living in the tarot

It's the queen of spades, of course, but I call this card "Hortensia" because it's a portrait of the woman who was my classroom aide for a number of years.

 Hortensia suffered a terrible loss about the year 2000, when her oldest daughter, a married woman with chldren, died in a late-night car crash on a rural road.

 Sorrow became a permanent part of the mother's personality, but she wore it well. She accepted the loss, and accepted she would never get over it. It was a beautiful thing to see, but I didn't understand how or why that could be until now.

 If we contrast Hortensia's graceful mater dolorosa with the rule of forced optimism in our own culture, our cultural conditioning is found lacking. She was born in the USA, but Hortensia is Latina through and through and through, Tejana to be precise, and of that older, deeper, and in many respects wiser culture.

 My own circumstances don't involve the kind of trauma my friend and associate went through, but they do cause some to despair. I'm reaching the time of life old Siddhartha was always bluntly talking about, the part where we all die. I've got a couple chronic illnesses that aren't going to go away, plus the usual blues that comes to old men, and goes

I used to be a lover, baby in my younger days... Ooh-hooooooooooooooooooooo, in my younger days,
 Now I'm old and feeble, but I still got my lovin ways.

(--Texas Alexander with Cannon's Jug Stompers, "Rooster Crowin Blues) 

I've got no reason to feel optimistic. On the other hand, it's never a good idea to despair. Life sucks, but even when it does it's almost always better than not-life, and plus this world might be the only one where the sunshine is.



 When it comes to tarot cards, I'm definitely in the exoteric camp, admiring the work of real scholars like Stuart Kaplan and Michael Dummett, who is a skeptic besides. Dummett's grasp of history is comprehensive, but I don't share his skepticism about oracles.

 I've used tarot effectively as an oracle and predictor of events, but its greatest value is as an advisor. That function of the cards certainly shines for me this month.          

Photo and tarot card ©2001, 2013 by Dave B, a.k.a. catboxer. Click on the picture for a larger view.

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