Yesterday was good. In the end, my boyfriend and I decided to buy tickets for London and took the train up around lunchtime. Despite the odd icy breeze, the weather was very warm and we were able to wander through the West End in just t-shirts. We were not the only ones to stretch out into the sunshine, since the city was crowded beyond belief, and after three hours, we decided to call it a day. However, while there, I visited a few shops and spent the last of my birthday money. I bought the new Wildwood Tarot from the money my friend Kate gifted me, but unfortunately, when I finally opened it in the evening, one card is missing.As well as getting the incomplete Wildwood, I also hit on Luis Rojo's I-Ching oracle. It is a haunting and dark set of oriental images that I have looked at before, but was a little intimidated by, having no I-Ching knowledge. Regardless of this, I looked at some of the images on a YouTube video while my boyfriend and I ate in Pret A Manger yesterday afternoon and thought about how nice the cards would look laid out. With my lack of knowledge, there still appears to be many stories within the simplistic portraits of the Dead Moon Oracle.
The little book that comes with the Dead Moon is pretty vague, offering next to no ways in. I have a few books on I-Ching, but they are just as tight-lipped. From what I can gather, today's card (entitled The Creative Side) concerns some kind of masculine and positive force and I read that it heralds sublime success. Perseverance brings favourable results to he who is firm and unyielding. Just look at the face of that dragon! He's not going anywhere, is he? I could see how this card might be domineering in a relationship reading.
My mum just came in and told me that there is another house on the market in the court where we live, so we took a look through the keyhole on an estate agent's website to see how it compares to ours. Even though our house is the exact same size as theirs, our garden is bigger and our property is generally more modernly furnished inside. My parents have made a lot of effort to update our house in the last month, whitewashing the walls throughout and changing furniture about to make it look bigger. They have succeeded. The hallway, which many buyers thought looked dark, is now bright and appears twice the size due to the loss of unnecessary furniture. We have also cut away three branches from our tree in the garden, letting in more light, since that was what many people moaned about. When the chipped paint around the front door has been sorted out, we can get our property back on the market. This could be the perseverance and unyielding strength in the first card of the Dead Moon oracle, I Ch'ien. It could be to our advantage that this other house is for sale, since buyers who want a property in this area might see ours as the better value of the two.
The sun is still shining. I have taken a poke from the the title of today's card and plan to do some creative stuff this afternoon. After walking with my boyfriend to the craft store to fetch some materials, I intend to start on my 72 Names visual art piece and also knock up a bag for this deck. Is that creative enough for you, Mr Dragon?
Illustration from The Dead Moon I-Ching by Luis Rojo
Oh no! Shame about the Wildwood. I would be so upset to find a card missing. But maybe there is some message in that in itself - like which card is missing? I'm also starting to wonder whether the lack of information on the I Ching means it's something you have to intuit yourself. Which can be frustrating but the best way to learn too. Love that dragon :)
ReplyDeleteI know. I was really disappointed. I usually rip into my decks on the train home, but I must have left both decks for about three hours before I peeled into them. Not that I could have done much anyways. But I have emailed the publisher, requesting that they could replace the missing one. It's the 10 of Cups. Interesting thought about that. Not sure where it is missing in my life at the moment, as I feel relatively emotionally secure.
ReplyDeleteThe I-Ching is difficult, I feel. There seems to be a lot of information about, but it is almost like trying to grab water in your hands. There's nothing concrete. I like the idea of making the cards my own though, which I am trying to do. The more I work with them, the more they will make sense personally, I hope. I take comfort from the fact that tarot was a complete mystery to me when I first began to learn, but practice can make near-enough perfect.