monster in western iconography; fitting, too.)
And that comparison, there is.... both, focused on healing, but where one is able to let go and move on (because she is able to repair what has been damaged), the other may not (at least, not yet).
Whew.
Now, Vali's public persona--the Star.
Gods, I could weep over this card and its fittingness. The star--hope and brilliance and wishes. What is Vali, if not all of these things in face of crushing circumstances? He does not hide his obsession/focus/binding so much as blind people to it through the sheer brilliance of his hope and belief.
Again, repair features--both his ears contain pins. Again water--the same pool of water that was beneath Temperance's (Rán's) feet last week, and there is so much water here. Water as in Narfi? That feels... right. Both of these gods are tied to the sea, aren't they? Rán as a part of her being, and Vali through the love and loss of his twin.
This card oozes kindness and gentleness, and is surrounded by the trappings of memory and family--faded photos and dolls, a half remembered room in its background. These too, have always felt so foundational to who and what he is, and what motivates him, and these are the things we know most about him--his family, more than him. Of course this is what he presents to the world, instead of the obsession that took me much of a year to learn.
And so, how is this reflected and contrasted in Rán's depths?
The Moon is a card of depths and dreams and the subconscious; it is a card about journeys, most often spiritual, and navigating the darkest parts of the soul. My eye is primarily drawn by the rabbit in the moon, watching over the proceedings--but also the one who guides along the winding path through a thousand stars and planets. Here, the needle is also a staff, an aid for walking, and she is not alone.
There's hope here--it's brilliant but subtle, and the hope feels like that of knowing one can find their way, provided they mark their path carefully. It feels most like Rán is the moon itself, not the traveler on the path, and the light she shines is one that illuminates the way forward, around and through the dangers that lie just off the path (the all too sharp needles just off the way).
But more, there is a largeness here that does not exist in stars--no matter how large stars are, they are not as close, and so often seem distant and small. But here, Rán is close, looms large, and is able to exist in a space where so many things are twisted into what they are not.
And... this hope is not rooted in the love of family and memory of said happiness the way Vali's is. Vali's hope was born of trauma and a family that taught him hope is a radical act.
Rán's hope feels... innate. An aspect of the sea itself is the influence of the moon on it, and it feels as if it is something that she knows in the way the sea knows the moon. She has, ever and always, felt its influence; she does not need to find her hope through memory and family. It simply... is.
That's... that's a lot to take in--hope as a force of nature instead of a learned response and rebellion.
Last then, is how these two inner aspects meet, because they do--there is a reason the cards have been placed as reflections of each other, because in some ways, they are. On one side, we have movement, journeying through oceans and seas and subconsciousness; on the other, we have obsession and focus and binding oneself so thoroughly in the past that it is inescapable. In Rán's hope there is a way forward; in Vali's obsession, there is remaking. One, hope itself; the other, influence by hope.
And in both, mending--shaping the world to suit what those desires are. Rán's is the natural shaping of the seas; Vali's the memory of how those seas shaped him (through Narfi) and how he might use that to reshape the ending into one that where no one is lost.
Complements.
Fuck.
It was a little surprising, drawing these cards and finding that this time, there's not a particular one that's for me. This week feels.... about connections, but also depths, and like a closer dive into both Rán and Vali and how they (might) interrelate within my practice--and that, too, is important to work out.
The left is for Rán; the right for Vali. The initial impression I have of this particular layout is one of surface and depths--and the depths are also how they both relate and conflict with each other. It is significant, I think, that both Vali and and Rán have celestial bodies; equally significant they both have cards that so strongly tie to binding, and the... way these are flipped, too--Vali's celestialism is on his sleeve, a front facing part of his nature, while Rán's binding is, too, part of her front facing.
Where to start, then?
Let's start with Rán's front facing aspect, then--Strength.
Strength is, typically, not a card about bondage, or rather--it's never been that in any of my other decks, and yet in this one, it very very much is. It's a gentle binding, make no mistake, but that doesn't change it is still restraining in a real physical way that most strength cards do not. But, and this is important, that restraining is also healing--note the fact the bunny stitching the ear is also fixing it, putting things back the way they should be.
The binding here is for helping; it is there as a safety measure, the way a cat is tranquilized before a surgery, or a person looks away before a shot. Once the fixing is done, there's the impression a person can get up and move away. Rán's relationship to this sort of binding, then, is one that is ultimately fluid--which ties to the inner self card of the Moon--but let's come back to that in a minute.
Strength's mirror, then, is Vali's inner truth--the Devil. And, immediately, it strikes me the central figure is healing too; she has a sewing needle in hand, and pins, and she is carefully stitching closed a torn open stomach, central in her focus. But, and this is very important to the card, this is a card of obsession and focus to the detriment of other aspects of one's life. The other rabbits are hung from the ceiling (a reference back to last week's Hanged Man, perhaps?), and there is nothing here but darkness, this attempt at a healing, and candles to attempt to hold that darkness at bay.
And doesn't that ring painfully true for Vali, forever chasing a way to undo what happened-happens-will happen? Attempting to put a family back together.
(Not to mention the devil as monster in western iconography; fitting, too.)
And that comparison, there is.... both, focused on healing, but where one is able to let go and move on (because she is able to repair what has been damaged), the other may not (at least, not yet).
Whew.
Now, Vali's public persona--the Star.
Gods, I could weep over this card and its fittingness. The star--hope and brilliance and wishes. What is Vali, if not all of these things in face of crushing circumstances? He does not hide his obsession/focus/binding so much as blind people to it through the sheer brilliance of his hope and belief.
Again, repair features--both his ears contain pins. Again water--the same pool of water that was beneath Temperance's (Rán's) feet last week, and there is so much water here. Water as in Narfi? That feels... right. Both of these gods are tied to the sea, aren't they? Rán as a part of her being, and Vali through the love and loss of his twin.
This card oozes kindness and gentleness, and is surrounded by the trappings of memory and family--faded photos and dolls, a half remembered room in its background. These too, have always felt so foundational to who and what he is, and what motivates him, and these are the things we know most about him--his family, more than him. Of course this is what he presents to the world, instead of the obsession that took me much of a year to learn.
And so, how is this reflected and contrasted in Rán's depths?
The Moon is a card of depths and dreams and the subconscious; it is a card about journeys, most often spiritual, and navigating the darkest parts of the soul. My eye is primarily drawn by the rabbit in the moon, watching over the proceedings--but also the one who guides along the winding path through a thousand stars and planets. Here, the needle is also a staff, an aid for walking, and she is not alone.
There's hope here--it's brilliant but subtle, and the hope feels like that of knowing one can find their way, provided they mark their path carefully. It feels most like Rán is the moon itself, not the traveler on the path, and the light she shines is one that illuminates the way forward, around and through the dangers that lie just off the path (the all too sharp needles just off the way).
But more, there is a largeness here that does not exist in stars--no matter how large stars are, they are not as close, and so often seem distant and small. But here, Rán is close, looms large, and is able to exist in a space where so many things are twisted into what they are not.
And... this hope is not rooted in the love of family and memory of said happiness the way Vali's is. Vali's hope was born of trauma and a family that taught him hope is a radical act.
Rán's hope feels... innate. An aspect of the sea itself is the influence of the moon on it, and it feels as if it is something that she knows in the way the sea knows the moon. She has, ever and always, felt its influence; she does not need to find her hope through memory and family. It simply... is.
That's... that's a lot to take in--hope as a force of nature instead of a learned response and rebellion.
Last then, is how these two inner aspects meet, because they do--there is a reason the cards have been placed as reflections of each other, because in some ways, they are. On one side, we have movement, journeying through oceans and seas and subconsciousness; on the other, we have obsession and focus and binding oneself so thoroughly in the past that it is inescapable. In Rán's hope there is a way forward; in Vali's obsession, there is remaking. One, hope itself; the other, influence by hope.
And in both, mending--shaping the world to suit what those desires are. Rán's is the natural shaping of the seas; Vali's the memory of how those seas shaped him (through Narfi) and how he might use that to reshape the ending into one that where no one is lost.
Complements.
Fuck.