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This is my twenty-fourth column for Meta Arts. While it is a truly wonderful experience to have the chance to speak to such a wide audience about the subjects I love best, I decided some time ago that after twenty-four, two full years, it might be good to take a break for awhile. Partly my schedule has gotten busier (several books in progress, along with teaching, both Tarot and writing), and I would not want ever to find myself giving these columns less than the attention necessary to make them truly worth the readers’ time and interest. There also is the concern not to repeat myself, though to be honest, the Tarot always seems to open up new areas, new possibilities. And finally, there is just the feeling that perhaps it’s time.
Just to check with the Tarot, I decided to pull one card (as usual from the Shining Tribe Tarot) on the issue of ending the column (at least for now). Here is what came up:
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As so often happens, the tarot amazes me with its precise yet deep answers. This card, the 10 of Rivers, has developed several possible meanings over time, and through readings. I originally intended it to mean a celebration of the life people have created. Notice that there is a couple in the picture. To me, this is the partnership between myself (and all the other columnists) and the two amazing founders of this magazine, Robbie Goldstein and Rhonda Crowder. What they have created here is wondrous, like the house full of light that shines in the picture on the card.
But the 10 of Rivers also can mean saying goodbye. The people look upon this lovely setting and know that the time has come to move on. Their attitude is joyous, and with tribute and appreciation for what they have done.
For this final column (for now) it seemed best to do a reading on what the column itself has accomplished, what was learned, what was experienced. Hopefully, this will prove useful for anyone who wishes to look at the end of a meaningful experience. I decided to ask six question of my own, and then cut the deck to see what seventh question it might suggest. My six were:
1. What did I bring to this experience?
2. What did I discover?
3. What do I leave behind?
4. What do I take away?
5. What have I given?
6. What have I received?
When I cut the deck the card was the 6 of Trees.
The picture shows a woman walking confidently through a strange landscape. This suggested a simple question, where do I go from here? The cards came out as follows:
1. Speaker of Birds 2. Knower of Rivers 3. 8 of Stones
4, Gift of Trees 5. Temperance 6. 4 of Stones
7. 2 of Birds
1. What did I bring to this experience? Speaker of Birds. The Speakers (roughly equivalent to the Kings in traditional decks) symbolize that a person has reached a certain level of mastery and maturity, and now has the responsibility to speak, to communicate, share, what she or he as learned. This particular image comes from a royal chair from Ghana. In the actual chair the legs are together to form a lap, for the king to sit with his head back against the head of the bird. After I drew it, and named it Speaker of Birds, I read that in Africa kings or chiefs often had chairs with birds worked into them to indicate that the king spoke with the authority of the God or Goddess. The particular kind of speaking involved here is that of art, and truth, and prophecy, all qualities I would hope to have evoked in these columns. The card tells me that I brought a certain level of knowledge to this task, but also a responsibility to use the columns seriously, as a genuine exploration of what the Tarot itself can speak to us.
2. What did I discover? Knower of Rivers. This card, equivalent to the Knight of Cups, shifts the issue from my responsibility to others to the very question asked here, what have I myself learned? The picture shows a shaman who emerges from a dark cave with power. The power here is not especially magical, but rather the power of delving deeply into knowledge, of the self, but also of mystery. This certainly is what I have tried to do in these columns, to use the cards to explore places and ideas that might be very difficult to look at in normal ways. And in the process I have come to new awareness of myself, and my own issues.
3. What do I leave behind? 8 of Stones. The picture speaks of paradoxes. We see a stone horse, and yet it has living hair, and butterfly wings, as if the stone can come alive and fly, as lightly as a butterfly. Above it we see the sun, and around the sun, broken chains, an indication that the light of truth and clear sight has been liberated. The Tarot is always paradoxical—we shuffle a pack of picture cards, and somehow from that we derive great meaning. In my columns I often have played up this quality by asking frankly outrageous questions, such as the column that used the cards to look at the Nazi Holocaust. So I would say that I do not leave behind specific ideas and knowledge so much as a way of using the cards, of trying to break chains and give flight to new ideas.
4. What do I take away? Gift of Trees. Equivalent to the Queen of Wands, this image shows two snakes wound around a tree whose fruit resembles hearts. The snakes, one green for the plant world, the other red for animals, hold a gold nugget between them, the transformative “philosopher’s stone” of the alchemists. The picture is meant to recall both the Tree of Knowledge in the Bible, and the caduceus of the God Hermes, two snakes wound around a staff. Rather than a Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, with its one snake, this tree takes its name from a phrase in the Bible to become the Tree of “Wisdom of the Heart.” The phrase occurs when the Israelites are charged with making the tabernacle, and God tells Moses to find workers who are not just skilled or knowledgeable, but who have chochmat lev, wisdom of the heart. The card speaks of all the wonderful things I have taken away from this work—wisdom (hopefully), an opening of the heart, not just by my own efforts but from the responses I have gotten from others, fresh discoveries, a kind of spiritual healing through all the places explored in the cards, and last, but far from least, the wonderful association with Robbie and Rhonda.
5. What have I given? Temperance. The primary quality of this card is that of combining energies, letting energy flow through different centers and experiences. In traditional pictures, an angel pours water from one cup to another. Here the angel holds balls of energy in each hand, one of golden light for discoveries, the other purple for spiritual wisdom. Green life energy moves between them. By asking difficult, even at times shocking questions, I hope that I have given the example of how we can use Tarot as a genuine tool of spiritual wonder and enlightenment.
6. What have I received? 4 of Stones. Stones is the suit of the element Earth, with all its solid reality, while 4 is the number of structure. Thus we get a sense of solid stone structures. And yet, they are not closed but open. They act as gateways, especially gateways to the past. The large gate is formed like an Egyptian temple, while inside it we see a prehistoric dolmen, that is, two upright stones with a lintel stone across them. And inside that we see only a spiral of energy within a field of golden light. Through the work on this column I have received new awareness of structures and concepts and possibilities. If I have used these rightly, they do not confine but rather open always to further discoveries. Of course, to say that I have received such openings does not mean ever that I have understood how to go through them. And yet, they are there.
7. Where do I go from here? 2 of Birds. This card is an example of the Tarot’s sense of humor. It shows two birds who have turned their backs on each other, as if finished in their association. And yet, a snake winds around their legs, so that they are not likely to be going anywhere at all! The picture reminds me of the wonderful ties I have to this column, to the whole enterprise of Meta Arts, and to the two women who started it, Rhonda and Robbie. It also gives me hope that even if I take a break from active involvement in Meta Arts, I will not lose my connection with them. Standing together the way they do, the two birds form the image of a heart.
Love live Meta Arts.
Rhinebeck,
International Women’s Day, 2005
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