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Showing posts with label twoofcoins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label twoofcoins. Show all posts

4.15.2010

Sketchbook - Two of Coins

Sketchbook - Two of Coins


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.



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5.24.2009

Two of Coins

1. Change
2. A need for variety, movement, change
3. A journey or change of residence

-- David Allen Hulse, The Western Mysteries

3.23.2009

"Personal Involvement In The Ebb And Flow..."


In celebration of tonight's season finale of RuPaul's Drag Race -- the liveliest, shark-jumpingest piece of entertainment anyone could ever hope for -- here's a symbol for change that you can really believe in. Over the holidays, legendary drag superstar RuPaul circulated this holiday card featuring herself as both Barack and Michelle Obama, simultaneously promoting her own new show on LOGO and reveling in the results of the presidential election.

The show has since proven to be a platform for miraculous transformations of every flavor -- no matter how punishing each challenge's restrictions are, such is the professionalism of these girls that they nearly always still wind up stalking down the catwalk looking like a million pre-recession bucks. It's only natural for an artist to bristle or panic when eleventh-hour surprises disrupt their creative flow, but these performers are (mostly) seasoned and resilient enough to adjust their course and rise above the limitations RuPaul sets upon them. And as the host, RuPaul herself fluctuates between male and female personas, appearing in and out of drag as she masters the hell out of those ceremonies. Superimposing that aspect of her persona onto a portrait of the Obamas was an inspired move, and oddly insightful -- three months into the Obama presidency, we are already in a new era, a topsy-turvy one which has already begun to test the flexibility of America's identity.

The Two of Coins hints that at changes which could really turn things around in your favor if you choose to cooperate. This means participating in them as they occur -- you can't just stand back watching skeptically and leave the results up to chance. Personal involvement in the ebb and flow will make you more sensitive to the arrival of opportunities and give you a leg up on seizing them. There's a time to resist, and a time when doing so means missing out on the next big thing; drawing this card means you'd better make like a Drag Race contestant or a crisis-weary American and get busy turning your trials into triumphs, your garbage into glitter, your -- well, you get the drift.



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5.21.2008

Two of Coins


Meet the oloid. You make one by placing one circle perpendicular to another and then sinking them midpoint-deep into each other. Follow the link for many examples, some of which show the oloid in action. As improbable as it looks, it's one of the three dimensional shapes that can roll with ease, and "its gentle, rhythmic motion is extremely effective in mixing, aerating and purifying."

It's as if the Two of Coins and the oloid were made for each other-- or never separate to begin with! The card acknowledges seriously topsy-turvy changes in one's life or surroundings; this upheaval is reminiscent of the shape's weird tumbling motion, which is just as harmoniously navigated and reflexively balanced. The figure seen on the card is often a juggler of some sort, but pretty much anyone can juggle two of something, so his job's not that hard. Often a symbol for infinity [i.e. ∞] winds around the coins, and that too mirrors the oloid's Möbius strip-like allure. It's the most basic card of this very earth-bound suit, and for good reason: the world is always shifting under and around us, and if you can't learn to manage this basic ebb and flow with finesse, then how will you ever be able to get a grip on more complicated shapes-- er, I mean situations?