Sacred Days of Yule
deck: The Charles Dickens Tarot
1. Mother Night of Dreams: - Dec 20th
This card reminds us to look for a particular message in our dreams tonight. The ancients believed that our dreams on this night foretold some of the important events in the coming year.
Card:
5 of Fire - John Jasper
John Jasper is both Edwin Drood's uncle and guardian and the music master to his nephew's fiance, Rosa Bud. This places him in a dilemma, as he inwardly lusts after the latter and despises the former. As the choirmaster of Cloisterham Cathedral and a respected man of the community, this conflict splinters Jasper at the very seams. It may account for his addiction to opium and the dream world he escapes to as solace for his divided self.
The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the unfinished novel Dickens was working on at the time of his death. This death and unfinishedness is suggestive of the end of the agrarian cycle and the onset of winter, where the fire goes underground as it were, as did Persephone. These are allusions to the Eleusinian Mysteries, as is the botanically named Rosa Bud, seen on the Charles Dickens Tarot Moon card - the natural card of dreams. It's unclear if Jasper took to opium as respite from his conflicted soul or if his love-hate tug-of-war was the product of his opium dreams. What is clear is the pious, respectable world Jasper inhabits has caused the Eleusinian seed planted inside him to moulder, becoming ingrown and seedy. The macabre image of Drood's body slowly smouldering away from the corrosive effects of quicklime in the catacombs beneath Cloisterham Cathedral can be seen then as a nightmarish male parody of Persephone and Demeter. Many Dickens fans have tried their hand at dreaming up conclusions for the incomplete
Drood, the more outlandish and fantastical the better, even though - or perhaps for this very reason - Jasper is obviously Drood's murderer. Some posit the basis of Jasper's inner strife is homosexual in nature (what the Victorians called
inversion), his "love" of Rosa being the unhealthy transference of his love for his nephew, Edwin.
On a personal level, I read this card as the interruption of a dream, the dying embers of a certain constellation of dreams. The world of escape and drugs have grown nightmarish. Youthful ideals, like Edwin and Rosa's betrothal, have been outgrown. To hold onto them, to lock them away, is to fuel the fire of discord and self-destruction. The light, the germ, and the wakening is - in Jungian terms -
Individuation, where the human psyche sprouts from the inherited dream of the undifferentiated unconscious through the psychic process of life experienced. A psyche impeded, half-baked, and otherwise lost in a mirage of imago, idyll, and ideation, becomes the self-imposed hostage of a personal Hades.
2. Yule - Winter Solstice: - Dec 21st
This card shows us how best to connect to the Light within and without - it symbolizes the Birth of the Sun.
Card:
5 of Earth - Bob Cratchit & Tiny Tim
Well, the characters on this card and the situation therein don't demand too much expository preamble, since almost everyone recognizes them from
A Christmas Carol. That they are the ragged, crippled figures from the RWS 5 of Pentacles is also fairly obvious. Here, father and son are outside the walls of what could be called a modern-day church - a bank. This, along with the bobby in the distance observing their tramp, symbolize the material comforts denied them. Nevertheless, as we know, the Cratchit family are models of enduring, being grateful for what they have, and sharing in the commerce of love rather than worldly wealth. And no member is more naturally gifted in this than Tiny Tim - the youngest of the clan, whose hardship is the greatest.
Here, on the 5 of Earth card, father and son I perceive are heading home - Bob with the buoyancy of humility and compassion, Tim with the pluck of youthful sincerity and the virtue of innocence, doing honour - as the name Timothy means - to God. Tim's eyes look forward while his father's eyes look timidly at the reader - neither look covetously or resentfully at the bank. With today's solicitation - how to best connect with the light within & without - the 5 of Earth's suggestion seems clear: rather than dissipating one's energy dwelling on how one goes without, kindle the love that lives within. One's heart is one's hearth - share it; through gratitude comes grace. Our sun,
Sol, is the centre of our universe, giving light in the dark and warmth in the cold; let's allow our centre,
our soul, to be as charitable - even when, like today the solstice, it is farthest away.
3. The Time of Beth: - Dec 22nd
This card points to the inner blocks and resistance that is holding us back from following our dreams.
Card:
3 of Water - The Crummles Strolling Players
With today's question - what holds us back from following our dreams - and the Hebrew word
Beth - meaning "house" - the 3 of Water card houses a number of ironies. The novel is
Nicholas Nickleby, one of Dickens' earliest, with Nicholas clearly a version of the young author. Avoiding the harsh realities of London and his uncle, Nicholas joins a traveling theatre troupe and there - in what in some ways is the opposite of a house - finds a home. He quickly becomes a great success at gussying-up middling French plays for the provincial English stage and playing the heartsick lead in
Romeo & Juliet, but when his sister and mother run into trouble, Nicholas abandons the Crummles and rushes to his family's aid.
Designed as a humorous interlude in the novel, it nevertheless reflects Dickens' first passion: the stage. If it hadn't been for an incapacitating flu and his sudden success as a creative writer, Dickens was all set to follow that passion - the dream to be a great actor and impresario - a dream which may very well have come true, thereby denying the world of Dickens the novelist. As it happened, Dickens acted throughout his life, wrote and produced plays - even managing front of house - and maintained his own amateur acting troupe. Indeed, the stage is where he met the future love of his life, Ellen Ternan, curiously presaged in
Nickleby and the 3 of Water card in the Crummles' daughter: The Infant Phenomenon. Ellen had been a child actress, actually being billed as an "infant phenomenon".
For all his love of everything theatrical, Dickens was not a skilled playwright. If he had been able to fulfill his dream, he would've been denied his true calling as a writer of some of the world's best known fictional characters, not to mention his role as social critic - the impact of which was immeasurable on the lives and mindset of every stratum of Victorian society. As much as Dickens felt the kinship and loved the fellowship of the theatre's motley group of misfits, his inner desire for prestige, popularity, and a home life led him outwardly away from this dream. While Dickens kept his dream alive when not writing and larded his novels with a theatricality quite to the public's delight, these outward gains eventually became for him a jail. He became stereo-typed in a role of his own making, and was only able to break free from it by improvising and acting out a false persona for his audience.
On a personal level, the inner force that holds me back from following certain dreams may be a need or predilection for structure -
beth. The entertaining allure of the exaggerated and offbeat characters who people the Crummles Strolling Players may reflect a youthful fascination, but it's one which doesn't sustain. Certainly, and simply, a major impediment to the realization of my otherwise dogged enterprising is a mortifying case of stage fright. Where Dickens was a natural performer, I am the personification of performance anxiety and shun few things more than the spotlight.
4. Hopi Time of Renewal - Dec 23rd
This card indicates the best way for us to seek purification and renewal, and to build tolerance for others.
Card:
5 of Air - Thomas Gradgrind
the 3rd 5 of 4 - unusual. Generally speaking, 5s indicate conflict,
Hard Times indeed. Here, the school superintendent and later MP Thomas Gradgrind seems to signify order, stability, and concord. And he does - taken to an absurd extreme. His exaggerated Utilitarianism is not only totally impractical, but it deforms the brains and degrades the souls of his students; notably, his own children Thomas and Louisa.
Because of his adamant allegiance to pragmatism and profit at the expense of the imagination and pleasure, Gradgrind gradually grinds down the psyches of all who fall into his orbit. As a result, his son Tom becomes a gambler and thief, while his daughter Louisa is imprisoned in a loveless marriage, contemplates adultery, and - in a state of utter desolation - induces her father finally to see the error of his ways. Gradgrind, then, is that unique thing in a Dickens novel and in real life - someone whose character undergoes a fundamental change. With his attitude and behaviour enlightened, he becomes a much better man and father, for which he naturally suffers the ridicule and ostracization of his peers - the distinguished Victorian gentlemen of the House of Parliament.
With today's solicitation to seek purification and renewal, I hope - unlike Gradgrind's family - those around me aren't driven to enmity and despair before I recognize the error of my ways. That said, I have grown more uptight, authoritative, and impatient as I've aged, all at the expense of happiness - my own and those around me. Blockheaded adherence to fact is radically unsatisfactory. Rather, the acceptance and embrace of everything human allows for the communion between people essential for emotional health and spiritual growth. In turn, this engagement opens one up to the animal and plant kingdoms and the greater world as a whole. Instead of improving their lot, the demands and criticisms I make of others only alienate them which, in turn, alienates me. Dwelling in the heart rather than the head may help me to remain generous of spirit and remember it is I who needs help and instruction, not them.
5. Feast of Mothers, Christmas Eve: - Dec 24th
This card shows how we can connect with the spirits of our ancestors for communion and to ask for wisdom and guidance. It is also a time for Christians to reflect on the birth of Christ.
Card:
Mother of Water - Clara Peggotty
David Copperfield's Peggotty is the most open-hearted, nurturing character in The Charles Dickens Tarot; she is the mother of all the Mother cards in the deck. A model of unconditional love, she also supplies and so represents the solid emotional grounding which allows a child to grow with confidence into adulthood. Her stabilizing effect facilitated David's dreams of becoming a famous writer. Having no dark side herself to speak of, the shadow aspect of this card is represented by David's actual mother, who accordingly shares Peggotty's Christian Name: Clara. Mrs. Copperfield loved her son, but unlike Peggotty, her temperament and social position were fragile. In male-dominated Victorian England, David's widowed mother believed her marriage to Mr. Murdstone would be the best thing for her and her son. Instead, not only was it the death of her, but it forced David down the hard road to becoming a man. Like Christ, David Copperfield's paternity was uncertain. With today the ultimate day of the Virgin Mary's parturition - albeit symbolically - this is both the accumulated moment of everything that came before and the great promise of what is to come. With this in mind, I decided to pull a second card...
Card:
The Hermit IX Philip Pirrip
Well, this as it turns out is the most complicated card in the CDT deck; to extrapolate on it in full would take until Christmas. Some of the key ideas germane to today's allocation: Like young Copperfield, Pip is an orphan who knows nothing of his heritage. On the card's left - the past - stands a church with a graveyard as the sun sets, while on the right in the future shines a full moon above the sea; Pip in the center is the eternal now, the hinge between what was and what will be. In his lantern, which Pip both protects and warms his mitts on, is the union of opposites - the male sun and the female moon, the inward and the out. He is the son, who becomes a man the hard way - through the complete revaluation of his expectations of what real love and family are. Here he is a boy, but his arms are those of a man. Pip is overwrought with self-pity, and is indeed pitiable. His future is shadowy and unknown, but he must embrace the dark, the secret, and the mutable if he is to outgrow his illusions and inborn sense of disgrace. In the end, fire will engulf his false mother, water will drown the evil which infects his story, and the sea will carry him to the cradle of the cradle of Western Civilization - Pip's flight into Egypt. The name Mary in Hebrew means "bitterness" and cognates with the Latin
mare meaning "sea", suggesting the false cognate
nightmare. Mariology centers on the maternal - pity, devotion, redemption, and grace. I will try to center myself on these gifts today, and in the coming days spent with family.
6. Festival of Life, Christmas: - Dec 25th
This card shows us how to connect directly with Spirit.
Card:
Mother of Earth - Amy Dorrit
Amy Dorrit - affectionately called "Little Dorrit" - is a bridge. Here, on the Mother of Earth card, she stands half on a bridge and half in the Marshalsea debtor's prison. Born in prison, she grew to a young woman in the Marshalsea, although many still consider her a child due to her small stature and deferential manner. She and her family have been made criminals because of her father's inability to pay a small debt. Allowed to leave the prison by day, Little Dorrit works as a maid to provide for her father and family. Her father, William Dorrit [
cf. 4 of Air] is infirm and penniless, yet retains a fragile air of nobility. When he inherits a small fortune, the Dorrit family go from rags to riches overnight, and they all indulge in their newfound status and luxury - all save Little Dorrit, who remains the same sincere, unaffected woman she's always been. When the man she secretly admires is himself imprisoned in the Marshalsea, she sacrifices all her resources to save him.
Little Dorrit is both child and mother, seemingly the weakest person in the novel but in actuality the strongest. In a world built of deceit, illusion, cruelty, and false divisions, she embodies the spirit of humility, generosity, guilelessness, and grace. With today's direction, "how to connect directly with Spirit", the suggested aim is to remain humble and persevering, see things for what they are not what they proclaim to be, give even in poverty, and foster the emancipating riches of the heart rather than the imprisoning world of Maya. A precept apropos Christmas day, its downright mangy origins spoiled by consumerism. "Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains." The incarceration of incarnation, a reality of life worsened by men's attitudes and actions, the delivery from which the birth of Christ is symbol.
Out of curiosity, I pulled another card just to see what it would be - if it would reinforce the Little Dorrit card, contradict it, or just be nonsense. I pulled
Strength
Still curious, I wondered what the opposite of Little Dorrit would be, her shadow as it were. I pulled
Mother of Fire - Miss Havisham
7. Yuletide, Kwanzaa: - Dec 26th
This card shows us how to express nurturance, to attend to our families and to express the protective energy within us towards others.
Card:
The Devil XV Poverty
The Devil card pulled with the solicitation to express nurturance may seem odd - it would with the RWS deck at any rate, but less so with the CDT. The closest thing to a physical devil character on this card is Fagin, the red-haired miserly kidsman (an adult who recruits children into criminal gangs) of London's Victorian-era underworld. As with the walrus and the carpenter, there's been much debate to determine who was the more evil, Bill Sikes or Fagin - Sikes being a heartless brute but Fagin arguably more inhuman precisely because he possessed a trace of humanity. In the end, of course, both ate as many oysters as they could get. Much has also been made of Fagin's Jewishness, and while the devil we know originated in Jewish legend, Western Civilization has done its darnedest to shape that devil in its own image. Opposite "the Jew" (as the novel repeatedly calls him), less adversary than Fagin's compatriot in adversity, sits Oliver Twist, the orphaned innocent in a world of hardship and cruelty. Oliver is what Fagin and Sikes once were, and they what Oliver is on the path to becoming. Here, it will be remembered, the Devil is Poverty, not a person. Societal disparity leads directly to despair, suffering, and criminality. The greed of the haves creates the so-called evil of the have-nots. Without compassion and generosity of the spirit - the kind afforded within a family - even what little the defenseless, the infirm, the least among us have, that too shall be taken away. Not by God, or Providence, but by us.
The faceless figure in the card's center reveals the two ragged children shown to Scrooge near the end of
A Christmas Carol. The boy is Ignorance and the girl is Want. On the boy's brow is written Doom, "unless the writing be erased." Unless we understand that all humanity is a family which needs protection, purpose, and a share in the greater prosperity, we will continue to be conquered by our own divide. Making devils of what we deem
other - be it the poor, the young, "the Jew" - engenders dissolution, pain, and the indenture of all. Shining light on the dark dirty secret of the division of peoples is the soul of the true authority, the Golden Rule: loving the
other as oneself. When whatever you do to the least of these brothers and sisters, you do to me, the me in this case - as in all cases - is you. And the you is me.
8. Birth of Freyja: - Dec 27th
This card points to issues of love, luck, artistic and creative expression and female wisdom.
Card:
The Weal of Fortune X
This card certainly concerns luck. The novel it revolves around,
Barnaby Rudge, was set to be Dickens' first, but due to other obligations, it became the author's fifth instead - luckily, for had
Rudge been the young novelist's introduction to the public, he may never have written another book again. While
Rudge was mostly ignored, it's biggest influence came through it's central female character, Dolly Varden. Today's dedication to Freyja is apt for Dolly, since both were what could be called party-girls (one of Freyja's names is Mardöll). Dolly Varden had a style of dress named after her, inspired songs and musicals, became a kind of cake, and the namesake of a species of trout. The raven below the X of the mechanical timepiece at the card's core is Grip, Barnaby Rudge's pet and the novel's familiar. The bird was based on Dicken's real-life pet crow, and it so impressed Edgar Allen Poe that he actually got a Grip - purchasing the taxidermied corvid and penning his poem
The Raven.
Rudge was also the literary inspiration for Dostoyevsky's
The Idiot.
The CDT's alt-title for the RWS Wheel of Fortune card is The Weal of Fortune, an allusion to the societal themes of poverty, class, and religion in the novel and its historical basis. Certainly, Dickens' concern for the plight of the underclass suffused his work with artistic strength and merit. May Day celebrations, with its May Day pole dancing and May Day queen seen on the right of the Weal of Fortune card, was a pagan ritual beloved by the people and Queen Elizabeth I, yet she was compelled by her Protestant privy council to outlaw it. Along with the novel's riots and military reaction, these ideas allude to the clamp-down on creative expression endemic to England's history. Dickens himself managed to avenge a private grudge in
Rudge by naming the mansion which burns to the ground The Warren - a symbol of Warren's blacking factory where he slaved as a boy.
This Weal of Fortune card suggests chaos, manipulation, and plodding mechanics all at once, where the intended is a misstep and the accidental perfectly fits. With today's allocation, this may suggest Freyja's role as
völva, a Norse magician involved in determining the course of Fate. To that end, I will try to stay aware of the seemingly accidental today and in the coming year, to acknowledge where stubborn attempts at human intent are fruitless and where chance and mishap reveal an otherwise hidden path.
9. Feast of Alcyone: - Dec 28th
This card gives us a personal inner message - one that speaks directly to our heart and spirit.
Card:
Son of Water - David Copperfield
The Son of Water is the Knight of Cups in RWS terminology. David Copperfield - a character almost everyone knows - is a stand-in for Charles Dickens himself, become the hero of his own story. Here, on the CDT card, is the pre-adolescent David, his image captured in a locket encompassed by his mother's hair - a sentimental Victorian mode of keepsake. In the background is a field at night - one of the desolate places young David slept rough on his trek from his indenture at Warren's Blacking factory in London to his Great-Aunt, Betsey Trotwood, in Kent. This was a route Dickens would come to know well in his later years, as he traveled it back and forth from his home at Gad's Hill to the house of his secret mistress, Ellen Ternan.
David, of course, is the focus of the novel, with all things revolving around him; this being the nature of subjectivity, wherein each of us is the hero - or perhaps anti-hero - of our own story. For everyone else, David can be frustrating - as with his ridiculous marriage to Dora Spenlow - and embarrassing - as with his blind adoration of the scoundrel, James Steerforth - and even something of a bore when compared to the colourful characters who orbit him - Wilkins Micawber, Mr. Dick, Rosa Dartle, the Peggottys, Uriah Heep. Really, it is the people who comprise the extended family around the orphaned David who make his story so memorable and beloved, even as without him, the author, we wouldn't have the story.
Water is the suit I feel innately akin with. I am a Pisces, my partner is Scorpio, my mother is Cancer, and many of the friends in my life have been water signs. Being an only child, and living in close proximity to my parents, facilitates for me an easy affinity with the role of son. Perhaps it is a role I am in danger of sentimentalizing? one I need to grow out of or run away from like David did the blacking factory? or perhaps I need to recognize the extended family surrounding me who allow me to be the hero of my own story, their influence good or bad, and give them the appreciation due.
To get a clearer understanding of today's allocation of a personal inner message, I decided to pull 2 cards: one for the heart, and one for the spirit. The first card I pulled was
The Ace of Water
The emotional significance of this card vis-a-vis the heart seems self-evident. In the CDT, Water on the Ace is symbolized by the Thames River, its Brittonic Celtic name meaning
dark and in Victorian times frequently referred to as
Isis - mother goddess of creation, magic, wisdom, death, & resurrection. Water itself symbolizes love, feeling, fertility, bounty, fidelity, the subconscious, and the benevolent creative wellspring.
The second card I pulled for spirit was
9 of Fire - Abel Magwitch
Magwitch is the convict from
Great Expectations whom another orphan - Pip - aids in the marshes of the Medway in Kent. Unbeknownst to Pip, Magwitch becomes his benefactor as Pip meantime goes astray under the influence of Miss Havisham, Estella, and the snares of affluence and prestige. Like a soul, Magwitch is caged, but like a Guardian Angel Magwitch is able to convey to the wayward Pip the false-front of the world, help him see beneath its facade to the realities underlying it, thereby enabling him to value only those things of true worth.
10. Day of Nymphs - Dec 29th
This card encourages us to connect to our playful side, our inner child and how best to cultivate this aspect of ourselves.
Card: The Lovers VI
With today's upbeat theme, I half wondered if I wasn't about to pull the 10 of Air - Bill Sikes card. Instead of that ironic card, I pulled the apposite Lovers. My lover happens to be staying with me over the holidays, and we are set to make a small getaway in a couple of days as a break from all the familial Christmas duties. The Lovers card depicts the young Charles Dickens and his new bride Catharine Hogarth dressed as the lead characters from
Romeo & Juliet. These portraits were made by the couple's friend Daniel Maclise, with the one of Charles being used as frontispiece for
Nicholas Nickleby.
On the left, Friar Laurence is played by Vincent Crummles (coincidently, Lawrence is my lover's last name). As seen on the 3 of Water card [Dec. 22 above], Nicholas Nickleby joined the Crummles Strolling Players and made a splash playing Romeo. Like Nickleby, Dickens loved the theatre, putting on amateur productions at home using members of his family, including his wife Catharine. Here, Juliet's mother, Lady Capulet, is played by Catharine's mother, Georgina Hogarth.
With today's playful allocation, The Lovers card suggests a few things, all of which are fairly straightforward. Foremost, of course, is the indulgence in matters amorous. There is also the idea that all the world's a stage - we are playing parts in a play, so may as well have as much fun with it as we can. The dark side of this is we are people underneath the roles we are assigned, and must keep distinct the person and the persona. Eventually, dissatisfied with his home life, Dickens threw himself into his work in a prolonged act of avoidance. Along with passion, The Lovers is a card of choice and responsibility. Just as all work and no play is dull, so is all play and no work - a balance must be struck, then, between fidelity and playing house and a person's individual identity. The way Dickens involved his wife and family in his love of theatre - literally building a theatre in their home - is symbol of this union between affection and affectation, performance and being oneself, and the often conflicting obligations had between the ego and the affianced other.
11. Day of Rest: - Dec 30th
This card shows us how to walk our path in a relaxed and confident way....with the ability to deal with stressful situations in a philosophical, detached way.
Card:
Father of Water - Joe Gargery
Joes Gargery is a simple blacksmith - he hammers together unwieldy things. He is one of the biggest-hearted characters in all of Dickens, and one of the humblest. He is Pip's uncle in
Great Expectations, but his role is more of a father figure - in fact, it's also that of a mother figure, his love for the boy being unconditional. When his wife is paralyzed, Joe patiently nurses her. When Pip, grown snobbish with wealth and privilege and embarrassed of his humble beginnings, is rude to Joe, Joe discreetly exits Pip's life. Not a rich man, he nevertheless quietly pays all of Pips debts before leaving. In the end, Joe marries the honest and good-natured Biddy, the country school teacher Pip himself should've courted rather than the cold-hearted Estella.
With today's card showing us how to deal with stress philosophically, the Father of Water is a character who is often out of his depths, just barely treading water in the deep end. Joe is a big strong man, but he never uses it to leverage advantage. Instead, he is highly compassionate and first and foremost, forgiving. When the convicts escape at the beginning of the novel, and everyone else is concerned for their own safety, Joe is occupied with the welfare of the prisoners. His kindness and generosity are a model of grace. Unlike the book's protagonist Pip, Joe's integrity is rewarded at the end of
Great Expectations with a loving wife and family. Joe's great skill is humility, buoyed with honesty and compassion. His shadow side is sorrow, the sadness which is real life rather than the vainglory and empty allure of our ego's expectations.
Curious as to what this card's opposite would be - and, frankly, if the cards which have been so fitting so far would continue to be - I pulled the
9 of Air - Lady Dedlock.
Lady Dedlock is a character who has been kept from loving and so from living. She abandoned the child she had out of wedlock (the 1 remaining Water court card not yet drawn,
Daughter of Water - Esther Summerson) and, living by society's rules rather than the rules of her own heart, she married a man of wealth and prestige old enough to be her father. Her outside world is gilt, her inner world is guilt. Hating herself, she has tried to be in everything resigned, but rather than apathetic, she seethes with resentment and shame. Her name - Honoria Dedlock - says it all. She is without question a cautionary tale; an excellent example of how
not to walk one's path in a confident and detached way.
12. New Year's Eve, Hogmanay - Dec 31st
This card shows us how to release the old and let in the new. This relates to both our external lives and our inner being.
Card:
The High Priestess II Ellen Ternan
For 13 years, Ellen Ternan maintained a secret love affair with Charles Dickens. When he died suddenly, she disappeared into obscurity. When she emerged years later, she was 13 years younger - or at least claimed to be. Certainly her new husband, clergyman George Robinson, believed she was 24 rather than 37. When he eventually discovered the truth of her past with Dickens, he suffered a nervous breakdown from which he never recovered.
At first, Nelly's relationship with Dickens was platonic. When she finally succumbed to his advances, she felt shame. The covertness of the affair made her a kept woman. For a time she lived in France where she bore Dickens a boy; the child did not live long. Returning to England along with her mother and Dickens, Nelly was aboard a train that crashed in what became known as the Staplehurst disaster (cf. The Tower card). These traumas underscored her own sense of crime and punishment, even though it was in essence society's prejudices which kept her relationship with Dickens illicit and society's verdict on that relationship as sin which haunted her.
With today's year-end solicitation, to let go the old and welcome the new, Nelly Ternan is a model of nimbleness and renewal, both on the mundane plain and the intangible. Outliving Dickens by many years, she never jeopardized his reputation by revealing publicly her critical role in his life. Faced with an uncertain future, she completely reinvented herself to Victorian era standards. She maintained close bonds with her own mother and sisters, as well as a lifelong friendship with Dickens' sister-in-law, Georgina Hogarth, and his daughter, Kate Perugini. Within herself, she knew the truth and value of the love she shared with the great author, and kept its secret as a hidden source of solace. Outwardly, she steeled herself, her mettle an alloy; along with solace came indignity - the former she used as balm, the latter as incentive.
Much of the Charles Dickens Tarot turns on this card, Ellen Ternan being - although unseen - a major and pervasive influence in Dickens' later life. In 2019, when I turn 50, my partner of 11 years [a Scorpio] is coming to live with me [a Pisces], which will also affect the family dynamic here, where my parents also reside [my mother being a Cancer]. Associated with emotions and spirit essentially, the zodiacal water signs generally, and issues concerning the female side of ourselves, The High Priestess - always an important card for me - stands as both a well-spring and incentive for the coming year - a year which promises much change.
.
And the back up that I can deal with the 'repercussions' of it all.