Tag Archives: daily draw

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Daily Draw (Dark Carnival Tarot), 10/15/12

3 of Duckets (=Coins/Pentacles)

Description: A young graffiti artist spraypaints three Duckets symbols onto an ivy-tangled (and already graffitoed) brick wall. He seems to be perched on a ledge, but not all that high from the ground. Around the corner of the building is a police car, red and blue lights flaring. The seats of the car are empty – the cops are out of the car and looking for malefactors. The ledge he’s on is low; he can jump down and run easily. He doesn’t look worried about being caught, just grouchy that he has to hurry his art!

Interpretation: Performance under pressure. Unlike the traditional card where the artist seeks approval from the authorities, he knows he’ll be in trouble if the authorities find him here – but he is also determined to do his best, he’s not running before he finishes painting! My day has just taken a turn for the “gotta hurry, do everything by noon because we have to leave” worse; I thought I’d have a full day to relax and enjoy a vacation, but the person driving me has to return home sooner than she expected. Time to cram everything into the next few hours….the souvenir buying is going to be a rush trip, not a pleasant browse, for instance. On the other hand, maybe that’s a good thing. I can linger too long over something; a kick in the pants to finish Project A and move onto Project B isn’t necesssarily bad. The young graffiti artist might have spent all night painting one wall if those cops hadn’t shown up. He’s been forced to say “I’m done here” but the night is young for him, just like the day is young for me. Heck, I might get something interesting and enjoyable done this afternoon that I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise!

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Daily Draw (Dark Carnival Tarot), 10/14/12

Temperance

I was somewhat cautious about starting to work with a deck so different from my usual style, and far removed from my own cultural background; I didn’t know if I should look at each card and read the entire book to try to get a more academic understanding or jump straight in and start playing. Well…a deck with this many counterculture clowns is a deck that wants to play! So I read the introduction to the book and then shuffled the deck and Temperance jumped out at me.

Description: A man with dark glasses mixes strange, colorful liquids in a variety of oddly-shaped vessels under the glaring light of a single fluorescent bulb. He looks like he might be cooking up illicit drugs or mixing drinks for a very singular bar clientele. The colors of the liquids and the light form a counterclockwise rainbow effect: containers of red liquid on the right, a yellow lightbulb spreading orange light at the top, containers of green and blue liquid on the left, and purple spilled liquid on the bottom.

Interpretation: The elements of the classic Temperance card are still here: the rainbow (even if it is going backwards), the mixture of fluids, the otherworldly alchemist presiding. Whatever the style of the artwork this is still a deck I can understand and work with. The alienness is tempered by the familiar. The new things in my life that I’m concerned about being “too big of a change” (returning to my Tarot journey, reaching out in my path of recovery, making more friends outside my current social circle) are not scary or weird if I can temper them with the more familiar, older things in my life: I worked with Tarot before, I tried to help people in recovery before, I’ve reached beyond my comfort zone before. And it all got me to wonderful places – it will again. Maybe that man is wearing those dark glasses because he’s afraid of being blinded by the strange colors and blazing light, but as his eyes adjust, he’ll be able to take them off. I can ease into the strangeness and newness too, one step at a time, and when I’m ready I’ll be able to take off the glasses and look directly at that glorious rainbow…