A Sword in the Wounds

As I write, the sun is still shining, but over a grey sky. We have just had rain and some thunder, which made me think of today's card - the Sword of Destruction.


This is the second outing for this card since I started using the Anne Stokes playing cards. On it's last visit, I saw a flicker of the tarot's Tower within it, but generally, it contains the opportunity of cutting something away. This is not always received well, hence the name. It might require some diplomacy in action.

I woke up early this morning. I seem to be waking around 5.30 every day, having to force myself back to sleep. I awoke around 8 to the sound of my phone, displaying a message from a friend: she wanted to meet for coffee. I could have easily laid in bed for a lot longer after I'd got back to sleep, but remembered how important it is for me to try and get up and do something. She picked me up after 9 and we found a seat in the sun outside Pret a Manger. Even though she didn't dwell too much on it, the drama of the weekend was loosely connected to her and I think today's card is too. It concerns either her cutting a situation off or the Swords of Destruction that others have thrust into the open wounds of an already dying friendship.

This situation helps me to understand the card better. I can see how words and actions can be thrust into people's lives destructively, when care and thought could have enabled better results. Maybe that is why this is a card of Earth. It's about doing things on the physical plane, without the reflection and compassion of other suits. Lightning doesn't care for who or what it strikes.

Since I have not used it yet, I thought I'd bring my James Dean deck to the blog today as an accompaniment to the Anne Stokes. There are some really interesting choices of pictures in the set; it seems that the publishers have decided to not throw too many of the well known photographs into their playing card collection. There are quite a few of him with a camera, so I am guessing that he was a bit of a photographer himself.

There is no credit to the photographers in this deck, but on a little wander through Google, I see that many pictures of Dean were taken by Roy Schatt. I found out that as well as his pictures of the movie star being the crowning glory of his career, the two studied photography together.

"He was a squinty schlump of a person all bent over. Then Dean suddenly got up and this ugly person became a dream, an Adonis who started to dance around the room. It was a transition I couldn't believe." - Roy Schatt

Roy Schatt studied painting and was an illustrator before photography. To me, his images are very natural and without boundaries. Maybe due to understanding acting himself, he may have been able to tap into that creative instinct of his subjects. You can see a very similar quality in his photographs of other movie stars such as Paul Newman and Marilyn Monroe. It's as though he found a doorway to a beauty beneath the kitsch veneer. He died at the age of 92 ten years ago.

I linked the 7♠ to my fatigue last time. I was pretty tired after my visit to town and forced myself to nap as I could feel a headache coming on. I slept for a few hours while my parents went to a pre-assessment at the hospital for my dad. I am still feeling a little tight and dizzy, so am planning on resting out for the remainder of the day.


Illustrations from The Anne Stokes Playing Cards by Anne Stokes and The James Dean Playing Cards by Roy Schatt