The day is almost gone. Quite late for a dream post. But there was one detail that escaped me all day until now.
I’m walking through a corridor into the expanse of what appears to be a library or place of learning. There are books everywhere, and the walls are thick with them. I’m in formal clothing, with my raven feather cloak draped off one shoulder. There is a person sitting at one of the many tables. I know this person has asked for me.
There is a tarot deck in front of her. The card backs are a stylized gilded sun on a deep blue shimmering field. She has twelve cards in a circle before her on the table, lying as if on the spokes of a wheel. A book is open to her left. Handwritten notes are by her right hand. A bag of small items is before her.
She is very frustrated.
As I approach, I see her dropping two small items on the twelve cards. She turns them over and frowns. I recognize the technique, but I also recognize I am dreaming.
“May I help?” At my question, she looks up startled.
“Weaver?” I nod. “Keri!” Outwardly I smile and nod. However I am alarmed. Only a fellow traveler would know me by both names, and rare is the Traveler that would call me out.
She gestures to the spread in front of her. “You came up with the Twelve Witnesses, right? Can I ask you about it? I don’t quite understand it.”
I pull a chair from a neighboring table and sit across from her. “Sure.”
“Okay, so, I’m using the tarot version. And I have pulled out twelve cards that represent the background of the situation instead of dealing randomly. But, I’ve shuffled them and dealt them face down so I won’t know which is which. So now, I take two tokens… I know you said to use shells, but I don’t have any shells. At least, none that would survive being dropped…”
“Then don’t use shells. I just mentioned them because of how the Twelve Witnesses came about. You just need two small tokens that will survive the drop. If they are the same size, then you need to be able to differentiate them in some way, like color.”
She reached in her bag and pulled out two miniature statuary that looked like they were taken from a Monopoly game. “Would these work?”
“Are you comfortable with them? Will they survive the drop?”
“Oh yes! I’ve used them for pointing me to things before.”
“Okay. Then pick one to represent the First Call, and the other will be the Second Call. Now, did you decide how to use the Calls? I gave a few examples, but there is a lot of room to specialize the divination.”
She held up one of the pieces. It was a teeny Roman soldier, complete with sword. “Here is the Prosecution! Since we’re using court terms. Kinda.” She held up another piece. It was a teeny knight in armor holding a full length kite shield. “And here is the Defense! So the first Call is the Witness for the Prosecution, and the second Call is the Witness for the Defense.”
She drops the two pieces onto the twelve cards. The Prosecution landed on the 12 o’clock position relative to her, and the Defense landed on the 5 o’clock position. She turned the two cards over. While I could see the backs of the cards clearly, the fronts turned in vertigo inducing waves. She had no problem seeing them however. I gave up trying to second guess her cards.
“So, does what the Witnesses say make sense?”
“No! And this is where I’m stumped! The Witness for the Prosecution keeps showing me how this mess started, and the Witness for the Defense keeps showing me where the mess is now, but neither one is telling me anything I don’t already know!”
I looked at her spread and noted the Roman soldier figurine’s sword was now in an extended direction. “Hey. Your soldier. See the sword?”
“Yea?”
“Think your Witness is telling you which way to go? Since you know how it starts, and you know where it’s at now, maybe the cards between the Prosecution and the Defense is the Prosecution’s Case, and the cards between the Defense and the Prosecution is the Defense’s Case. Since your Prosecution token has a direction pointer on it, it’s telling you which direction the Prosecution is taking.”
“Oh! I never saw that!”
“The sword is pointing clockwise. So the Witness for the Prosecution is the beginning of the Case, and the next four cards is the Witness’ Testimony. The Witness for the Defense starts there, and the next six cards is that testimony.”
She turned over the Case for the Prosecution. She said nothing, but her facial expression betrayed that she learned a lot more about the situation. She turned over the Case for the Defense. Her eyes grew angry and her lips narrowed, but the confusion she had before was gone.
“This… tells me what I needed to know.” She looks up at me with simmering anger and tries to hide it behind congeniality. “Thank you for coming and explaining this to me.”
“I didn’t explain anything. Twelve Witnesses was never meant to be rigid in use or meaning. I never would have come up with this specialization. This is really more your spread than mine. May I share this with others?”
(For most of the day, I could not remember the answer to her question. And for that reason, I never wrote about it. If I wasn’t sure, it was only ethical to assume she declined.)
“Sure!”, she said happily. “I learned this from you. It would be wrong not to share it along like you shared Twelve Witnesses.”
She picked up her things. We slowly walked out of the library, chatting along the way. Leaving meant waking up and we both wanted to remain in contact as long as we could. Strangely, waking identity was never one of the things talked about. Instead, it was the history of the tarot, how the Rider-Waite-Smith deck became the defacto default deck, how meanings have changed over the decades, and the future decks that were up and coming. She talked excitedly about the Sweeney tarot deck, and how she was looking forward to future arguments with tarot ‘purists’ that will insist it is not a tarot deck because the meanings and imagery differs from the RWS. She is resolute she will win those arguments.
Finally, we arrived at the door. I asked if I would see her on Tumblr, she shook her head. “I only came across your spread through a reblog. I don’t follow you directly. You’re… intense.” She smiled in polite apology.
I laughed. “Yea. I am. Good luck to you, and I’m glad things worked out.”
We shook hands and departed the library.