Dreamt I was chilling at a park someplace. Could have been the Library grounds, could have been somewhere in the City. There was a public feel to it, but at the same time everyone was constrained to abide by rules of civility. The constraint wasn’t chafing to me. I had no plans to be a dick to anyone today. Found it humorous to watch those that felt the compulsion to be civil and was quite disturbed by it. I’ll leave the reasons why to those that like to argue discuss topics of free will and such.
I had the red-wrapped gift deck out. I was going over the astrological assignment of the minors and comparing them to the majors that represented the signs and planets in question. It was a nice day to sit outside. The light filtering through the canopy was comforting, and the breeze was just enough to add a pleasant hint of chill to what would have been a too warm day otherwise.
“One of those decks, eh? Unbalanced.”
The speaker was dressed in layers of conflicting colors. From a distance, it would have made for a distinctive and beaconing appearance. But up close the colors clashed and the confounding textures made my eyes water. She wore bangles made from various stones and woods. I wondered if all the necklaces and chokers were meant to anchor her to the ground. Her hair was partly braided, partly loose, and completely pinned with more stone, wood, and pewter charms. I wondered which stereotypes was my mind trying to identify with what I saw.
“Unbalanced, how?”
“That’s one of those western occult decks, right?” She didn’t wait for me to acknowledge such. “It doesn’t acknowledge the element of earth. It’s unbalanced, and any reading it gives you will be absent of grounding in reality. It is a tool of the patriarchy that denies the Goddess and the Earth that represents her.” She nodded smugly.
Oh. One of those. Now I understood why the confusing mishmash of her appearance. She’s trying to be too many things at once, and not finding what works for her. Colors for spiritual harmony as suggested by Pundit A, textures for balancing the aura as suggested by Pundit B, charms to honor the deity of the week, and buzzwords that aligns one’s spiritual centers the more they are used. But she’s not as innocent or as naive as she tries to appear to be. She knows her words and appearance will be divisive, and she looks forward to any chance to make the topic all about her and what she thinks her beliefs are.
“Wrong paradigm.” I turned my attention back to the cards spread out on the grass before me. She waited for me to say something more, but I have no desire for conflict today. (I must be getting ill.) She shifted her weight impatiently.
I remembered a series of posts on my Tumblr dash I saw before bed and wondered if this dream was an overflow from that stimulus. “Eh… Who are you?”
“Are you challenging my authority? I’ll have you know I’m a high priestess of the Goddess and Her Voice! I understand you can’t see the symbols of my office because…”
I held up my hands and the gesture silenced her to our mutual surprise. “Whoa. I don’t care what authority you think you have or the symbols that demonstrate it. I merely asked who are you. Because you came over here to shove scotch bonnets down my throat for having a tool you personally disagree with. Now, before you start jumping up and down about the lack of elemental earth representation in this deck, it is there, just not as one Major Arcana card. It’s a hermetic deck, and hermeticism does recognize the elements of fire, water, air, and earth. But Earth is not a pure element but what comes about when Fire, Water, and Air are mixed. I’m not going to try and repeat what happened on my dash because I’m still learning this shit myself, so I’m just going to point out that the World card is considered by some to be assigned to planetary Saturn as well as elemental Earth. And I kinda agree but for personal reasons and experiences that I am not going to try and justify to you because you’re hostile as fuck.”
I took a breath and she tried to speak again but as long as I held my hands up, she was prevented from doing anything other than fidget angrily. “Furthermore, your fucking assumptions about my religious beliefs, or how your personal cosmology trumps mine is offensive as fuck and I’d rather not hear another word from you. I do not worship a Goddess, the Goddess, or which goddess is the flavor of the week from whichever pundit you are trying to emulate today. I am very fucking aware of the institutionalized misogyny of western occult teaching, and I am making my way around that thank you very fucking much. However, shits like you leave an equally horrid aftertaste in my mouth because you are just as misogynist as the ‘Man’ you are protesting. If I let you blather on long enough, you’re going to start qualifying what is a ‘real woman’ in your cosmology. And every god damn time, I wind up being on the outs with that definition. If not by physical appearance, then by sexual orientation, or by self-identity. You didn’t come over here to offer me a way to escape the patriarchy. You came over here to make yourself feel superior to someone that will never be considered your equal in your universe. So kindly go the fuck away before I decide getting kicked out of the park is worth the trouble.”
I lowered my hands and attempted to return my attention to the cards. A recent meme came to mind, and I found it hard to focus on the cards when it was so tempting to utter the meme’s words. I was hoping she would say it, actually. I think it would be delicious irony for her to complain about coming over to have a discussion but wind up feeling so attacked. She shifted and fidgeted and harrumphed and clenched her fists (with more rings than a case of notebooks). She took several breaths in preparation for countering me but she said not one word.
“By the way…” I couldn’t help but get a few more words in while I had the opportunity. “That whole four-element business was invented by those same ancient folks that the western occult traditions evolved from. If you look elsewhere in the world, you’ll find that other cultures have other fundamental building blocks for their cosmology. The Chinese have five. Fire, earth, water, metal, and wood. Wood! You know, that stuff that grows from the earth? Maybe you should go tell them that their cosmology is wrong because it doesn’t acknowledge air and instead has two things that are found in earth. But, no. To you, the Goddess is all, and all must reflect your goddess, regardless of history. When is the last time you sat down and looked up the history of your beliefs. Who wrote them down and codified them? Who was instrumental in the compilation of those first written works? Don’t give me any of that unbroken lineage of ancient witches bullshit. What were the teachings derived from? Who influenced them? I think you have a rude awakening in store once you start digging at the roots of your precious Goddess grove. Ignoring the problematic seeds that your religion sprouted from is doing no one any damn favors. Now, if you want an amicable discussion, I think the park will let you speak now. If you want to pick up your fight from where you left it, you will be silenced. Pick one and get on with it.”
She fussed and fumed for a moment but remained silent. I shrugged and once more turned back to the cards. I saw a jewel encrusted foot enter my field of vision as she tried to kick the cards. She slipped on the dry grass and wound up on her back instead. Another park patron approached. I recognized him from the group of Academics in the library. He had a little smile on his face but said nothing as he offered his hand to her. “Are you okay? That was a nasty slip there.”
She backed away from him as she scrambled to her feet. Wiping off her skirt as best she could, she wrinkled her face at him in disgust before storming off in the bounciest flounce I have ever seen. The Academic and I watched her leave in mutual amusement. “Gee, Weaver. You can’t go anywhere without starting something.”
“I didn’t start it! She just came over, saw the cards, and dialed it to eleven!”
“Funny, most of the words I heard came from your mouth.” He turned a sarcastic stare towards me. I felt myself redden under its intensity.
“Yea, well, I’ve been holding a lot of shit in lately. I saw a chance to vent and I took it. I’m just a little tired of…” The words I wanted to say tasted sour on my tongue. “Of some shit.”
He sat down on the grass across from the cards, careful to arrange his skirt so not to reveal himself. (It wasn’t a kilt. I don’t know how I knew, but I just knew.) He wore an brown loose vest that fell open as he leaned over to pick up a card. “Tell me about the [card I’m holding].” He turned the card so I could not see the face of it.
As I reached in vain to snatch the card, I saw his chest and abdomen was covered in symmetric black and deep blue tattoos. “Who are you?” I was not concerned, only confused. I knew him, but I didn’t know him.
“Someone that wants to help.” He waved the card. “So… who is this?”
“Something I’d rather not talk about with people I do not recognize.”
He handed the card back. “Fair enough. Okay. How about this. Let’s start with the basics, then. I speak a card or an attribution, and you tell me the partner of it. So, if I say, ‘Mars’, you say…”
“The Tower.”
“Will this be safe enough for you?”
“It will.”
The lesson continued in the lazy comfort of the park. He teased me about the astrological signs, and the mnemonics I used to remember which cards were which signs. He strongly suggested that I learn the art of astrology and silenced me when I started to protest about how my own birth chart renders the art useless.
“There is more to astrology than you know.” He tapped the deck of cards. “Just like there is more to these cards than mere paper and ink.”
“I’m not running any more wild goose chases. Astrology doesn’t fit. My personal observances has found it contrary to what it is supposed to be.”
“So, tell me again about how the personal observations of men have invalidated women as effective magicians.” He laughed at my silenced glare. “The evidence presented to you is merely anecdotal in nature. Not definitive.”
My voice was returned to me. “My name… my nature… is rebellion. The Wanderers don’t rule me.”
“No. They don’t.” He pulled out the tarot cards corresponding to the seven classical planets and tapped the World and Fortune over the others. “But when you need to, you can use them just the same. If this is the paradigm you are going to be using, a working knowledge of astrology is necessary.”
Dusk arrived quickly. The scattered park patrons began taking up their things to leave. The Academic helped me gather and order the cards. “I’ll think about it.”, was all I responded with.
As he stood up with me, I recognized his overall appearance at last. Maori. About as far away from western occultism as one can get. He laughed at the renewed confusion on my face.
“So… am I seeing what I want to see of you, or what you want me to see of you?”
“You are seeing what you can understand.”
Night fell upon the park, and all were sent away by the gentle darkness.