I found this marvelous watercolor on Mary K. Greer’s blog and had to share it because it says so much about both the tarot keys and the two magicians who created the Rider-Waite–Smith taro deck. Pamela Colman Smith and Arthur Edward Waite were both members of the Golden Dawn and were more mystics than hard core ceremonial magicians. They both lived at that pivotal time after Queen Victoria’s death when a breath of fresh air was blowing through England bringing with it new ideas and possibilities and magic. But here all similarity ended. AEW was a scholar and a prolific writer. Some critics feel he was too prolific, but I digress. He was married twice and had one daughter by his first wife. He was The Magician of the pair because the idea, or inspiration of a tarot deck was his, and he is the one who found the artist, outlined the general ideas of the designs, and found a publisher. The basic meaning of The Magician is the manifestation of an idea.
PCS was also a writer, but first and foremost, she was an artist, and not just any sort of artist. She trained at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn where she was taught to express emotion and ideas indirectly but meaningfully in visual art. Art was both social and spiritual and was a tool for changing the world. and In other words, she was a Symbolist.
She knew William Butler Yeats, Aleister Crowley, and several other influential writers and magicians of the time. One of her many theater and avant garde performance jobs involved working for Henry Irving and his stage manager, Bram Stoker (author of the original Dracula), at the famous Lyceum Theater in London.
PCS used her magic to look deep within herself, find universal truths and ideas, and communicate them in the form of beautiful, symbolic images. They were so well crafted that they worked in the subconsciouses of those willing to be still and meditate on them like yeast in bread dough. She lived in her imagination and for her art. Physical success would have been nice, but if it meant giving up her art, it wasn’t worth it. Her most valuable possessions were her spiritual and artistic integrity, and she never compromised these. So, unfortunately, she was never able to make very much money, she never married or had children, she died in poverty, and was buried in an unmarked grave.
A perfect, but tragic, High Priestess.
Hugo Bauer, the creator of the above painting sums it all up nicely: “As the Waite-Smith tarot was the result of a collaboration I only thought it natural to make a double portrait. Nevertheless I don’t hold much sympathy for Waite as he didn’t pay Pamela the money and respect she deserved. Still, without him this deck would never have existed, and his influence on the major arcana was considerable. But no explanation is needed for the fact that I placed Pamela in the centre and on the foreground, as it is her artwork and unbelievable spiritual insight that made the Waite Smith deck so special. I hope that fellow admirers of Pamela will consider this painting to be a truthful homage to an artist that never got the respect she deserved.”
While I was researching and writing my posts on The Tower two catastrophic events happened in our household:
My husband developed water on his lungs from a previous fall–he’d landed on his left side. The symptoms mimicked a heart attack and we went through a harrowing emergency room ordeal. They drained 1.3 liters of fluid from between the plural linings around his lung that looked exactly like Killians Red ale. It even had a nice head of froth. I don’t think either one of us will be able to drink that beer again.
Leo, our cat, fell out of a tree trying to escape the 4th of July neighborhood fireworks. Who’d a thunk the heavy artillery would start at three in the afternoon? He suffered some severe internal damage and emotional shock. A friend of ours is a shaman that is very good with animals. She did some work with him and said his soul had shattered into many pieces and eight entities had moved into his fragile body to fill the void. It took her a long time to retrieve all the pieces, evict the unwelcome squatters, and do some emergency healing. Leo
My husband is doing fine, he’s rafting on the Deschutes River this weekend. Leo is still recuperating.
One of the lessons of The Tower is that all the things we depend on for emotional and physical support are merely a gossamer web that can tear at the tiniest twitch of the Universe. The health and well being of our loved ones, our jobs, and our homes are gifts from the gods and should never be taken for granted. It is also important to remember that when one web breaks, the Universe always offers us another one.
I’m starting on The Star now, so hopefully thing will settle down.
Peh or pey, the Hebrew letter attributed to The Tower, means mouth and by extension speech or communication. Our ability (or inability) to communicate is what precipitates many of the Tower moments of our lives. We are experts at talking our way into all kinds of trouble. Tower moments are also the way the Universe communicates with us, telling us that what we are doing no longer feeds our souls and it’s time to do something different.
The Tower’s planet is Mars, god of assertiveness and force. There is nothing subtle about this card.
This card is what happens when we listen to The Devil (previous key). When we become obsessed with the physical world, or as the Taoists say, The 10,000 Things, we lose sight of what truly matters in our lives. Since we are creatures of solid, stable earth, we avoid change like the plague and will fight desperately to keep things as they are, even when they no longer serve out needs. The Tower is the Universe’s not so gentle way of refocusing our attention on the important stuff.
When The Tower appears in a spread, the reader should go immediately into damage control mode. The meaning of the card will be obviousThe Tower, Steampunk Tarot, by Barbara Moore and very disturbing to the querent: a severe, unpleasant and life changing something is about to happen or has happened. The reader’s job is to look at the surrounding cards and assess what that thing might be, why it happened, and what the querent can do about it. For example:
Court cards associated with The Tower might indicate social or family meltdowns.
If there are lots of pentacles it’s probably a money or health issue.
If there are lots of cups it’s probably about relationships and emotions.
If there are lots of wands and swords it’s probably about communication.
If there are pentacles in the past and they are all fortunate and the future looks good, The Tower card in the present may indicate a short downturn in health or finances and then recovery.
Lots of reversed or difficult pentacles in the past positions might indicate poor money or health choices.
If reversed or difficult swords and/or wands appear in past positions, poor communication, aggressive behavior, or enemies are the cause.
If three or more other major arcana cards appear with The Tower then this is an important life lesson for the querent and will probably reoccur in one form or another until she figures it out.
If The Tower is in the way out of difficulty position, the querent’s best option is to embrace the experience and try to land on his feet at the end.
If The Tower appears in a head or heart position the querent is extremely troubled about an issue or is working through a revelation that has totally changed his way of thinking/feeling about the world. Depending on the rest of the spread, the reader might recommend counseling.
A Tower moment can be as physical as an automobile accident or as emotional as an argument that ruins a relationship. It can be a well-hidden land mine that explodes when the querent discovers that a part of his life is based on a lie. Something is always damaged or changed beyond repair. More often than not, after the dust settles and the tears are dried, if we have dealt with the problem correctly the situation is improved, or an important life lesson has been learned.
But there doesn’t always have to be a lesson attached. Sometimes shit just happens. I can’t believe that everyone in an earthquake benefits spiritually from the experience.
Tower moments can occur in all stages of the hero’s journey. They can be precipitating events that force the plot in a certain direction or a devastating revelation that brings on the hero’s central ordeal. They can be exciting conclusions or main events. Star Wars, Tatooine
The original Star Wars movie has at least two Tower moments. The first one is the call to action stage of the journey. Storm troopers invade the planet Tatooine, killing Luke Skywalker’s only family, and destroying their home. Without this precipitating event, Luke would probably never have fulfilled his destiny. Destruction of the Death Star
The second is the climax of the journey, Luke’s destruction of the Death Star, symbol of the cruelty and tyranny of the empire that he vowed to destroy.
In Titanic, the tower moment is the main event of the movie. The Titanic symbolized the arrogance of technology and the evils of the class system. It is what brought Rose and Jack together and it is what ended their star-crossed romance.
The Tower is the crescendo, the drama trauma, and frequently the centerpiece of most stories. It adds excitement, force, and direction.
May all your Tower moments be short, relatively painless, and instructive.
This is the card that none of us wants to see in our reading. Death and The Devil are disturbing, but this card is terrifying. Its meaning is obvious, since the symbolism is so blatant and in your face.
Towers are symbols of ascent, of rising above the common level. We build them out of pride, ambition, or idealism. We also build them for protection. Because it stands tall and often has eye-like windows at its top and a crown-like roof, the tower is analogous to a human. So when we look at the card our heart sees all our cherished hopes, dreams, ideas, ideals, and safety nets getting blasted to smithereens.
A group of tribes once built a great tower so they coulld become closer to God and to show that they were superior to all the other tribes. God punished their hubris by giving them all different languages so they couldn’t understand each other and couldn’t finish the tower. They scattered to the four quarters and the place where the tower stood was called Babel, which means confusion.Graduates often find that the theories and ideals that they learned in the Ivory Towers of their universities need to be modified for use in real life.No matter how strong and safe we make our towers, sometimes shit just happens. Photo by KemdavThe horrible tragedy of 9-11 is an obvious tower analogy
The tarot Tower is all the illusions of the material realm:
* The more money and stuff you have the happier and safer you are
* The more power you have the happier and safer you are
* This reality is the only reality
* When you’re dead you cease to exist
It is the imperfect systems and beliefs that we work so hard to construct and that we cling to with such fierce determination.
It is also the lies that we are willing to believe so that we can keep things as they are.
When we build a tower or choose to live in one, it blinds us to our true purpose and path and separates us from the healing strength and guidance of the Divine. It makes the Devil go “Bwah-ha-ha!”
As far as the Universe is concerned, a tower is a building with “target” written all over it. The lightning bolt striking the tarot Tower is “the power drawn from above by the Magician. It is the sword of the Charioteer, the scepter of the Emperor, the force which turns the Wheel of Fortune and wields the scythe of Death, the light streaming from the Hermit’s lantern. It breaks down existing forms in order to make room for new ones.”*
Tree of Life, Lightning bolt path–emanation of divine light through the SephirothQabalists will notice that the lightning bolt in The Tower key is almost the same shape as the lightning path that traces the emanation of Divine Light from Kether to Malkuth on the Tree of Life*, and brings us those flashes of insight and sudden glimpses of truth that blast apart our old, comfortable ways of being and turn our world upside down, like the people falling from the tower.
The process of this card is terrifying and cruel, but it is an efficient way of jolting us out of our ruts and bringing about useful and much needed change.
To be continued…
*The Tarot, A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages, Paul Foster Case
It’s Summer Solstice, the longest day. According to The Old Farmer’s 2012 Almanac, today the sun will rule the sky for 15 hours and 18 minutes.
It’s time for our Summer Solstice trip to Marine Drive, where we will hunt the wild St. John’s wort, Hypericum perferatum.St. John’s Wort It’s flowers, glorious tiny sunbursts, are just coming into bloom. This is the traditional herb of Midsummer and, like the midsummer sun, it is full of good medicine. It grows best in freshly disturbed soil beside rivers, paths, and roads. Both my husband and I can spot it from the car at speeds often exceeding fifty miles per hour. This is no small feat, since there are many other yellow flowered plants in bloom at this time of year. St. John’s wort is considered an invasive weed in Oregon and it’s illegal to grow it, but no matter how hard they try to eradicate it, we are always able to find it.
Once we’ve spotted a likely patch, we pull over and begin harvesting. The plant is very strong and easy to talk to, and it’s not shy about telling you whether it wants to be picked or not—so I always ask. Occasionally I find one that wants to be left alone, but usually they are so happy to be picked that the stems break easily and you don’t even need clippers. Like mistletoe, the magical plant of Winter Solstice, I never let the sprigs I pick touch the ground. When we finish picking, our fingers are stained red with plant juices. We’re also grinning from ear to ear and full of energy. Not surprising. Like the sun itself, St. John’s wort is an excellent remedy for mild to moderate depression.
One of last year’s St. John’s wort bundlesMost of what we harvest gets tied into small bundles. We bless and charge these during our Solstice ritual and hang one outside near each of the doors. They protect the household from fire, lightning, storms, and harmful spells and daemons. We also take down last year’s bundles, thank them, and burn them in the Solstice fire.
Sometimes we gather extra and fill a pint jar with the fresh flowers. We add olive oil to cover them all and several drops of essentialSt. John’s wort oil. Yes, it’s really about that color. Actually it’s an even deeper red. oil of lavender, and set the sealed jar outside in the sunshine for at least one lunar cycle. As if by magic, the yellow flowers turn the olive oil a deep, blood red. Like blood, the oil is full of life and quickly heals scrapes, rashes, and burns.
John the Baptist baptizing Jesus, by Guido Reni, 1575-1642Christians brought this magical plant into their lore by naming it after John the Baptist, the prophet who foretold Christ’s coming and baptized him. According to the Catholic Church, he was born June 24th and Christ was born December 25th. Both men have solar attributes, so their nativities happen at the solstices. As the story goes, John the Baptist once said that he would “become less” (like the sun after Summer Solstice) while Christ would “become greater” (like the sun after Winter Solstice).
So if you happen to see a St. John’s wort plant today, ask it for a sprig to tuck in your hair or buttonhole.
It will make you smile.
The same day I published my blog about rites of passage, I went to visit a 93-year-old friend of mine who is dying of colon cancer. I asked her how she was doing.
“Not well,” she replied. “I’m waiting for my sons to get here so I can say good by, and then I plan to do away with myself.”
“Is it the pain?”
“No, I have medicine for that. I’m just so tired. I do nothing but eat and sleep. It’s time for me to go.”
The next day I went to visit another elderly friend in an assisted living center who had fallen and broken her hip. I worry that she won’t walk again and that this is the beginning of a downward spiral.
When I got home, my husband and I went to visit my niece and her family. Zeus, the family dog who had welcomed both of their girls into the world, was feeble and in pain and had quit eating. It was time to put him down. We all sat in the kitchen with him, wishing him a good journey, telling Zeus stories, sharing memories, and getting tipsy on Negroni cocktails while they waited for the vet to arrive.
When we returned, I sat down to read Of Mice and Men. My son had discovered that I hadn’t read it and went ballistic.
“You’re a writer and you haven’t read Of Mice and Men? That’s a classic. You’ve gotta read it!”
I pointed out all the classics I’d read that he hadn’t.
“Mom, we’re not talking about my shortcomings here, we’re talking about yours. Read the book, and while you’re at it, get Catcher in the Rye, you haven’t read that either.”
I’d checked both books out at the library.
Of Mice and Men is a masterpiece, but a heartbreaker. One stable hand gets tired of the old swamper’s beloved but ancient, worn out dog. It’s suffering and it’s not eating, but mostly it stinks up the bunkhouse. He talks the old man into letting him shoot his faithful friend. Things get even worse at the end when George’s crazy, gentle, dangerous friend, Lennie, unintentionally kills the boss’s son’s wife. George realizes he has no other option than to kill his friend quickly and humanely before the angry farm hands get him or before he’s thrown into a loony bin for the rest of his life.
A friend of mine just told me that she nearly died of a heart attack last month. In fact, she was so close to death that she remembers consciously choosing to live. She was dealing with a lot of family stress and was arguing with her sister when it struck. The doctor found no physical reason for the heart attack; her arteries were clear, her blood pressure was normal, and her heart was healthy. But she says that she can feel that her heart has changed and so has her attitude. She is more emotionally involved in life and feels things more vividly than before her heart broke.
As Jung would say, the above events were acausal, the occurrence of one event didn’t make any of the others happen. But even though they aren’t connected through causality, they are connected by an underlying pattern of intelligence, a collective consciousness.
I believe that synchronicity is the Universe’s way of getting your attention. When my kids wanted my attention, their final resort was to grab my chin and pull my head around so I was looking right at them. Synchronicity is when the Universe grabs your chin.
Unfortunately, the Universe is much more cryptic than a three-year-old. Once it has your attention, it is often hard to interpret the message. Synchronistic events could mean that:
1. You’re on the right path.
2. You’re on the wrong path.
3. There is something you need to understand or appreciate.
4. There is something you need to watch out for.
5. A cycle in your life has ended and another is beginning.
6. A combination of the above
7. None of the above
The common thread that runs through all of my recent synchronistic experiences is choosing death. This could be seen as literal death or as transformation. So the following interpretations are possible:
I’m on the wrong path and I need to change the way I’m doing things. (meaning #2)
I need to be more willing to let go and accept change or let go of some cherished beliefs. (meaning #3)
It is important to be present with and appreciate these souls who are transitioning and also to be with their friends and families. (meaning #3)
I’m at a point in my life where I need pay attention to the concepts of death and transformation. (meaning #3)
I may soon be in a position where I’ll need to choose between life and death for myself or for someone else. (meaning #4)
I am at a point in my life where I need to choose a new direction. (meaning #5)
I suspect and am hoping that the Universe is giving me these experiences to remind me that the only things in this world that are certain are death and change (and taxes). I need to treasure my friends and family while they are with me and celebrate the changes in our lives with rites of passage, either formal or informal. And when change occurs, no matter how painful, grieve and then move on.
Does anyone have any other suggestions or comments?
Many cultures believe that each of us is the incarnation of a unique and beautiful dream. Our life task is to live that dream to the fullest possible extent. When we do this, our lives are filled love, joy, and creativity. These same cultures also believe that those who are not able to find their dream or for some reason choose not to live it suffer a fate worse than death. In fact, we all suffer when someone’s dream is not lived and brought into fulfillment.
And so each of us is the star of our own hero’s journey, which is about finding and living our dream. In his book, The Writer’s Journey, Mythic Structure for Writers, Christopher Vogler divides the hero’s journey into twelve steps. Finding and living a dream demands that we we go through these steps in our own lives.
1. THE ORDINARY WORLD: If we are incarnations of a dream, then we come from the mind of the dreamer. Our ordinary world is the world of the dreamer.
2. THE CALL TO ADVENTURE: The dreamer, which could be interpreted as our soul, dreams a dream of fulfillment for itself. Unfortunately we, the dream, don’t remember the dreamer, and we haven’t a clue about what our dream actually is.
3. REFUSAL OF THE CALL: We are brutally squeezed through our mother’s birth canal and are born into a cold, bright world. With our first breath we scream in anger and grief for the paradise we have lost.
4. MEETING WITH THE MENTOR: We meet and bond first with our parents, but we will find others who have things to teach us about our dream.
5. CROSSING THE FIRST THRESHOLD: Just when we’ve gotten our balance, we learn the ugly truth that it’s really not all about us. We need to learn how to love and work with others.
6. TESTS, ALLIES, AND ENEMIES: As we grow up we face challenges and either succeed or fail. We meet people who will help us find our dream and those who will keep us from it. Sometimes we get them confused. We discover our strengths and weaknesses and learn to work with them.
7. APPROACH TO THE INNERMOST CAVE: By now we’ve figured out what our dream is and we’ve learned all the skills we need to achieve it. At this point, we begin moving through the territory of our dream toward the final goal. If we were mountaineers, we would be at base camp, ready to begin the final assault on the summit.
8. THE ORDEAL: Dreams are not easily achieved. We all must battle both outward, physical obstacles and our own fears and feelings of inadequacy and unworthiness.
9. REWARD: Yay, we made it!
10. THE ROAD BACK: After achieving our dream, we must live it so that we can truly understand its scope and strength. Also, in most stories the hero has a choice of whether or not to return to the ordinary world. We don’t. We must prepare to die.
11. RESURECTION: We die, so that we can be reborn back into the ordinary world.
12. RETURN WITH THE ELIXER: The dreamer has fulfilled its dream and is richer, wiser, and one step ahead in its own hero’s journey.
We also work through all twelve steps at pivotal points in our life. Cycles within cycles. Some of these points are birth, the change from child to young adult, getting a driver’s license, graduating from high school, training for a career, marriage, home ownership, children’s births, grandchildren’s births, death. If one of these points is not part of our dream, we skip it. But if we haven’t found our dream how do we know which ones to skip and which ones we really need?
How do we find our dream?
Everyone does this in their own way and at their own pace, but it helps if, at these important times, our friends and relations
Kick us out of our ordinary world and send us on a hero’s journey.
Acknowledge our skill and accomplishment when we return with the elixir.
Tell us the story of where we’ve been and who we are.
Remind us that we are now a different person.
It’s like hitting a reset button on our life. It allows us to
Re-evaluate our hopes, fears, strong points, and weak points
Affirm our new standing in the community that supports us
Start out on the next stage of our journey full of confidence and valuable insights. Golden Gate Bridge, photo by Javier Acosta
This process is called a Rite of Passage.
Last weekend I had the honor and privilege to help plan and to attend a child-to-young-adult Rite of Passage for Miles. His grandmother and parents are good friends of ours.
In the morning Miles’ parents drove him to a friend’s house. Miles had never been there before. They told him to go inside, and drove away. The friend gave him a mass transit map of Portland marked with places he had to get to and a list of things he had to bring back.
On his way to the bus, an elder in the community stopped him and gave him a Tri-Met day pass. Portland Vietnam War Memorial, photo by Ugo Cei
At the Vietnam War Memorial he was met by a Vietnam War vet, who told him what it means to be a hero and gave Miles bay laurel leaves.
At the Park Blocks Market another elder met him and they bought a candle and salt. A Benson Bubbler
At the US Bank Building, my husband took him up to the 13th floor and showed him the lay of the land around the city and the major geologic formations. Since Portland is mostly defined and formed by water, Miles filled a jar with water from a Benson Bubbler.
When he returned, we greeted him as a hero returning with gifts. The bay leaves, salt, and water went into the soup and the candle was for his parents. His parents gave him gifts that they’d been saving for him till he got older and we all told Miles stories and reminded him that he wasn’t a child anymore. We also reminded ourselves of this and reformed our expectations of him. Then we had dinner together.
Hopefully this ritual will help Miles discover some of the confidence, focus, and self-knowledge he will need to find his dream and live it.
We all sup with the Devil daily. He is Lord of the Material Realm and we are partially material beings. We require food, water, air and shelter from his kingdom to remain alive. And he is constantly tempting us to take more. We buy the most expensive homes and cars we possibly can and shop for the best furniture, food and clothing.
“Go ahead,” he says, “Enjoy your life. The more you have the happier you will be.”
And yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Father of Lies is telling you the truth. A 2008 Princeton University study by Angus Deaton says so. And here’s the graph:
It looks confusing, but once you get the hang of reading it, it’s quite fascinating. The vertical axis is a life satisfaction scale—the higher the number, the more satisfaction with life. The horizontal axis is the average household income (GDP, gross domestic product) of each country adjusted for buying power. Each country is represented by a circle, the bigger the circle the larger the population.
It’s obvious. The more money you have the happier you are.
But wait a minute, you say. What’s going on with Venezuela and Denmark? And would those poor souls in Chad, Berun, and Togo be a bit more content if they didn’t know how much people in other parts of the world have? Is their dissatisfaction due to envy? It’s a possibility. A good friend of mine was raised in the country and has fond memories of her childhood. Her father was the sheriff of a small town and made next to nothing. Her mother had to work in a factory cleaning fish for two years to pay for her daughter’s life-saving tonsillectomy. They grew most of their food and made most of their clothes. The kids didn’t watch a lot of TV back then (I’m not sure they had one) and had no idea how the rest of the country lived. When her mom started nagging her sister to apply for college grants her sister replied, “Those are for poor people.”
As it turns out, a more recent (2010) Princeton University study shows that Devil was only telling us a half truth. There is a difference between life satisfaction, which was measured in the previous study, and emotional well being. To determine life satisfaction a pollster asks questions like, “On a scale of zero to ten, with zero being the worst possible life you can imagine, how would you rate your life.” Envy and the desire to “keep up with the Jonses”, two emotions that make Old Nick’s cold heart sing, could easily influence life satisfaction.
To determine emotional well being pollsters ask questions like how much sleep are you getting? On a scale of one to ten how would you rate your stress level yesterday? Last week? Did you have a headache yesterday? Last week? How much time did you spend socializing with friends and family yesterday? Last week? When they correlate the answers to these sorts of questions to household income, a different picture emerges. Emotional well being does indeed increase with income, but only up to ~$75,000. After that figure is reached, there is no increase in emotional well being. As their income increases above this figure, the wealthy become more satisfied with their financial success and their ability to buy more and more stuff, but they still have just as many day to day stresses and worries as the middle class does.
In most US cities today a $75, 000 annual income for a household of 2 adults and 2 children just covers the necessities of a decent home, maybe two cars, healthcare, food, clothing, entertainment, and maybe a bit left over to put in savings. So, according to this study, once your needs are comfortably met, you have as much emotional well being as you’ll ever have. If you are not content, you need to look for other reasons besides lack of funds. Do you like your job? Is there a place in your life for creative expression? Are your friends supportive and fun to be with? Are you getting enough exercise? Is there something you’ve always wanted or needed to do but never done? Finding solutions to these questions will bring about emotional well being, not more money.
But the Devil has no trouble convincing us that money is the answer. He appeals to the goal loving, can-do Capricorn in each of us and says, “If you just had that cool, red Mustang you’d be happy.” Or a nicer home in a better neighborhood, or a bigger diamond for your wedding ring, or a new boyfriend. So you buy the Mustang and after awhile the coolness wears off and it becomes just a car. So you buy a BMW which in turn will loose its thrill. The more you have, the more you want. Great. So now where do I go? Photo by Kipp Schoen
It’s an obvious trap. You’d think we’d figure it out. Those chains around the necks of the two figures in the tarot card look like they’d be easy to slip off. But we’re seldom able to do this. How come? I’m not a psychologist, but my own experiences, conversations with friends, and research on the subject suggest that there are at least two reasons.
The first is emptiness. The Empty People oil on canvas by Morteza Katouzian Image from The Red Book, C.G. Jung When Carl Jung lost his soulI’m not talking loneliness here. You can be surrounded by friends and family and still be empty. Emptiness feels like you’re a thin brittle shell with nothing inside. Some say it feels like you’re suffocating, drowning and reaching up toward the surface of the water toward help but never getting there. It feels like you have no connection to anything, cut off from the world around you. Like you’re a void that nothing and nobody can fill, but you keep trying anyway.
Carl Jung believed that this feeling was due to being cut off from your soul, which is your link to the worlds beyond the material world. These are the realms of spirit and the divine and are as necessary to us as food and drink. As Jung says, “He who possesses the world, but not its image, possess only half the world. If he does not find his soul, the horror of emptiness will overcome him. My friends, it is wise to nourish the soul, otherwise you will breed devils and dragons.”
The second is fear.
The world is a scary place. Anything can happen and nothing is certain. When Yoda tells Luke Skywalker about all the dangers he will face, Luke says, “I’m not afraid.” To which Yoda replies, “You will be.”
But this is a different kind of fear. On the surface it seems totally rational, but it really isn’t. It is the fear that there won’t be enough.
Enough what?
Enough money for retirement
Enough money to cover all the medical bills that you may incur in your lifetime
Enough money to buy ( fill in the blank ) so that you’ll feel valuable and your friends and family will value you
Enough money to keep a basement stocked with food and water in case of ( fill in the blank )
Take your pick.
This fear is irrational because no matter how much money you make and how many healthcare policies, insurance policies, shoes, or packages of food you buy, there never seems to be enough; and you are still afraid.
So how do you get rid of the emptiness and fear?
Remember that doing something is always better than having something.
Spend your money on things to do. If you travel, the knowledge, insights, and happy memories will always be with you. If you buy a camera or a bike use them. Improve your skills and stamina, join clubs to meet other photographers or bikers, go on outings with them. This way the thing you buy keeps on giving you pleasure and won’t sit collecting dust in the closet when the novelty wears off.
Challenge yourself. Buy a tennis racket or ballroom dancing lessons. Whatever strikes your fancy. But work at becoming the best tennis player or dancer that you can be. The effort and accomplishment will bring you joy.
Volunteer at an organization or for a cause that you believe in. The more you give, the more you receive. Really.
Sing and laugh
Practice gratitude. Remind yourself every day of all the blessings in your life.
Reach out to friends and family for support. Talk to them about what you’re feeling.
Let go of friends that drain your energy and find new ones that support you and bring you joy.
Practice yoga or some other form of exercise/spirituality.
If none of these strategies work for you, seek professional help. It could save your life.
If the Devil exixts at all, he exists as a metaphor for emptiness and fear. These emotions keep us trapped in the material, unable and afraid to embrace the nurturing divinity that permeates and surrounds us.
The Devil key is all about materialism.
Humans are, first and foremost, materialistic beings. We can’t help it. Still Life #24, by Tom Wesselmann
The material world surrounds and permeates us. It overwhelms us with its beauty, sensuality, terrors, and brutality.
But we used to try much harder to reach beyond the material realms and toward the divine.
From ancient times up until about the end of the 1900s we lavished most of our money, time, and skills on our sacred spaces.
We built them huge. Hypostyle, Temple of Karnak, Luxor, Egypt One column was an artisans life work.
We built them to last. Pyramids of Giza Temples and tombs were the only structures built of stone in ancient Egypt. Almost everything else was made of mud brick–even the pharaoh’s palace.
We built them high, so that when we raised our eyes we would be reminded of the divine. Acropolis, Athens, Greece
Our finest architects, artists, and craftspeople spent their lives making them truly awe-inspiring. Notre Dame Cathedral, Paris, France Canterbury Cathedral, Canterbury, UK
But nowadays when we lift our eyes from the pavement searching for inspiration we see: Fifth Third Bank Tower, Cincinnati, Ohio
Banks… Bank of China Tower, Hong Kong, China, Wikimedia Commons Big Pink, US Bank Tower, Portland, Oregon
That sometimes look suspiciously like… Bank of England and First World War Memorial, London, UK from wallyg’s photostream
Temples and Cathedrals. JPMorgan Chase Bank Building, Houston, Texas. Their recent $2 billion dollar fiasco reminded us yet again that it’s not a good idea to put our faith in banks. Frost Bank Building, Austin, Texas
Remind you of this? The Natural Cathedral, by Lars van der Goor. Amsterdam, The Netherlands
The forest lane photograph was snatched from a marvelous web site called PhotoBotos. If you subscribe you get an inspiring picture like this in your email box every day.
AEW was a scholar and a prolific writer. Some critics feel he was too prolific, but I digress. He was married twice and had one daughter by his first wife. He was The Magician of the pair because the idea, or inspiration of a tarot deck was his, and he is the one who found the artist, outlined the general ideas of the designs, and found a publisher. The basic meaning of The Magician is the manifestation of an idea.
PCS was also a writer, but first and foremost, she was an artist, and not just any sort of artist. She trained at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn where she was taught to express emotion and ideas indirectly but meaningfully in visual art. Art was both social and spiritual and was a tool for changing the world. and In other words, she was a Symbolist.
