EXERCISE NL #38: Sliding
Date: Tue, 27 Jul 2004 23:12:34 +0200
From: Moonchild
To: Comparative Tarot http://comparativetarot.com
Sliding Exercise by Nina Lee Braden
Excerpts (snipped and grammatically modified) from Tarot for Self Discovery, p. 38.
Copyright © Nina Lee Braden
> Choose your deck and tell its name.
Wheel of Change Tarot
> Put your Major Arcana aside. We will not use it for this particular exercise.
> Look at your Minor Arcana face up. You will see some cards which make you smile, and others which make you a bit anxious.
Choose one of the cards that makes you uncomfortable, which makes you a bit anxious. (Don't choose anything which alarms
you unduly, just something that feels slightly uncomfortable.) What is it?After some elimination, I chose 6 Wands.
> What about the card seems to make you uncomfortable? Describe your feelings/reactions.
The card features an oil refinery. I feel uncomfortable with it because it harms nature.
> Now, go through your deck and choose the other three cards of the same rank as your first card. In other words, if you chose
the 5 of Pentacles, go through and choose the other 5s. If you chose the 10 of Swords, go through and choose the other 10s.Hah! All the contestants for this exercise!
> Line up all four cards, from most uncomfortable to least uncomfortable. Which order have you put the cards in?
Wands, Swords, Disks, Cups
> What would it take to "slide" from the most uncomfortable card to the next one? Can you do it?
> For instance, what would it take to slide from the 6 of Pentacles to the 6 of Cups? They are very similar, but one may feel
more comfortable to you. Why? What is the difference? Can you change your situation or your attitudes to make things more
like the 6 of Cups? How?Compared the massive mechanics and pollution of the 6 Wands, the 6 Swords makes better use of its destruction, by feeding
and clothing the clan with what has been destroyed of nature (a speared elk). In my personal situation/attitudes, it reminds me
of my American vs. Swiss lifestyle. Just to reach the Statesis about the most pollution one can cause (i.e. air travel) . When I'm
there, I have to have a decent car, and drive around a lot, as fast as I can get away with. I adore muscle cars, in all their glorious
eight cylinders. The first years I was in Switzerland, my husband and I shared one car with my parents-in-law. It was a
Volkswagen.In America, I eat what I've ordered, or what came in a package. In Switzerland, my bread and meat come from the baker and
butcher in the village. The baker gets his flour from the village mill, and the butcher gets his cows from local farmers. My
veggies and herbs come from my garden. We don't eat fruit out of season. I personally only kill what I'm going to eat, or
whatever is eating what I'm going to eat (e.g. snails in the garden, flies in the house).At the moment, I can't think of any way to "slide" my American lifestyle to be more like my Swiss lifestyle. The things I would
have to give up (mostly driving around), would mean not seeing loved ones. When we're in Florida, we try to buy produce
locally, and for some reason my mom is adamant about not buying grapes from Chile. I could try to find a place that sells meat
from Florida. It used to be well-known as a cattle state, and in fact the term "Cracker" for a native Floridian comes from the
sound of the cowboy's whips.> Take that sliding step, at least in your mind. How do you feel?
I feel good, supporting the local economy, and perhaps even culture.
> Next, slide again.
From the slain elk to blood-bespotted money. The 6 Disks shows a variety of bills and coins, as well as a fur, cowrie shells,
and a pair of dice. There are spots of blood on the U.S. $20, and another small drop near the bottom of the card. This seems
to be a step back in the other direction, as money substitutes for goods, and the connection between economic cause and
environmental effect is veiled. In my personal situation/attitudes, these cards show me that I could never kill an animal
myself, so I pay someone to do it for me. I take the less uncomfortable way. So, while I think I try to live in awareness and
agreement with nature as much as possible, I still want to drive, and eat meat (Taco Bell!), and I'm willing to pay and not
question too much. I walk in through the *front* door of the butcher shop, not the back, where I'd have to see what's going on.> And then again, until you are finally at your least anxious card, a card which may indeed feel quite wonderful.
The 6 Cups shows six broken pottery vessels in the foreground, an adobe village in the background, and the whole covered
by a thunderstorm. At the top of the card, one can see the edge of the storm, with sunset clouds and blue sky beyond. If I
was standing in front of this scene, and had a choice of seeking shelter in a building or looking at this pottery, I would stay
put in front of the pottery. I would try to carry them off, if I could. One man's trash is another man's treasure. I do so
treasure the past, even though pieces of it are broken and lost. I mean "past" in different ways; e.g. my own lifetime, my
ancestors, civilization, mankind. It's beautiful to look at, but its use can only be second-hand.I admire the past. I admire the thought of people working together, rather than each working for his own dollar, or franc, or
whatever. I love to go to my mom's hometown every year for our family reunion, and see all my people, and hear about the
past (as we lose our people, one by one). I love to be out in the boonies, where money doesn't mean much (toilet paper?),
and you'd rather have good insect repellent, and sense enough not to be the tallest thing out there when there's lightning.> What is a concrete step that you can take in your life which will start you on your sliding adventure?
Well, my grand dream is that I could live on my mom's land in the back woods of North Florida (but even *they* have a
Wal-Mart), and run a fishing camp, and comb the woods for relics on the spot where my great-grandparents used to live.A more realistic step would be to attend my family reunion this year. A more challenging step would be to reuse something
that would be thrown away. Tomorrow, I'll look for something than can be recycled as a container, and replant my cactus in it.[So, it wasn't the deck; it was the spread.]
One Love All Love,
Moonchild
EXERCISE: Sliding--follow up
Date: Thu, 29 Jul 2004 14:15:52 +0200
Moonchild wrote:
A more realistic step would be to attend my family reunion this year. A more challenging step would be to reuse something
that would be thrown away. Tomorrow, I'll look for something than can be recycled as a container, and replant my cactus in it.So many "re-" prefixes in that paragraph! A good tip to re-member for the 6 Cups.
I didn't find a container. I thought half of my old clay cooking pot would be the perfect thing, but my man disposed of it.
It would have been so great! The fact that it was a decorated clay kitchen item would have matched the card, and the shape of
it would (long and shallow) have been just right for the plant. Not sure if the plant is a cactus or succulent, but it also matches
the atmosphere depicted in the card.Yesterday, I saw an old man riding a man whom I hadn't thought of in years. He has a junkyard, and I don't mean as a
profession. I guess it started as a profession, but became an obssession, and now he's kinda wacky. Maybe I should go see
if he's got an old clay pot.I was thinking of the slogan, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" and it's really the Reuse part that's the theme of this exercise. It's easy
to see how this can be applied to household items (such as a plant pot), but it brings me to consider emotional things, Cups; how,
for example, I'm not a member of my family because of my DNA. We re-use and re-inforce the emotional bond of our family at
our re-union, and we re-experience the past through re-visiting and re-telling.On the material side, I was thinking, if I don't find a pot, I'll take a runner off the plant and give it it's own home. Now I realize
what an emotionally-fitting symbol this is as well, as I've left my family--my original stock--and replanted myself on the other
side of the planet. Also, my man impulsively bought me a hibiscus plant yesterday (which also has to be repotted), which is very
reminiscent of my Florida home.Somehow I've got to pull all these threads together:
~ the exercise theme of overcoming uncomfortableness
~ the use and reuse of material items in an environmentally friendly and personally pleasing way
~ dwelling not on revisiting the past, rather bringing it into the present and reusing it and make myself at home.And to tell the truth, I got such a rush of this last evening, as I was gazing over my freshly-mown new lawn, then turned the
corner and saw my garden (with corn and Florida collards), my newly-built sitting area (with beautiful coleus), and my
geranium-lined balcony. A mix of cultures, but very comfortable! Now, if it would just stay warm! Maybe I could keep my
homesickness at bay.One Love All Love,
Moonchild
EXERCISE: NLB Sliding--conclusion
Date: Fri, 30 Jul 2004 13:35:13 +0200
Moonchild wrote:
On the material side, I was thinking, if I don't find a pot, I'll take a runner off the plant and give it it's own home. Now I realize
what an emotionally-fitting symbol this is as well, as I've left my family--my original stock--and replanted myself on the other
side of the planet. Also, my man impulsively bought me a hibiscus plant yesterday (which also has to be repotted), which is very
reminiscent of my Florida home.If y'all aren't tired of me talking to myself yet, I have to continue this story. I'm just so amazed at how Tarot can show us
lessons in the simplest parts of our lives. If you understand what I've been saying, you may see what I mean when I say I finally
put the damned plant in the ground. I used the old pot to make a drum for my daughter. She wants to paint flowers on it this
afternoon. Maybe I can show her how to paint a hibiscus.Somehow I've got to pull all these threads together:
~ the exercise theme of overcoming uncomfortableness
~ the use and reuse of material items in an environmentally friendly and personally pleasing way
~ dwelling not on revisiting the past, rather bringing it into the present and reusing it and make myself at home.I think I got it.
One Love All Love,
Moonchild
This page is excerpted from my original contributions to the Comparative Tarot discussion group.
Graphics created and generously shared by Full Moon Graphics.
http://www.moonchild.ch/Tarot/personal/exercise/EXnl038.html
