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<h1>Zk | 2008-08-13</h1>
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<h2 id="august-13-2008">August 13, 2008</h2>
<h3 id="the-background-the-background-unnumbered">The Background {#the-background .unnumbered}</h3>
<p>I've been feeling pretty pessimistic lately. Andrew still weighs heavily on my mind, and I'm finding out slowly just how deeply I had entrenched him into my life. I was really pretty torn up when he left me, and everything was made worse when I found out that he did so simply to be with someone he was already nearly dating behind my back. Last night, however, I found out that they were <em>moving</em> in together in New York, despite all his plans to <em>move</em> out with me in Colorado. Feeling deeply hurt, I stopped watching his journal, and blocked him from communicating directly with me. I had done my best to wish them luck, and now I feel as if I'm just having my nose rubbed in the ruins of our relationship, so I'm breaking off all contact. I'm telling myself that I need to do this in order to get over him and <em>move</em> on with the rest of my life, but really, I'm sure it's little more than a passive aggressive way for me to get back at him for telling me he'd keep in touch and then doing this.</p>
<p>All of this seems rather petty in light of my growing feelings for James, and the concerns I have with him now. That he <em>moved</em> away from me shortly after we got together certainly isn't helping things. It's not the reasons that he <em>moved</em> that bother me, of course, simply that, after my previous relationships, adding that extra element of distance makes me very, very nervous for the future of this one, even if it's only down to denver. I can hardly <em>move</em> down to join him until I'm finished with school, too.</p>
<p>Finally, the added financial burden of my own tuition is beginning to worry me a good deal more. I seem to be <em>stuck</em> in this ceaseless cycle of sleeping in too late and spending all the money I make on things I don't really need, whereas I really shouldn't let my wants <em>hinder</em> my needs. I may want that new rifle, but I need to finish school!</p>
<p>All this pessimism has served to do little more than <em>block</em> my creativity. I have written only about 30 measures of real music this summer, as the weight of my emotions keeps <em>forcing me to stop</em> before I feel like I've accomplished much.</p>
<p>As may be evident, I'm having a real problem with <em>movement</em> and the <em>inability to move</em>. I feel stopped up in many ways, as if the world --- particularly those close to me --- race on by without me. And so I laid out the cards...</p>
<h3 id="the-drawing-the-drawing-unnumbered">The Drawing {#the-drawing .unnumbered}</h3>
<p>With my dark mood, I chose Aleister Crowley's <strong>Thoth</strong>[@tarotThoth] deck to do the reading, figuring that the bright and attractive colors of the RWS deck didn't quite match what I was feeling. I wasn't feeling simply down, either, or I might've chosen the Aquarian deck for its dreary, clouded look. I wanted the sharp, geometric shapes and smart color choices of Lady Frieda Harris' cards to fill out my mood.</p>
<p>I shuffled and shuffled and shuffled until I finally felt I was ready, and then went through the process of drawing the cards shown to me so long ago. Since my emotions where seemingly holding up my life, looking for resolution, I let them choose the cards, fanning them between my two hands until I felt that little tug at my subconscious, saying 'draw that card!'. My intellect continued to take the back seat as my fingers arranged the cards, face down, into the pattern that I thought they would best fit when flipped, and for the most part, they chose well.</p>
<p>The pattern started with a card in the upper left, leftmost of a row of three cards that moved down and to the right. Directly above the last card and in line with the leftmost card was another, and directly to the right of that was a card with another one overlapping the upper-right hand corner.</p>
<p>From left to right, the cards were:</p>
<ul>
<li>
<p>6 of Wands, 'Victory'</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Queen of Disks</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>5 of Wands, 'Strife'</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Above the previous card, 6 of Swords, 'Science'</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>To the right of the previous card, Princess of Swords</p>
</li>
<li>
<p>Overlapping the upper-right hand corner of the previous card, 4 of Wands, 'Completion'</p>
</li>
</ul>
<p><img alt="image" src="image8-13-08.png" /></p>
<h2 id="the-reading-the-reading-unnumbered">The Reading {#the-reading .unnumbered}</h2>
<p>The theme of movement became more and more evident as the cards were flipped over, one by one, starting from the left of the board. Wands is the suit of fire, that which is never still. If nothing else, fire moves downwards and outwards as it consumes, while air, water, and earth can all be relatively motionless.</p>
<p>While the wands start out as a roaring bonfire of problems, the dwindle down toward the Ace to the quiet glow of a candle's flame, and the six is right when things begin to turn towards calm. As was mentioned before, fire moves downwards as it consumes, and, in fact, the first thing that I noticed about this card was that the small flames in the vertices of six crossed wands look as if they're forming an arrow pointing downwards, or else that they're small concerns settling down to the bottom of the container, relaxing. This, I feel, is what I may be going through now. Despite the problems it caused me, the recent break up is starting to become less pertinent, I am learning to deal with James' new distance, and I do see that it is possible for me to pay my tuition.</p>
<p>Taking this as my cue, I turned over the next card to the right and slightly lower than the six, revealing the Queen of disks. Of all of the cards in the Thoth deck, this one is my favorite. Many of the minor arcana cards are little more than pip cards, and most of the court cards of other suits are dynamic, busy images, whereas the Queen of disks sits serenely. Hers is the knowledge of magic of nature, and she sits ensconced in her angular fronds, looking out over a dry valley with a snaking river. This, I think, is the very description of peace in wisdom. She is content in life, but not uncomfortable without, a balance of emotional and intellect that echos through all of the disks. This card shows me what I've wanted to be ever since I saw it, and I feel that I'm starting to settle towards it, getting closer to that ideal.</p>
<p>I turned over the two cards next to it at the same time, as they were in the same vertical plane. This revealed two more cards of movement. The Golden Dawn (the society of which Crowley was a member, and the source of inspiration for this deck) label for the lower card is strife, but not only does the card not give the impression of strife, but the other common interpretation gives a different impression, as well: that of striving. The 5 of wands is a card of battle, but the card of discourse and games, where there is action, even against another person, but purposefu and with rules, not unfair, uncivil acts of strife against another. Its lower indication indicated to me the subconscious or unconscious, showing me how my emotions where striving against each other and against me, but that it was fair, there was a reason, and that its not strife without rules.</p>
<p>The upper card, the more conscious of the two, is in elemental opposition to the Queen of disks. That is, swords and disks, air and earth, do not mix well, and this alters the meaning of the cards, bringing out the darker side of both the Queen and this, the 6 of swords. It shows that, while the Queen may be comfortable with the idea of that lifeless desert behind her, she remains forever ensconced in the life-filled oasis. To apply the analogy, I may find the idea of that barren desert of completely settled emotions perfectly acceptable, but I'm too caught up in my ways, too blinded by intellect, internalization, and change to let my emotions settle down --- I may internalize a lot of things, but I'm letting that hinder myself as the world changes around me.</p>
<p>The Six of swords itself is another card of movement, but rather than physical movement, this is the movement of an idea or emotion through time, such as the path that mourning takes. Something isn't quite right with the path as it is, though, with the influence of the Queen: the swords are the suit of silence, and that has me stuck. Having to take all of this emotion from the breakup into myself without saying anything is damaging the way I move through my life, hindering that necessary passage of mourning while keeping the emotion smoldering. This shows the need for communication and action --- the card being above that subconscious five suggests its more conscious and active role --- in order to help these issues resolve themselves.</p>
<p>So what about the last two cards? I turned them over to find the Four of wands covering the corner of the Princess of swords. The Princess of swords, as the earthy side of air, shows the fixation of the volatile, the ideas made real (she even wears the visage of Medusa on her helmet). This, to me, was a strong suggestion that I needed to apply my ideas, to bring them to fruition. All of the cards before me were giving me a path and this was saying that, if I followed that path and brought it to reality, it would be the basis for the card that was above and overlapping the Princess, the Four of wands, labeled 'Completion'.</p>
<p>More than simply the end of a process, this card shows integration. The four wands form a square, their points form an octagon, they are bound in a circle, everything is integrated. This is not saying "Do these things and everything will magically be resolved," this is saying "Everything was, is, and will be interconnected, forever." If I look to change myself, something else connected to me will change; if I move forward in my life, I will move forward with a whole host of opportunities and emotions. I have always been 'complete', whether or not I have a problem, and I'm certainly realistic enough to realize that as soon as these problems are resolved, a new set will have cropped up for me to deal with, but that's okay, they're a <em>part</em> of me, and as soon as I can learn to integrate them into myself (perhaps by doing what the cards have suggested), it will be easier for me to accept that.</p>
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<h1>Zk | Tarot: An Informal Self-Experiment</h1>
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<p><span class="tag">writing</span> <span class="tag">non-fiction</span> <span class="tag">tarot</span> <span class="tag">spirituality</span> <span class="tag">autobiography</span></p>
<h2 id="introduction">Introduction</h2>
<p>Tarot is a game of correspondences. Rather than aiming to strictly 'divine' the future, we look for correspondences between the cards laid out before us and the rest of our lives - how this card relates to our past, what this card means in the present, and using that card to divine a new path through life. Tarot can change the way we act, can help us search the depths of our subconscious and memories to help explain the events of the past, and will show us new ways to work with the future, ways that we would never have thought of before without some outside influence, doing so all while being impersonal, keeping our deepest secrets, and never telling a soul about these correspondences.</p>
<p>I got interested in Tarot through various sources. In my exploratory high school years, I had a few friends and a few relationships with some brilliant people with diverse interests, and a few of them showed me different aspects of tarot at different points in my career. Despite having two very scientific and skeptical parents, I developed something of an interest in occult systems such as Tarot and wound up frequenting a bookstore catering to those interests in my home town. </p>
<p>At one point, while purchasing my first deck of my own, I was offered a free reading with my own deck of cards from an established cartomancer at the bookstore. The reading proved to be one of the most powerful experiences in my life up to that point. From then on my interest grew further, leading to many more purchases of decks and books, as well as further research online and in libraries in Tarot as well as other occult systems. To this day, many of my readings still follow the same general plan as that original one so many years ago.</p>
<p>I have not forgotten my heritage, though, and the respect for the more commonly accepted sciences ingrained in me by my parents. I thus decided to embark on a bit of an informal self-experiment, following the guidelines of the scientific method to test how working with the Tarot as a tool to explore deeper within myself might change the way I perceive the world around me, alter the way I act by forcing me to think through situations in a different way. This experiment also acts as a bit of a slice-of-life diary, with each reading providing a view of what's going on in my life at the time - the issues that are concerning me, and all the hopes and fears that have built up to that point.</p>
<h2 id="an-informal-self-experiment">An Informal Self-Experiment</h2>
<h3 id="questions">Questions</h3>
<ul>
<li>How does tarot work?</li>
<li>How does learning to work with the tarot affect a person?</li>
<li>Does mindfully working with the tarot generally lead to a different method of dealing with events in the past?</li>
<li>Does mindfully working with the tarot generally lead to a different consideration of the future?</li>
<li>How does working with the tarot affect the way a person deals with events and their position in time?</li>
<li>How does the conscious application of a defined set of archetypes change the way a person deals with a situation?</li>
<li>How does the person respond to such questions as these above being applied to them?</li>
</ul>
<p>What I aim to learn from this experiment is basically what would happen by changing a part of my life. I don't want to see into the future, necessarily. Rather, I would like to become more cognizant of the present, to take the past into account, and to integrate all levels of myself into my day-to-day life: conscious, subconscious, and unconscious. While the questions listed above are the specific ones, the more general overview would be this: if I were to consciously try to change my outlook on life through the use of this tool, what would happen? What would change about me as a person, not just the path my life was taking?</p>
<h3 id="observation">Observation</h3>
<p>We come to the notion that the Tarot works precisely because it makes no sense. The information exists. Our unconscious selves already know it. What we need is a device to act as a bridge to conscious perception. [pollack97]</p>
<p>The modern Tarot deck is made up of 78 cards - there are 56 minor arcana and 22 major arcana cards. All of these cards represent different archetypes, or general ideas about different aspects of life, humanity, and the self. More than simply divining the future, one my seek out correspondences between situations at hand, in the past, or possibly in the future through these archetypal images, laid out within the framework of the cards and how they relate to each other. One can utilize a 'spread', a pattern in which to lay the cards with each of their positions holding a predetermined meaning so as to deepen the meanings of each card. Just as frequently, however, one may let the cards, the reader, or the querent determine the positions of those cards, divining meanings for them as the reading progresses.</p>
<p>There are many different views on Tarot. By far, the overwhelming majority of people in todays world put little or no stock in divination of any sort, and would just as soon leave any introspection in the hands of those with 'Ph.D' tacked on the ends of their names. Of those whose opinions do not favor Tarot, there are further divisions: some may have humored a cartomancer and had a reading done for themselves and disliked it for one reason or another, having been scared by it; some may have difficulty thinking of those who deal in such things as actively harmful frauds; and everything in between. On the other side, of course, there are those who see the cards as a window into the future, those who use them strictly for introspection, those who use them for various magical purposes, and, again, everything in between.</p>
<p>This document is hardly meant to be a dissertation on the cards themselves, nor the varied opinions on their meanings or acceptance in the world today. For further information, please look up the information in the bibliography, as others can surely tell those stories far better than I. My aim is only to explore the way that the cards can influence life. When I began college, I saw that those around me weren't focused on growing or changing, and in fact, many had remained the same person that their parents had molded them into years back, simply refusing to change. Not only did that idea of changing who I am in however subtle a fashion appeal to me, I felt that allowing this change instead of stagnation would mean that I was actively working to make myself a better person and doing my best to better the lives of those around me.</p>
<h3 id="hypothesis">Hypothesis</h3>
<p>I feel optimistic about this experiment. I have rarely ever taken an active role in the way my life changes, and I think that by guiding it in this small way, I can improve the way that I deal with what happens to me, improving the integration of new information in order to become a better person as a whole. I also expect that, by being more easily able to comprehend the world around me and the people in it in reference to my own worldview, I will be able to affect those around me in a possitive manner, in effect, being a better person for them.</p>
<h3 id="procedure">Procedure</h3>
<p>My goal is to do 78 readings of the Tarot with the goal of at least one reading per day. For each reading, I will gather information about the background of the situation, the layout of the cards and the disposition of the deck, and finally, an analysis of the cards and the reading, including the effect that the reading had on me as a person. These readings will be mostly for myself in my day-to-day life, but I will also attempt to read for others as well, recording the way the reading made me feel and any insights that will be applicable in my own life.</p>
<p>When the 78 readings are completed, I will attempt to analyze the information from the collected write-ups of the readings, looking for changes over time in the way I interacted with the world around me and how I felt as a whole. These trends will be described in as much depth as possible in order to explore how the conscious utilization of the Tarot to change my life truly affected me and, hopefully, those around me as well.</p>
<h2 id="experimental-data">Experimental Data</h2>
<h3 id="preliminary-introduction">Preliminary Introduction</h3>
<p>As these readings are very personal in nature, I feel the need to introduce myself before just jumping right into portions of my life, lest they make no sense at all.</p>
<p>I was born Matthew Joseph Scott in January, 1986 to Donna Karr and Ron Scott, two engineers with the minds of scientists. I was raised a skeptic and an atheist. Life was uncomplicated: everything that could be explained, was, and anything that couldn't was set aside as an unknown until it could be explained with no further thoughts on the matter. Of course, when you tell a young child not to do something, that's a very effective way to invite them to do it in secret if possible; I was told not to concern myself with the unexplainable matters of religion, mysticism. Thus it was that I began acquiring my secret stash of information on all of those subjects, beginning with a King James bible given to me by a camp counsellor, working up to a modest library of books dealing with topics ranging from the ``big five'' religions and reiki to the history and use of drugs. I have already mentioned a little about my introductions to Tarot.</p>
<p>That leads to me today, August 13, 2008: I am a student in the music composition program at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado. After trying (and failing) to be a biochemist, I've accepted that I make a far better musician and publisher than a scientist, but the need to explain, to experiment, and to experience the world around me remains.</p>
<p>To lend even more specifics to the situation, I was only recently accepted into the composition program after spending nearly four years in music education, finding myself disillusioned with the American public education system. This means that my four years of paid tuition promised by my dad are up, and I must begin paying for my own tuition from my earnings. I work at the campus library as technical support, and I am currently dealing with some problematic homophobia from my boss and coworkers there. On top of that, just a few months ago, I underwent a very difficult breakup with my boyfriend at the time. I ``rebounded'' onto another friend of mine, but as soon as we started getting close to each other, he had to move down to Denver, Colorado, an hour's drive away. </p>
<p>It was this combination of stressors that lead me to look into creating my own change in life. This jumble of emotions and ideas is what I am right now, and I want see what I can make of that by being more mindful of my life, guiding it where I can, and becoming a better person, using the Tarot as a tool.</p>
<ul>
<li><a href="2008-08-13.html">2008-08-13</a></li>
<li><a href="2008-08-14.html">2008-08-14</a></li>
<li><a href="2008-08-17.html">2008-08-17</a></li>
<li><a href="2008-08-18.html">2008-08-18</a></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="analysis">Analysis</h2>
<p>The analysis of this experiment will be written when all data is collected, in order to more properly answer the questions posed. <q class="comment">answer questions with experimental data</q></p>
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