Peg Kerr's Journal

Thanks again to carbonel, who out of the goodness of her heart arranged a little get together with friends last night so that Peg could escape the confines of her house for one evening. We went over to Lois McMaster Bujold's where we were joined by 1crowdedhour and Pat Wrede. A happy evening was spent eating nibbles and discussing books and summer plans. I was noble and had only a thimbleful of the raspberry wine, even though it was OMIGOD the best stuff ever and I would have loved to have swilled an embarrassing amount. You were teasing me by bringing it, carbonel, but my surgeon would have certainly have looked askance if I had mixed it with the Vicodin.

I received my copy of the Tarot of Jane Austen today, which I received with a gift certificate someone gave me, and I am happily perusing it. I love it: it has a Love and Friendship (should that be "Freindship"?) spread and a Sense and Sensibility spread, among others, in the accompanying book.

I got your package, madlori! Thanks! No, I don't have a copy and am definitely looking forward to reading it.

This afternoon, we are heading out to my sister's in Minnetonka for a high school graduation open house for my nephew. I plan to obtain a plate of my sister's highly edible munchibles, find a chair, and not move for the entire time we are there. I am feeling a little shaky this afternoon, but I definitely don't want to miss Steven's celebration.

Enjoy the weekend, all.

I bought this one today, the Druidcraft Tarot. I went to four stores in all and looked through a lot of decks. I'm not totally in love with this deck or even sure that I will use it extensively, since I've never had a Tarot deck before. But I like it, and I thought it might be a good starting point. I have, however, also put the Jane Austen deck on my Amazon wishlist.

_lindsay_ asked to know a little about my previous remark that I'm somewhat wary of Tarot. That's true, I am. For one thing, I probably first learned about Tarot in detail by reading Tim Powers' Last Call--and that book is enough to terrify anybody from ever touching a deck! Tim is a devout Roman Catholic, and--it's funny--although he is a fantasy writer, he doesn't like or trust magic at all! In fact, in his stories, magic pretty much always leads to ruin. Tim has told me that he won't allow a Tarot deck in his house, and he would never dare play a game of Assumption, the game he actually invented for Last Call that is played with a Tarot deck.

Then, too, I have had somewhat of an inner struggle about what to think about Tarot because I am a Christian myself. A liberal one, but a Christian all the same. And Christianity has often been suspicious, if not overtly condemning, of things things associated with the occult, as Tarot sometimes is. I know that Tarot is a pretty amorphous, squishy concept, with connections to many different spiritual and mystic paths, not just Paganism--it has links to Masons, Hebrew, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Egyptian mysticism, Jungian archetypes, and more. I do not condemn Wicca or Paganism myself; I understand them to be different faiths than my own, and not, as some conservative Christians think, the road to the Devil and damnation. I am certainly very interested in many aspects of Wicca/paganism--the cycle of the seasons, the attention to the mother/maiden/crone, the reverence for the natural world, especially trees, male/female energy and balance, etc.--and I think my Christianity can learn and draw wisdom from that.

Do I think Tarot is magic? Well, I don't know what I think of magic, frankly. I am extremely skeptical whenever I step into a New Age shop. But I am interested and curious when I step in. I am not like Lavender or Parvati, credulous and perhaps gullible, but I am not Hermione, the totally rejecting skeptic who thinks divination is probably useless, either. I have had l_a_winter do a reading for me on Easter Sunday every year for probably ten years or so. I do not think that what we discuss when we do a reading is a prediction which will, of course, come true because Tarot is magic. Rather, I think that Tarot can tap into some useful insights, many, perhaps, Jungian, and I am interested in opening myself up to that.

Then, too, I have been to some panels at conventions about how Tarot may be useful to a writer, and that is because Tarot, as I understand it has developed over the centuries, can be a useful tool for intuition. I LOVE thinking and chewing over archetypes; it is one of the reasons I particularly adore fantasy literature, and why, when I write, I am particularly attuned to theme. Tarot is all about themes. And that in the end, I think, is what made me decide (after YEARS of thinking about it) to go out and get a Tarot deck. I have felt awfully stultified and stuck lately, and barren of intuition. I have been struggling with some things for years that my best attempts at using logic and reason have yielded no direction at all (and some of this is writing-related, some of it personal stuff that Elinor Dashwood does not talk about in this LiveJournal). I have been feeling very frustrated lately as a result. Why not try Tarot, with the understanding that I'm using it not as a "magical" device, or a step into a faith that is not my own Christian faith, but as a way to open up a pathway to my unconscious and intuition, the source of my creativity, which, let's face it, has been feeling awfully blocked lately?

So I looked around and after investigating and hesitating over a LOT of decks, I chose this Pagan/Druidic one. And yeah, I must admit I am a little uncertain and uncomfortable with that choice. But the artwork is cool, and I'm not buying it because I'm about to worship the Maiden/Mother/Crone or cast off my clothes to go skyclad or mate with a horned god or anything (no disrespect to my Pagan/Wicca friends on this friends list, I assure you). I may get around to wrapping the deck with silk, or I may not. I am not quite credulous enough to think I will be able to detect "emanations" from the cards, nor do I feel the need to bless my new deck with the ritual elaborated in the accompanying manual--I find it mildly silly rather than inspiring.

But I do want to listen to what the Maiden/Mother/Crone, or the Moon, or the Magician, or the Star or the Hanged Man have to say to me. And especially the Fool.

The Tarot is often described as the story of the journal of the Fool into achieving wisdom and mastery. I have felt a lot like a Fool lately, so I am sure we will have much to talk about.

(If there is anyone local and knowledgeable who might be inclined to meet with me over coffee some Friday night to sort of introduce me to my new deck, let me know. Thanks.)

Edited to add: When you think about it, Harry Potter would make a good Tarot as well. Lupin could be the Moon card, James and Lily could be the lovers, the Tower could be the death of James and Lily (the lovers) and explosion of their house. Judgment could either be the Sorting Hat or Harry's trial before the Wizengamot. Strength could be summoning the Patronus (with the Gryffindor Lion as the Lion on the card), or maybe Strength could be Neville Longbottom. Peter Pettigrew could be the Devil card. Death could be Voldemort, or the Dementors. John Granger has already done a lot of analysis of how the four Houses are associated with the four alchemical elements (earth, fire, air, water) which in turn are associates with the four suits (wands, pentacles, cups, swords). You have wands, of course, and the Sword of Gryffindor. Maybe Ollivander would be the Ace of Wands. Fawkes would be associated with Fire--perhaps the Sun card. Gilderoy Lockhart could be the Fool, or perhaps the twins, with Weasley Wizarding Wheezes. Sibyll Trelawney could be the Priestess. Something with a lot of pentacles could be a trip to Gringotts. (Maybe the twins would be the Knight of Pentacles, with their Triwizard Tournament winnings). The Magician might be Dumbledore, looking into a Pensieve. Etcetera. There are lots of possibilities.

There have been some people who have started developing ideas for a Harry Potter tarot on the web, but I think you'd have to wait until the seventh book is published to do it right, and no deck has been published yet.

As we have done for the last, oh, ten years or so, Laurie Winter (l_a_winter did my traditional Easter tarot reading for me on Sunday. She used the Robin Wood deck.

Before we started, we talked a little about the question. I had been thinking all weekend that for years I've asked variations on the same question, something to the effect of, what do I need to know about getting the writing started again, or opening up my creativity or something. I thought about something that Laurie told me once a couple of years ago, that continuing to do the same thing over and over, hoping for a different result is the definition of craziness. So this year I decided to make my question as open-ended as possible:

What do I need to know?

In my attempt to try to do something different, I didn't so much shuffle the cards as sort of smear them about on the table and then re-stack them. Since Laurie wasn't sure how the cards were oriented before I started, we decided to skip paying attention to reversals.

( The reading )

I decided to try a tarot reading site to ask the question, "What do I need to know about going for the black belt?" and I got this reading.

Discuss.

Laurie WInter did a tarot reading for me on Sunday, as she has done the past several years. (I don't know which deck it was, sorry). I have mixed feelings about tarot. I don't fear them as instruments of the devil (Tim Powers, for example, despite having written a novel all about the power of the Tarot, will not allow a deck in his house), although I am at times a little uneasy about them. I guess I treat them, as Kij has said, as something that might open a window of thought that might help you to think about your life in a different way. I have known writers who have found them to be at times helpful to use when thinking about their books.

The question (which I didn't tell Laurie) "What do I need to know about getting the ice palace book going and moving toward a full, confident, successful writer's life?

The Signifier: 2 of Pentacles, showing a woman on a tightrope, holding a pentacle in each hand. "Balance or focus." Oh, yeah. I laughed when I saw that. That's what I'm all about, definitely.

Situation Surrounding You: King of Swords, reversed. Cruel and crafty, untrustworthy, crafty pig-headed. This could be a person, but no one sprang to mind for me. It felt to me instead like writers block, like the pig-headed stubbornness of my back brain to produce words when I ask it to.

Recent past: 7 of Wands, showing a man standing on a hill, with wands pointed at him from the foreground. Being prepared for whatever comes, you've picked your high ground. Forces are arrayed against you, but you operate from a position of strength.

Bridge or barrier: Ace of Swords. Shows a sword, surrounded by flowered garlands, but the sword pierces through them. Attainment of power or goals. insight/mental/mind, "cutting through the crap."

Near Future: Page of Wands. She stands holding a tall wand with a crystal at the top, emitting rays. Firecrackers at her belt. Harnessing available energy. It felt like a card showing "focussing," which was hopeful, suggesting getting in touch with whatever-it-is that makes me write well.

Root: 5 of Pentacles. Shows a ragged man in the snow, facing away from a stained glass window (the five pentacles are in the stained glass). Another hooded woman lies huddled in the snow under the window. Not taking help available, turning away, choosing to step outside, do it my way. It felt like writers block again, the feeling of being out in the cold, not making it on my own. The writing has felt impoverished in the past.

Goal: 6 of swords, reversed. Shows a man in a boat with swords in it, floating without his guidance into a cave. Trip to higher consciousness is advised. Reversed it means you have doubts about obtaining your goal. I asked her, "Doubts about achieving it or doubts about wanting to achieve it? "Excellent question," she replied.

How you see yourself: Chariot. Balance again. About not driving (the driver is holding a lyre rather than the reins). He is focused on his art, rather than the journey, driven at high speed. This felt like another balance card, and the feeling of being slightly out of control. Interestingly enough, it was the only major arcana card in the entire reading.

How others see you: 8 of swords, reversed. This is a scary looking card, with a bound blindfolded woman surrounded by cards, but since it's reversed, the meaning is respite from fear, new beginnings, freedom, release. A very hopeful meaning.

Hopes and fears: 10 of cups. Happy family, surrounded by abundance. Home, joy, familial bliss, contentment of heart, peace, respect from others.

Up until this point, I had felt that the reading was moving in a very hopeful direction. I had been blocked, but somehow I was going to get focused and move in the right direction. Then Laurie turned over the last card.

Outcome: 6 of pentacles, reversed. Shows a man holding a scale, with hands reaching out to him. Reversed, it means unstable finances, frustrated plans, jealousy can cause harm.

I stared at the card, disappointed. Rats.

Laurie suggested that since there was only one major arcana card, this might be interpreted as a very short term reading. Perhaps the last card was a caution, rather than a prediction. Jealousy, I thought, and laughed a little. I told her how I had sat next to Jane Yolen at the signing, and there had been a long line at the table for her to sign (serendipoz probably had at least fifty books for her) and nobody had one of mine. Yeah, I have to beware of jealousy, of comparing myself to others; it will only make my frustration/dissatisfaction about the progress of my career worse.

Comments, especially about that last card?