So I’ve been wrestling with the Tarot Deck of Major Doom for a week now, and so far, it’s not very doomish. Yet.
I don’t want to name the physical deck the doomishness is riding*, because these shenanigans are not an inherent property of the deck. That would be like saying because one particular bottle of a certain brand of milk spoiled due to consumer mishandling, all bottles of milk by that brand are not to be trusted by anyone.
In the (unpublished) dream, the deck spirits** had sought me out as a deliberate owner/cat-herder to help them overcome the faults of their creation. They told me what would be the consequences of having them in my life, and how to be rid of them quickly if I chose to. While the overall consensus of the twenty-two spirits was they needed help to overcome their circumstances, I was warned that not all of the spirits were as eager for my involvement as others.
Taking on the responsibility to rehabilitate them meant I had to rehabilitate all twenty-two of them, dragging, kicking, and screaming, if necessary.
The size of the deck does not suit my shuffling styles, but then again, the circumstances of its acquisition meant it would never be used for divination anyway. Kickstarter rewards levels plus artist generosity meant I had extra cards included with the deck and a second (flattened) box. Surely circumstantial, right?
The first extra card was outside of the boxed deck, floating between the flattened box and the sealed box. Laying face up and upright with the deck, it wasn’t too much of a reach to say this card identified which spirit was guarding the deck, and so was my first challenge.
(If you’re not making Cardcaptor Sakura wisecracks by now, I’m judging you. Cuz I sure as hell am!)
Up to this point, I was still filing the experience as the cool down from fevered delusions. I was sick as fuck when I joined the Kickstarter and that week was just one fever spike after another. Hell, I didn’t even remember/know I had joined the Kickstarter until after I received notice it was funded! I was just happy the financial hit was so small and I didn’t have a huge white elephant to deal with. So knowing my luck, the card guarding the deck is the Fool. Right?
Well…
The Tower.
A very pissed off, untrusting, Burn-Them-All-And-Salt-Their-Graves-With-The-Tears-Of-Their-Children, Tower of Negative Doom. (Remember, these spirits were intentionally made to cause the negative/reversed effect of the card they represent.) Before I could begin any work on the deck, I would have to master its guardian first.
That night, I dreamt of the Doomed Majors again, and the spokes-spirit of the deck offered me one last chance to walk away. “Give us away, the entire package, and we will become the responsibility of whoever you give us to. Destroy the deck, and destroy us, for we have committed to this [particular] physical deck as our [home].”
I asked her (because that spirit presented as decidedly female) if they wanted to be destroyed. A few did, but the majority of the group wanted to continue existing. If I could master them, they would be loyal to me. If I couldn’t, then I risked having my life turned inside out.
She looked at me odd when I started laughing with deep and sincere peals.
“The inverse of my life as it is right now would be someone that got everything they ever wanted and have never had a sad day in their life, but are now starting to experience a decline because of chance and their own ineptitude in riding out those chance events. Challenge accepted. Y’all are riding with me now. What can you tell me about The Tower? Why is it pissed? What assurances is it looking for?”
She smiled. “You are not the first we have asked. There have been others that tried to master us. They used those of us that could enrich themselves and locked the others away out of sight. But we are pieces of a whole. To have one in the hand is to be touched by all eventually. The Tower does not want us to be used like that again. Either you take us all, or you take none. Any other option will result in the negative forces infiltrating your life and the Tower will do as the Tower does, but in a negative way.”
Oh, hell. I know those feels. Intimately. My broken head and shattered mind could easily be a reflection of what these spirits are going through. Like them, I have had my personality portioned and shaped to satisfy the greed of whoever has me, but to a deep and spiteful detriment nursed by those parts locked away from light. And like the Negative Tower, I survived by burning everyone that dared to touch me, even those who tried to help me. It was only those who were willing to accept all of me, even those parts of me that were “ugly” and “scary”, who were able to reach me and eventually help me heal myself.
I wasn’t scared of the Negative Tower.
I am the Negative Tower.
I know its fear.
And I know how to overcome it.
The Negative Tower will never be mastered by force. Anything I throw against it will only make it stronger.
I thanked the spokes-spirit (who is a certain card in the deck as well, but strangely, I’m not comfortable naming to you which card just yet,) and turned my attention back to the Tower.
(Funny that it was a vision of the Tower card that got me into tarot in the first place.)
Calling a copy of the physical card to my hand, I summoned the spirit it represented. I was surrounded by sulfur and flame, by the earth shaking in tantrum and from the percussion of countless edifices falling down.
I did not run for safety. I sat down.
The flames raced towards me, threatening to visit all types of physical pain upon me. I remained seated in a tranquil pose.
The blocks fell from unseen ledges, exploding as they hit the earth abound me. The sounds deafened me and shooks my joints loose. I remained seated in a tranquil pose.
From the devastation around me, the smoke gathered itself in front of me. Appearing something like the image in the card, and yet like something else entirely, the spirit of the Negative Tower manifested itself and challenged me to step forward if I would make myself its master.
I remained seated in a tranquil pose, but I did not remain without action. I called into manifestation, all the different parts of me. All the different masks that Keri/Weaver is and wears. Both the pretty faces and the scary faces, the innocent faces and the shifting faces, the weak faces and the strong faces. Together, all my voices spoke as one.
“I am Keri. I am Weaver. I am [many names go here]. I am broken, but by accepting my parts, I am whole. And it is my aim to make you and your brethren as I am, but in your own way. Each of you are individuals, but you are all parts to a whole. I do not seek to erase or banish any one of you. I have accepted all I am. I accept all of you, if you will allow me. Will you take me as your master? Will you allow me to show you what I have learned so you may be healed yourselves?”
The Tower Spirit twisted and tied knots in itself as it thought over my presentation and my offer. Behind it was a small section of intact wall. An arched entryway was once there, but it had been bricked up some long time before now. Framed by two shattered white columns turned black from soot, it was the only intact structure in the panorama around me. (And by intact, I mean recognizable.)
The spirit lunged at me, making contact for the first time. Fear and anguish flowed between the separated pieces of my mind. Some portions of me were afraid, but they were held by those portions who saw through the bluster. The many Keris and Weavers settled with each other and watched the Tower Spirit’s last tantrum.
“I will unmake you!”, said the spirit.
“I am an Unmaker.”, said a terrible part of me.
“I will burn all you hold dear!”, said the spirit.
“I have done that better than you ever could, and I will carry the scars to our death.”, said a furious part of me.
“I will tear down your goals and achievements!”, said the spirit.
“I have set fire to my desires more than once, and what was built on faulty foundations never would have lasted in the first place.”, said an analytical part of me.
“Tell us,”, my separate parts said with a unified voice. “Tell us how you can harm us more than we have harmed ourselves? Do you seek to destroy us because you want us to suffer, or because you are afraid we will make you suffer unfairly? There is a place where fire and destruction can be used to make things stronger, to make the fields ready for growth. Let us show you.”
The spirit retreated to hover before the bricked up archway. When it finally spoke, it with a voice as soft as the lingering smoke from a smouldering coal.
“If you hurt them, I will hurt you in turn.”
“As you wish.”
The spirit flowed into the manifestation of the card I was still holding. The mortar between the bricks became as sand and the bricks fell out of the archway in a loud tumble. They ground against each other on the threshold of the archway, becoming a fine dust that settled in the corners.
I knew then the mortar and the bricks were Fear, and the lingering presence meant fear would always be there, ready to block up the passageway at a moment’s notice.
This too, I am intimately familiar with.
I united my selves into myself and passed through the archway. I was met by another of the card spirits, but not the spokes-spirit. There were two extra cards with the physical deck. The Tower had lain outside the sealed boxed deck. When I broke the seal and examined the contents, I found the second extra card residing as the card seated before the deck proper.
The World was blocking my path. It stared at me with a hard gaze and softly informed me that I was not going to be allowed access to the other cards until I had passed its examination of me.
I asked it what did I have to do to pass the examination.
“And you call yourself a tarot reader. You should know that by now. Do not return to me until you have.”
The dream ended just as brusquely as the silence following the spirit’s words.
Right. Here we go.
* I have named the physical deck in other posts, but if I’m going to be posting about the doomishness more often, I don’t want to sour search engine results for that deck. See also: Consumer Mishandling.
** I use “spirits” as a catch-all term. It is clear (in the dream,) they were created to be what they have become, but they, themselves, do not want to be what they were made to be. So I guess the proper term is “servitors”, but hey, I don’t have time for ransacking the Unabridged Oxford English Dictionary. If it’s disembodied, it’s a spirit. Done.