Lines, Angles, Twists, and Turns

One of the three cards I pulled today from the Temple of Abzu deck is card 52. I'm going to be experimenting with different ways to read these cards, but I'm starting with the simple "Pull three. Read across the tops. Read across the bottoms." What was written on the cards isn't what I'm focused on right now, though. I want to look at the art on card 52.

None of the cards have art that looks like A Specific Thing. That's interesting to me. My start with divination was tarot. There's a lot of symbolism in the art, and I lean heavily on that. I'm a skilled reader, but I've never been somebody who can give much of an answer if you ask, "Is it bad news if I get these two cards together?" I need to see the cards. I need to see the other cards. I need to see where they sit in relation to each other, and I need to see what's going on with the art. I know the concepts associated with The Magician, but some Magicians put a little different focus on the story than others do. I would say intuitive reading is an important part of what I do, but not that "The cards can say whatever I want because I'm an intuitive reader" thing.

There's more wiggle room on that with oracle cards. Lenormand cards seem to be very "You're reading too much into this. Dog. House. Sun. There's going to be a dog outside your house tomorrow morning." (I know it's not that simple. It's close, though!) I work well with symbolism. Runes, Ogham, astrology...things you just need to remember what this is... don't really stick with me. On the other hand, tea leaves and fire scrying don't give me enough of a frame to check my interpretations and make sure I'm not just seeing what I want to see.

My focus has been shifting, though. I worked with lithomancy for a couple of years, then moved to osteomancy. Really simple systems of "this stone means this, and that stone means that" frustrated me. The stones were telling stories, and maybe this stone would only play certain roles, but it wasn't going to be the same role every time. I had to collect my own bone set. The idea of working with a purchased set of "chicken bone means this, rabbit foot means that" was just...nuh-uh. I was moving toward things that would be entirely intuition. Over the past few months, I've been using modern polyhedral dice for astragalomancy. That's a whole story unto itself.

Looking at the ToA cards is interesting because the words and numbers provide a frame for things that still leaves a lot of room for, "Well, what does it mean to you?" And then the art just goes wild! It's like eldritch Rorschach inkblots. I look at card 52 and I see a twisting Tree of Life. It's like it's saying, "As above, so below? Fuck that! Try as the tree, so the hurricane!"

And that works! "Other-worldly desires/ Evoking elusive angles".  I can see how all the cards can work this way, but the art on this one is really drawing me right now. I grew up in an area where "hurricane season" is a very real thing. The science of black holes fascinates me. My mind takes rigid facts and transforms them into thought and communication tools of symbols and metaphors.

I'm probably going to be meditating on this one for a while. There are things for me to learn here.