Brand New World

My post about the internet and how the world has changed yesterday made me feel a little down after writing it. We are fed these things, sold to us as necessities we cannot live without, and when they are taken away like pills, we notice the side effects. I was visibly frustrated by my lack of internet connection, emails and not being able to enter my blog. Can we live without Facebook? I can tell you from experience that we can. But in this world of logins, iPhones and Ping It, waiting three days for a printed statement or handwritten postcard is just too long in this fast moving brand new world. One friend commented on my post, noticing how we are being pulled along by wireless boxes, mobile apps and self-service checkouts without choice. We have to put up or shut up. I feel this too. 


But do we have a choice?


Ok, I am not going to move into the woods and hunt for my dinner any time soon, but there are some choices I can make. I don't need to become a slave to technology and I could spend more time reacquainting myself with what nature can be found beneath the rubble of modern life. Sitting here at my mac, I can see that I am falling flat on my face before I have even started, but finding a way to connect to a vibration deeper than the alert of my Blackberry is something I wish for. It was my motivation for pulling out The Wildwood Tarot.


I think that the last time I used this deck was around November. I know it was cold, anyway. I had been babysitting Kate's cottage and without a scanner, positioned these cards amongst the ornaments of her home to photograph for my blog. I remember there not being much of a telephone connection in her village and I rarely turned on the television. I spent a lot of time by myself that week, playing with the Wildwood, while listening to Celtic music and taking walks with just my thoughts and feelings. Pretty apt, it seems now. When I returned to the chaos of the house move and all that went with it, this deck went back on the shelf. Today feels like the right time to bring it out again as I once feel like fingering my way through the forest of nature and season. I need to access my own natural and built in wireless router.


The Green Man is an interesting card. Sure, he has the masculine drive of the traditional Emperor, but like his wife, The Green Woman, his empire is the natural world. You might see him as a defender of the land; the land being his child. I guess that hese two are the parents of nature and the world we live in. Like a father who scolds his offspring when they do wrong, this domineering leader and protector is enraged by how he sees people treating this natural planet we are simple guests on. He could be about taking a stance or becoming a leader for others to follow in such ways as I have already mentioned.

Even though I do feel a need for nourishment from the earth and nature, I must admit that I don't feel the leadership of The Green Man so much today. I don't feel particularly authoritative. With the drab grey sky outside my window, I'd far rather slip back into bed than take any kind of control over my day. I have a barely-started painting on an easel in my room. I keep looking at the lips on the figure, knowing that they are not quite right, but I cannot be bothered to change them. That kind of sums life up, doesn't it? There is so much in my own life that is not quite right, but which I cannot be bothered to get up off of my tired ass and change.



Illustration from The Wildwood Tarot by Will Worthington