the lady pope

A couple of historical figures have been suggested as models for the Lady Pope. Except the famous "Pope Joan" wasn't really historical, and Guglielma of Bohemia, a legendary Visconti relative of the late 13th century, are both discussed by Rachel Pollack on page 29 of her "Complete Illustrated Guide."

Also, the Lady Pope in modern times has morphed into a high priestess, but I wonder, was she a high priestess before she was a pope? The archetype of the wise, powerful, mysterious woman is embedded deep in our past and our minds.

The priestess image is older than tarot, or dirt, for that matter. Consider this from Robert Graves, the poet, historian and cultural anthropologist: "The whole of neolithic Europe, to judge from surviving artifacts and myths, had a remarkably homogeneous system of religous ideas, based on worship of the many-titled mother goddess, who was also known in Syria and Libya.

"Ancient Europe had no gods. The great goddess was regarded as immortal, changeless, and omnipotent; and the concept of fatherhood had not been introduced into religious thought. She took lovers, but for pleasure, not to provide her children with a father. Men feared, adored, and obeyed the matriarch.

"Not only the moon, but (to judge from Hemera of Greece and Grainne of Ireland) the sun, were the goddess's celestial symbols. In earlier Greek myth, however, the sun yields precedence to the moon -- which inspires the greater superstitious fear, does not grow dimmer as the year wanes, and is credited with the power to grant or deny water to the fields." (note: Farmers in many parts of the world still plant according to the phases of the moon.)

"The tribal Nymph, it seems, chose an annual lover from her entourage of young men, a king to be sacrificed when the year ended; making him a symbol of fertility, rather than the object of her erotic pleasure. His sprinkled blood served to fructify trees, crops, and flocks, and his flesh was torn and eaten raw by the Queen's fellow-nymphs -- priestesses wearing the masks of bitches, mares, or sows."

This old gal's got a lot of high-powered, juicy juju, and she'll change your life if she's in it. She knows what's in our minds, even though she's not always aware of her own power; she's your fondest dream or sometimes your worst nightmare; she's intuition; she's the moon in all its phases.

Tarot card, The Female Pope, ©2001, 2012 by Dave B, a.k.a. catboxer.

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living with parkinson's

People often say of this illness that "Some days are better and some are worse," and I've found this not only true, but that good days and bad days follow each other like daylight and darkness.

 Yesterday was a very nasty piece of work, I can tell you. Today I've been up for an hour during which I might easily pretend there's nothing wrong with me.

 This gives me something to look forward to -- an easy and fun time for the next 12 hours or so. So I've got a lot on my plate today. The main task today is to clean up the fence line and dig up the potatoes, of which there are a multitude, and I surely won't be able to do it tomorrow.

--30--

sutra on breath awareness

The method of being fully aware of breathing, if developed and practiced continuously, will have great rewards and bring advantages. What is the way to develop and practice continuously the method of Full Awareness of breathing so that the practice will be rewarding and offer great benefit?

Breathing in I know I am breathing in, Breathing out I know I am breathing out

Breathing in a long breath I know I am breathing a long breath. Breathing out a long breath, I know I am breathing out a long breath.

Breathing in a short breath, I know I am breathing in a short breath, Breathing out a short breath know I am breathing out a short breath.

Breathing in, I am aware of my whole body. Breathing out, I am aware of my whole body.

Breathing in, I experience joy. Breathing out, I experience joy.

Breathing in, I experience happiness. Breathing out, I experience happiness.

Breathing in, I am aware of the feeling [that is present now]. Breathing out, I am aware of the feeling [that is present now].

Breathing in, I calm the feeling [that is present now]. Breathing out, I calm the feeling [that is present now].

Breathing in, I am aware of the activity of the mind [that is present now]. Breathing out, I am aware of the activity of the mind [that is present now].

Breathing in, my mind experiences happiness. Breathing out, my mind experiences happiness.

Breathing in, I concentrate fully on the mind's activity. Breathing out, I concentrate fully on the mind's activity.

Breathing in, I liberate the activity of my mind. Breathing out, I liberate the activity of my mind.

Breathing in, I observe the impermanent nature of everthing. Breathing out, I observe the impermanent nature of everything.

That is the practice of conscious breathing, whose function is to calm the body and mind, to bring about right mindfulness, looking deeply, with clear and single-minded perception, so that the practitioner is in a position to pass through all the doors that lead to liberation.

--The Buddha
Sutra on the Full Awareness of Breathing

--30--

midweek gambit

I got this graveyard woman, you know, she keeps my kids,
But my soulful mama, you know, she keeps me hid...

--B. Dylan, "From a Buick 6"

Seven spades appeared in another reading recently, in someone else's cards. It's a warning that challenges lie ahead, in the area of health, or work, or both. Since the left-hand card indicates trends which are likely to be receding into the past, I'll say it's referencing my recent respiratory problems, now much improved.

Dominating the center of this abbreviated spread is the enormous presence of the Lady Pope. How like her!

Thirteen says of this card that she "is about keeping things hidden behind the curtain." I see this as key to the female Pope, just as she herself stays concealed, enclosed by all the phases of the moon. Thirteen also says she urges us "to silently reflect on (our) feelings."

OK, I'll try.

Last and certainly not least comes the potent image of the Magician, or conjuror -- the guy who can make something out of nothing and pull rabbits out of hats, if necessary. The important thing to keep in mind about him is, he may be a real magic man, or he might be a con artist, like a lot of the guys who have booths at a fair. He may even have attributes of both.

He's doing okay. He's working for a living, hence a trickster, like Don Draper.

How can you tell whether he's sincere? Well, since the Magician in my deck is also a self-portrait, you can believe me when I tell you that I would never steer you wrong. You have my absolute assurances on that.

Because this tarot deck has 74 rather than 78 cards, the probability that any single card drawn will be a trump or the Fool card is 22/74, or about 30 percent. The probability that two  cards in a three-card reading will be trumps, as is the case above, is thus 22/74 x 22/74 or .297 x .297 -- it will occur eight percent of the time. 

The likelihood of drawing three trumps to a three-card spread is faint, but it happens an average of approximately 26 times in every thousand.

Click on the image for a larger view. Photo and images on cards ©2012 by Dave B, a.k.a. Catboxer.

balm & frog under birdbath

This lovely lemon balm shrub is growing beneath a birdbath which sits on an iron tripod next to m'lady's backyard deck. A tiny frog lives in the balm bush, and sometimes comes out to take the sun on the rim of the basin or the plank nearest.

Frogs are symbolically potent, and play richly in literature, myth, and dreams. Above all the frog symbolizes transformation, because of the animal's life-cycle metamorphosis from aquatic tadpole to an air-breathing terrestrial creature.

The frog can also serve as an emblem of creativity, fertility, and intuition. He reminds us to exercise patience in the time of transformation.

Basin and balm bush photo ©2012 by Miss Moneypenny.

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challenges

We keep getting repetition in our readings, and I don't see how it could be a random coincidence. S. shuffles the cards thoroughly before each reading (7 times) then divides the deck twice, making three piles.

Then she holds her outstretched palm over each of the three stacks in succession, searching out the one that seems to be generating warmth. Then I check the three piles the same way, and so far I've always sensed heat rising from the same group of cards she's chosen.

So what's the mathematical possibility, using this method of selection, of a querent having the same card show up in a three-card spread three out of four consecutive months? My deck has 74 cards (I dispensed with the usual four-courts tarot configuration in favor of 13-card suits with king-queen-jack). Any statistics whizzes out there who might help with this?

Starting with the bottom line (earth, and S.'s cards) we see the nine diamonds on the left. This is a straightforward money/material card, signaling the ending of a way of making money. She had the same card in May (in the center) and June (on the right). Since she retired from a decades-long job at the end of May, this is appropriate, if a little disconcerting. She's still dreaming of being stuck in the old job site, however, hence  nine diamonds is still, against the odds, popping up in her spread.

In the center of the same line, seven spades indicates serious challenges in the areas of work or health. Recently, m'lady took a serious fall, and now has sciatica on the right side, that extremely painful impingement of the large sciatic nerve running down the outside of the right leg. I see an orthopedic doctor in her near future.

Her monthly spread ends with the ace of diamonds -- "Pennies from Heaven" -- and a new way of making income, or the desire for such new horizons. I can see this happeing, post-sciatica.

Turning to my cards, the upper (sky) line, we start with the eight clubs, a sign of intense mental focus, and one of the three "fixed" cards among the suits. Fixed cards tend to have an extremely strong, emphatic, and somewhat rigid nature.

The Fool is back in the middle. I drew this symbol of the homeless wanderer to my spread in November and December of 2010, again in March of 2011, and now he's returned to his accustomed spot in my spread a year and a half later. I wasn't actually homeless during any of those months, but I felt that way, and now I feel that way again, as I prepare to move back across the water once more.

Finally, the eight spades is a payoff card, and shows regular and      consistent habits relating to health and work coming to fruition.  Since I'm a yoga practitioner and teacher, this is a very hopeful sign. I recently resumed teaching after a long layoff, and the class went well enough for me to feel optimistic about reinforcing my training and continuing to move in this direction.

Click on the image for a larger view.

Photo and images on cards ©2012 by catboxer, a.k.a. Dave B

mysterious july

A double reading for July, 2012, an unusual month of clouds and gloom.

The sky, Ouranos, above, made of air and carrying the moisture; The earth, Gaiea, mysterious and beautiful, with the fire deep inside, is the three cards below.

The air of mystery is apparent in the first card, the six diamonds, since it's the karma card symbolizing repayment of debts, or some other discharge of material obligation. I have no debts, although I might soon be looking at paying higher rents than I anticipated.

The six may be related to the shock and awe of the tower, a dramatic and sometimes traumatic event that shakes and often re-shapes one's world view. The event might be external or internal.

The ace of clubs means learning and studying, acquiring new knowledge or wanting to seek it. It's almost never a bad card to get.

Robert Camp says the eight clubs, "is the card of mental power, the ability to focus one's mind on a goal or objective and see it through to a successful conclusion...It bestows the power to overcome all problems by focusing one's thoughts...

"The Eight of Clubs" is one of three "fixed" cards. When it appears, we have the opportunity to fix our mind on certain goals and objectives...Out of that focus and concentration, success is assured."

Earth's reading reveals itself as a rapidly-unfolding sequence of events with the nine clubs, which Robert Camp says means "completion of plans or ideas," also saying that "it will signal a time when some ideas, ways of thinking, or communicating, or some personal plans of yours are ready to end.

"If you choose to resist this ending," Camp continues, "you will experience great disappointment by attempting to hold on to things, ideas, or plans that are no longer useful or helpful to you."

The nine clubs sometimes is indicative of a time when deep, mystical states of mind may occur, and the vehicle for such experiences might be symbolized by the moon card, as it is simply the "land of dreams," or place where each of us goes when we dream.

As with any other reading, the trump cards play larger parts than the others, and there are two here, one in each line.

Quotes from Robert Camp are from his book "Destiny Cards," (1998).

Photo and images on cards ©2012 by catboxer a.k.a. Dave B. Click on the image for a larger view.

tarot demystified

Despite the persistence of a stubborn mythology which asserts that tarot cards are very ancient, having originated prior to the birth of Christianity, the fact is they were invented in the luxury-loving courts of the dukes of Milan and Ferrara, in northern Italy between 1440 and 1450. Stewart Kaplan's Encyclopedia of Tarot, V. II, pages 3-6 provides copies of the documentation that establishes this beyond dispute.

Twenty-two picture cards, the 21 trump cards and the Fool, plus four additional court cards were added to the already-existing 52-card playing-card deck for purposes of playing a game called "trionfi" (triumphs) (Ron Decker  et. al., "A Wicked Pack of Cards", pages 27-28), which spread quickly, gained universal popularity, and soon became known as "tarocchi."

The 78-card standard tarot or tarocchi deck is thus closely related to but distinct from regular playing cards, and was invented for the purpose of gaming.

The game appears to have begun with the production of sumptuous, hand-colored and gilded trionfi decks painted for the high nobility by accomplished artisans. The great majority of the very early surviving cards are of this de luxe variety, but most of a single, mass-produced tarot deck has also survived in scattered pieces, and it provides evidence that the game was popular among all social classes of Renaissance Italians.  Dating from before 1500, this commoners' pack was printed from woodblocks and colored using stencils. Unlike the little masterpieces painted for the dukes of Ferrara and the Visconti and Sforza families of Milan, it's atrociously ugly (but historically priceless), and reproduced in full in Kaplan's Encyclopedia of Tarot, Volume II, p. 272-74.

Playing cards predate tarot cards, having entered Europe in about 1365 from the Islamic world, in essentially the same form we use today -- four suits, each consisting of 10 numeral cards and 3 court cards.

The current understanding of the history of tarot cards and playing cards rejects all ancient Egyptian, Cabalistic, and other occult associations with tarot as misperceptions or deliberate fictions.

keep it in mind

Eram quod es.




Eris quod sum.

random cards @ mid month

The studious young Jack of Clubs is a personification of creative, highly-charged mental energy. Will this be something new?









  Seven Diamonds is the spiritual money card -- a real-life oxymoron. When it appears, we will wish to examine just how attached to our money we are, and cultivate a little gratitude for what we've got. This is a time when our faith in the abundance of the universe is tested.





Tarot trump IV, the Emperor, is a disciplined guy, in control of himself, and confident in his role as the head guy in charge of everything. But ask yourself, "Are we a bad leader? Demanding? Impatient? Unreasonable?" So don't say "My way or the highway," lest you find yourself set out upon that selfsame highway, going down that dirt road by yourself.

the way ahead

The queen is indicative of a person who is highly intuitive, well-organized, and possessed of the nurturing instinct. This is someone who may be high strung and impatient. All these traits, usually associated with females, are in reality not gender-specific.

The ten of hearts is the performers' card, but the type of performing alluded to here isn't specified. This ten is closely linked to the Jack of Spades, possibly the most creative of all the suited cards (as opposed to the tarot trumps), and he can signal initiation into a higher plane of existence than one has experienced up until now.

The six hearts is a peacemaking card, but peace only comes after the card's karmic prerequisites are satisfied. Six hearts demands that all outstanding obligations pertaining to love be discharged, and that one take responsibility for the words spoken, actions done, and feelings generated by the closest of relationships.

Then come the nines, which signify endings. Nine hearts indicates a personal loss of desired affection, either that of the special other, or a diminishment one's own affection for that certain someone. The nine diamonds is concerned with the material plane, and usually means the ending of an accustomed way of making money or otherwise supporting oneself.

A bifurcated reading, with resolution and endings below on earth, and new beginnings in the sky above. Click on the picture for a larger image.

Photo and images on cards ©Dave B, 2012.

lost in the woods

I'm lost in the woods. The funny thing is, I don't even care whether I find my way out again, and don't know where I'd go or what I'd do if I did escape. I feel captive in this lady's organic gingerbread house, even though this is where I asked to be, sort of. I guess I didn't know it would be as confusing as it is.

chimpanzees on his mind

(*) An obviously amateur artist gives us a startling and in some ways very affecting picture. The painter's skills are not particularly refined; the subject's hands are badly rendered, for example. (*) Looking at something this weird, a person is bound to have questions. What was the subject's connection to the artist? Why are there two blue chimpanzees fucking in the sky behind the guy's head? (*) The ultimate thrift-store masterpiece was found at a second-hand store in Portland, Oregon. (!!) --30-- CLICK IMAGE TO EMBIGGEN.

Eostre

Easter falls on April 8 this year, the first Sunday following the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. The other significant lunar event of the year will be the blue moon, August 31.

testing...testing

This is a communication from the farthest outpost in the struggle for the preservation of ecstasy. We're doing OK out here, and just wanted to drop by and say "howdy."

btsflk

Here iss a hot, stimmy gritting from Yoshua Treeshua.

Why doan you open it?

No! ¿Why doan CHEW?!

BTSFLK!

Illustration by Matt Williams, dba überkraaft.

--30--

the theocrat

Writing in this week's New Yorker, Ryan Lizza tells how Michele and Marcus Bachmann while still in college fell under the influence of Christian dominionist author and film-maker Francis Schaeffer, who produced a film series, "How Shall We Then Live?"

Schaeffer died in 1984, but one of his disciples, Nancy Pearcy, carried on his work.

When, in 2005, the Minneapolis Star Tribune asked Bachmann what books she had read recently, she mentioned two: Ann Coulter’s “Treason,” a jeremiad that accuses liberals of lacking patriotism, and Pearcey’s “Total Truth,” which Bachmann told me was a “wonderful” book.

(Read more.)

Ryan Lizza also reports that in a recent Iowa speech, Bachmann asked the audience if they were familiar wth "How Then Should We Live?" and when greeted with applause, said:

That also was another profound influence on Marcus’s life and my life, because we understood that the God of the Bible isn’t just about Bible stories and about Bible knowledge, or about just church on Sunday. He is the Lord of all of life. Every bit of life, including sociology, theology, biology, politics. You name the area and walk of life. He is the Lord of life. And so, as we went back to our studies, we looked at studying in a completely different light. Not for the purpose of a career but for a purpose of wondering, How does this fit into creation? How does this fit into the code and all of life that is about to come in front of us? And so we had new eyes that were opened up as we understood life now from a Biblical world view.

Sounds like theocracy to me.

--30--

the sun's light

What follows is an edited version of a post which first appeared here on February 13, 2009.

The wise man Patanjali, the apocryphal transmitter of early yoga tradition, spoke of a "seer," or that part of us which sees, and taught that the right kind of mental discipline would establish (or reveal) this seer "in our own true nature." The discipline, according to the teaching, will enable a person "to see clearly."

The ancient Indian texts called the Upanishads identify this seer as Atman, also called the self, "hidden in every object of creation," being "the very Self which descends down...through self-projection and participates." According to this view, then, the center of the human being (or any other living thing) is the supreme being itself, incorporating itself into, the individual.

This sounds very much like the "collective unconscious" theory of Dr. Jung, who wrote that "A more or less superficial layer of the unconscious (i.e., subconscious mind) is undoubtedly personal. I call it the 'personal unconscious.' But this personal layer rests upon a deeper layer, which does not derive from personal experience and is not a personal acquisition but is inborn. This deeper layer I call the 'collective unconscious.' I have chosen the term 'collective' because this part of the unconscious is not individual but universal..." (S.V. Wikiquote: Carl Jung, en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Jung)

Not everyone agrees. Prince Gautama, who became the Buddha, did not believe in a Self separate from the individual, and taught that "Self is but a heap of composite qualities." He believed that what some call the Self or Seer is a bundle of loose ends, and simply another component of the individual.

But for our purposes, defining this part of our brain we see with as God or not-God is not important. What's at issue is the possibility of seeing "clearly," which both Patanjali and the Buddha agree is only possible by overcoming our social conditioning. William Blake expressed this same idea when he wrote that "The sun's light, when he unfolds it / Depends on the organ that beholds it."

This is all very deep stuff, and confusing to one not used to thinking in terms which can only seem abstract until experience has made them concrete. I find myself referring to something I heard my grand-teacher say about the G-word (God) when he expressed his preference for simply lumping all notions of Atman, Self, God, etc. under the phrase "that which never changes." What he's saying is that our attention, as distinct from that upon which the attention is directed, never changes.

The analogy I use to illustrate this principle is a goldfish bowl, which holds fish, water, plants, pebbles, and dirt. The contents of the bowl are the objects of attention, and the bowl is the attention itself. If your mind perceives goldfish in the bowl, you're perceiving accurately. If you see piranhas, you're misperceiving, and if you see miniature sea monsters, you're imagining. If you see not the goldfish swimming in the bowl but the ones who used to swim there and are now departed, you're remembering. And if you see nothing, you're asleep.

But if you empty the bowl and wipe it clean, and allow it to remain empty, avoiding both the temptation and the tendency to fill it with this or that, then there will be nothing to occupy the attention but the attention itself, which unlike its constantly-changing contents, never changes. It's always transparent and reflects accurately, like a clean mirror.

Since beginning a yoga practice I've attempted with limited success to empty my mind's attention of its contents. Changes in the mind have occurred, and I sometimes see things in my mind's eye that I don't understand. Also, life, and even the most mundane daily events, sometimes seem extremely strange and unfamiliar. I'm sure this is some sort of manifestation of the practice. I guess there's nothing to do but go on with it.

--30--

The Lion Sleeps

"The Lion Sleeps Tonight," recorded by the doo-wop group The Tokens in 1961, shot to number one on the pop charts immediately on its release. Part of the song's appeal was its uniqueness, and it certainly sounded completely different from any other American pop music of that or any other time.

Very few people were aware that the Tokens' hit was a cover, and that earlier versions had been done by the Kingston Trio, in 1959, and Pete Seeger's folk revival group The Weavers, in 1952. The Weavers' version had actually gone all the way to number six on the Billboard Top 100, but pop music fans tend to have short memories.

Virtually nobody was aware of the song's South African origins, even when, in 1994, it gained renewed popularity after Ladysmith Black Mambazo recorded it for Disney's animated feature "The Lion King," using its original title, "Mbube." The success of this latter-day version, which was incorporated in a live Broadway musical and a TV series, generated millions of dollars in revenue for Disney and a lawsuit by the dirt-poor descendents of the song's author, Solomon Linda, and the back story of "The Lion Sleeps" finally began to circulate.

Linda, at far left in the photo above, was born in 1909 in South Africa and wrote "Mbube" in the '20's. He was working as a cleaner and record packer for the Gallo Record Company in Roodepoort, South Africa in 1939 when he got the opportunity to record the tune with his vocal group, The Evening Birds. It was a hit in South Africa, selling over 100,000 copies, but Solomon Linda was paid only a small recording fee and sold the rights to the song to Gallo for a pittance. He enjoyed regional success as a singer and songwriter for some years thereafter, but died impoverished in 1962.

In about 1950 the American musicologist Alan Lomax discovered the recording and shared it with his friend Pete Seeger, whose subsequent concert and recorded versions were titled "Wimoweh," a mishearing of the song's Zulu refrain "Uyimbube" (You are a lion).

I became aware of the song's origins in the early 90's when I heard it on the CD "The Secret Museum of Mankind: Ethnic Music Classics; Vol. 4, 1925-48" on the Yazoo label. No American version that I'm aware of conveys the powerful and extremely African essence of the original, in which Linda used three bass singers in his back-up chorus.

If you want to learn more, see the excellent Wikipedia articles "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" and "Solomon Linda."

--30--

china is kicking our butts

China tested their new Beijing to Shanghai bullet train last month. They're griping about how much it cost them, but people everywhere and at all times gripe about the cost of things.

We could be building trains like this in this country, and there was a time not so long ago when we would have. Building infrastructure that looks to the future is an investment. One inter-city train project would put thousands of people to work.

Anyway, that's what the Chinese are doing. But we're too busy debating whether or not we should fail, and become a deadbeat to even recognize that there is something called the future.

The train is powered by electricity, and its 5 hour run to Shanghai takes about half as long as a conventional train.

I took a train from Portland to Seattle a few days ago, and it was great! Unlike flying, taking the train is actually fun.

--30--