The Twins

Yesterday's threat of danger lingered into the afternoon. Can you believe that my dad came into my room and bashed his head on the same spiteful shelf corner that I did? With that in mind, we put our two bruised heads together and decided to take the shelves down and buy some smart new bookcases; just two really tall ones, which would hopefully house my large collection of books. The plan is that they will eventually be something that my boyfriend and I can take with us when we move in together. For now, they will make my room look tidy for while we try to sell this house.

They don't make flat pack furniture like they used to. Well, you'd actually think that they'd make it better now than they once did, but my first towering bookcase was nothing less than a bugger to put together. How ever much my parents and I tried, the components in the pack would not do what the instructions told us to do with them and the entire thing looked rickety and unsafe. Hoping that it would be ok, we got it up against the wall and I began to put my books, which were stacked all the way down the hallway and in the spare room, on their new home. Everything seemed to be going fine until I filled the second shelf and the entire frame caved in. With my boyfriend arriving as it happened, we admitted defeat and decided to call off the operation until today.

My draw for this morning is card 33, entitled Thun. Around the internet, it says that this is a card of retreat. The little booklet that comes with the cards is not illustration-specific, so I am gathering that the army in the picture have decided to leave the temple and back out of a situation. Knowing that the time is not right to proceed, they conserve strength and decide to withdraw until another time; a little like us and our decision to hold off on the difficult bookcases last night. I can imagine the guy at the top of the stairs shouting back to his crew - "We'll come back tomorrow guys ... when we've been to get some new screws, caps, and nails from the DIY store!'. Sometimes, it's wiser to do nothing than something. Caution could be a part of the thirty-third card.

The sun has gone to play elsewhere today. I'm left with a dead palette and a slightly unnerving stillness as a view from my window. I don't like drab days like this, because they can so easily drag me down with them. My father was up early, sorting through his tool cupboard, looking for screws to put the shelves together safely. He always moans about doing things like this, but deep down, I think he secretly enjoys it. When I said I wanted to buy the bookcases yesterday, he went off and made a scale drawing to see which units would fit best against the wall. He likes to find solutions to problems. He has a mind that needs to be occupied, and most importantly, challenged.

So the bookcases eventually got made, amongst the odd flare-up from my father. My mum and I managed to scratch some of his recent painting on a door with the back of one bookcase and he doesn't have the longest of fuses. But despite that, the 'twins' stand in my room and are full to the brim with books - two shelves of tarot, two of Kabbalah, mythology, fiction, art, and fashion; even though there is still another full bookcase in the spare room, most of my books are now easier to find and are displayed far better than before.

Today's card most definitely explains the benefit of downing tools and returning to a project after a cup of tea, a walk, or a night's sleep. Thun suggests that nothing can be accomplished at the present time and retreat is necessary. I think that today's card is also highlighting something which is going on for a friend. It enables her to go away and think about a situation more before acting on it.


Illustration from The Dead Moon I-Ching by Luis Rojo