The Mask of Rationality

Over the years, I've dabbled with Tarot cards, I mean, I'll sit down, shuffle the cards, think of a question or contemplate my present predicament (I'm always in a predicament), and select the cards, lay them out and marvel at the pretty pictures. I'm not exactly sure why I do this, it's just another habit I've picked up over the years, and it probably feeds into my idea that the universe is a mysterious place, and well, why couldn't a sequence of picture cards tell me something about myself and the world as I conceive it?

I could just as easily be using one of those magic Eight Balls that you shake and turn over, looking for some kind of answer, or (and I always do this), cracking open a fortune cookie, looking for some kind of wisdom or guidance. I do this all with a sense of amusement, or ridiculousness, (I think I look at myself as a superstitious, hopeless, romantic fool, when I do this stuff), but still I do it, and I sometimes take the information that I get and kind of take it to heart. I guess you have to find your answers where you can.

I do think this guy put a lot of stock in the symbols that cultures use, and if many cultures keep coming back to the same images time and again, maybe it tells us something about the structures of our minds, or the contents of our human experiences?

The Lovely C. and I own a few Tarot decks including one originally designed by this famous fraud, Magus and self-billed "Wickedest Man in the World!" I like his Tarot deck, the imagery is very evocative, and I like how he characterises the Devil as basically a "lusty goat." Crowley judged our present Aeon to be hopelessly doomed, unless we realize our "star nature." Crowley thought we were brothers to the stars which echoes Carl Sagan's line: "we are star-stuff."

Anyway, not sure where I'm going with any of this, I just must acknowledge that I've spent time contemplating the meanings in the imagery of Tarot. Kind of like contemplating the grains of sand on a beach, or seeing the Virgin Mary's face in the water spot on the ceiling. Part of this journey is to understand just how strange the human brain really is, it's like a foreigner in the house of our bodies, and there are territories inside of us that really are a mystery. We wear the mask of the rationalist, and we wear the cloak of the irrationalist too. I guess these two sides must wrestle it out for themselves. This is what we call a life.