No matter what tarot quiz I take, the result is ALWAYS the same
You know, it never ceases to amaze me the way the morbid and the macabre always creep about my life and my consciousness. Death is something that speaks to me on both a figurative and a literal level. Well, not so much death itself as the trappings surrounding it: the rituals, the paraphernalia, the superstitions. I suppose it may be more accurate to say I'm taken by funerary customs and traditions than I am the actual state of death. Being dead is hardly interesting, but people's reactions to it never cease to fascinate.
I've collected and studied various tarot decks for nearly 10 years now, and in almost every deck I've ever browsed, the Death card has been my favorite, the one whose imagery sparks the greatest interest and inspiration. In tarot, of course, lucky old number 13 rarely ever signifies an actual physical passing; it's a card of change and transition. I suppose I've long felt drawn to that card because I've felt like I was stuck in transition for quite some time. I've always been most comfortable in the "in-between" places, as they were. Chalk it up to my fox-ish nature for feeling most at home in those borderlands, both socially and mentally.
Right now, the deck with which I'm working is the Pamela Colman Smith Commemorative Centennial Deck. Ms. Smth, aka "Pixie," is the artistic genius behind the old tarot standard, the Rider-Waite deck. In my years of collecting, I'd never had much interest in any of the RW decks because of the Golden Dawn/occultist and Christian imagery. Never really that fond of medieval styles, either. I leaned more towards Norse-themed decks and gothic styled decks since they conveyed symbols I found to be more intuitive and aesthetically pleasing. I was able to relate a lot of the imagery to the stories I read and wrote, the figures relating to characters I loved and understood. But right now, at this juncture, I can admire the artwork in those decks, but they don't speak to me as they once did. Now it's Pixie's deck which captivates me. Pixie's deck has brought tarot study back into my daily life, and I'm finding myself all the richer for it.
Of course, as with other decks, the Death trump is my favorite. This version more than any other I've seen speaks of the resurrection aspect of the transition from one state to the next.: the Rosicurian rose, the rising sun, the ecstasy on the face of the young woman in the lower right foreground. The skeletal figure has a kindly expression as he gazes at the young figures in that corner of the card; it's hard to describe a skull has having a "kindly expression," but there's a certain softness and compassion in the rendering of that figure. And the viking ship in the background pleases me-- even though I've stepped into a system of symbols and mythology that are separate from my own knowledge of the world, it's like a little bit of reassurance that my gods are there with me, always and forever. That viking ship is such an anachronism in the deck, and I'd never noticed it before I started working with Pixie's Centennial reprinting, but it made me smile like no card ever has before. It was a wholly unexpected, wholly welcome surprise-- an inside joke, a secret message-- and it cemented my adoration of this classic deck.
And, I admit, Pixie's rendering of Death grabs me now more than ever because of the medieval settng of her imagery. The scene presented here, after looking at cards of princes and monks and peasants and men in tights, just screams "Black Death" to me. And seeing how my plague doctor story is my rebirth as a writer, this card is all that more appropriate in my life at this time. I've been stuck in transition for far too long, I've grown entirely too comfortable in my in-between spaces. The skeletal hands in that card beckon to me as the skeletal hands in traditional plague doctor artwork do-- this story needs to be finished, because I will find a stronger, more purposeful self at the other end. If I persevere, I can see the transition from CSR to writer through.
Yet, for all this, it still amazes me to get the Death card as the result of every online tarot-themed quiz I've taken. But then again, I rarely take any kind of online quiz, so it's not like I'm all seive-brained about it.
In other news, absinthe + Benadryl = moderately functional zombie. I need to remember when I've taken allergy meds before I pour myself a glass of anything more potent than water.
I've collected and studied various tarot decks for nearly 10 years now, and in almost every deck I've ever browsed, the Death card has been my favorite, the one whose imagery sparks the greatest interest and inspiration. In tarot, of course, lucky old number 13 rarely ever signifies an actual physical passing; it's a card of change and transition. I suppose I've long felt drawn to that card because I've felt like I was stuck in transition for quite some time. I've always been most comfortable in the "in-between" places, as they were. Chalk it up to my fox-ish nature for feeling most at home in those borderlands, both socially and mentally.
Right now, the deck with which I'm working is the Pamela Colman Smith Commemorative Centennial Deck. Ms. Smth, aka "Pixie," is the artistic genius behind the old tarot standard, the Rider-Waite deck. In my years of collecting, I'd never had much interest in any of the RW decks because of the Golden Dawn/occultist and Christian imagery. Never really that fond of medieval styles, either. I leaned more towards Norse-themed decks and gothic styled decks since they conveyed symbols I found to be more intuitive and aesthetically pleasing. I was able to relate a lot of the imagery to the stories I read and wrote, the figures relating to characters I loved and understood. But right now, at this juncture, I can admire the artwork in those decks, but they don't speak to me as they once did. Now it's Pixie's deck which captivates me. Pixie's deck has brought tarot study back into my daily life, and I'm finding myself all the richer for it.
Of course, as with other decks, the Death trump is my favorite. This version more than any other I've seen speaks of the resurrection aspect of the transition from one state to the next.: the Rosicurian rose, the rising sun, the ecstasy on the face of the young woman in the lower right foreground. The skeletal figure has a kindly expression as he gazes at the young figures in that corner of the card; it's hard to describe a skull has having a "kindly expression," but there's a certain softness and compassion in the rendering of that figure. And the viking ship in the background pleases me-- even though I've stepped into a system of symbols and mythology that are separate from my own knowledge of the world, it's like a little bit of reassurance that my gods are there with me, always and forever. That viking ship is such an anachronism in the deck, and I'd never noticed it before I started working with Pixie's Centennial reprinting, but it made me smile like no card ever has before. It was a wholly unexpected, wholly welcome surprise-- an inside joke, a secret message-- and it cemented my adoration of this classic deck.
And, I admit, Pixie's rendering of Death grabs me now more than ever because of the medieval settng of her imagery. The scene presented here, after looking at cards of princes and monks and peasants and men in tights, just screams "Black Death" to me. And seeing how my plague doctor story is my rebirth as a writer, this card is all that more appropriate in my life at this time. I've been stuck in transition for far too long, I've grown entirely too comfortable in my in-between spaces. The skeletal hands in that card beckon to me as the skeletal hands in traditional plague doctor artwork do-- this story needs to be finished, because I will find a stronger, more purposeful self at the other end. If I persevere, I can see the transition from CSR to writer through.
Yet, for all this, it still amazes me to get the Death card as the result of every online tarot-themed quiz I've taken. But then again, I rarely take any kind of online quiz, so it's not like I'm all seive-brained about it.
In other news, absinthe + Benadryl = moderately functional zombie. I need to remember when I've taken allergy meds before I pour myself a glass of anything more potent than water.