Tarot Stories #78: King of Pentacles

by Jason//Tarot, Writing

 

There once was a king who inherited both his family’s crown and their proclivity for acquisition. There wasn’t an object of beauty that they wouldn’t seek to buy, nor a marker of success that they wouldn’t find a spot to display as prominently as they were able. Theirs was an abundant realm, but more important than the abundance of the realm was the royal family’s abundance (or so the family believed, at any rate).

 

Now, this was certainly bad enough, but the family – and thus the king, as well – were absolutely terrible when it came to getting rid of things. So much so that there came a time when the king looked around the castle and realized that he could no longer hold court inside it. Every room – the throne room and the dining hall and even the attic that leaked when it rained – had been filled to bursting with beautiful art and family heirlooms and symbols of wealth that his family had cultivated and that he had contributed to. Obviously something had to change, and so he moved his throne, and the court, outside.

 

For years, then, the king continued in this way, conducting the business of the kingdom in castle ground. Eventually the grounds, too, were overrun with the abundant clutter of the king, so he doubled the guards on the walls (all the better to make sure that nobody came by to steal anything, and moved his court still further away, to the very edge of the ancient woods. He placed his throne there, right on the border between the clearing near his keep and the outskirts of the forest itself.

 

Now, this sounds like a story about a king, or perhaps a king’s family, but that’s not really what it is. What it is, is a story about the world.

 

A thing you need to understand about the world is that it can be slow to take notice of something, and slower still to take action. Slow as it may be, though, the world does notice, and slow as it may be, the world does, eventually, act. The forest noticed, some time ago, that the king had conflated his personal abundance with the abundance of the kingdom. Every painting or tapestry or jewel or piece of gold that he could hoard for himself, he did. And the forest noticed, too, that when this became untenable, the king expanded from his castle to the grounds, from the grounds to the walls, from the walls to the clearing, and soon enough into the forest itself. The king was, the forest knew, treating the wide world as a mere extension of his own gallery, a place to store and hoard and show off his wealth and power.

 

Forests don’t move, much, or at least they don’t move quickly, but they do move quietly, and when the king placed his throne within reach, the forest sent a few tendrils, a few roots, a few vines in the direction of that throne where the king sat. And when the king remained on his throne, contemplating his own wealth and his own possessions, the forest wrapped those tendrils and roots and vines around his legs, holding him fast. And when the king still took no notice, being so enamored by what he owned to open his eyes to the wider world, the forest bound him in place, there, and waited.

 

Now, you may assume that at this point the king would realize that he was trapped, and demand that the forest let him go. But the king did not do this.

 

You might expect that the king ranted and raved, and threatened and screamed. But the king did not do this, either.

 

If you possess a more generous spirit, you may assume the king, realizing belatedly that screaming and demanding obedience from a forest was not a winning strategy, asked kindly for the forest to reconsider its actions. But the king did not.

 

No. What the king did was sit, in his throne, looking out over the trees and the vines and the ripe fruit and the beautiful flowers, all of which he believed were his rather than belonging to the earth, and he imagined how many more treasures he could fit in that space, once he ripped all of that nonsense out of the ground. And he sat there, and he imagined that, even as the roots dug into his throne and cracked it into pieces and slowly, patiently, drew the king into its cold, quiet embrace.

 

The king is there still, sitting in an inherited throne, held fast by the world that he fancies belongs to him, somehow. And as for the world, and the forest? Well, they’ve long since forgotten about the king and his illusions.

Tarot Stories #77: Two of Cups

by Jason//Tarot, Writing

Once there were two people who had long kept their hearts hidden from the world. It wasn’t a conscious thing, mostly, just the sort of decision that gets made after a bout of heart-bruising, and then a little extra caution intended to help avoid that happening again, thanks, and then a shifting from intentional choice to ongoing habit, and there you go. Two people, hearts carefully hidden away, wondering why they had so much trouble finding friendship.

 

Simultaneously, these people each had a treasure that they were completely unaware of. They were watched over by spirits that wanted what was best for them, and in spite of what you may have read, that’s a pretty rare thing. One of the people was watched over by a great cat, full of passion and imbued with the sort of magic that drew others to them like a magnetic pole. The other person was watched over by twin serpents, who could slither unseen through the grasses and emerge transformed and radiant.

 

Now, two people who were connected to such magical spirits might have magic of their own, should have had magic of their own, but they had, unknowingly, locked themselves away from that. Say what you will about the working of magic, which may come with gestures and grimoires and incantations and (very occasionally) cauldrons and carefully selected children, the source of magic – or nearly all of it at any rate – comes from the heart. The same hearts that the people had locked away and kept hidden held that magic of the great cat with its magnetic pull and of the twin serpents with their stealthy, impossible transformation.

 

So the spirits had these gifts to share, and no avenue through which to deliver the gifts. Naturally, having no other realistic option, they cheated. You see, spirits of this sort are expected to work through the person to whom they are connected, or not at all. They’re not supposed to go acting as free agents, conspiring with one another in corridors and scheming together in corners. That’s simply not done, you understand…but still, desperate times, and besides, what’s the point of being a magical being if you can’t break a rule from time to time? The spirits spoke together and they realized that while they couldn’t act upon “their” person’s heart (they had tried, the snakes attempting to transform walls into open gates and the great cat working overtime to draw armor in on itself until it cracked and collapsed), perhaps they could work on the other one, just a bit. It would be difficult, and possibly illegal, but they resolved to try anyway.

 

At some point, then, a day or a week or a year later, one of the people was walking down the street when their heart fluttered and pounded a little, and at the same time they felt as much as heard a deep rumbling purr and a murmuring voice that said, “Around that corner is someone who will captivate your imagination, and in whose company you can bask.”

 

Within that same moment, the other person was also walking down the street and they felt a constriction in their own chest, just for a moment – startling, but not painful, and at the same time they heard a whisper in each ear, twin voices that said, “Around that corner there is someone, right now, who has long been hidden from you, and their friendship will transform your life if you allow it.”

 

Without knowing why, each of the people acted on the mysterious voices from the spirits of one another’s soul. As they each rounded the corner and met, they held their own hearts and beheld the other’s, and so they began to build a friendship and to rekindle their own magic.

Tarot Stories #76: The Tower

by Jason//Tarot, Writing

 

Once, upon the highest peak of the tallest mountain, there stood a tower that had been crafted – brick by brick, stone by stone – by all the moments of the builders’ lives. Every day they woke, and every action they took was in service to that construction. Often, these actions were good and thoughtful. They measured carefully before placing the next brick of a well-spoken compliment, or they considered the implications thoughtfully as they laid the stone of a shared joy. All of these things and all of the beauty and love of the builders’ lives went into that tower.

 

Other times, naturally, the tower was constructed of less perfect stuff. The day’s work might be a brick of petty annoyances, or a stone filled with unaware distraction of a sense of nihilistic resignation. But these bricks and these stones fit into place as well, and they made the walls of the tower just as surely as the small joys and great sacrifices.

 

Now, the builders did something that is very common among people who construct towers of this sort. They began to see the tower not as a thing that they were building, but as a thing that they were. It happens a lot, I think, because it becomes easier to see the tower as an almost inevitable construction than to imagine life without it. And that sense of inevitability, too, went into the construction of the tower. On the days when the builders didn’t imagine a life that wasn’t centered around that construction, the new bricks contained no imagination. And on the days when they didn’t ask why they were building the tower in the first place, they placed stones that were strong and certain, but also inflexible and unyielding.

 

(A small truth: There is a reflection of us in everything we make. But also, what we make is reflected in us.)

 

When the lightning struck, it was easy to see it as a great and random tragedy. This tower on the tallest peak of the highest mountain – the work of years and in fact lifetimes – was turned to rubble in an instant, after all. Yet it is in the nature of lightning to strike, and it is in the nature of towers to fall. They all do, the perfect ones and the flawed ones and the ugly ones and the beautiful ones and so too, the ones that are all of those things at once.

 

If there is a tragedy in the tower’s fall, it comes in the years before, when imagination or good questions are drained from its construction, or in the moments after, when the builders or their descendants resolve to reconstruct the tower exactly as it had been.

Tarot Stories #75: The Hierophant

by Jason//Tarot, Writing

There were once two friends who set out to discover the meaning of life. They were young, and therefore quite certain that this endeavor might take them a month or so to accomplish. The friends began by looking around their hometown, and then by asking the librarian, and then by conversing with the travelers who were passing through, but in spite of these efforts, they didn’t discover an answer.

 

After a while, they reasoned that the meaning of life was a very large thing, so maybe they would have to travel more than a couple of miles from their homes to find it. The friends set out immediately, traveling to the largest city they had yet heard of, and they looked around that city and asked the librarians there and made conversation with the travelers in the taverns. Some time later, they compared notes and had to admit that they still felt no closer to the answer than they had been in the beginning.

 

Eventually the friends agreed that if the meaning of life wasn’t to be found in the largest city they could think of, and it wasn’t to be found in the town where they had lived their whole lives, then surely it must be waiting for them in the remotest wilderness. So they set out to the forest at the furthest edge of the largest map they could find, and once there they looked around the clearings and the hills and the valleys, and they asked the owls (who seemed the closet to librarians of all the animals, somehow) and they conversed with the travelers they found at the tavern (which is to say, they talked with one another at the edge of the stream near their campsite). Still, if there was a meaning of life, it continued to elude the friends.

 

And then one day, at the edge of that stream or in their rooms above another tavern in another city or while atop a mountain where a wise witch (who really might have once been a librarian) was supposed to have been, the friends had a vision. In the vision they found themselves in an impossibly beautiful cathedral, before a crowned being who somehow looked at both of them at once. It was hard to tell for sure, but the being didn’t seem quite human or quite not-human.

 

“You have been seeking something, I understand?” the crowned one said without moving their lips.

 

The friends exchanged glances, then one of them spoke. “Yes, we’re looking for the meaning of life.”

 

“Right,” the other friend put in. “We’ve asked around a lot, and no one has had a good answer for us yet.”

 

The crowned figure nodded. “That’s a good thing to be looking for, I suppose,” they said. “I hope you’ll let me know if you find it.”

 

“Hang on a second,” the first friend said. “You’re the one with the crown in the cathedral inside of a mystic vision. I should think that you’d know that already, and that you would let us in on the secret!” The second friend nodded, began to speak, and then closed their mouth, having nothing else to add.

 

The being with the crown in the cathedral inside the mystic vision shrugged helplessly. “I joined the church because I wanted to do something positive,” they said, looking more human and less not-human. “I suppose I felt a calling, or else I just figured it was a better option than any I’d come up with. I like to think I’ve helped some people and done more harm then good, but meaning?” They laughed, in equal parts amusement and bitterness. “I’ve never met a person – holy or not, young or old, mortal or divine – who was doing anything more or less than making it up as they went and hoping it turned out okay. So, like I said. If you figure it out, come back and let me know. I may have a job for you.” They smiled, starting to look less human and more not-human once more. “Or, who knows? Maybe I’ll ask you for one.” With that, the vision (if that’s what it was) faded away, leaving the friends alone once more.

 

And speaking of the friends, they may have gone home then, or they may have found another home, or they may have resigned themselves to making it up as they went along. I like to think, though, that they’re out there still – searching, talking to travelers, and questioning every librarian they happen to meet.

Tarot Stories #74: Queen of Pentacles

by Jason//Tarot, Writing

Once there was a queen of a minor nation who had, over the course of her reigned, made a few powerful enemies who conspired against her. They managed, after years of scheming and plotting, to have her banished to a place far, far away from the land that she had once ruled. The queen was rather unceremoniously dropped into the middle of the meadow, and as far as the conspirators were concerned, that was that.

Now, the queen was – as far as they knew – a woman of cities and of palaces, of court dinners and of grand gatherings. That’s all they knew of her because they hadn’t bothered to learn, or to care, about the queen’s life before she became the queen. In truth, however, the queen had, long before, spent her youth as much outdoors as in, as the youngest daughter of a minor house that had few prospects for advancement. The precarious nature of her lineage didn’t matter much to her in general, and didn’t matter at all when she was outside, exploring and running and adventuring. In those days she learned the joys of the sun, and had to be dragged inside almost by force.

Her parents, those minor nobles with ambitions that were anything but minor, despaired of their daughter, but knew how they could gain something from her. They married her off to a petty king, sent her her away as quickly as they might, and immediately set about counting (and spending) the dowry she had earned them.

So as you can see, the queen was twice conspired against, twice betrayed, and twice misunderstood. First by her parents, who took her from her beloved wilds for their own benefit, and then by the nobles, who sent her back to them as a punishment.

Of course, it’s not the same thing, being alone in the woods always when you’re used to being there as long as you wish and then going back home to eat and to sleep. Then again, the queen herself wasn’t quite the same as she had been back in her youth, either. She was capable, now, of not only enjoying the joys of the sun, but of learning the secrets of the moon as well. It took time, and time, and time, but eventually the deposed queen of a petty court, victim of conspiracy and banishment, became a queen of the wild corners of the world, with creatures as her councilors and incantations as her companions.

In short, she became a witch, and that suited her much better indeed.

Tarot Stories #73: Knight of Wands

by Jason//Tarot, Writing

There was a horse, once, who with each of their lives was sent to Earth to be a teacher Sometimes the horse was there to teach a fool to be more thoughtful about the risks of taking up a firebird’s feather, and sometimes the horse was there to teach their companion to be polite to witches, and sometimes the horse was there to remind a rider to trust their mount when it came to the question of how wide a gap they might clear with a leap at the end of a day’s ride. The horse was a teacher, an advisor, occasionally a friend in each of their lives, and this suited them well.

 

But this story isn’t about any of those lives. It’s about another one altogether.

 

The horse knew that the knight was afraid as they approached. It wasn’t that the knight looked fearful or smelled fearful or sounded fearful. It was all of those, and more – a simple abiding certainty, in the knight’s bearing and movements, that screamed to the horse’s senses: I Am Quite Frightened. Now, the horse had dealt with nervous riders before, and sometimes taught them to trust and other times taught them not to approach any horse until they had conquered that fear, thank you very much. The knight, however, for all that they were afraid, showed no clear sign of needing either of these lessons. They continued to approach and the horse continued to watch, and to consider what lesson might be imparted.

 

It was a slow process, the knight’s walk to the pasture, and still the horse was no closer to an answer. Finally, at something of a loss, the horse did something very uncommon. It said, “Look, I’m here to teach you, as I always am. But I don’t know what you need to learn.”

 

The knight showed no sign of surprise at having encountered a talking horse. After a moment, they replied, “I appreciate the offer, but teaching is not what I require.”

 

Now this was an odd thing, perhaps a unique thing. The horse had been around many times, many lives, always with the same calling, and while many companions had ignored their lessons, refusing them was something else. Perhaps, then, the knight needed to learn something about arrogance and false certainty? The horse considered this, and at length knew that no, that wasn’t the thing. The horse observed the knight closely and sensed that beneath the fear lay both pain and memory, and other things that were the knight’s to share or not as they chose.

 

Finally, the horse said simply, “What do you require, then?”

 

The knight said, “Things happened to me – things were done to me, and to people I love. I…withdrew for a time, because the things that were done and my memory of them were horrible, and because I needed time to plan my next actions.” The knight smiled a thin smile, in spite of their fear and their memories. “Now I think those things that were done require a response, and I would like very much to deliver it.”

 

The horse was quite out of their element with this knight who did not need their lessons. But one thing you can be sure about a good teacher is that they’re also a good listener, and so the horse could hear the unasked question, the request for assistance that the knight hadn’t thought or didn’t dare to speak aloud. “Well,” the horse said as their nostrils flared, “as I said. I’m usually here as a teacher, but I can still carry a rider into battle, should the need arise. As we go, if you’d like to talk a little more about what happened, I’m not going anywhere except where you ask me. And if you’d rather not, well, that’s just fine.”

 

The knight swung up into the saddle and took up the reins. “Perhaps later. For now, there is a lesson that we can deliver together,” they said, and with no further words needed, the frightened but determined knight and the eternal horse charged ahead.

Tarot Stories #72: King of Cups

by Jason//Tarot, Writing

 

Once there was a ruler who had been at the job for a good while, long enough that they felt confident in their decisions and their ability to lead. This confidence was hard-won, as it is for most people (even those of us who don’t mete out justice or set trade policies), but the ruler had eventually gotten the hang of it and assembled the tools they needed. They held in one hand a large cup, to remind them to be open – to take on some of the burdens of their subjects, but also to take on only so much and to remain only so open (a cup is a useful metaphor for boundaries because it simply will not hold more than it is capable of holding). In their other hand, the ruler held a scepter, as a reminder that the decisions made were ultimately their responsibility.

So. Openness and power, boundaries and responsibility. It worked out perfectly – one tool, one reminder, for each hand. The ruler had figured it out, at last, and they felt very good about themselves.

Naturally, then, the next morning they awoke upon their throne, floating in the middle of the sea. “Well,” the ruler said, “now I know what happens to people who feel like they’ve cracked the code.”

The ruler could see, off in the distance, a ship turning in their direction. It was flying no colors, so it was impossible to tell if it came from an ally or enemy, but when you’re in the middle of the sea floating on a throne, it matters less who is making their way toward you in a position to lend aid, and more that someone is doing so.

As the ship approached, one of the sailors hailed the ruler. “Ahoy!” the sailor said, rather nautically, and then paused as they took in the situation. “What, um…well, what are you doing there?”

The ruler called back, “I am either learning about overconfidence, or I am dreaming a very strange dream.” They sat there calmly enough on their throne, waiting to see what would happen next. Now the sailor, strange as this might sound, was put at ease by this odd behavior. Being a veteran of their craft, they had encountered more than a few people driven mad by the sea, and this person floating on a throne in the middle of the ocean was clearly one of those. And in any case, the sailor’s task was clear. Helping a fellow seafarer who was in need (no matter how unusual their vessel) was as much a part of being a sailor as knowing how to work the rigging or to read the stars at night, so the sailor threw down a rope.

Now, here was a quandary. In order to climb to safety, the ruler needed their hands free, but of course they were occupied with the cup and the scepter. These were the tools they had found through seemingly endless trial and error, and which had served the ruler well in all their pursuits. Perhaps worse than the prospect of leaving them behind was the prospect of acknowledging that those tools, while excellent, were not correct for every task. Still, while the ruler valued their tools, they also valued their life. So, with some reluctance, the ruler set aside those hard-won tools (though not the lessons that had accompanied them, because those require no hands to hold), and began climbing the roper to the safety of the ship.

As they sailed off, the ruler looked over the edge of the ship and down to the throne, slowly sinking beneath the waves with the cup and the scepter, and they thought about two things: The value of releasing what no longer serves, and the prospect of having some pockets sewn into their robes.

Tarot Stories #71: The Lovers

by Jason//Tarot, Writing

 

Once there was a god who knew all the things that were in the province of gods, and nothing at all of what was in the province of humans. Which is to say, broadly speaking, that the god understood creation of something from nothing, and of nothing from something, and of events that hadn’t happened yet being a prerequisite for a choice about breakfast, and of all the impossible things that first year philosophers bring up to make their mentors’ heads turn around backwards. And it means that, broadly speaking, the god was absolutely without a clue when it came to knowing the right thing to say to defuse a moment of unexpected tension, or when it came to being truly gobsmacked by the feel of an autumn breeze that was frankly very like all the other autumn breezes, even the one from yesterday, that hadn’t made an impression, or when it came to being so in love with one or three or ten other beings that a look from them could feel just as amazing (or at least almost as amazing) as that autumn breeze that the god was, as we have established, really hopeless at understanding.

 

So the god wisely (or foolishly) created a place where a few of these people could live, providing the god with a front row seat to observe these things, and to begin to understand them. It was a lovely spot, full of everything the people needed to survive and to live well. Naturally, it took barely any time at all before the whole experiment began to come apart at the seams.

 

“So here we are in this beautiful place, with all the food and comfort we could want,” one of the people said to another. “What I want to know is, what’s the catch?

 

Another person agreed. “Right! Whoever brought us here wants something, that’s for sure.”

 

They went on like this for quite a while, until finally the god arrived to set the record straight. “No, you’ve got it all wrong,” they said. “Just do whatever you want! This is your home, and you’re free to use it how you see fit.”

 

If the people were impressed or intimidated by having met a god, they gave no sign of it. Indeed, having the god there seemed to make them more skeptical. “But what are the rules?” one of them asked. “This sounds like a good deal and all, but there must be some rules.”

 

The god said, “No, that’s the whole point. I want to learn more about you, and I can’t very well do that if I go putting rules in place, can I? Really, anything you want.”

 

“What about food?” another person asked. “Can we just take anything?”

 

“Yes, of course!” the god replied. “Help yourself.” With that, the god disappeared, hoping that this would be the end of the questioning.

 

It was not, in fact, the end of the questioning.

 

“What about that tree over there? Or this fruit? Or those berries?” the person who had asked about the food in the first place (or maybe it was a different person; the god found it difficult to keep track sometimes) was walking around and pointing out every single edible thing nearby and demanding confirmation that it was permissible to eat it. The god played along for a while, but eventually they tired of the experience of following and saying, “Yes, certainly,” and, “Of course, feel free,” and after a few days of this the god had an idea. It was a very simple idea, and not necessarily a good idea, but desperate times called for desperate measures. The god would give the people exactly what they asked for.

 

“All right, everyone,” the god called out, and the people – both of them, or the ten of them, or all million of them (certain details such as the census were a challenge for the god) – looked up expectantly. “I am here to tell you the rules of this place.”

 

“Finally!” one of the people said, and the others nodded and muttered their agreement.

 

“Yes, well,” the god continued, “there is only one, so listen up. Everything here is yours to do with as you please,” here they paused, looked around, and picked one solitary and unremarkable tree at random,” except for that tree. All else in this place is fair game, but that tree is off limits. That is the rule, which you’ve all been asking about for some time now, so I hope this settles things.”

 

It did settle things, at least for a while. The people went about their business, and the god observed them as was the plan all along, and everything went swimmingly. Until one day – not so long after that one rule had been set, all things considered – the humans’ eyes began to turn away from all of the things they could have, and toward that one…solitary…tree. And they began to ask themselves, “Well, wait a minute now, why can’t we have that one? Are its roots not within this place that was created for us? Are its branches not within the boundaries of our home? Its fruit should be ours by right, shouldn’t it? And anyway, who is this god to establish rules for us in the first place?” Some of the people agreed with this point, while others said that one rule wasn’t too much to follow and they ought to leave well enough alone, while still others said that the rule wasn’t truly the only one, and they had discovered several others that they would be happy to reveal very soon (once they had worked out what they were).

 

And so it was that the god who had set out to learn things that were within the province of humans began at last to receive their education.

Tarot Stories #70: Six of Wands

by Jason//Tarot, Writing

 

Once there was a man who went off to a great battle, not because it was a cause he believed in or because he felt called to defend his loved ones or even because it was his job to do so. He went, instead, because he felt it would look good if he did, and he was very, very interested in looking good. His participation was not beneficial to his side, and in fact may have charitably been described as something between pointless and an unmitigated disaster.

 

However, what the man lacked in martial prowess and ethical choices, he made up for with a sense of timing. And so he managed to leave the aftermath of the battle a little early, and as he did so, he immediately began fashioning crowns of laurels to signify a victory that he had not earned, and stories of that victory to support the signifiers. Because he was the first to return to the city, the man was in a position to declare victory, and that is exactly what he did.

 

Now, the citizens to whom he made this claim had – at first – no real reason to doubt him, and so they not only believed his stories, they celebrated his victory with a parade through the streets. Everyone, it seemed, believed the fiction.

 

Everyone except his horse, that is. The horse had been at the battle, after all, and had carried the man back from it and had heard him practicing his stories and had seen him fashioning his own laurel-crowns (these are rather like nicknames – they’re not really something you get to bestow on yourself). If this were a different kind of story, the horse would be able to talk and that would be the end of the ruse. But alas, this horse hadn’t bothered to learn how to speak to humans except through baleful looks and occasional affection, and so the man was able to get away with his story for rather longer than he ought to have.

 

The trick of it, beyond the man’s gift of timing, was this: He knew how to tell people what they wanted to hear, or at least what it was difficult to argue with. He seeded the ground with stories of victory, and also claims of the enemy’s inhumanity, and when other facts began to come to light later that ran counter to that…well, let’s say that there were those who were already predisposed to thirsting for victory, and who were already predisposed to projecting inhumanity upon others.

 

Not everyone believed him, of course, but enough did. A rather frightening number did, in spite of (or because of) the mounting evidence to the contrary and the increasing outrageousness of his claims.

 

This is a story with many endings, or with no ending at all, because it has happened many, many times. The man is eventually disbelieved and turned out of the city, or he is made king and his crown of laurels is exchanged for one of gold. His supporters turn on him when enough of his lies are revealed, or they support him all the more strongly for them. He delights in his deceptions and continues them indefinitely, or his conscience makes an unexpected return and he slinks away into the night.

 

Or the horse learns to speak, in the nick of time, and makes its voice heard.

Tarot Stories #69: 2 of Wands

by Jason//Tarot, Writing

Once upon a time, before there was time, a person stood upon the top of a wall, looking out over all that was theirs to survey, and also looking within the depths of a planet they held in their hand.

 

Now. This is one of those things that sounds quite impossible (and so it is) but is also something that each of us can do every day (and so we do). This person did it a bit more literally, granted, but that doesn’t make what you can do or what I can do any less true.

 

Consider: We can, and must, observe what is around us, and observation is done best with a bit of perspective. To step back from the world that surrounds us isn’t to be removed from it, but to gain a critical bit of clarity. To be able to say, “Oh, that stream runs to that larger river there,” or, “The birds that fly south are seeking warmth, not escape.” Stepping back, up, away, allows one to see what is happening not in a truer way, but in a different way, than being right in the thick of things.

 

And consider, too: Where we can observe, we can act. Each person has some agency – many of us less than we ought, and some of us far less than we ought, because neither this world nor any other has yet been perfected (let us all keep working to perfect it), but still some. With agency we can shape, and shaping is an act of creation and of faith. The world held in our hands is not as tangible, perhaps, as the one that surrounds us, but it has the benefit of being of us, imbued by its creator with that same faith and that same creativity. Shaping and holding something that is impossible and that may never be is, in effect, to dream consciously. And when dreams end, and the dreamer awakes, perhaps those swirling mists of mystery are set out into the wider world, to shape what is into what may be, if only a little.

 

Once upon a time, on a day very like this one (or any other one), a person stood back, for a moment, to take in the world as it was, to see it in all its beauty and all its imperfection. And then, this person who shared your name or my name or the name of every person any of us have met before did the sacred, faithful work of shaping a world that was a dream and yet might, one day, become more.