Apr 04 23
Ace of Swords (reversed)
22. Grace
19. Approach
These first few lines are the general aphoristic returns for the week. They are raw and uninterpreted; there to use how you’d like. (The specific readings follow.)
From “A.L.”: How does one move through the world when “proving” oneself? I feel as if I never understand the true balance between confidence and staying humble and true to myself. Right now, I don’t feel seen... Maybe a better way to say it is that, when I put myself out there, sometimes it's not well received... But I know that me and my art are well accepted when people come into contact with it. I guess my mind is jaded now, versus when I first started putting myself out there... It feels harder trying to climb up.
When dealing with feelings of certainty, in this case, how certainty relates to obstacles, one should consider taking time to see if these feelings of certainty are actual, or more players in a larger, what might be called, structure of familiarity. Rhythms of comfort/familiarity make life bearable in the short term but can be absolutely disastrous to long term goals. Think of all the little meaningless sips and bites of sugar that can end in crippled mobility and diabetes.
So, perhaps your rationality is getting ahead of itself and needs serious reorientation. We are all true centers of the world (to ourselves) whilst simultaneously being less than bit players in most things. For us this pushes the notions of getting to know yourself and seizing opportunities. AND REMEMBER: opportunities come as potentials, not fully realized forms — this makes them hard to see, especially when you are feeling downtrodden or unseen.
The person writing this is often “not well received” (the kind who isn’t invited back — “too intense”). But that’s the way it’s always been with us. We’ve found that art/design/writing (like this right now) is the best place for a person like ourself to communicate and be seen (though again, 100% we’ve always wished it were otherwise). Be open to finding out what works for you — this may feel like a very unnatural process — that is the process (whether art, friendship, class position as relates to finances, or what have you).
We never imagined that we would be interpreting tarot cards and I Ching hexagrams — but it is working for us.
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Ace of Swords (reversed). The suit of Swords is connected to the conscious intellect and therefore deals with aspects like rationality and communication. Aces are considered as the pure but untapped energy of a particular suit — like oil sitting in the ground, way before anything like a derrick goes in. So in combination, the Ace of Swordsindicates the possibility of successfully following through with a logical proposition or an intellectual endeavor. However our card is reversed here — the indication is the same but leads to disastrous results — like you successfully build a robot but it ends up killing you.
Our first hexagram this week is #22, Grace. Here we have an explication of the correct place of aesthetics. It first states that “beauty of form is necessary in any union if it is to be well ordered and pleasing rather than disordered and chaotic.” But then adds the warning: “beautiful form suffices to brighten and to throw light upon matters of lesser moment, but important questions cannot be decided in this way. They require greater earnestness.” So, though, to a degree, it is of cumulative importance for actions and objects to be “well ordered” and “pleasing” appearances, these are ultimately surface attributes and cannot speak to actualities that are unseen and casual (think of the night sky before the Hubble telescope). There were two changes this week, of which the specific notes are: consideration of ornament without deeper causation is vanity and do not be drawn into lazy friendliness.
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #19, Approach. Long term preemptivity should be a way of life, despite the pervasiveness of short term fears. And though, much of the dangers of life are unknown, much are. Like, “spring does not last forever…”, “If we meet evil before it becomes reality—before it has even begun to stir—we can master it.”
- be careful not to let rationality and logic harden into belief, as no standpoint is infallible
- surface attributes cannot speak to deeper, casual actualities
- consideration of ornament without seeking causation is vanity
- do not be drawn into lazy friendliness (like if you can only stand a “friend” by having drinks or by shallow doom gossiping — consider cutting them loose)
- prepare for known dangers (“spring does not last forever”)
From “A.L.”: How does one move through the world when “proving” oneself? I feel as if I never understand the true balance between confidence and staying humble and true to myself. Right now, I don’t feel seen... Maybe a better way to say it is that, when I put myself out there, sometimes it's not well received... But I know that me and my art are well accepted when people come into contact with it. I guess my mind is jaded now, versus when I first started putting myself out there... It feels harder trying to climb up.
When dealing with feelings of certainty, in this case, how certainty relates to obstacles, one should consider taking time to see if these feelings of certainty are actual, or more players in a larger, what might be called, structure of familiarity. Rhythms of comfort/familiarity make life bearable in the short term but can be absolutely disastrous to long term goals. Think of all the little meaningless sips and bites of sugar that can end in crippled mobility and diabetes.
So, perhaps your rationality is getting ahead of itself and needs serious reorientation. We are all true centers of the world (to ourselves) whilst simultaneously being less than bit players in most things. For us this pushes the notions of getting to know yourself and seizing opportunities. AND REMEMBER: opportunities come as potentials, not fully realized forms — this makes them hard to see, especially when you are feeling downtrodden or unseen.
The person writing this is often “not well received” (the kind who isn’t invited back — “too intense”). But that’s the way it’s always been with us. We’ve found that art/design/writing (like this right now) is the best place for a person like ourself to communicate and be seen (though again, 100% we’ve always wished it were otherwise). Be open to finding out what works for you — this may feel like a very unnatural process — that is the process (whether art, friendship, class position as relates to finances, or what have you).
We never imagined that we would be interpreting tarot cards and I Ching hexagrams — but it is working for us.
Complete Reading
This week we pulled the Ace of Swords (reversed). The suit of Swords is connected to the conscious intellect and therefore deals with aspects like rationality and communication. Aces are considered as the pure but untapped energy of a particular suit — like oil sitting in the ground, way before anything like a derrick goes in. So in combination, the Ace of Swordsindicates the possibility of successfully following through with a logical proposition or an intellectual endeavor. However our card is reversed here — the indication is the same but leads to disastrous results — like you successfully build a robot but it ends up killing you.
Our first hexagram this week is #22, Grace. Here we have an explication of the correct place of aesthetics. It first states that “beauty of form is necessary in any union if it is to be well ordered and pleasing rather than disordered and chaotic.” But then adds the warning: “beautiful form suffices to brighten and to throw light upon matters of lesser moment, but important questions cannot be decided in this way. They require greater earnestness.” So, though, to a degree, it is of cumulative importance for actions and objects to be “well ordered” and “pleasing” appearances, these are ultimately surface attributes and cannot speak to actualities that are unseen and casual (think of the night sky before the Hubble telescope). There were two changes this week, of which the specific notes are: consideration of ornament without deeper causation is vanity and do not be drawn into lazy friendliness.
Our second hexagram, the one that suggests how best to meet the challenges (or the changes) is #19, Approach. Long term preemptivity should be a way of life, despite the pervasiveness of short term fears. And though, much of the dangers of life are unknown, much are. Like, “spring does not last forever…”, “If we meet evil before it becomes reality—before it has even begun to stir—we can master it.”