You know, I’ve had an issue with The Fool in the Tarot being labeled 0 (zero) since I was seven years old. I guess, that 46 years is enough time for an idea to steep and let the cat out of the bag so the dog’s not so alone.
I’ve never seen a wild thing sorry for itself.
~ D.H. Lawrence
I do not think the O in the middle of the top of the card is a zero. I don‘t think it is a number at all or the concept of zero. One, all the other numbers are at the bottom. Certainly, a number 0 at the top could be a telling anomaly, like the head of the ouroboros’ (uroburos) potentiality to bite its tail prior to the tail forming, a “nothing about the caterpillar tells it about the butterfly“ kind of thing, though, I grimace at that with a pretty hefty ‘Nope.’
So, what do I feel from an artist’s perspective? Well, Pamela Coleman-Smith designed the Rider Waite Smith (RWS) Tarot cards. And, I feel the O at the top of The Fool in the RWS is a Day Sky Full Moon. I think that goes a long way to include everything in the card like a whole oak tree in an acorn. The Sun. The Day Sky Full Moon. The elements. The Archetypes all in an unseen place beyond much like the Buddhist Concept of the Disappearing Path indicated by the cliff’s edge right in front of the Fool. Then, all of the unseen things are seen, and the whole oak tree of the deck is in the acorn of The Fool.
How does the O in the top middle of this card image land for you as a Day Sky Full Moon? No need to research this. You won‘t find any attributions as the idea is mine, a personal, Tarot acorn so to speak. My Fool sees the world from the moon, so the earth is what waxes and wanes and is New and is Full through cycles for the Mystereum Fool. How does the O as a Day Sky Full Moon land for you?
Tarot in the Land of Mystereum Fool image (c) 2010 Jordan Hoggard
… where we have this great group of TarotBlogHoppers working with, playing, interpreting, and / or dancing the the topic of Tarot in their own, unique ways coupled with the theme, “TURNING DARKNESS INTO LIGHT”. Enjoy the experience of the Tarot Yule gifts one and all that you receive on this TarotBlogHop. They are Yule gifts one and all!
Welcome now
as the chaff of the warm-up sloughs off from the wheat of the intro in the BlogHop wind… and, like in theatre, the warm-up is no longer part of the Yule performance… Welcome to my iteration-gift of the TarotBlogHop Yule theme:
~ “TURNING DARKNESS INTO LIGHT” ~
The Black Crucible of the Magician
by Jordan Hoggard
The Black Crucible of The Magician! WHAT?! What is THAT? What is the Black Crucible of The Magician? Well…
Notice the eclipse WITHIN the sun, and the magically watching eye-wings as vision to take you new places… focus so intense that it dilates time to open
who you were when you were born, Self, return, identity, bright success in context
[[[ Do a slideshow video speaking the meditation ]]]
Close your eyes. Visualize the big bowl of your night sky as a huge, black crucible you look up into. Visualize your huge night sky with stars as an immense forming-vessel, as a …Black Crucible gifted by The Magician and his first-sparks of ideas. Then, visualize your own shooting star to strike across and square your circle of this big, black bowl of your night sky. Remember this shooting star as a 1st spark of inspiration. Allow this 1st spark of inspiration to brighten you as it disappears into the darkness.
Remember the 1st-spark shooting star. Visualize that shooting star AS the 1st spark of ALL ideas. Remember the shooting star cascading across your night sky. As you remember that shooting star, slow its instantaneous coming and going down. Slow that shooting star down as you watch it slowly cross your night sky like Inner State Highways TV. Watch it and smile. Watch it and imagine. Now… imagine it starting across the sky, the Black Crucible again. Bring your shooting star to mind and focus on it. Like candle gazing, bring your shooting star to mind and see it up close. Get wonderfully lost in its infinity of tinyness and distance as you cascade yourself to it up close.
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Now, with it slowed down so you fully experience it, engage yourself to flex your temples smiling into it again… this time flexing your temples to imagine it in up close like a candle flame. As you begin to imagine it again, slow down your big bowl of night sky that is around it. Watch the whole scene as the shooting star appears and slowly, slowly moves across your big bowl of night sky. Slowly. Slowly. Slowly. And, it is gone again. Bring it back to mind again up close like a candle’s flame. Go through its magical cycle of life, its magical cycle as it dives into you through your imagination. Experience the full cascade of energies of a shooting star seen up close frame by frame. Run slowly through the star’s cascade across your sky again as you count to 9 across its path.
Settle your shooting star into your imagination in its own orbit. Recall it when you need a shot of inspiration. Remember the shooting star each time as it plays slowly in long-form each time you have an idea. Remember this slow-form of your idea to gear into ITS mode of cycles before you jump in and write it down. Feel its presence on its terms. Feel its presence on your terms. Adjust to the pace and rhythm of each idea you have this way. Slowly gear into each idea as that shooting star across your sky and up close. Shift focus and redirect scale as you feel to or simply do… as you steer yourself to jot down the remembrance of its own particular ways, of its own particular ways enhancing your own, particular ways. What are its identifying qualities? Does it have a name to remember it by?
Now, identify and think of something you struggle with or a challenge you enjoy AS this shooting star. No need to stay Tarot related now at this point in the meditation. You have almost gone all night in these brief moments. Visualize the morning twilight. Visualize the Psych Synapse invisi-bridge of night to day in the twilight dawn. Raise your hands up stretching like the sun stretches across the twilight horizon to birth the day. Take 4 deep breaths. 1 2 3 4. And, in your 5th breath, your chaos-central air-traffic control breath, feel all of these things come together in seamlessly synchromeshed orbits. Think about opening your eyes. Simply think about opening your eyes as the sun thinks about the day right before it comes over the event horizon of the twilight dawn. Now slowly. Slowly. Slowly open your eyes as you inhale through your nose. As you are open your eyes, jot down an idea that comes to you right now, any idea.
Ask yourself: “How can I actively utilize this idea to really begin to express the particular core of this idea? How is this idea a primary connective tissue throughout all of my actions and influence. What is ts essence? What one noun comes to mind? Write that noun down.
Now, write it down again with the word “to” in front of it to make an infinitive, a baby policy, an expression of the form-giving dna of one of your priorities. If your word was “dream,” then wrote down “to dream.” If your word was clarity, write down “to clarity.” Make your noun into a verb as you awaken inhaling through your nose flexing your temples to the new light in the day of this meditation.
Now, there’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is that you have an idea. The bad news is now you’ve gotta actively breathe life into it and build foundations under its dream.
Take a few moments to say nothing. Simply look around your space right at your fingertips and a little further and as far as you can see. Write down the three close, near, and far away things that catch your eye first. Allow these three things to tell you of an action you can take to bring your idea to life.
Smile. Breathe. Flex your temples. You are through the dark night. Now, work your idea through the day.
Cheers to your successes always. All the Best to You. You are your own Royal Court. May the Black Crucible of the Magician always show you how best to get the rubber to meet the road with your ideas from start to finish. Start to finish. Always complete, never finished… Now, start… to finish. Start to Finish.
Even in a card with no people, there’s still always one…You, looking in through the portal. ~ Jordan Hoggard
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“Adversity does not build character. It reveals it.” ~ James Lane Allen [[I think he ripped this from Aristotle, who probably ripped it from the Egyptians, who… the Moors or Ancient Aliens? How far do quotes and their concepts go back?]] I’m glad to have discovered that James Lane Allen said it. I buy into the lineage.
(c) 2013 Jordan Hoggard
All images (c) 2010, 2011 Jordan Hoggard
KintsuKuroi of Self Readings
Jordan’s Shop Supports This Blog. Check out the great eStocking Stuffers to add that special flourish of visual music for the eyes and the soul to complement your gifting.
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Which music-for-your-eyes eProducts from the Shop do you give this year?
… where we have this great group of TarotBlogHoppers working, playing, interpreting, and / or dancing the the topic of Tarot coupled with the question, “What can I share from my table to enrich my community?”
First Off, One Expression of Lammas is…
The remembrance of place in the protection of the barn as a symbol of abundant storage with a sacred loaf baked with care and attention from the first harvest, and broken into four with each quarter gifted to each of the barn’s four corners. I tend to play with shapes, so I might need to do that, though sneak-bake another loaf or two to sacredly quarter and gift to the additional corners… Please don’t think Zodiac Barn. ;-)…. errr, and so I don’t allegedly modernize your Lammas rituals or skew the good history of Lammas… well, not right off the bat at least…
Here’s a Bit Of General Lammas info for You from Wikipedia: (that I will so graciously edit in blue in parentheses in context as making bread is a process and needs to be minded. And, though I feel the patient awareness of kneading the dough is wonderful now, it also gives me a chuckle to think back to my Dad’s “breadmaking” when I was young and bring it into now… as I tend to edit the cookbook of life so to speak with how I work though the DAYum discipline of the ritual is fortunately ALWAYS there… where the warm-up is absolutely necessary and as well not part of the baked golden performance of bread when the curtain of the oven opens. [paragraph] Heck, in my book nothing is sacred that you can’t laugh with. There may be Silence in ritual, though ritual is no shhhhh of a library in my house… uh hem… delegating the kneading of the 1st batch of bread to the kiddo. SOMEbody other than me was certainly laughing. Back then the task was SO lost on me… though I certainly had no idle hands. Thankful for that now, the kneading, the incessant kneading which seemed to outlast Sisyphus though somehow served to burn out incessant needing. All alone in the kitchen kneading that first batch my mind would wander while remaining in an intensely focused kneading autopilot. Not too fast. Not too slow. And, we always kneaded together on the second and third batches. On Holidays my Dad made about 25 loaves. Rockin’ Moroccan Anise Bread! Hearty and tasty stuff! I guess the real selflessness was that ANY of it actually left the house. Though, he would drive around with 8 or so loaves each afternoon making rounds over several days with each fresh batch. He would make rounds and socialize gifting fresh, rockin’ Moroccan Anise bread. It’s like the bread went to the four corners of the city… and also to a farm or two beyond the city limits.)
“In some English-speaking countries in the Northern Hemisphere, August 1 is Lammas Day (Anglo-Saxon hlaf-mas, “loaf-mass”), the festival of the wheat harvest, and is the first harvest festival of the year. On this day it was customary to bring to church (I’ll substitute “sacred place of gathering”) a loaf made from the new crop, (remove comma and keep kneading) which began to be harvested at Lammastide. The loaf was blessed, and in Anglo-Saxon England it might be employed afterwards to work magic. (Uhh, awkward transition that at first begs for a new paragraph and then… “Keep kneading kid, it’s good for you. Oh, and think about magic and discipline while you are kneading the dough, and how you can best switch gears and extend your thought with paragraphs to enhance their flow. But, mostly only think about kneading the dough. If you stop, it won’t rise right. We’ll be back shortly and we’ll check your progress. Gotta go out and get some more yeast. You washed your hands, right?” Hmmm, I always wondered why they didn’t fully prepare with enough ingredients beforehand? I smile now at their date-afternoon yeast errands.) A book of Anglo-Saxon charms directed that the lammas bread be broken into four bits, (remove comma… dang my hands are getting tired. WHEN are they going to be back??!)) which were to be placed at the four corners of the barn, (comma, kneading kneading. What do I do when my nose itches?) to protect the garnered grain. (uhhh, left field grinding gears. Use the clutch next time. Don’t knead too fast.) In many parts of England, (no comma after prepositional phrase required. I hope they get back soon as I’ll develop Superman grip if I do this much longer. OH, STRONG HANDS!!!, I am making BREAD OF THE GODS!… uh hem… they’re not back yet. Focus. Knead. Keep kneading) tenants were bound to present freshly harvested wheat to their landlords on or before the first day of August. In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, where it is referred to regularly, it is called “the feast of first fruits”. The blessing of first fruits was performed annually in both the Eastern and Western Churches on the first or the sixth of August.”
Welcome now as the chaff of the warm-up and kneading comes off from the wheat of the process in the wind.
Welcome now as the Lammas kneading warm-up leaves, leaves toward loaves, where the warm-up is not part of the performance, and where warm and fresh is just amazing.
Welcome.
Let’s break some sacred bread together for the corners,
each friend themself a corner.
Welcome
to my iteration of the TarotBlogHop Lammas theme:
Our theme is: ~ “What can I share from my table to enrich my community?” ~
established, down-to-earth spirit, wisdom, new spirit, activation
I Offer from My Table
I offer a poem from The Hierophant in Tarot in the Land of Mystereum (Schiffer, 2010) as the eye of a storm and center of the 5’s to express the natural and developed tool on my table that is my anti-hysterical bias, the beautiful curse born of grace under pressure kneaded and risen and baked into my soul from way too many deadlines over decades. Heck, a bomb might go off and amidst the chaos, and I’ll most probably respond with, “DANG! I forgot my lunch today.”, and then calmly and directly address air traffic control from the eye of the storm as I pilot amidst the chaos to another completion… pilot knowing that the center doesn’t actually always occur in the middle.
I Offer from my table a poem I wrote this year for Lammas
As I thought about the Hierophant as a Silverback, I composed a poem for Lammas as my enriching gift to you and yours from my table to spread as you will. May this bread gifted below be baked golden and quartered and gifted to your friends to protect the four barn corners of your life. As I think of the Silverback as The Hierophant, I wonder, I knead the idea. And, as I wonder… wondering, kneading… I wonder wondering if the tender topics in life are the most natural like dough. I wonder wondering if the tender topics are best kept tender where they feel to touch Nature itself in their naturally tender way where their adversity never builds their character… where their adversity reveals it… And, tender topics may simply knead their lives as a beautifully personal oven continually revealing their character.
What do you see that everyone else is missing?, stiff competition, challenges, new perspective in the mix
hidden treasure in emotional weather, pensively hanging back, inner turbulence
(C) 2011 Jordan Hoggard. Notice all the little people up and down HieroDood… wisdom, new spirit, activation, down-to-earth spirit
the eye of the storm, the missing middle is teeny and also it is calm and red, residual fossil impressions. Initial, natural thought. Not chaos as that is a concept. This is he wonderfully natural mind. Nature knows no emotions, only weather. How’s your inner weather?
A gift of a poem for you for Lammas.
Here is the sustenance of “Tender’s Wisdom”, a poem from my table gifted to you to quarter and protect your corners. The Silverback Hierophant’s got your back, so DIG IN AND ENJOY with you and yours! … I have errands to go do, rounds to make.
Tender’s Wisdom
Wisdom expressed is best
with its soft curls and wisps
never cut too short or made to be brittle
by giving in to the reactionary arachnid
of conversation and reaction that bleeds things empty.
Naturally expressed wisdom,
talents honed and developed into secure abilities,
embraces wisdom in life itself wise in time in the moment
as it dispenses with futile searches for Truth.
Naturally expressed wisdom
embraces one’s own fluid fluency
fully becoming aware that Truth is not to be trusted to philosophers,
fully becoming aware that we are all similar and each unique,
and that the full Songs of Experience of Life and Love are Truth,
as Truth is born of a full life mixed up and kneaded over years
to rise up to continually be baked golden.
There feels to be a fluid fluency in the Truth of tender things,
a fluid fluency as much as coral zips back into its shell for protection,
at the same time as much the integrated armor
of a cute, ole, 600-pound tiger napping on its back
strong enough to be able to be gentle.
The Hierophant on a bad day may be the stubborn, unbending traditionalist,
though The Hierophant as Silverback has a welcoming, down-to-earth spirit
having brought spirit down to the earth long ago,
has a natural tenderness present
coupled with the strength of unflinching wits to support you.
The Hierophant,
continually baked golden and repeatedly kneaded and risen by decades under fire,
is present in those you know who live in continually evolving awareness
of their own Truth as they compassionately protect all four corners.
The Hierophant,
is present in those you know to be unflinchingly tender
while strong enough to be gentle without bluster.
The Hierophant,
continually baked golden by decades under fire,
bearing the naturally integrated armor of coral as his wits,
78 Whispers In My Ear
A (mostly) tarot blog by a mother and writer drifting through the universe.
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Alison's Alembic
All sorts of magical things can come out of an alembic – put something in, and out comes…. well, here it’s tarot, astrology, and art!
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Jordan Hoggard
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