Natalia Lee

A nest of sorts

A fortuneteller’s day

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Enchantments

Yesterday was my birthday, tomorrow is St. Valentine’s (feast)day, and today is St. Agabus’s feast day. As a cartomancer this is fitting, as he is the Saint of diviners and fortunetellers. For those who seek to pierce the veil between what is known and unknown, those who dare the future by playing in the present, he is often known as their Patron Saint.

As someone who reads the cards poetically, piecing together the answers to questions image by image, I approach this concept of prophetic divination, fortunetelling, from a somewhat removed perspective. I want to re-examine this. If I believe in being able to tap into the divine, tap into what is unseen and receiving answers, and if I believe in a healthy interaction with the ancestors, then why is my perspective on fortunetelling apart? And when I speak of my interaction with what is unseen, I do so as one who is constantly working out approaches to phenomena that are not tangible. I also speak as one who sees the universe as an animist universe. As I construct my worldview and my experience in this world, I am constantly aware of my impermanence, and of the transience of reality. There is no such thing as solid reality. Reality is a constant flux of construction, destruction, and reconstruction. What materializes as worldview and experience instead, is Deleuze and Guattari’s dynamic rhizome:

Let us summarize the principal characteristics of a rhizome: unlike trees or their roots, the rhizome connects any point to any other point, and its traits are not necessarily linked to traits of the same nature; it brings into play very different regimes of signs, and even nonsign states. The rhizome is reducible to neither the One or the multiple. It is not the One that becomes Two or even directly three, four, five etc. It is not a multiple derived from the one, or to which one is added (n+1). It is comprised not of units but of dimensions, or rather directions in motion. It has neither beginning nor end, but always a middle (milieu) from which it grows and which it overspills.

–A Throusand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari

In other worlds, this dynamism of understanding self and what is is a constant becoming, intertwining, and outpouring, continuously played out in the middle, in the present. Given this realization, why not play with the prophetic reading? Why not delve into what the future holds? Why see the future as disconnected from a cartomantic reading? If all truth oscillates in this rhizome, then why not invite Saint Agabus to open and bless my prophetic eye, to be able to pierce the unseen?

The more I continue walking life and living, the more I realize the importance of circles and the circularity of experience. All things come full circle. As I make my way back and re-examine old notions, challenging instilled belief structures, I loosen my grip on what I know for certain and embrace more fully the mutable, the unknowing, and the ever-becoming.

For this reason I accept foremost, fearlessness. This is the key to tapping into the ever-becoming. This is the key to piercing the veil and wording the invisible in any -mantic endeavor. Therefore on this day, in honor of Saint Agabus, he who pierced the invisible, welcome fearlessness. Sling the cards readily and let them fall where they may.
Cards: 9 of Cups

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The Pips

It is a general consensus that the 9 of cups is a really good card to see in a reading. In cartomancy it is the card of receiving/finding/getting your heart’s desire.

Traveling through the suit of cups, one sees an obvious increase in the amount of cups and a decrease in their size. Expansion and amplification. The cups start as big and contained, but as the journey progresses they get smaller and increase in amount. Here one has 9 cups, each cup neatly organized and surrounded by flowering leaves. If I follow the rule of seeing, the center cup is in a cocoon, in a womb-like embrace. This reminds me of the birthing of changes, both unexpected and expected, that alters the previous course. Drastic, transformative changes. With this card we are precisely in this realm of changes.

Decks used: Tarot de Marseille Jean Dodal reproduced by Jean-Claude Flornoy, and Pagan Playing Cards by Uusi Design Studio.

And what else about the cups? Well, curiously in this particular Marseille Tarot, two of the cups at the bottom seem to be somewhat empty. Perhaps an allusion to exhaustion from the progressive trajectory from 1 to 9? Change is imminent and weariness looms near. As with any journey, project, goal, or plan, getting the desire of one’s heart is no easy task. Here, the 9 cups stand as a metaphor for the journey and the awaited results, an emblem of hope, and a promise of change.

As this foray into the suit of cups nears its end, I explore the heart and how to activate and engage the heart in the things that surround me, that require my attention, and also those things which I wish to accomplish. Furthermore, as this is the suit of family and those near and loved, I find myself looking into precisely that, familial bonds, how they are shaped and reinforced. All these watery ruminations have me wading in a river of emotions and approaches, as I consider desires and connections with the heart. I pose no questions for the cards here, instead I contemplate my heart, looking inward into the center cup, measuring its contents and taking account of its weight. I hope you, dear reader, are compelled to look inward as well, to peer into the depths of the heart and become an “expert in home-cosmography” (Walden, Henry David Thoreau).

Also, and with brevity before closing, I recently wrote a small booklet on the suit of swords and I share it freely from the heart. You can find it here.

Blessings.
A small gift

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The Pips

As I mentioned in my previous post, I love writing. A few months back I had an idea to create a little story around the suit of swords, a magical journey if you will. Well, it turns out that I have recently finished writing and putting together this little booklet of mine and I would love to share it with all that are interested or curious. I promise, it is short and, hopefully, sweet. Here it is. Simply click on the image below and a pdf will appear, like magic! You can download and share it freely.

This creation comes from the heart, and I hope all those who read it enjoy it half as much as I enjoyed creating it. I will be creating and writing much more, I am working on a little postmodern oracle/bibliomancy booklet. So keep your eyes peeled for that. For future reference, all these materials can be found in the Writings page, underneath the Mist and Aether tab.
Sculpting dreams and desires

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Musings

These past two weeks I have been feverishly working on a wee little pdf booklet I want to share with everyone soon. It is nothing fancy, just a creative exploration. When I started this tarot journey a few years back what drew me was my first love, literature [words]. The potential for crafting narratives and exploring ideas with the cards was, and still is, very enticing. Shortly after starting my tarot journey life had a huge surprise in store for me which ended up upturning my projected career and life plans. I was going to be a mother, and now books and my eternal quest for knowledge was going to have to shift into something more accommodating for this new identity. I renounced my projected goals of entering academia and my glittering dream of writing books and doing research. Looking back, I know that I am where I need to be.

Truthfully, I have had a love/hate relationship with academia as the whole superstructure has been evolving into something I cannot see myself inhabiting. I used to hold fanciful, naive dreams of having a PhD attached to my name and inspiring students to think and approach life with zeal. And as I navigated my studies many things became apparent, one of them being that I didn’t feel I fit into the mold. I continued studying and learning, while constantly doubting my path, my utility. I love words, I love reading, learning, thinking, and writing. That about sums up my passions. What do I do with all this? Needless to say, I acquired a new passion along the way, my son. Now aside from this role of mother, what am I useful for? As I continue reading the cards I know that I love reading them, I love reading for myself whenever I get the chance, and for others when the opportunity arises. I see card reading as an extension of reading books, exploring narratives (I apologize for the redundancy), and acquiring knowledge.

Now that some time has passed with perspective gained, I see that it is up to me how I put my passion to use, how I exert my gifts in this plane of existence. It is up to me how I am of use. Having said all this, I recently bought a little Nietzsche oracle book, created by some local people. This afternoon I shuffled the cards and pulled a trio I had previously pulled the night before. I looked at the cards and decided to see what Nietzsche had to say about them. After rolling the dice, the perfect words sprang to life from the little book.

Dreams and intoxication. We must keep in mind that measured restraint, that freedom from the wilder emotions, that calm of the sculptor god. -Nietzsche

Deck used: The Ancient Italian Tarot published by LoScarabeo.

This taught me a valuable lesson, that only now I am beginning to understand. Dreams and desires, wishes, do well in being tempered by the sculptor god, that tempers. Shaped into perfection through time, patience, and measured balance. Detachment. An un-tempered and unruly dream is merely intoxication that only serves to leave one hanging in mid-air, feverish and desperate. Thank you Nietzsche for elucidating the images.

This small project of mine was born out of the 9 of cups wish to transform my passion into the present day, into the now. I wanted to be of use, but most importantly, I just wanted to write and create.

Having said all this, I will be sharing my project on here for anyone to grab and enjoy if they so wish. And remember,

We are all in a state of becoming.