Page ~ Princess of Wands — The Renaissance Tarot

[I forgot to ask a question again.]

Illustrator: Helen Jones
Author: Jane Lyle

Interpretation: "Ability. Creative beginnings. // ...an upsurge of the pace in everyday life. Original ideas, intuitive guidance, a desire to make new friends — all these may spring from inside ourselves. Outer events mirror this energy; there is often an increase in conversations, letters, invitations, short trips and social events."

How about: I would like an increase in conversations (with friends), letters (from friends), invitations (to visit friends), short trips (with friends) and social events (at my house).

Is grocery shopping or a trip to the doctor's a short trip? Is traveling to Quebec or Syracuse for the weekend or week a short trip or a long trip? Perhaps the length of the trip is determined by how long the trip feels. "Short trip" is supposed to seem positive whereas "errand" generally seems negative.

Maybe "short trip" means "brief psychedelic experience." From the on-line urban dictionary: "An adjective meaning cool, freaky, groovy, amazing, or all of the above, depending on the context in which it's used. ...the root word, "trip," refers to soft psychedelic trips and has been in use since the 60's."

When I wanted Martin to consider home birth, I didn't try too hard to be convincing. I handed him my only book on birth— Ina May Gaskin's book Spiritual Midwifery— where the natural birthing experience, as described by the husband, is always trippy, other-worldly, and extremely spiritual. After he'd read a bit, he said, "I'd like to experience that kind of energy." I was happy.

The short trip of birth (as opposed to the long trip of raising a child) will indeed herald new beginnings, an upsurge in the pace of life, and the need to come up with original ideas to solve every-day problems. It will necessitate following my intuition. I hope to make new friends who can help me with these things.

I could, perhaps, have picked another aspect of my life to relate this card to. I've used pregnancy a number of times. However, that's what gets my attention right now. Louann Brizendine, MD, director of the Women's Mood and Hormone Clinic at the University of California, San Francisco explains pregnancy brain, in part, like this: "There are 15 to 40 times more progesterone and estrogen marinating the brain during pregnancy, and these hormones affect all kinds of neurons in the brain." And, "You only have so many shelves in your brain so the top three are filled with baby stuff." Good enough for me.

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Page of Cups — The Russian Tarot of St. Petersburg

Artist: Yuri Shakov
LWB*: Stewart Kaplan

Interpretation: A studious and intent person. Reflective. Meditative. Loyal. Willingness to offer services and efforts toward a specific goal. A helpful person. Trustworthy.

[I think, from now on, if the LWB is completely at odds with how I generally view a card and has nothing in particular to say about a deck itself, as in this case, I shall cease to quote it, as it adds little to my insight.]

I love the Page of Cups. When my mom saw the image I drew for the card, she said it reminded her of Alice in Wonderland. Wonderful! The Page of Cups is my not-quite-rational, dreamy inner-girl-child. She reminds me: Be open to the unexpected. Listen to your intuition. Never cease to dream. And she reminds me to take a fresh perspective— a child-like view— when faced with difficult issues.

A couple of days ago I told my Big Sister I am going to have a baby. Six months is rather far along for just telling her, but we don't talk often. I didn't know how to bring it up sooner. I was afraid of feeling judged in one way or another. When I told her she said something like, "WHAT? Now you'll be Mom's favorite forever and ever." Which is silly and she knows it isn't true: I'm just Mom's most huggable child. I will have Mom's favorite grandchild by default: there are no others.

Having a child sets my sister and I down incomparably different paths. She is on the successful-career path and has succeeded, whereas I never quite tried hard enough. I am suddenly, after many years of much goofing-off, on a path of motherhood.

Today when I pulled a card, I remembered to ask a question: How does [my Big Sister] really feel about me having a baby? The answer is: the Page of Cups. Keep an open mind. If I expect a certain reaction, I am more likely to get it. If I expect to be judged, I will feel it. On the contrary, if I am able to be playful, to be open to unexpected feelings, to admit the possibility of a positive change in our relationship, I am more likely to be pleasantly surprised.

*LWB= the little white booklet that comes with most tarot decks

and tells, quite briefly, what each card is about

13. The Journey — The Wildwood Tarot

Artist: Will Worthington
Authors: Mark Ryan & John Matthews

This card corresponds to the Death card in the Marseille Tarot.

"The first step is to ask the initial question," write the authors. "This is the most overlooked part of any divinatory system... the act of asking focuses the mind. The desired answer or even the real question itself may be buried so deep in our own subconscious that we need the help of Tarot to reflect our own unknowable truth."

The truth is, I have not been asking a question other than which card will it be? what will it show me? When I pull cards for this blog, I am not searching for insight. I merely seek the ability to understand the cards more thoroughly. But if I want to get a better answer, I have to ask a better question.

This deck has caught me unawares. The book is extremely well written. I do not just want to jump to the card and see what it means. I want to read the book, understand where the authors are coming from, and move from there. I am the sort who reads instruction books cover-to-cover. I hope my book will be so enticing to others.

From the book—
It is time to face the inevitable, to let the bones be laid bare and acknowledge the deepest aspects of your fears and desires. Do not fear change, because this is also a time of purification and realignment. This change may seem extreme and destructive, but old crops must be cleared for new growth to thrive and static or sterile modes and concepts must perish. A celebration of the past or an acknowledgement of the passing of  one part of life may be required. Let the threads of the old slip from your fingers with joyful remembrance and enter this time of withdrawal and renewal with patience and calm.

I had trouble calling my death card "finished" for a long time. I was trying to illustrate death as something that begins in childhood and grows with life. Death is there all along; it is nothing new. I drew people of three ages dancing with snakes that grew with them, both the snakes and the people enjoying life. Death enjoys life. Over and over, death enjoys life. Still, something was missing. That something was death itself, a fourth stage of life, like the four seasons of the year. When I added the skull, death became complete. I was not afraid that death was part of life; I was afraid that death was part of death.

Here is a celebration. Before the birth of my child, celebrate the death of my self: my selfish-self: my self who wanted to be only-self for so many years and had "too much to" do to be devoted to another self. I think it would be a good thing: to say good-bye thoroughly to what I no longer need, that I might greet with purity what I desire.

I am excited for this death and birth of life.

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Five of Cups — Napo Tarot

Artist: Napo
Author: Betty Lopez

Interpretation: "Frustration prevents one from seeing the cups brimming with happiness. The three amphoras pour out illusions and bring dejection and melancholy. Disillusionment. Disappointment."

An amphora is a wheel-thrown terracotta container used to store liquid. If these amphoras are pouring out illusions, he must have thought his cargo was more precious than he found it to be upon spilling. Or perhaps it was very precious liquid indeed, and he was under the impression he would be able to manage it without spilling.

I just drew a five of cups two days ago. Am I disappointed and frustrated, as this card suggests? (possibly) Am I lying by not letting on how disappointed and frustrated I actually am? (possibly)

I thought I was going to be able to work through most of this pregnancy, but about a month and a half ago I got fired for pregnancy-induced-moodiness. Plus, my boss was an unappreciative jerk. I thought I was going to be able to be more active than I am, but five days ago I woke up with a pain in my neck so acute I went to see a chiropractor for the first time in my life. So, yeah, I'm frustrated and disappointed, but I don't think my illusions were that great. Not most of them. The illusion that the chiropractor might actually help was briefly large and wonderful. But nothing truly terrible and irredeemable has happened to me. Despite some long hours spent dwelling in the pits of despair, it's actually been quite good. I think it is important to spend a moment (but not too many moments) looking at what is lost before picking up and moving on. Things that are truly lost cannot be had again.

The act of loosing something is an act of presence. Once something is lost, the thing lost is in the past and the present has moved to another moment. It is important to keep up with the present— not in terms of the cut of our jeans or the operating system on our computers— but with our minds. If our minds are constantly elsewhere, then nothing will ever happen in the present. Nothing as good as what did happen or what could happen can happen now if the mind is not present.

Look at what spilled. Turn around. Look at what remains. Take this. Move on.

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Five of Cups — Tarot Piatnik Wien

[NOTE: I apologize in advance if these next few months turn out to be a blog of my pregnancy as revealed through the tarot deck, but we pregnant woman seem to be preoccupied with our own pregnancies.]

Artist: Rudolph Pointer

The interpretive book for this deck (a little white booklet commonly called the LWB) says very little about the individual cards, especially the minors. It has a something to say on cups in general, tho:

"When we have treated the Swords as a symbol of masculinity, it suggests itself to consider the cups decidedly as of a feminine character. The cup, the jug or the goblet are seen as receptacles, for receiving and holding. Often are they associated with feeling and emotion. The emptying of the two jugs on card No. XVII of the major Arcana [The Stars] means nothing else but the detachment from all sentimental bonds. // The cup as it contains fluids logically is matched with the element of water, and its celestial region is the north. // From the religious viewpoint the cup is often identified with the symbolic goblet held by Christ, or with the Holy Grail, the vessel containing Christ's blood."

Under divinatory meanings, this LWB says of this card upright, simply, "respect gained." Reversed, "Unpopularity." I am reading upright. I generally read the 5 of Cups as a period of change, where one need take special care to pay attention not only to the negative qualities, as can be easy, but to the positive aspects of the situation. Paying attention to the positive aspects during difficult time of change gains respect.

The greatest change going on in my life is that I am busy gestating. I put this off for so long (I'm 38!) because before, I could only focus on the negative aspects of having a child. There was a lot I wanted to do. I worked as little as possible and kept my bills low.

I traveled around Central America. I spent a year bicycling around the country. I traveled to the high arctic. I swam for hours on end out in the open ocean. I did things to see what it was like to do them and went to extremes. I played. And the beauties that I saw were incomparable.

At age 28 I decided I needed a profession. I learned to climb trees and became an excellent arborist: a good game. Still, I lived simply, somewhat selfishly, and generally alone.

Eventually I realized I needed to practice commitment. At age 36 I "bought" a house. [note: I will actually own the house at age 66.] A year later, I decided to fall in love and found a suitable candidate. A year later he moved in and I came down with sudden-onset-baby-desire syndrome. I realized, in the most honest sense of the word, I had nothing better to do. Having a child was the best thing. I have left behind the things I used to think were better.

I am surprised to gain respect from my friends who have children. My women-friends are wonderful mothers. I've always looked at them and their devotion to their children and thought, "I could never do that." Now I am ready to try.

Female-self as vessel. Womanly respect gained. Ever-child self and endless child-wonders left behind. Embody motherhood.

Ace of Cups — The Fantasy Showcase Tarot

[NOTE: Although I've had this deck for a number of years, I've always been afraid to shuffle it in fear that I would thereafter never be able to tell what many of the cards are. Now it's shuffled.]

Artist: C. Lee Healey

Interpretation: "Great love; fertility; bounty; productiveness."

Ace of cups. To be full of love. The greatest love one can offer out is true love of one's self. How can one truly love others if one does not love one's self?

I am pregnant by means of love, showing my fertility, the bounty of which should be a child in another four months' time, demonstrating my (re)productiveness. In order to best love my child, I need to act with love toward myself.

Last night I dreamed I was a fuzzy little winged-creature of the soaring (not flapping) type. I was clinging to the edge of a precipice with a strong updraft. I wondered, if I spread my wings and leapt and soared just right, could I go outward, round a small promontory in the cliff face, and land once more clinging to the vertical stone on the other side? My friends encouraged me. I leapt and plummeted down, down, with the cliff face shooting up before me as I fell faster and faster, the wind whipping through my wings at breakneck speed and the darkness ever deepening. It was a significant moment before I realized I needed to learn to flap if I was ever going to return to the cliff. I flapped as hard as I could, my body seeming heavier each moment, my forward movement barely negligible, my downward movement reaching terminal velocity.

Thus was the dream.

What impressed me about the dream is that I didn't panic. Panicking would have been a waste of time. I thought only for a moment that, by the time I returned to the cliff face, I would have to climb upwards thousands of feet out of the darkness. There is no point in worrying about the scarcity of handholds or the integrity of the rock or the height of a climb on a cliff face I might never reach.

Moral: Take care of the present, and the future will take care of itself.