What Covers You?
I have no particular expertise in the Tarot, and I’m not adept at reading cards. But I do like the way the process of laying out a spread focuses my mind. And who couldn’t use a little focus this time of year?
Plus, I’m feeling a wee bit magical as Solstice approaches.
And so I’m borrowing from the Tarot (and will probably do so for the next several posts) as I wander through some of my year-end loose-ends.
And maybe some of yours, too.
Think of it as a Creative Adventurer’s Year-End Review.
With cool pictures.
The Tarot is part parlor game, part tool for self-discovery. It’s not so much an oracle as it is a mirror. The images on the cards are evocative. They encourage us to make the kind of intuitive connections that might not present themselves so readily under more rational approaches to the end-of-the-year wrap-up.
Like lists and what-not.
I like lists. I just like intuitive connections, too.
So…
What Covers You?
If you’re familiar with the Tarot, you know that the traditional Celtic Cross spread has a card at the center (representing the person for whom the cards are being read) that is covered by a second card, then surrounded by four cards in a square (or circle), with an additional four cards laid in a column to the right.
The card that covers us represents the situation enshrouding our present circumstance. One way to think of it is as a scrim that lays across our perception. Something that colors our thinking. The culture in which we live, the beliefs we maintain, the way we were raised, the roles we ascribe to ourselves and others, all of these are woven into that shroud — that paradigm.
That paradigm covers us. It determines how we see the world. It filters certain things out. It can make it difficult to imagine ourselves living differently. It can limit us, and so long as we’re unaware of its influence, it probably does.
Mysteries Wrapped in Enigma
Sometimes we forget that we’re operating within a paradigm. We forget that there are countless paths along which we can travel, and we assume that the road we’re on is the only road there is.
But as the poet Anais Nin wrote, we don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are. And what we are is subjective.
As is the world.
We forget that the world, and we in it, are artful mysteries. Wrapped in enigma.
We become, instead…
Artists Under the Influence
When we’re wondering what to do next, or considering how to deal with an issue or obstacle in our path, it can be helpful to remember that we’re operating under the influence of a belief system — a paradigm — that may be interfering with our progress.
Skewing our perspective.
Shrouding our happiness.
What covers us can distort our understanding of ourselves, our art, and our place in the world. But it isn’t always something we can, or even need to, remove. What we do need is to become more fully aware of it and awake to it.
Not to Mention Accommodating.
It’s a little like knowing the idiosyncrasies of the house we live in, or the micro-climate in our vegetable garden. We don’t necessarily have to change anything in order to live comfortably and grow good food. We just need to know enough to accommodate what we’re given, and to factor its peculiarities — its subjectivities – into our thinking.
What covers us is as much a part of who we are as anything else. And it’s quite all right to see things as we are. It’s hard for me to imagine an alternative, actually.
It’s just helpful know that the view-finder through which we’re looking is truly our own.
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If you liked this post, you might enjoy others in the Tarot series:
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(image credit: The Fool from the Aquarian Tarot by David Palladini.)
