Sunday, May 27, 2007

Chain, chain, chain!


You are The Devil


Materiality. Material Force. Material temptation; sometimes obsession


The Devil is often a great card for business success; hard work and ambition.


Perhaps the most misunderstood of all the major arcana, the Devil is not really "Satan" at all, but Pan the half-goat nature god and/or Dionysius. These are gods of pleasure and abandon, of wild behavior and unbridled desires. This is a card about ambitions; it is also synonymous with temptation and addiction. On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement. As a person, the Devil can stand for a man of money or erotic power, aggressive, controlling, or just persuasive. This is not to say a bad man, but certainly a powerful man who is hard to resist. The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn. In most cases, you are enslaved only because you allow it.


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4 comments:

Jen said...

Hey, goat boy.

You are The Lovers

Motive, power, and action, arising from Inspiration and Impulse.

The Lovers represents intuition and inspiration. Very often a choice needs to be made.

Originally, this card was called just LOVE. And that's actually more apt than "Lovers." Love follows in this sequence of growth and maturity. And, coming after the Emperor, who is about control, it is a radical change in perspective. LOVE is a force that makes you choose and decide for reasons you often can't understand; it makes you surrender control to a higher power. And that is what this card is all about. Finding something or someone who is so much a part of yourself, so perfectly attuned to you and you to them, that you cannot, dare not resist. This card indicates that the you have or will come across a person, career, challenge or thing that you will fall in love with. You will know instinctively that you must have this, even if it means diverging from your chosen path. No matter the difficulties, without it you will never be complete.

Michael said...

Oooh, Jen, I love yours. What do you think it is? Or have you found it already?

On the flip side, however, the card can be a warning to someone who is too restrained, someone who never allows themselves to get passionate or messy or wild - or ambitious. This, too, is a form of enslavement.

Of course, as much as I'd like to paint myself as the Bacchanalian goat of unbridled desires, we both know it's more about the little passage above for me. At least for now. I did ADORE Pan's Labyrinth, though, if that counts for anything. Only I refer to it in the Spanish, El Laberinto del Fauno, you know, because I'm WILD like that.

Jen said...

I was wondering how much that enslavement bit resonated for you.

The important thing is to remember that any chain is freely worn.

Now of course this isn't true in the material sense, but in the metaphorical sense, I think it is true. Sometimes changing your mind about just a few key things can radically change your life.

What do you think it is? Or have you found it already?

My own integrity, identity, autonomy, ethics; my steadfast refusal to absorb the sick cruelty of the culture around me; sort of a revolution inside of my own mind. I've given up everything else for that a number of times, and will do it time and again if necessary. The whole thing is grounded in a philosophical theory of love that I've worked very hard on throughout my adult life, so that particular card coming up made me grin.

Anonymous said...

You are The Empress
Beauty, happiness, pleasure, success, luxury, dissipation.

The Empress is associated with Venus, the feminine planet, so it represents, beauty, charm, pleasure, luxury, and delight. You may be good at home decorating, art or anything to do with making things beautiful.

The Empress is a creator, be it creation of life, of romance, of art or business. While the Magician is the primal spark, the idea made real, and the High Priestess is the one who gives the idea a form, the Empress is the womb where it gestates and grows till it is ready to be born. This is why her symbol is Venus, goddess of beautiful things as well as love. Even so, the Empress is more Demeter, goddess of abundance, then sensual Venus. She is the giver of Earthly gifts, yet at the same time, she can, in anger withhold, as Demeter did when her daughter, Persephone, was kidnapped. In fury and grief, she kept the Earth barren till her child was returned to her.

Kind of fits.