Sacred Days of Midsummer night's dream

[chiscotheque]

June 14: This card shows how my inspiration and creativity is manifesting.

Card: The Hanged Man XII Odin

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Reading: This card has always felt unfinished to me. The nature of creativity itself is unfinished.

The card's number within the Major Arcanum is 12; 1 + 2 = 3. Its number within the entire Tarot sequence is 69, the year of my birth and a visual pun on the symbol for Cancer - my mother's sign, minion of the moon and my own moon sign, and the stage the sun and us will enter at the solstice.

A cup is spilled, as though wasted, but it may feed the seeds in the ground. The suffering here of The Hanged Man is said to indicate Judas, who in turn reflects the Son of Man. ‘Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.’

Here, the card's alternate title is Odin, the Norse (not Finnish) god of healing, wisdom, death, victory, and poetry. We see him here hung from the World Tree, inventing language from fallen twigs - runes from out the ruins. The price: an eye. By extension, he sacrificed his sense of self, his "I". For me, then, for creativity not to fester but to manifest, I need to risk more of myself, suspend the language of the past in search of the new, and not be impatient to prematurely deem my work "finished".

Underlining all this is the skull, like Yorick's, spoken to by Hamlet at Ophelia's grave. It marks Hamlet's acceptance of his fate and the irrelevance of yore.

To the right, 2 ensconced heads - ghosts, judgmental relics, let the dead bury the dead. Above them, a bird. For the last month out my window, I have watched a robin build a nest, his partner brood in it, the pair attend to their chicks, and the fledglings fly the coop. This morning I spied one of the parents demonstrate to its child how to search for worms. Two dishes, but to one table.

Head over heals, I must stay awake to instinct, chance, and to the great teacher: nature.

When down, look up. Creativity is a dream - it has no bottom.

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[chiscotheque]

June 15: An ancient Roman festival dedicated to Vesta, Goddess of the Hearth. This card shows us our hearth, the fire at the center of our life and home, and how to tend to it.

Card: 7 of Earth / Capricorn

Reading: In the RWS, this card depicts a farmer waiting for the fruits of his labour. Here, a shepherd takes a goat by the horns as it were, and slaughters the animal. It may be that the goat is ill and needs to be destroyed for its own good or the good of the flock, or it may simply be time to take the goat to market; either way, the animal's death is a kind of sacrifice. A sacrifice is a loss for the greater good. Despite what it may seem, the 7/Earth is a card of tending, tenderness, husbandry, harvest, and - perhaps most importantly - pragmatism and agency.

With this in mind, I read this card in a hands-on way, that is: I have planted a garden and am in the process of tending it. I have a number of projects to complete this summer, such as replacing the glass in my greenhouse and helping my mother recoup from knee surgery. The fruit trees, which I have been fostering the past few years, are full of fruit this season. And animals abound in their way on my property - for the last 2 weeks I've been watching mother and father robins raise a clutch of chicks outside my window, 2 days ago I had to shoo a deer away, I shot and killed a rat with an air rifle yesterday, and just this morning my father told me of a cougar sighting a mere block away.

On a deeper level, whatever it is I harvest this year may come at a personal cost. I have always been partial to goats - possibly because of their stubborn disrespect for humans - so the appearance of one being slain here may indicate something akin to "kill your darlings". This card openly refers to the Cain and Abel story, where Cain the farmer killed his brother Abel the shepherd, whereupon God his father cast him from Eden. Within the Jewish tradition of scapegoats, one goat kid is sacrificed while its sibling is set loose in the wild. The home I live at and manage is the property of my parents, and of course I am their kid. The Son of Man's mission in part was to put an end to blood sacrifice, and I - without putting too fine a point on it - am my parent's only child and have no children myself, therefore I am the end of our bloodline.

Affiliated with Capricorn (capri= goat, corn = grain) and that star sign's proclivity to industry, one of this card's meanings is the "fulfillment of a contract". Here, aligned with the goat that nursed the baby Zeus, it may foretoken some tragedy - a Greek word meaning goat song - with my parents, specifically my father.

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[chiscotheque]

June 16: Remembrance of the tears of Isis causing the Nile River to overflow. This card shows what our emotions are telling us at this time.

Card: 7 of Fire / Evangelist

Reading: The evangelist of the card's alternative title reads the "good news" from a sheet of paper like a TV anchorman. This is the official story, what one is programmed and instructed to say. In his other hand, the evangelist holds a mask - the self he shows the world. The key here is he's not wearing it but holding it out like the piece of paper, suggesting a conflict between outward duty and inner honesty. This conflict seems to be playing out behind him: a shadowy, amorphous figure either steps out of or into what looks to be a Jesus Christ bodysuit. The unconscious - the wellspring of emotions - is both trying to fit into an upstanding, angelic role and trying to step out of it.

What this tells me about what my emotions are telling me is they feel constrained, inhibited from being what they truly are by societal (super-ego) and self-imposed (ego) expectations. Editing what I feel - even if "for the good" - leads to misinformation and distortion of the truth. This in turn leads to confusion in the outside world, dilemmas of identity and role-playing in the world, and crucially: an emotional disconnect within. This last disconnect informs the real message here - wearing costumes, imposing fiats, and regurgitating preconceived notions - even if sacrosanct and high-minded - lead directly to the very thing they evangelize against, namely: the silencing of the soul's discourse with the spirit.

In short, there is a little too much preachy outward focus in me these days. I need to shut up and listen, and let my amorphous shadow be itself rather than shoe-horn it into someone else.

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[swedishfish612]

I hope it's okay for me to respond in your thread; I'm not sure of the etiquette so please let me know if you prefer I didn't, and I will delete!

I like the way you read that goat in your 7 of Earth card yesterday. Tarot can speak to use in the coolest ways! Looking forward to more of your reads for this!

[chiscotheque]

I hope it's okay for me to respond in your thread...

Of course. anyone can say anything. it's funny with Tarot, how the same cards in different circumstances mean totally different things. It's a little like a song - you can play it with a Latin flare, or a New Orleans shuffle, an experimental edge, or as medieval plainsong. Like the Kurt Vonnegut short story by Kilgore Traot (sic), the Tarot could be subtitled My Name Is Everyone, later to be renamed Who Am I This Time?


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[chiscotheque]

June 17: Celebrating the ancient Roman goddess for whom the month of June is named, this card shows us an area of fertile growth in our lives.

Card: Judgment XX Our Glass

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Reading: This is the penultimate card of the Gnostic Tarot. My first feeling is that fertile growth in my life can be found in endings, and more to the point: in the finality of all things, which gives shape and informs us of what is imperative and essential.

The figure at the bottom of the card rises from a hole like a seed sprouting from the ground. The upper level may be heaven, just as the lower level may be the underworld; for a short time, we are between the two. The horizontal figure drops sand from one hand to the other suggesting the transitoriness of human agency and the hour glass implied in the card's alternate title, Our Glass. A glass is a mirror, and fertile growth comes from reflection.

Mirrors are made of sand, and the dwindling sand may be in the hand of the sandman - the bringer of sleep. This is a liminal, twilight world of waking sleep. A scary world, but who am I to judge? Fertility comes from rest, the internal digestion of raw external materials, and the opening of the 3rd eye.

One character is vertical and the other horizontal, suggesting the union of opposites which the Christian cross symbolizes. What Jung called the coniunctio oppositorum, and the personal masterpiece of one's life. What greater growth than this alignment? The 20th letter in Hebrew is resh meaning head; the Hebrew letter signifying 20 is kaf, meaning hand; the two must meet here, at the heart.


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[chiscotheque]

June 18: As the strawberries ripen, this card shows us the sweetness in our lives and encourages us to live in the moment.

Card: The World XXI Understudy

Reading: The last card of the deck suggests the fulness of the world, and indeed the universe, through the divine spirit of the Anima Mundi. Like the Nataraja Shiva, she dances in a mandorla, suggesting unity and inwardness, while around her a tetramorph indicates outward expansion via 4 directions, elements, seasons, noble truths, and Jung's 4 functions.

The World Soul holds the cross-bar controls of a marionette, suggesting play and illusion, while also alluding to the symbol of Christ's resurrection, the cross. An infant or doll emerges - invention! life! even the greatest story ever told is a plaything. a child looks on, captivated... unless you change and become as little children, you will by not enter the kingdom of heaven.

This card emanates a sense of perpetual being. The over-riding greens suggest nature - the verdant and evergreen. This suggests the solace I find in nature and a kind of advice for me to hand over control to what comes naturally and just let it be. The card is both in motion and still, like the eye of a hurricane, the whole held together by being whirled (sic). Looking a little like a large strawberry, a bunch of grapes is dangled by a seraph, suggesting the DIonysian. The understudy of the card's alternate title has, like a good Apollonian, has done her homework; she keeps everything aloft by holding the thread of events between her teeth. That is, it may snap at any moment, but it won't be by anyone else's hand or some arbitrary concatenation of events - it will be by the skin of her own teeth.


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[chiscotheque]

June 19: A dedication to the Oak King, who is now near the height of his power in his battle with the Holly King. This card shows us our strength.

Card: 4 of Earth / Formaldehyde

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Reading: This card is often seen negatively; a covetousness to feel guilty about. It least it is in the RWS deck. Here, the emphasis is on stubbornness, doggedness, stone-walling, and tenacity. The earth suit in playing cards is diamonds after all, and how are diamonds made if not through millennia of unrelenting pressure?

I've always seen the woman at the centre of this card as one of the Madres de Plazo de Mayo, or mothers of the disappeared, whose children were murdered by the fascist regimes of Argentina and Chile. Tirelessly, these mothers would publicly demonstrate their grievance and grief, demanding - if not justice - then simple recognition of the injustice done to them and their children. The woman here wears a placard bearing the face of her child. Like an oak, she is slow to move, steadfast, and strong. Her hyde is formal, hiding who she is and what she feels inside. What she doesn't hide is what she stands for - all those who have been maltreated and maligned.

She clutches a head scarf. It appears to be raining. This mother stands defiant against the powers that be, that outwardly reign. The water seems to be washing away the image on her placard, but one can still make out the word "NO". Such a word of independence and boundary is refused many, especially mothers. This is a card of self-protection as much as anything, for one's own sense of self, fairness, and history. Along with recognition, this mother also demands discourse and reconciliation. Why should she settle for less?

Reflected in the shop windows behind her, the vacant faces of passersby go about their day, oblivious and complicit. In the window behind this mother is a taxidermied fox. Being adamant and resolute will not be enough - to cleave away the fat and get the meat of the matter to meet her halfway, she will also have to be clever.


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[chiscotheque]

June 20: In the tradition of scrying at the time of Midsummer, this card shows us a blessing to come.

Card: 2 of Air / Sole Blade

Reading: This card is a little hard to read as a straightforward "blessing". The woman at the centre of the card fights off an ethereal man on her right; his very semi-transparency suggests he may not even be there, but be instead a phantom or imago of the woman's mind. They both clutch a knife which is pointed outwards, suggesting they struggle not over some use of the knife against the central figure but in the immediate vicinity of the outside world. The man the woman struggles with, then, if well-meaning, may be trying to stop her from doing something she will regret. The woman for her part looks stunned - she may have just realized something. The knife is presumably the sole blade of the card's alternate title, sole being a play on soul - indicating that what's at stake here is metaphysical - and further suggesting the woman is on her own.

Riding the woman's back is a child playing a flute. Flutes are my least favourite instrument; I find them shrill and irritating. The boy, though just being his natural self, suggests a noisome nuisance. If the woman thinks she is protecting the child, she's really just maintaining a childish immaturity in herself from growing and carrying around something - an ideal, say - that's dragging her down. The man she presumes is a threat is actually trying to help her grow. The gravity of this dynamic, and the sacrifice it entails, is just dawning on the woman.

The blessing, then, will come in disguise, will be mixed, will appear as its opposite - an obstacle, an onus, a threat. It will involve letting go of something, a psychic realization, and a dose of what is commonly called "tough love" taken internally. If accepted, the blessing will be an unencumbrance, probably of a childish attention-seeking albatross, and a cessation of some destructive defensive posture or unnecessarily harmful lashing out.



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[chiscotheque]

June 21: We are at the height of the sun’s power, the longest day, in the Northern Hemisphere; OR in the Southern Hemisphere this day is the turning point for the days to get longer. This card shows us how to shine our own light like the Sun.

Card: 4 of Fire / Guardiangel

Reading: This is a card of stability. It is attained by inner strength and calm personified in the form of a guardian angel. She supplies solace, but more importantly - or more to the point - she does this by keeping her ward on course. She is our conscience, our higher self. To follow her guidance is to stay true to one's purpose and soul. In Christian terms, she represents the syzygy between the Bride of Christ and the Logos in the Physis. In eastern terms, she is dharma.

Here, the guardian angel and her ward are on a raft - or craft - a four-square magic carpet respite from the tumultuous waters of the Physis. Such a shape can suggest a "square" or uptight blockhead in '60's lingo, but while that may be so, the emphasis here is on balance and security. The two are one, and they look upwards toward the firmament. This card is often seen as signifying marriage in the RWS world, but I have always seen this card as representing a metaphorical marriage - the syzygy mentioned above - and the union of our physical time here on earth and our inner experience. One may indeed accentuate their connubial relationships if they choose; I more often see this card as signifying one's relationship with oneself vis-a-vis physical exigencies, how one navigates the call of the Divine within the realities of Mammon, and the finer ideals of what has prosaically been called vocation.

So, in order to shine my own light, I must stay true to my calling, even if that seems button-down and straight-laced. Some things are worth protecting, in myself and others - if others see this as unromantic or quotidian they can pluck out their eyes. This is a card of unexpected good fortune, achieved by humility, fidelity, self-care, and the seeing-through of nascent potential.

“No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”



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[chiscotheque]

June 22: This card shows us how to release anxieties or worries, how to enjoy ourselves.

Card: 6 of Water / Voice Parable

Reading:

• Spend more time outdoors.

• Don't worry about what the people around me are - or aren't.

• Don't get a swelled head.

• Weird is good.

• Good is weird.

• Be careful what I smoke.

• Dress for the occasion.

• If I can't say anything nice, hold my tongue.

• Don't over-think it.

• Do not say or do anything that goes over someone's head.

• If really stumped, remind the interlopers to stick to their own neck of the woods, then go down to the nearest telephone booth and give me a call.

• I think I'll just stay here and drink.

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[chiscotheque]

June 23: Like the herbs traditionally gathered on St. John’s Eve, this card shows what protects or heals us.

Card: 5 of Earth / Clove

Reading: The 5 of Earth shows two figures turned away from each other, but held together by a central figure above them. A fourth figure lies supine at the bottom, echoing the deck's Hanged Man. The sense here is a falling apart, the centre cannot hold, yet somehow it is being kept together. The curious face of a 5th figure emerges amidst the 4, suggesting a synergy of the principals - an aggregate soul. A yellow arch echoes the glowing church windows from the RWS card, whose figures traipse the cold outside a religion meant to "re-bind". Here, the church is within the disparate vagrants.

This is a card about hard knocks and making do with what you have. What protects me, then, is: not being spoiled by excess, keeping to what truly has worth, being steadfast despite adversity, and learning from hardships. A clove is a nail - a crude way of holding things together. It contains the word love, suggesting a love for my fellow man which I sometimes struggle with. A church, after all, is where 2 or more are gathered. A clove is also a bulb - a food storage organ during dormancy - containing the essence and promise of life like a seed. By sticking to what matters, dealing with the exigencies of the here and now, extending brotherly love, and picking myself up and carrying on, I both heal and grow stronger for whatever the future has in store.


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[chiscotheque]

June 24: Indian festival of expressing gratitude to teachers. This card reminds us of a lesson we have learned, or an experience or person who taught us something, that we should remember and have gratitude for as we move forward.

Card: Strength XI Pearl

Reading: A central woman stands upright and impassive in the middle of the Strength card. In her outstretched hand she holds an oyster shell, in which is presumably the "pearl" of the card's alternate title. All around her, figures contort this way and that. They suggest confusion, but the woman's stolid rigidity and the painting's overall composition indicate the opposite: balance. A pearl is built up in a lapidary way around a single grain of sand by the obdurate oyster. In The Gospel of Thomas, a pearl in an oyster is used to signify the soul in the body and the Holy Spirit in the soul.

When I was 4 or 5, my parents enrolled me in swimming lessons. I was naturally attracted to water but also afraid of it. My father joined me in the pool at first and then left me with the instructor. I was terrified of her, not to mention the other students, the smell of chlorine, the cacophonous sounds, the creepy change rooms, and the very hugeness of the rec centre. Slowly slowly, oscillating between steeling myself and sheer panic, I advanced through trial and error, becoming after a few weeks comfortable in the water, and after a few months a competent swimmer. The result of those difficult days has been the conquering of an innate fear, a self-reliance and a sense of agency, and a lifelong appreciation of the water. Aside from the obvious practical lesson my swimming teacher taught me was a lesson in perseverance and fortitude. At times I hated her, forcing me to do things that I hated, being so adamant and inflexible - I even hated that she was big and strong and could do things I couldn't. I flailed around her, as did all the other kids, while she remained solid and unfazed, until we too became as strong as her.

I recall floating on my back in that huge pool, staring up at the massive dome skylight. It was night, and I could see the stars. They were like little pearls floating in a black sea, just like me. I felt like I could stay floating like that forever. Later, I found out from my parents that my swimming instructor was a longtime friend of my grandfather (who also scared me). Her name? Pearl.



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[chiscotheque]

June 25: The card shows us how to ground ourselves and how to connect with the earth’s abundance.

Card: Ace of Water One Man Band

Reading: The Ace of Water centers around a musician, the one man band of the card's alternate title. The Water suit and music means being fluid in the language of emotion and intuition. Artistic expression, then, is one way to stay grounded, with oneself and one's surroundings. With music, one needs to play with feeling and play by ear, underscoring the importance of openness, honesty, and responsiveness.

The small shack behind the one man band is a humble affair, but it is home. This suggests wealth and materialism are unimportant, that worth is found in simplicity and where the heart is. A church looms in the distance, and a castle perhaps built in the sky, and they are fine - as long as they stay in the distance. Faces seem to haunt the landscape, but are not malevolent; rather, they are the friends and family that come and go throughout one's life, providing comradeship and comfort, comprising one's memories. On the left, a man leads away a workhorse pulling a cart, suggesting that a certain amount of work must be done every day to maintain one's household and equilibrium. In practical terms, I work around the land I live on every day, which certainly connects me with the earth's abundance.

The Ace of Water represents all the water signs. The one man band, with a kick drum on his back, could be a scorpion. With the house behind him, he could be the crab that carries its house on its back. My spouse is a Scorpio, my mother is a Cancer, I am a Pisces, and we all live on the same property. To connect with the earth, I stay rooted in family and my own backyard. My moon is Scorpio and my rising sign is Cancer. To stay grounded, I listen to the music of my soul, sing myself, and [abun]dance to the beat of my own drummer.


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[TheLoracular]

I ~really~ enjoyed following your Sacred Days of Midsummer reading. The Gnostic Tarot is probably one of my favorite decks that I impulsively backed on Kickstarter and fell in love with instantly when it arrived. Your reading was so insightful into these deep, beautiful esoteric cards. <3

[chiscotheque]

I ~really~ enjoyed following your Sacred Days of Midsummer reading. The Gnostic Tarot is probably one of my favorite decks that I impulsively backed on Kickstarter and fell in love with instantly when it arrived. Your reading was so insightful into these deep, beautiful esoteric cards. <3

Thanks Loracular. I wasn't planning on participating but then just decided to on the day. It ended up being informative and fun, as it always does.

Because the GT is serious, and given the tonal tenor of the cards, it can feel heavy or dark. Time and again, I find a little perseverance in the face of this intimidation is amply repaid, and accentuating the positive - as the song says - isn't really so hard after all.