Day Fourteen. October 28th. King of Pentacles.

Definition: The traditional interpretation is stability, abundance, wealth, and security.

Detail: What is the Elsewhere Tarot presenting?

Ah, geez. It’s a dude with a sketchy/shadow head, but wearing clothes, and sitting on the display shelving in a shop. And there’s another, smaller sketchy/shadow entity with an animal-like vibe clambering at nearby shelving. What’s the stuff for sale on the shelves? It’s bric-a-brac. Maybe a clock? Maybe a snow globe? Is the dude the shop proprietor? Who else would sit on the shelves at a shop like this? He sits like he owns it. No shop chain that sells new housewares displays their stuff like this – a mix-and-match of items all on the same shelf, and no two of the same thing. This feels like a resale shop, or…the consignment shop from the Seven of Pentacles. I think it is that same shop. And is the dude sitting on the shelf one of the shoppers from that card, except he’s wearing clothes? He got them from the shop? Added commodified aspects of others’ past lives to who he is? It’s what the sketchy shadow dudes on the Seven were there to do. But I’m not getting a vibe from this guy that the clothes are fulfilling/enlivening/activating of him. Look at that swirly thing over his had, whirling. It’s like he’s disoriented. I’ve always loved halos as symbols of spiritual insight and purpose. But this is like an anti-halo. He’s sitting like he owns the place, but he’s still a sketchy/shadow dude, and he’s disoriented. Hmm. The King of Pentacles. He fronts like he’s made of the spirit of life, but his thoughts that inform his actions don’t make any sense. He goes through his days in the company of scary shadow animals. Hmm. What are those dark cone shapes along the top of shelving on the right? Traffic cones? The bases of trees? Light fixtures? Is the shadow/animal trying to get at them? And what’s the shape in the background behind the shadow/dude/king? It’s pretty vulval looking. Or is it a flame? Is the shadow/dude/king’s head on fire? Is that a box of matches on the shelf next to him? What does it mean for the human embodiment of the commodification of life to light his own head on fire? Does lighting his head on fire kill him? Self-immolation is a shocking and intense form of protest. But I don’t get that vibe from him. Remember when there were all those stories about spontaneous human combustion? The phoenix bursts into flames as part of its cycle of rebirth. You know what…you know how the Access Hollywood tape didn’t tank Trump’s run for President? You know how his crimes never ended his power in the world? You know how toxic comedians disappear for a bit and then reconstitute their careers? Things that would kill you or I don’t kill them. That’s the King of Pentacles. Trump lights himself on fire on a daily basis. Musk lights himself on fire constantly. The King of Pentacles is the unkillable embodiment of money before all else, Pluto with Cerberus among us, with a head full of nonsense.

Day: Same feelings of this card’s correspondence to the current U.S. political landscape, and to the workings of a world contrived from the commodification of life.

Discovery: What a smug dude we have from Pamela on her King of Pentacles. He’s Jonathan Groff’s King George from Hamilton, except he can’t sing. He’s showing us his gold pentacle and not looking us in the eye. I once Photoshopped this card to put horns on him to make him represent the Devil as an illustration for a game I was working on. His clothes are adorned with printed or embroidered grapes. His throne is carved with sheep and flowers. It’s like a business owner wearing the branded shirt of his business, because this dude didn’t tend the sheep, or farm the grapes that made him wealthy. He wears them as symbols of his position at the top of the order that funnels the commodification of them up to him. And in this way he’s just like the dude on the shelves in the consignment shop, wearing clothes that present him as something he’s not. You know how Adam Levine wears a $400 t-shirt that’s all distressed and torn at the collar, and other stars wear ratty, distressed clothing, as if they can’t afford better and wore their clothes out themselves? That’s the King in the consignment shop. He’s wearing jeans with patches on them, but they’re crisp and pressed by his non-white housekeeper. Everyone who’s around him knows he’s bullshit. The world is a consignment shop with undying billionaires in it who front like they own the place, think they’re regular and approachable, but who everyone knows are bullshit, and who don’t look us in the eye because they’re afraid of what they might see reflected back.

#tarot #dropm78 #ElsewhereTarot #KingOfPentacles #Pentacles

Day Thirteen. October 27th. Queen of Pentacles.

Definition: The traditional interpretation is…magnificence, liberty, “greatness of soul”.

Detail: And what the hell is the Elsewhere Tarot presenting??

Seriously, what is it? I actually posted to the deck creator about this card when I drew it previously, asking for guidance, and didn’t get a response. Are we looking up through some kind of chimney? Or down on a flat-topped pyramid? Or down into a square pit? What are the sketchy symbols around the perimeter? The snake/tentacle things? What’s in the center? A storm? My sense is the things on the four faces of the pit/pyramid are living beings. At first I was thinking they might be priestesses or spiritual guides like within the monster on the Three of Pentacles, spiritually actualized beings like the one rising above the contrived city on the Eight of Pentacles, with white heads and dark cloaks, but…the shape of the dark blotches doesn’t look as much like cloaks or robes as on prior cards, and the white “heads” are pretty detached from them. So I’m thinking the white “heads” are actually tiny cloaked figures on stairs and the black splotches are stains…or…blood, from the robed figures, like the blood pouring from the sink on the Six of Pentacles. I think this is a ritual. The little white figures are casting their living blood into the central pit/maelstrom, and it’s giving rise to the snakes/tentacles going outward from the structure. But what’s the vibe? The Six of Pentacles was a card about how your living essence resists commodification. This almost feels like the opposite. They are fueling something with their living essence, willfully, or because they’ve been influenced. Is that the Queen? The one who influences you to sacrifice your living essence to some inimical purpose? Are we witnessing this from the vantage of the Queen? What are those symbols around the perimeter? They look like campsite or picnic table symbols from park maps. I don’t know. It’s hard for me to feel like the influence of the Queen of Pentacles is an enlivening thing. Those tentacles aren’t resistance to commodification. They’re something inimical. But the symbols opposing them? I don’t know. In general I don’t think of snakes as necessarily inimical. But the Queen of Pentacles definitely feels inimical. Hmm.

Day: I don’t know. Same feelings of this card’s correspondence to the current U.S. political landscape, and to the workings of a world contrived from the commodification of life. The figures on the steps could be anyone, spilling their life out trying to have a career for a company that undercompensates them, spilling out their life trying to make it as a writer, or social media star, or porn star, or waitstaff, or game designer, or artist, or anything where the system is stacked so you’re lucky if you can sell yourself cheap and unlucky if you can’t sell yourself at all. The queen tells you it’s how she got to where she’s at herself, tells you exactly how to do it, cast your lifeblood into the maelstrom for the success you deserve, but it’s a lie. She never worked her way up. Never made sacrifices like she asks of you. She works less than you do. “greatness of soul” my ass.

Discovery: A purportedly dark complected woman contemplating a golden pentacle. Waite says she has the “cast of intelligence”. But does that mean…not actual intelligence? “She contemplates [the pentacle] and may see worlds within,” he says. But like the Page/Knave, not the world outside? These pentacle court figures are all consumed by their pentacles in unhealthy ways. The contrived world we live in is made of money/currency that commodifies life. If the Queen is seeing worlds in her pentacle, they’re not ones that work differently. Why do I love the woman on the Nine of Pentacles, or y’know, maybe not love, but feel drawn to her, when she is every bit as much a figure of privilege, but not this one at all? This card by Pamela almost feels like a horror illustration to me. Why?

#tarot #dropm78 #ElsewhereTarot #QueenOfPentacles #Pentacles

Day Twelve. October 26th. Knight of Pentacles.

Definition: The traditional interpretation is utility, serviceableness, responsibility.

Detail: What is the Elsewhere Tarot presenting?

A speaker at a lectern with a massive, sketchy, winged shadow looming above and behind him. It protects him. He speaks from its influence. He is not the mercenary aspect of commodified life of Pamela’s Knight of Pentacles, the beautiful doer of horrid deeds. He’s the silver-tongued voice of it, still an agent, but one in the sphere of influence, politics, narrative, lies.

And there’s this strange tendril from the audience, going up around the speaker’s legs and into the winged thing, making it like a dialogue balloon in a comic strip. And that’s what the winged thing is in a way. It’s the ignorance of the audience as a force that gives power to the speaker, that he uses in his narratives to shape the doings of his listeners in the world. On the Elsewhere Eight of Pentacles we saw a spiritually actualized figure in white and black robes rise above the contrived city, but these Elsewhere pentacle court cards aren’t a continued narrative of that figure. They are the students, agents, and powerful figures of the contrived world.

Day: Yeah, geez. Like the Elsewhere Ten of Pentacles everything about this card corresponds to the current U.S. Presidential election, and also to the bizarre politics of ignorance that’s everywhere.

Discovery: Lots of the printed meanings on my janky, bootleg RWS deck are bizarre, but “a useful man” is perfect for this dude on horseback, holding a pentacle. He’s a condottieri, a mercenary. You employ him for the tasks of authority in the temporal world. He’ll collect taxes for you. He’ll rape and pillage and suppress the resistors for you. You can reward him with an estate like the one he’s riding through (he wants you to) and he’ll take a wife for you from your converted subjects and have children with her to dilute their bloodlines and loyalties. And he’s beautiful, which masks his savagery.

#tarot #dropm78 #ElsewhereTarot #KnightOfPentacles #Pentacles

Day Eleven. October 25th. Knave of Pentacles.

Definition: The traditional interpretation is application, study, reflection, news, messages and the bringer thereof, and role management.

Detail: What is the Elsewhere Tarot presenting?

This one feels obvious to me. Students in a classroom, sketchy and dark like the shadow figures on prior cards, and a central one of them doesn’t have a head. They’re shadows, like the ones at the consignment shop. They’re us without the things that create us, actualize us? And the headless one, the knave, is the apprentice who can’t think for themself, can’t get off the directed path, the path of heritance, of objectification and exploit of others, of dealings in the commodified life. This is the young MBA student, the privileged son of wealth who’s never going to question the ideology he’s been taught, who’s never going to be spiritually actualized.

Day: Hmm. I feel I have constant encounters with this kind of dude. Young dudes straight out of college who think they know how the world works. Analytics. Workflows. Agile methodology. Sales. Scams. Pickup artists. Crypto. Grind. No true intuition. No compassion. No artfulness.

I actually don’t love Esther Lisa Freinkel Tishman shoehorning the “Day” prompt into #dropm78 this year. It feels like forcing me to try to connect with tarot as a divination tool, and not the conversation with a deck creator about the workings of the world that make it compelling to me. I’m not like this dude who’s never going to be spiritually actualized, and though they’re everywhere, there isn’t one of them who I interacted with today. Though I can say I wished today that my games and writings had wider appeal, and understand they don’t because dudes like this won’t ever appreciate their metaphysical purpose.

Discovery: So, the figure on Pamela’s Page of Pentacles is supposed to be a student. Studying a pentacle? Studying the Earth? Studying the commodification of life? It certainly matches the Elsewhere Tarot classroom scene. And the Elsewhere Tarot tells me that this is a student incapable of thinking for himself. Incapable of skepticism. He’s learning the systems of the contrived world. He’s surrounded by a lovely, natural world, but his attention is on the object of commodification.

#tarot #dropm78 #ElsewhereTarot #KnaveOfPentacles #Pentacles

Day Ten. October 24th. Ten of Pentacles.

So far behind. Trying to catch up.

Definition: The traditional interpretation is wealth, and family matters.

Detail: So…what the hell is the Elsewhere Tarot presenting?

A tower in the distance with someone looking out from a lit window. A prisoner? A sundered wall with smoke pouring out? Clearly a conflict in progress? But what is the central foreground structure? A fountain? With canals at the cardinal points? Or are they roads? It’s surrounded by grassy fields. There’s a pit. Some sort of enclosure with a picket fence? And flagpoles or signposts within it? Or siege equipment? What is that fountain-like structure? You know what it looks like to me? A Pokémon Go gym. This so feels like a battle to me. Is the figure in the far tower another player? Are we battling at the gym? In Pokémon Go the gyms hatch rare Pokémon from eggs that appear and that players want to claim. I can see how the Ten of Pentacles could be metaphysically a battle to control life. That’s basically the upper level activity of capitalism. Those with money control the options and lives of those with less. Though I don’t see anything analogous to an egg/Pokémon/life in the drawn card. Hmm…

Day: Hmm. A battle within capitalism to control life? I suppose I feel victimized by those battling during the current U.S. Presidential election. I see constant lies, manipulations, and toxic narratives by the powers trying to sway the outcome. I can barely even look at Twitter anymore. The “dwarfed by a monumental battle” vibe of the Elsewhere Ten of Pentacles feels true.

Discovery: When I look at Pamela’s illustration I see an old family patriarch with the lush estate he’s built and his heirs who will inherit him, and I feel…a little doubt from him. Like the grower Pamela drew on the Seven of Pentacles, but now older and more successful, he wonders if the estate was worth all the sacrifices and actions it took to make it. You don’t create something like his estate without exploiting others in some ways.

And I see this as a connection to something like a Pokémon gym, if that’s what the Elsewhere Tarot creator is depicting. To make his estate the patriarch had to battle and claim rewards and control others’ lives. Across the numbered pentacles Pamela is showing that money is as much a problem in ways for those who have it as those who don’t.

But why no egg/Pokémon/life in the Elsewhere Tarot drawing? I don’t know.

#tarot #dropm78 #ElsewhereTarot #TenOfPentacles #Pentacles

Day Nine. October 23rd. Nine of Pentacles.

Still two days behind. When will I catch up. Will I catch up? Stay tuned ‼️

Definition: The traditional interpretation is material well-being.

Detail: What is the Elsewhere Tarot presenting?

So yeah, the Eight of Pentacles showed a futuristic city, but it was a fully temporal and earthly city. Now with the Nine of Pentacles we’re in another world beyond. It’s a cosmic world, a quantum reality. There’s all sorts of cosmic stuff going on in the sky. And there’s a robed figure at a small table or altar with primary solids, Pythagorean regular solids on it and on the ground near it. The figure is small and simply done, and robed, like the floating figure on the Eight of Pentacles, but feels to me like the Magician in Pamela’s RWS deck.

And…hmm. Has the robed figure from the Eight of Pentacles departed the temporal world for this realm? I think so. The living, spiritually purposeful contention with the commodified world is transcending it and coming into your power to make alternative worlds. The robed figure from the prior card has transcended it and come into their power here.

Day: I’ve traveled to other worlds playing journaling games. I really loved Ian Cheng’s Emissary’s Guide To Worlding, and have come to think of myself from my journaling game play as having the ability to make worlds. How do I know the figure is a worlder? Well, I feel it. And what else would a magician be doing from a vantage outside of the temporal world?

Discovery: I super like Pamela’s Nine of Pentacles. I’m not sure why. Maybe because there are a zillion wealthy yoga moms at my son’s school, wrapped up in their own realities, without any particular money challenges in their lives, for whom it could be their significator. It just feels like such a true card. It feels almost like a court card. And people say it’s a card that means stability and security, because the woman is in her own vineyard demesne, which is not uncontrolled or wild, and because she has many coins and luxurious clothing, and I feel this aspect is connected to the Elsewhere Tarot Nine of Pentacles. When I was a kid I had several persistent and similar fantasies. One was of being on my bed out in space, protected by a force field, and with my books and comic books and other possessions on shelves and in cubbies underneath it. Through the transparent force field I could see the stars. I could sit and read and enjoy my time without stress or expectations of others. Another was of being on a large area rug with my bedroom furniture on it, also out in space and protected by a force field. They were fantasies of being safe, apart from the temporal world, unbotherable by its stresses, in full control myself of how I would spend my time. So I see the Magician in his cosmic landscape, outside of the temporal world, as having that same kind of security that people associate with the woman in her vineyard. And maybe also…someone who makes worlds, like they both do, whether they’re physically outside the temporal world or not, has power against its threats anyway.

#tarot #dropm78 #ElsewhereTarot #NineOfPentacles #Pentacles

Day Eight. October 22nd. Eight of Pentacles.

Definition: The traditional interpretation is tradecraft. Waite describes the RWS Eight of Pentacles as an “artist in stone at his work, which he exhibits in the form of trophies”.

Detail: What is the Elsewhere Tarot presenting?

So, this city. A futuristic city. I feel there’s a journey being told in the pentacles by the Elsewhere Tarot creator. This city is the sales pitch of capitalism. It’s what we’re told comes from the workings of a free market. Improvements in human health, longevity, civic life, efficiency, habitation, entertainment, etc. And if the pentacles are a metaphysical narrative from card to card, then this city has to be understood relative to the prior one. But in what way? Is it a future version? Or a different one that took a different path? And what about the floating, robed figure? It’s the same kind of robed figure as the ones in the monster’s chest on the Three of Pentacles that felt like internal spiritual guides. But this one is wearing a robe that’s part black and part white, like a yin and yang symbol, which make it feel like the robes of an actualized person, someone metaphysically actualized. And if the city has to be understood relative to the prior one with the people all living in their own worlds, then does this figure need to be understood relative to the one on the Six of Pentacles with its lifeblood pouring out of the sink and all over the ground? And the shadows on the Seven of Pentacles in front of the consignment store? I…think so. And. And. Remember the monster on the Three of Pentacles with no arms? Remember I was thinking about how the monster could do its work without arms? This robed figure floating above the city also, because of the shroud of robes, doesn’t have arms. But one stream of the blood pouring from the sink had formed a hand at the end. There’s something about your lifeblood bursting from your body that enables you to do the work your internal spiritual guides have inspired in you. That’s the metaphysical progression. The figure on the Six, who is also the long haired figure on the Five looking out their window, whose lifeblood could not be contained, has found through their uncontained lifeblood the ability to do work in the world, and this has transformed them into the actualized, robed figure here in the Eight, a figure whose form represents them as actualized by their spirit.

Day: So, how does this card inform where I'm at in my life today? Hmm. I feel like my engagement with journaling games, which are giving entities in my unconscious an influence on me, has been so consuming because it’s my contention with the inimical world that has commodified so much of life.

Discovery: Again, I think, like she has been for all the pentacles, Pamela was saying something about money. The guy on her Eight of Pentacles isn’t making anything expressive, that then he might sell. He’s literally making coins. It’s a card about the absence of art and expressiveness in the work that makes money.

And y’know, I really like what I’m sensing of the Elsewhere Tarot creator’s purpose with the pentacles. Pamela tells a narrative about how money is a problem, for those who don’t have it for whatever reason, for artists, and even for those who do have it, but the Elsewhere Tarot creator is telling an (admittedly unspecific) narrative of a living, spiritually purposeful contention with a world that commodifies life. The Elsewhere pentacles are about how what enlivens us naturally contends with commodification. I’m eager to see how it plays out with the Nine, Ten, and court cards.

#tarot #dropm78 #ElsewhereTarot #EightOfPentacles #Pentacles

Day Seven. October 21st. Seven of Pentacles.

I am a day behind. Trying to catch up. But I am loving doing the #dropm78 with the Elsewhere Tarot. Spending day after day trying to connect with an artist who clearly has something they’re trying to say about the world feels so human and worthwhile.

Definition: Traditionally, the bounty of hard work. A bumper crop. The making of something monetizable.

Detail: What is the Elsewhere Tarot presenting?

It’s the same rough, sketchy drawing style. This time of a consignment shop named Z-2-A, with pulsating sun overhead and two shadowy figures out front, one of which is humanoid and the other of which is taller, and maybe doesn’t have arms. So, why the shadowy figures? These seem blurrier around the edges than the dark figures on the Ace of Pentacles, like maybe those were dark just for compositional art contrast reasons and these are intended to be shadows. To Jung, our “shadow” is repressed aspects of ourself that we need to connect with and integrate with to be metaphysically healthy. But, hmm. A consignment shop is an interesting aspect of capitalism. You’re taking things you own, often clothing, that you’ve moved on from, and putting them up for sale hoping others will find value in them and want to own them. It’s metaphysically different than a pawn shop, because theoretically what you sell to a pawn shop you want to get back when you have the money for it. Consignment is hoping chosen commodified aspects of your past self will be wanted by others for their future self. Hmm. Z-2-A is interesting too. From the ending to the beginning. And shadows as customers of a consignment shop? Do our shadows, the repressed aspects of ourselves, shop from the commodified aspects of others' pasts? Probably they shop from hot new trends too. Fast fashion. Temu. But what about when they do shop from the commodified aspects of others’ pasts? That feels…healthier to me? Creating an unrepressed self from aspects of others’ pasts is reading their poetry, and fiction, and biography, and engaging with their art, trying to connect with their tarot decks they’ve made, hearing their joys and regrets in conversation over coffee. Buying your clothes at a consignment shop isn’t doing all that, but it’s a wisp of it. You can have hope a shadow might create an unrepressed future shelf when it starts at a consignment shop rather than Temu.

Day: So, how does this card inform where I'm at in my life today? The shadow concept isn’t the most useful aspect of Jung’s work for me, not by a long shot, but I do like the idea that we create ourselves by integrating aspects of others’ pasts into us. That’s what a metaphysical deck is to me, like I wrote for the Ace of Pentacles, I want to connect with what Pamela understands about the world from her own lived strivings. So I’m feeling like the creator of the Elsewhere Tarot may be feeling the same thing, that our needful contention with the commodification of our lives has effects in the world when we’re active in being affected by aspects of others’ pasts.

Discovery: I love Pamela’s expressiveness in her art. Look at the guy’s body language and facial expression. He’s not sure how he feels about the amount of work and time he spent on it. Was it worth it? Lots of decks try to be universal by giving the figures on their cards neutral body language and blank expressions. Not Pamela. She has something to say about money in our lives. The guy is weary and doubtful about this endeavor of making and selling.

The first question guys ask when they first meet another guy is “What do you do?” It’s a belief that identity is importantly from the job you have, from the work output you spend your time on. It feels to me the farmer is feeling there are enlivening things he’d rather be spending time on. Buying clothes is a different kind of identity formation. It’s constructing yourself of material trappings. Except here, on the Elsewhere Seven of Pentacles, I feel the pre-owned aspect of the trappings is metaphysically significant.

#tarot #dropm78 #ElsewhereTarot #SevenOfPentacles #Pentacles

Day Six. October 20th. Six of Pentacles.

I am a day behind. I will try to catch up.

Definition: Waite says it’s about gifts and generosity to those who need it from those who’ve succeeded.

Detail: So, what is the Elsewhere Tarot presenting?

Geez. It’s a building with the roof blown off and either smoke or flames rising from it. There’s a long-haired human figure facing away from us standing at a bathroom sink with dark liquid overflowing it and out across the ground in winding trails that each end in flames, except one that ends in a hand on the far side of the building. The figure is looking at a mirror on the wall of the building, which has a dark hand print on it. So… Y’know, I really feel this is the same person as the one on the prior card who was looking out the window. But what the hell is going on. So much blood. Lifeblood flowing away, but still alive in a way. Those flames. Six of them. Not what you’d expect from pentacles. I think maybe it means the life commodified by pentacles as coins is powerful enough to escape its commodification. In the prior card the long haired person in the window was looking out at the temporal world. Here they’re looking into themselves.

Day: So, how does this card inform where I'm at in my life today? I think it’s saying something about the power of the interior self that I’ve been feeling myself playing journaling games, and how the interior self is an uncanny threat to the contrived, deathly, material world.

Discovery: So yeah, Waite says the RWS Six of Pentacles is about charity. And with the scales suggesting equitable distribution. But it’s still not fair, is it. The man doing the redistribution is clearly still way better off money-wise than the recipients. I don’t know. I’m not seeing a connection between the RWS card and the Elsewhere card. I think Pamela’s Pentacles are about all the challenges of money from her own lived experience, and it continues with the later ones. With the Elsewhere Pentacles, I’m feeling from card to card it’s wanting to tell a narrative of the metaphysical essence of Earth/self/life contending with its commodification and maybe overcoming it? I hope so. What a great narrative it could be.

#tarot #dropm78 #ElsewhereTarot #SixOfPentacles #Pentacles

Day Five. October 19th. Five of Pentacles.

Definition: Waite says “material trouble”. I’ve read “help is close” if you could just recognize it in guide books to other RWS decks.

Detail: So, what is the Elsewhere Tarot presenting?

It’s the front of an urban, multi-unit residential building you can see into through the windows. What a journey we’ve been on with the prior two cards. On the road to a living city. Residing in the city, unhoused and separate from its life and culture. And now peering into apartments at what life is like for its residents. In one you can see a cat stalking a pet bird in the adjacent window. In another someone eating alone at a table, or perhaps worshipping at an altar. In another a female presenting figure with long hair looking out her window and you can see the letters RF or BF on the wall behind her. In another you can see at least seven clocks on the wall set to different times, and maybe a grand piano. A couple have their curtains closed, but for one of them they must be somewhat sheer, because you can see a figure through them, and it might have wings like an angel. And in another potted flowers with clouds and a sun above them, almost like there’s another world inside through the window and not just an apartment. And the front door to the building has a triangle shaped window. I don’t think I’ve seen a triangle shaped window ever. So…geez…. My first thought is they could be representations of other cards in the RWS deck. Is the figure behind the sheer curtains Temperance? Is the scene with clouds and sun The Sun, or The World? Is one that kind of looks like it has leaves in the lower corner and maybe a chaise lounge The Empress? But I’m not sure the idea holds up across all of them. The female presenting figure with RF or BF on the wall behind her? The one with the clocks and maybe a grand piano? I know an upward facing triangle is the alchemical symbol for fire. This is an earth card, so the triangular window on the front door is a hmm. Hmm. In general I think what’s showing is other worlds. We’re not looking into apartments exactly, but other worlds. This is the “Elsewhere” tarot. Within our city here people live in their own worlds.

Day: So, how does this card inform where I'm at in my life today? You know I’ve been totally swept up in journaling games the past couple of years. I’ve lived in dozens of other worlds playing them. I just published a zine about how the worlds we make make us who we are. I feel like I’m made of worlds. So a card that expresses how everyone in a city is living in different worlds from each other certainly matches my sense of things. I definitely believe our challenge for human connection is from how much of our lives play out in different worlds from each other.

Discovery: Pamela’s Five of Pentacles is such a bleak card. Poverty. Out in the cold and snow without adequate clothing. Probably you have leprosy. A moneyed church with a beautiful window is right there, but you’re not inside. You’re out in the cold and snow. I like the idea that it could mean help may be close if you could just recognize it, but I don’t feel that’s what Pamela was drawing. There’s no door on the church. Pamela’s Five of Pentacles is about the misery of just holding on without money, in the shadow of it.

So, a similar theme of people’s lives in physical proximity to each other actually playing out in very different metaphysical realities? There are other worlds all around us. We just aren’t able to enter them. That cat on the Elsewhere card can maybe? To get at the bird. Maybe cats are better at entering other worlds than we are?

#tarot #dropm78 #ElsewhereTarot #FourOfPentacles #Pentacles