Whenever my family took long drives through the country during my childhood -- which was often, since we actually lived in the country -- I would gaze tirelessly out the window at the utility poles going by. They seemed like living things to me, enormous kachinas strolling across the landscape and waving at us with rigid arms as we passed. Even the simpler ones like the ones in my sketch held my fascination; stretching out as far as I could see in either direction, they created a thread of continuity across the wild desert.
The poles and the railway tracks above ultimately serve the same function: continuity and follow-through, connectivity and opportunity. They are worldwide symbols of power, evolution, and commerce. I threw in a handful of stars above to light the way, to temper the conceit that feeds off of our forward momentum, and to remind us of the true power out there that inspires but simultaneously dwarfs our own.
Our dreams often carry us forward at the expense of others. Indeed, we often even double-cross ourselves along the way, such is our ambition. You can follow the winding paths of the poles and tracks to get to the next civilized outpost; in the meantime the stars are your moral compass, by which to judge your true position in the cosmos at any given moment.
There's nothing quite like the feeling one gets upon discovering a customer has left a really shitty tip. It's the perfect crime, a deeply personal affront for which there is rarely any recourse or rebuttal. Sometimes you totally see it coming; other times it comes as such a shock that you end up inventing all sorts of excuses to explain it away. (A mathematical error perhaps. Could happen to anyone!)
But all too often there is a message specifically encoded in the amount left on the table. I'm not talking about the words "F-U-C-K-Y-O-U" spelled out in pennies -- though I have seen that happen. To someone else. It's usually way more subtle, though; tips are about power, they are expressions of judgment or non-judgment. We consider the statement we're making as we calculate the amount, and it often has very little to do with the service that was provided. So when I get a really bad tip, I always have to wonder: was this about me? Or about them?
(I prefer to think it's always about them.)
Anyhow, above is a sketch of an actual tip that I've actually received. Yes, the person took the time to write out that they were leaving a cash tip. No, there aren't any dollar bills hidden just out of frame. In moments like these, I try to temper my discouragement with the knowledge that this experience is literally built into my job. If I was fundamentally opposed to get royally stiffed now and then, I wouldn't show up at all. Right?
Anyhow, this card illustrates one of those occasions when the drawbacks of a situation are more apparent than the benefits. Are you going to let it get to you, and wind up spreading the bad vibe to your other tables? I'd like to think that no reader of mine would not so easily succumb to this kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. Opportunity is all around you, don't let a few losses (no matter how profoundly irritating) wind up determining your next few steps.
I don't know what led me to this drawing. Perhaps I was inspired by the lone moth in the Ace of Cups I drew many weeks ago, a free creature enslaved by its desire for illumination. Perhaps it was the Puma's Moth King sneakers, a limited run which apparently I'm a year late in discovering, and which I'll bitterly have to make do without. Perhaps it was this month's BPAL's new series of fragrances based on moths and butterflies (scroll down). These are limited edition as well, but I guarantee you I'll be smelling like the "Great Grey Witch" for many months to come.
Partly I wanted to make a version of this card that effectively communicated its meanings without resorting to the rather strident traditional imagery. And what are those meanings? Funny you should ask, as this week I added a label to the site which gives you three basic meanings for each card (for a particular reading, just choose a card from the sidebar). The Ten of Swords entry says:
1. Surrender 2. Undisciplined thought 3. Failure of a plan or project.
So there it is. At a certain point things become get so intense that there's nothing left to do but quit struggling and face the facts -- you're pinned. Whether the cause of the derail is natural or unnatural, personal or professional, this is totally irrelevant and you will gain no peace of mind from twisting about trying to understand the significance of it from your current position.
The Ten isn't pure doom and gloom -- just as every cheerful card carries its own warnings, every "dark" card contains the key to its own shackles. In this case you are urged to cultivate stillness, reflection, and humility, in hopes that you will actually recognize your next big idea when you see it, and follow it out of darkness into the light.
I used to be able to enjoy rides like these, but now my vestibular system protests vigorously against them, getting other bodily systems involved if necessary.
This is the first sketch in a while that I've been a little disappointed with, once I saw the final result. Part of it is that I was stuck using a sucky pen and had to fix a lot of mistakes, but in general I see myself compromising left and right here to make up for my lack drawing ability. I don't hate it, it's just not exactly what I envisioned. And the perspective is a little weird -- I think I might have given up on this one too easily purely for the sake of getting it over with already.
Since the Six serves as the midpoint of our journey from Two to Ten (excluding the Ace, which is merely the catalyst that triggers this journey), it occupies a point of near-perfect equilibrium. Perhaps that's why I drew half of the teacups full and half of them empty...
There's been a lot of speculation about Pamela Coleman-Smith's version, apparently people have a hard time grasping what they're seeing. Are the figures children, or tiny adults? It pains me to say so, but it seems that the perspective in PCS's is a little off too.
More than anything the Six of Cups speaks to me about the simple pleasures in life, the ones which require little risk on our part. (There is a sort of gravitas in the Two of Cups, for example, that feels anything but casual.) In the cards that follow the Six, we are closer to the end than we are to the beginning; perhaps that's what's necessitates this last, idealized look back over our shoulder. We are nothing like what we used to be, but it is still possible to search ourselves and discover traces of our origin.
Behold, the Tetractys. I wrote about it once before, in reference to its four rows of points. I apparently can't keep my mind off it -- here we are, basking in its beautiful symmetry once more.
Let's get the practical card-reading stuff out of the way first. I wanted to diagram the arduous process of refinement one cultivates while traveling through the suit of Coins. In the beginning it feels like a marvel that you're able to manifest anything concrete at all; as time passes and pressure mounts, diamond-hard points begin to emerge from the grit you started with, until finally you have access to the treasure that you hoped was there all along.
And it was there all along -- that's extremely important to remember if the product isn't quite what you expected. In this case, seeing a project through to its completion has been the most significant reward. You should be proud! But you should also know when it's time to stop polishing and move on to the next hunk of rock. Remember, the thrill is in the process of attainment, it's rarely in the actual possession. This is how empires are built.
Now for the Tetractys. In my drawing above, the ten points are connected by 21 pathways -- exactly like the qabalistic Tree of Life diagrams you see floating around out there with Tarot card associations doodled all over them. That's right, 21 pathways for 21 cards (the Fool is either unnumbered or assigned to "zero"). Sure, you could easily connect more pathways between the points on either diagram... but then that wouldn't be nearly as mystically coincidental, would it?
But that's the wonderful thing about numbers and geometric figures: you can customize them to fit almost every need. And if what you need is an elegant framework upon which to drape a complex system of symbols, then the Tetractys has got you covered! You could assign the 21 Trump cards to these 21 pathways, or you could divide them into 3 groups and embed them in the figure's 3 empty layers like fossils suspended in sediment.
Forget the Tree of Life; the Tetractys is a more beautiful and complex system by which to organize your Tarot cards. For example, it's radially symmetrical. It replicates seamlessly, illustrating both microcosm and macrocosm. It has a firm base and won't tip over easily.
Anyone who uses the qabalistic model for their card interpretations, I'd like to hear what you think about this. Whose version of the Tree do you use as a reference, and why? Which parts would you keep, and which parts would you rather throw away?
This is the kind of act I can't watch too much of; honestly it seems to me that he's really pushing his luck with that seventh sword. He appears to be perfectly in control, and the audience is surely convinced he knows what he's doing, but ultimately we're talking about cold steel versus delicate flesh, and accidents do happen. In order to outshine our competition and electrify our audience, we suspend our own disbelief and summon inadvisable levels of confidence -- making it all too easy to misjudge distances, ignore warning signs, and generally proceed without caution.
There's a lot to be said for displays of cleverness, but it's only a matter of time before you get so caught up in the razzle-dazzle that you begin treating reality like some kind of sport, forgetting about the very real consequences your decisions may have -- on yourself as well as others. Relying on self-deception to consistently fool people is a fine short-term game, but the longer you play, the greater the odds that narrow blade will turn back on you. Perhaps you'd better take a step backwards and judge your situation from a less engaged position.
Oh yeah, and that's totally a chest tattoo of Pamela Coleman Smith's signature, which you can find on most of her RWS cards. How odd; I suppose it's possible they had some sort of dalliance when his show toured Europe...
I typically manage adequate care for whatever plants I bring home, but along the way I've killed one of everything. Sometimes my laziness or ignorance has totally been the problem, but sometimes things just wither for no reason anyone can figure out. A few years ago when I was dealing with problems in my relationship, the responsibility of indoor gardening became too much of a psychological burden altogether. So I gave away all my plants, breathed a sigh of relief, and moved on to other things.
Recently it occurred to me I might be ready to start again; I picked up a hardy-looking aloe vera plant at a local nursery and we're learning to love each other.
In the picture above, everything has fallen into decrepitude. Who cares why? Drought, inattention, pests -- it could be anything, and the result is the same. The important thing is that the biggest, roomiest pot of all still shows signs of life, imploring you not to retire your fork and spade just yet.
By the looks of the emotional terrain on display here, you may not be the master gardener you thought you were. That's just fine, people (like plants) go through many seasons, and inconsistency is thoroughly human. But dwelling on your failures may cause you to overlook the small patches in your life that still need tending. The RWS Five of Cups is very clear in this regard. Mourn your losses, but not at the expense of what's survived. See that bridge in the background? Get over it already.
Often I find I have some item laying around that I no longer want or need, but which I can't bear to throw away -- keepsakes that have outlived their value, token objects no one but myself would ever treasure. But these things aren't garbage, so it seems improper to just discard them unceremoniously among the orange peels and cat litter. So instead, I put them in the river.
My friend Chris was horrified when I let this slip. "You can't just throw your old shit in the river," he scolded me. I tried to explain that I consider the East River to be a sort of long-term safety deposit box. When I put something in it (an old ring, a busted pocket-knife, a pair of underwear I will always have fond memories of) I always know where that thing is -- it's at the bottom of the river. As opposed to when you throw something in the garbage, in which case, who knows where the hell it goes?
Chris remains judgy and unconvinced. Look, I don't do it often. And the river is already full of sewage, dissolved metals, and runoff from Newtown Creek (itself one of the most polluted waterways in the US). I think a pair of plaster antlers is the least of its problems.
The worn remains of this industrial area have fascinated me for years. Right now I live just three blocks away, and visit often. It's a quiet place where people go to sit and think, or drink. Sometimes you even see people fishing there. I often see Canada geese there, looking a little lost and disappointed. It's a desolate, wild place on the edge of a great civilization.
These are the kinds of areas that the Eight of Cups compels us to wander through. The Eight oversees our rituals of renunciation; it illustrates the moment when you finally loosen your grip on a relationship or a vision of yourself that you've been clinging to for far too long. We invest in these things emotionally to the point where we're desperate to keep them even when they don't mean anything anymore.
Walking away is always an option, the card reminds us. Sometimes it's the only option. Why fight a losing battle with the past when nine new cups await just over the horizon?
So I drew a picture of myself throwing the old ones into the river; I can honor their existence without keeping them in my (tiny) apartment, without dragging them around with me from place to place for the rest of my life. It may be hard to let go, but at least I'll always know exactly where they are.
On the surface it seems like such an innocent moment, just pure wish-fulfillment. That's what the carnival is for, isn't it? So, drunk on the possibilities, you reach out to accept everything that's offered.
Who cares if it's too much ice cream for just one person, more than you could even physically eat? Who cares about the visible cracks in the cone, the hot summer sun, the carelessness with which it is handed to you -- all the myriad factors actively correlating to keep you from enjoying your fantasy-come-true? Desire eclipses reason, intoxication outpaces temperance.
That's the story of the Seven of Cups in a nutshell: fantastical visions getting mixed up with all-too-real possibilities, blinding us to our true needs and natural limitations.
I get sick almost every time I go to Coney Island, because I think that food you ingested for pleasure doesn't really count as having been eaten. I remember when I bought a cheap piña colada on the boardwalk once, in one of those gigantic goblets that looks like genie bottle; I tried to show the woman my ID and she laughed in my face. "Hello?? This is Coney Island!" she explained, gesturing at the landscape around us. Then she stage-whispered that she'd give me a free refill if I tipped her well. So naturally I wound up drinking two of those hideous corn-syrup cocktails, probably 32 ounces in total, and felt seasick for almost 48 hours afterward. I'm sure the cheap-o onion rings, pistachio soft-serve, and fried oysters didn't help.
(As of today I haven't eaten any refined sugar in eight days. I didn't think of it until after I started, but it just figures that I'd wind up drawing ice cream.)
(And yes, that seems to be our sideshow strongman from the Four of Swords forking it over. I didn't expect to see him again... Initially the arm was just going to belong to an ice cream truck vendor, but the picture wound up having a sort of "Get into my van" quality which, as interesting an interpretation as that would have turned out to be, was not what I set out to evoke.)
I spent a lot of time over the last couple days trying to imagine some sort of harmoniously double-bladed apparatus. I thought about the way incisors work together to chop up our food, or the way propeller blades achieve lift even though they oppose each other. But none of these things seemed like anything I wanted to draw. Then I thought about bees -- how an entire swarm of creatures, each armed with its own venomous barb, manage to work together for the good of the hive. The bees pictured above may look like they're squaring off, but ultimately they know that all the pollen they gather is going back to the same place. Their swords are always visible, but never unsheathed.
Let's add this to the list of things I'd never have heard of it wasn't for my partner. Fasces are an emblem or design motif that you've probably seen everywhere, without knowing they were. "It's like a bundle of sticks," Tex told me. "Wait," I said, "Don't you mean faggot?"
No, it turns out. He patiently went on to explain that this symbol for victory and strength is where we get the term fascism. The core idea is that a bundle is harder to break than a single stick. "AH," I said, "Like that monologue of Richard Farnsworth's in The Straight Story!" Yes, exactly -- only sometimes there's an axe or arrow blade nestled in there too, to show you mean business.
It was good timing -- I just so happened to have drawn the Six of Wands as my next sketching project. I felt like I was cheating, resorting to an actually well-known symbol for success and achievement, but at least I learned something new. Also, while I sat in the park sketching, a butterfly landed on my knee and stayed there for several minutes. I'm pretty sure it was a monarch.
I started off with the best of intentions. After days of contemplating appropriate Eight of Wands imagery, I was inspired by the vague "Here we come to save the day!" quality of its staffs and decided to find something truly useful for them to do.
So you know how in zombie movies people are always busting up the chifforobe or whatever so they can board up the windows? What could be more providentially useful than that?
But you know, once I had it all sketched I realized that this is one creepy-looking card. The Eight is usually described as sudden news or developments that disrupt the game already in progress, possibly tipping the scales in your favor -- anyone who draws this one in a reading is bound to overlook the ever-helpful boards and focus instead on the onslaught of shambling revenants. That's just not right.
It does, however, offer an interesting visual counterpoint to the Seven I sketched just a couple weeks ago. The little hammer-wielding Morlocks seem to have grown almost overnight into a inhuman street gang, hellbent on revenge! Though once you easily overwhelmed your adversaries, now they overwhelm you right back. The Eight's intervention is no deus ex machina, but it will hopefully buy you just enough time to fix the radio, hunker down in the basement, or top off your Molotov cocktails.
My knowledge of complex machinery isn't so great, and I suppose when you get right down to it, you can't even really describe a laundry-wringer as "complex". I took a shot at drawing one without looking at any photos and I suppose mine gets the message across, in addition to having magical antigravity properties. You'll just have to assume that all the actual mechanical parts are carefully hidden just out of sight, behind the rollers.
The Eight of Coins speaks to us about making the best of things, and seeing projects through to their completion regardless of the inevitable hard times and disappointments that arrive along the way. This card also encourages us to seek innovative solutions, new ways of organizing our labor so that we're happier with the outcome.
I don't know why this image popped into my head. Perhaps it's the idiom of being "put through the wringer", in which we are forced to endure some sort of ordeal. Or maybe it has something to do with the many hours of work that simple mechanical inventions were supposed to transform into leisure time. People claim that we spend just as much time at our chores as we did before, but in many ways this complaint doesn't hold water. Regardless, I couldn't help thinking of the eight "coins" as rollers that could somehow wring me out, effectively preparing me for the next cycle.
In Crowley's Thoth deck, this card is labeled "Prudence". In that spirit, I'd also like to share this anecdote from my aunt Judy's book Breaking Clean, one of many misadventures from her childhood in rural Montana:
"And I recall one day shortly after the power came, when I carefully latched the bathroom door and climbed up on a chair next to the old washing machine. The washer had two tubs, with a powerful wringer mounted between them. The wringer looked like two wide white rolling pins pressed tightly together, and it worked just like that, too. Shirts had to be fed through carefully so the wringer didn't pop off the buttons, and heavy items like towels or jeans were sent through more than once to squeeze all the water out. As a safety feature, a stop-bar ran along the bottom of the wringer, and when something got jammed up, a blow to the bar would pop the jaws of the wringer apart and stop them from turning.
I soon had the wringer running, and was mesmerized by the hum of the rollers and the splash and trickle of water. I fed dripping socks and washcloths in with my left hand and caught them with my right as they emerged from the rollers flat and damp-dry. I did this with a feeling of great maturity, for while I'd been allowed to feed socks and smaller items into the wringer before, I was not allowed to reach around the wringer as my mother did, and catch them. I was set to surprise her with my proficiency, when one of the socks stuck to the roller, as they sometimes did, going around and around instead of exiting the other side. When this happened to Mom, she loosened it with a flick of her fingers, and I reached to do the same, not thinking which side I was reaching toward, which side ate the socks, and which side spit them out.
The rollers caught my fingertips and steadily, mindlessly ate their way up my hand, squeezing my flesh flat as I hung back with all my strength, trying to pull free. Though I'd been shown how to use it, I never once thought to hit the stop-bar. And though I didn't think to call for help either, by the time the rollers were grinding past my wrist and up my arm I managed to produce a guttural squawk, the sort of noise that lifts the hair on a mother's neck two rooms away. The door seemed to explode before my eyes. The hook-and-eye latch flew apart, and my mother charged through, and in one leap had hit the bar with the feel of her hand and dragged me back from the jaws of the wringer. While my pride suffered a devastating blow, my arm did not, Mom held me on her lap as I sniffled, and within a few minutes my poor flat, white arm had gotten back its blood and the feeling in its fingers, and was none the worse for wear."
To illustrate the competitive and combative spirit of the Five of Wands, here are five crane-claws in one all vying for a single plush toy. It's hard enough to win this game when you're playing it alone, so adding others into the mix would only tangle things up considerably, especially if you were all focused on the same prize.
I think the triviality of this game is also important to note. These kinds of failures (or even victories) provide no useful commentary on your actual abilities, and the results of gameplay have no lasting effects on the arc of your personal development. Apply that reasoning to whatever exciting/frustrating/distracting games you're getting caught up in lately and you'll wind up taking things a lot less personally. In the meantime, you should still play to win:
This is one of my favorite cards to draw in a reading, for myself or anyone else. It communicates what we sort of already feel by the time we're sitting down in front of the cards -- a pregnant pause, a shift, a tilt, everything sliding about as we maintain a sort of impossible balance at the center of it all.
I wanted to draw something that would make that idea seem materially relevant and also put a fairly positive spin on it. Once I got the above image in my head, I couldn't seem to move on to anything else. Having grown too large, the hermit crab abandons his home for a more accommodating one. Doing so surely makes him feel quite exposed, at least for a short time, and even once he sets up camp in his new shell it can take quite a while to feel comfortable in it. There's no question, however, as to whether he made the right decision; he's doing what he was made to do.
I had a hermit crab as a pet for a while in grade school. The thing shed its skin once and it just about scared me to death -- there was this dead thing crumpled in the corner of the tank, and deep inside the shell, barely visible, I could see tiny pink legs and claws. You'd think he would have been bigger after the shed, but he looked smaller. And grosser. At some point I put a slightly larger shell in there, hoping he'd move into it one night while I was sleeping. Instead, he was just dead one morning. I was sad but not too sad; I'd wanted a cat instead from the beginning.
Anyhow, in my mind this card evokes two different Trump cards: The Moon and The Magician. You could say that the Two of Coins shows how these states of flux and/or suspended disbelief play out in practice, making us keenly aware of our vulnerability without compromising our ability or determination to still pull it all off, somehow.
Without really meaning to, I seem to have drawn a sort of arcade-style mirror version of the RWS Seven of Wands. Actually, I choose to believe that what you see below is a historically accurate portrayal of Whack-a-Mole as it was played in the 16th century:
I love Pamela Coleman-Smith's version because anyone can read it just by looking at it, yet no two people will see quite the same thing. It evokes at a story you can relate to, without explaining what that story is. That is the essence of a good Tarot card.
My drawing is unfortunately just a cheeky sort of update on the same notions of rivalry, competition, and being outnumbered. Obviously in the great Whack-a-Mole game of life, we all like to think of ourselves as Player 1, squishy mallet held high against hordes of goofy talpidae. But there's no getting around the fact that sometimes, we are the mole.
That's not a value judgment -- after all, sometimes the moles win the day. But the greatest power lies in understanding exactly what game you're playing and what team you're on, and acting accordingly -- regardless of what game you'd like to be playing, or what team you'd like to be on. "Pay attention and face reality or get knocked on your ass" ought to be right up there with gravity in the pantheon of natural laws.
(In this particular game, I am giving myself bonus nerd points for incorporating an emoticon into a pen-and-pencil sketch.)
I have had cheese on the brain ever since I bought a hunk of 2-year aged gouda at Murray's this past weekend that made my salivary glands turn positively inside out with delight. It wasn't even that expensive, maybe $6.75 for a wedge that will last all week.
So it was only a matter of time before it showed up somewhere in one of these drawings, especially since I'm always trying to find objects to stand in for Coins that aren't actually currency. Wheels of cheese have an earthy gravitas that make them perfectly fitting for use in this suit.
As for this particular card, the Three is all about the marvels that can be accomplished with a little harmonious collaboration. Some of the most satisfying fruits of our labor are also the simplest, but we often take those for granted in pursuit of our far-flung ideals. Working with others is a tempering process, and it's the surest way to keep your ego and fantasies in check.
I wanted to draw something humble that tapped into the same artisanal spirit of Pamela Coleman-Smith's version. Cheese-making is still a craft that entire families and communities devote themselves to, and I suppose you could see it as a joint effort involving humans, animals, and microbes (though realistically I'm sure a goat cares little for what you do with her milk once you've taken it).
You're probably wondering if this is my "Happy Squirrel" card. I somehow doubt that it is...
My partner was recently accepted to Harvard Divinity School and spent part of last week touring the campus in MA. The visit was pretty uneventful mostly, but at one point he did call me to complain that at an albino squirrel had just thrown an Easter egg at him.
...Yeah, that's pretty much how I felt when I heard, too.
I guess the squirrel must have found a leftover egg that had been too well hidden. Do squirrels eat hard-boiled eggs, or did it just think this one was pretty? Regardless, Tex was nearly egged by an achromatic (and possibly very unhappy) rodent.
I told him I couldn't help but see that as an omen of some kind, and I admit I thumbed through the index of my Complete Book of Superstition, Prophecy, and Luck to see if there were any insights as to whether it bode well or ill.
I figure that anything the ghostly white hand of providence heaves in one's direction should be accepted as graciously as possible, and so I decided I would honor this strange little incident by reconfiguring it as my Ace of Coins. I am hoping that Tex (and by association, myself) can look forward to a new chapter of health, wealth, vitality, contentment, and generally enriching experiences. Spring, as Easter strives to remind us, contains the potential for all these things.
Maybe your opportunity will be handed to you, maybe it will be hurled at you from the top of a fence-post, or maybe you will have to do a little digging in the newly-soft earth to uncover it. Signs and omens are only as useful as the reactions they inspire in us.
Getting out of an egg is harder than it looks, which is why most birds and reptiles are born with an egg tooth, a sort of biological crowbar that assists in the process and then drops off.
Most Six of Swords cards show a departure of some kind. The inspired mind undergoes a harsh trial-and-error phase, testing its own boundaries and running up against some inescapable realities. The Six indicates your need or ability to leave all that behind, to make a fresh start with the aid of the wisdom you've accumulated during this rocky period. If you can bear to scrutinize the errors of the recent past, you'll see that they actually point the way forward. That's the very definition of "sadder but wiser."
Until it's hatched, everything a creature knows about the world relates to the interior of its shell. Once that shell is broken, the burden of ignorance is ours to do with what we wish, to carry only as far as we choose. Or, to quote Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde's biting social satire, The Importance of Being Earnest:
"I do not approve of anything that tampers with natural ignorance. Ignorance is like a delecate, exotic fruit. Touch it, and the bloom is gone. The whole theory of modern education is radically unsound. Fortunately in England, at any rate, education produces no effect whatsoever. If it did it would prove a serious threat to the upper classes, and probably lead ot acts of violence in Grosvenor Square."
Ignore Bracknell's disapproval -- consider the Six of Swords to be a whole mouthful of egg-teeth, and get to work on your own jailbreak. You can only revisit the lessons of the past so many times before they become redundant. A world of brand-new experiments, adventures, and tragedies awaits!
As warm and idyllic as Pamela Coleman-Smith's concept of this card may be, it doesn't visually convey much meaning, other than suggesting how nice it probably feels to be a rich lady with hired landscaper.
But in Tarot cards, all surface details, no matter how banal, have meaning. You just have take a moment to ruminate on them. For example, observe what Arthur Edward Waite (in his Pictorial Key to the Tarot) describes as "a bird upon her wrist." That's right, even the man who co-created this deck sees little going on in the Smith's drawing except this:
He seems to have completely overlooked the fact that this woman is a falconer. She's clearly wearing a large heavy glove on her bird arm, and the fowl itself (puny as it may be) is hooded. So what we're looking at is actually thematically closer to this:
That discovery became a window which allowed me to gaze very deeply into this card. At a glance it seems almost like Coleman-Smith is copy-catting her own Empress card, but in truth the two are vastly different. The Empress (Arcanalogue examples here) is an emissary of the forces of nature, which we see fruiting in unkempt splendor all around her.
There is little "nature" on display in the Nine of Coins. Rather, we see a woman who has harnessed the laws of nature and put them to work in a way which produces abundance. For example, consider her arbor: cultivating grapes suitable for wine-making is an obsessive, almost scientific discipline. So is training a bird of prey to hunt game. Suddenly this woman, fancy as she may be, does not seem nearly as frivolous as she first appeared. In fact there's something almost stony about her... she's probably daydreaming about hunting wolves in Mongolia.
Since I'm not a lady of leisure and means, I was forced to draw what I know. This is a picture of my tip jar at work. I've written a little bit about waiting tables here on the site already; I can never seem to get past how impossible the job seems while I'm doing it. When the restaurant is completely packed, every table full, with a line of people out the front door waiting to sit down, there is this wave of despair that washes over me. How in the world am I going to handle this, I wonder. I always manage to scramble and sweat and grin my way through it somehow, leaping through the hoops in an adrenaline-soaked frenzy. And not only that, I return week after week, well aware of what lies in wait for me. Instead of being horrified, I am awed by the discipline I've discovered in myself. Where exactly does it reside, and how do I tap into it and apply it to other goals?
The overflowing tip jar that greets me at the end of each shift has become a sort of magical talisman to me, it provides an immediate sense of validation (way more than, say, a direct deposit paycheck-stub). I leave the restaurant feeling like an alchemist, all of my physical exertion and mental pyrotechnics transformed into literal gold. Staggering home, I look like a revenant and smell like enchilada sauce -- but I feel like the woman in this card. Capable. Accomplished. Tested. Ready. Fabulous.
