paulczege

Day Two. October 16th. Two of Pentacles.

Definition: Pamela isn't as hopeful with the Two of Pentacles as she was with the Ace. Two coins isn’t enough to live on. Dance for your coins. Your hands are infinitely tied to the work of collecting coins, unusable for whatever other purpose you might wish. And also we’re just ships passing each other on the waves in the sea.

Detail: So, what is the Elsewhere Tarot presenting?

It's a billboard at night that says “One Night Only. Tonight Only. Don't Miss Out.” next to a long road leading to an illuminated city in the distance. The shadow behind the billboard suggests that I'm driving a vehicle down the road to the city, and seeing the billboard because of my headlights.

So...hmm. Clearly I'm driving to the city on my way to the thing on the billboard. I kind of like the way these Elsewhere Tarot cards are casting me as a viewpoint figure. In the Ace of Pentacles I was a work supervisor. In this I'm driving to the thing. An enlivening thing. Something I want in my life. But “Don't Miss Out”. Will I make it in time? That's anxiety. Fear of missing out. It feels like it might be a music event? If there were no implication of headlights then maybe I'm walking and won't make it, but my path is straight and I'm driving, so I think I'll make it. But can I afford it? Maybe I only have two coins. F🪙M🪙? I have to get to the city in time and I have to be able to afford it.

Day: So, how does this card inform where I'm at in my life today? I certainly do feel fear of missing out. I want to see my son grow up and have kids. I have game projects I'm eager to finish and publish. No one gets infinite time and life. We all ultimately miss out on many things. Or wait, what if I'm not going to some entertaining, enlivening performance. What if I'm the scheduled event? I'm late. I'm not where I need to be. I'm not where my audience is. I definitely feel that. I didn't sell many copies of The Sneeze. I didn't find my way to its audience. Look at the glow of that city. There are connections to be had there. I've traveled to dozens of realities playing journaling games. But I haven't found that city yet. It's Brigadoon. One night only. I have to get there.

Discovery: Pamela's Two of Pentacles shows a figure wearing a conical hat dancing in the street with a coin in each hand and a looping cord like an infinity symbol connecting his hands to each other. In the background are two ships passing each other at a distance on very turbulent waves. If the Elsewhere Tarot is a RWS inspired deck, and it is, then its Two of Pentacles should be thematically similar to Pamela's, or at least understand it and disagree. And...it does understand it. Waite calls it a card of “gaiety” and “recreation,” but no way. It was Pamela's idea to do illustrated minors and I'm convinced Waite only gave her minimal, maybe just numerological guidance and then later when he wrote about them he imposed descriptors that accorded with his occult thinking that don't reflect her mysticism and intent, which I think can be found by looking at the body language and expressions of her figures. I don't believe the farmer on the Eight of Pentacles is unequivocally happy with his bumper crop. I don't believe the worker on the Eight of Pentacles represents artful craftsmanship. And here on the Two of Pentacles I don't see gaiety and recreation. Pamela's dancer is tied into an unending cycle of eking out coins, never having enough, with life passing him by like ships passing at a distance. He's entertaining, but not enlivening, because the commodification of life as coins keeps him from a context of connection in which he would be enlivening.

#tarot #dropm78 #ElsewhereTarot #TwoOfPentacles #Pentacles

I’ve decided to do the #dropm78 tarot challenge again this year. It’s choosing a deck that’s new/unfamiliar to you and working through the cards one per day in a specific order to find your understanding of them, starting with pentacles. (The organizer’s intro video for this year is here.) I tried it last year with the Mary-El Tarot and only made it eight days, but I think I learned more the kind of deck I might connect with better for the whole thing.

So this year the deck I chose is the Elsewhere Tarot.

Day One. October 15th. Ace of Disks.

Definition: Waite says “In old tarot packs this suit used to be about money.” He wants them to be about earthly life. That’s always felt forced to me for Pamela’s cards. She had such frustrations with money in her life. She said that drawing the cards was a lot of work for not much money. I love her. It was her idea to do pictorial minors and I’ve never felt like Waite gave her as specific art direction on them as he did for the majors. So the minors are her understanding of the world, and for her the pentacles are about our human relationship with money. We live in a world made of it. It tells us who we are, and what our value is. It directs our actions in unwelcome ways. It corrupts us.

So the Ace of Pentacles? With money we have taken the mystery and metaphysics of life (the pentagram) and commodified it (by forming it into coins). Aces are beginnings. The Ace of Pentacles represents the flow of time and the temporal world making a starting investment in you. It is heritance and venture capital, as well as being given a path and obligations.

Detail: In the guidebook to the Mary-el Tarot Marie White refers to the Thoth Tarot as “occult” and the Rider Waite Smith Tarot as “mystical,” and it was then clear to me why I connect better with some decks than others, and why I didn't connect so well with the Mary-el, which is very beautiful but also very steeped in alchemy and the occult. A “mystical” deck is an expression of what its creator understands about the world from their own lived strivings in it. And as I've thought about it, maybe only the minors in the RWS deck are a “mystical” understanding of the world from Pamela's perceptions in her lived life, and the majors are Waite's more occult thinkings. So for the #dropm78 this year I was looking for a deck that's more fully mystical, the perceptions of its creator in contending with the turnings and challenges of the world, across all the minors and majors too. And I feel the Elsewhere Tarot may be this.

So...what is the creator presenting on the Ace of Pentacles?

A convoluted assembly line with a human figure turning half-dark objects into dark objects. The lightbulb above is on, meaning the assembly line is moving. A video monitor is watching the human figure, meaning we are subject to judgement and expectations when we participate in the engine of commodification of life.

Day: This is the new category the creator of the #dropm78 Esther Lisa Freinkel Tishman added this year. I'm supposed to find an understanding of how this Ace of Pentacles informs where I'm at in my life on this day, today. And...I don't know. Do I feel I'm on an assembly line? Am I feeling judged on my participation in the commodification of life? I don't know. I'm busy. I'm juggling multiple writing projects, as well as parenting my son. But that's all meaningful stuff to me. My assembly line is meaningful to me. My #JournalGaming and writings about it are acts of contending with the contrived world. I'm striving to connect with others. And maybe that's it. Though my work is meaningful most of my human connections are distant, and occasional, and through a computer monitor. The forces of the contrived world are strong and I have not escaped them. My work is still subject to their judgement, and my relationships are still made distant by them.

Discovery: I chose a side deck, a calibration deck. It’s this bootleg RWS deck with badly reproduced art and janky meanings printed on the cards that I bought at a thrift shop and that I love so much. I feel like Pamela is so present when I use it, annoyed at me. “Dammit Paul.” But I want her present. It's her view of the world I want. It's the same side deck I used last year.

And reading back, last year I wasn't feeling the Ace of Pentacles. I wrote that the coin from the air felt like a trust fund to me, but that was pretty much it. This year I understand better. A trust fund, a VC investment, a family lineage, inherited beauty, a parent successful in a material sphere, they get you started down a path, with possibility, but also not one you've fully chosen for yourself, and they come also with expectations from the world and obligations.

So, the Ace of Pentacles in the Elsewhere Tarot. I think the creator totally gets it, but theirs is...narrower and maybe bleaker in what it's saying than Pamela is with hers? You've been given a role, with obligations and scrutiny, in a contrived engine. But Pamela sees, I think that the Pentacles themselves are made from a worthy and metaphysical essence that we deserve and might be able to connect with. Other later RWS Pentacles feel pretty bleak to me, but not the Ace. Pamela sees that heritance and investment puts you on a path, but a world believing in you like the Ace does is still very enlivening and rich with potential for you.

#tarot #dropm78 #ElsewhereTarot #AceOfPentacles #Pentacles