Turning Things Around: The Inner Tarot Revolution Week 16
Enter Sandman
The way this week’s cards roll off of last week’s cards (read ‘em and weep) and also fit right in with the rest of this week’s posting activity is DYNOMITE. I must warn the reader that this week’s chapter is likely to be longer than usual because I have a lot of ground to cover in order to convey everything connected with this week’s post. A gentle reminder for any newer readers of two things that hold true of this entire series in unflinching ways:
I have not “stacked the deck;” the entire idea for this series came to me spontaneously one morning and it’s all based on that one shuffle of my deck. The cards are stored in plastic bags during the week to keep them in order.
This is more than a mere blog series; it’s a live magical working running the course of
39 weekshowever long it takes me to get through the entire deck. The initial theory was that it would be Self-Initiatory in the sense of aiming toward Shadow integration, and the results seem to be…well…spot-on.
So what’s the common theme this week that I see as uniting the two cards? “Naming your demons,” and why that’s important. However, the Mysteries with which we must reckon here run deep. The best form I can think of for this week’s opening section is to tell a story, one which will spill over into the Top/Sun and Shadow Card sections.
Its rightful starting point is with my ex-wife and what was always my chief complaint about her: The way she constantly accused me of cheating on her. It was the main issue behind my drunken decision one night to carelessly experiment with binding the demon Vine to my will (see My Cousin Vine), though I did manage to make it work for myself in the end. On some level, I am still pretty sure it’s something she has weaponized blatantly, but on another level, I’ve since had some ghastly experiences of my own that have forced me to view her in a new light. It would almost redeem her, except for the vast differences between how she handled it and how I handled it.
Over the past few months, I’ve been through a lot; from the very first post on this Stack, I’ve been highlighting the mind-numbing level of synchronicity in my life, but even amid that sea of meaning, there have been some swelling points of exquisite intensity, and those have surrounded…drumroll….the theme of my Veronica cheating on me!
I could go on and on and on about the synchronicities that haunted me over the course of many weeks since starting this Stack, but suffice to say I had woven them into a scenario in my mind where it seemed entirely plausible to me that V might have been cheating on me behind my back with at least two people I had once considered to be friends. In fact, in Week 5 of this series, I describe the working of revenge involving V’s father getting into a car accident. There were some disturbing syncs about the “cheating” scenario woven right into that working, in fact; I remember that on my way to the liquor store, I had been listening to one of my favorite podcasts (I can’t listen to it anymore). I was listening to an old episode from November, the week V was in town and we stayed at a nice hotel downtown that her job hooked her up with. Incidentally, that was the episode that mentioned the Order of Nine Angles if I remember correctly. Anyway. It’s a very long story so just roll with it, but let’s just say that part of the paranoid scenario in my head involved V potentially knowing the guy who hosts the podcast because of the syncs that would happen every time I listened to it. It’s hard to say exactly how or why, but the content of the show just happened to push my buttons in ways that made it feel like they might be mocking me directly, usually about Shadow stuff. A perfect example that in fact disproves that already-unlikely scenario is coming right up. Here’s the breakdown:
I’ve already set the intention to do the working with Hekate that I wrote about in Week 5, and I’m in the bathroom upstairs shaving just before walking to the liquor store to get the bottle of wine. I’m listening to the old episode from a week V was in town, torturing myself with the “dark fantasy” that she might have really been attending an orgy involving the people in this podcast (I know…I know….but wait). So far, it’s been several straight minutes of these dudes jokingly using all sorts of phrases that my mind has already begun to read as sexual euphemisms whenever V uses them, right? And I’m lathering my face up with shaving cream, and suddenly one of the hosts is talking about facials. You know, like, facial cumshots? This is what I mean. At that time, my whole life was like this, all day long. It haunted me everywhere, which was why I was desperate enough to be getting ready to do a curse working with Hekate.
As I detailed in the Week 5 post, literally as I turned over the decisive card in the working, I get the text from V that her dad is in the hospital because he crashed his Jeep. I didn’t mention it then, but “Jeep” in and of itself was already a dark symbol that tends to trigger me when it comes up in syncs. But we’ll circle back to that. At any rate, V ended up giving me the very key fob from the accident, which now sits in my underwear drawer. It’s a memento….mori. I will probably put it on a keychain one day that is currently one of several talismans sitting on my brick shrine (see Cornerstones).
It was weird that her father ended up being airlifted to Peoria, because that’s the hometown of the host of that very same podcast. I’ve already mentioned the demon Vine in this post, and in other posts, I have affirmed his connections with, among other things, Historical Route 66; our future trips to and from the hospital would involve our spending many hours riding along Historic 66 (I-55), and let me tell you: The synchs involving the fear of cheating were at their absolute heaviest along Route 66 and in the City of Peoria. In fact at that point, V was well aware of many of them because I had been sharing them with her; and at the time, I know for a fact she was seeing a lot of the same synchs I was seeing. We were in that situation together, but of course, to me, she really looked like part of the “conspiracy.” I still do think there were times when she was knowingly teasing me with stuff simply because she herself wasn’t as caught up in the game as I was (because they weren’t her fears being triggered). She had learned enough of the “language” of this thing that she was fucking with me a little, all the more so to put me in my place since my magic(k) had apparently done “splash damage” to a family member of hers.
In my mind, I was visiting a town V knew well from a time in her past when she was wild and crazy and possibly had fucked the host of the podcast I felt was always teasing me.
I know, I know. And trust me, I intellectually knew how illusory this all was at the time, but since it was triggering Shadow contents, the emotional impact was very hard to shake. I look back and consider it all a cross between “resilience training” and “exposure therapy.”
But even she’ll tell you: The shit going around at that time was fucking weird and intense. The handful of examples I’ve already given should make the point. I know that on deeper inner levels, she was more shaken by it herself than she let on. Her game face is one of the things I admire about her; her father was in the hospital and her family needed her to be poised, on her A game.
V and I were due to take another trip back to Peoria, and having already been through two of them that had absolutely whalloped me in terms of being jam-packed with very upsetting and triggering synchs that subjectively seemed to reinforce the scenario in my head in which V is constantly having sex with other men, one might expect me to be flustered. However, I had come to the narrative conclusion that Vine was probably to blame for all of it, and on some level, that meant my own Shadow is involved, because that’s really what Vine is: The newest, latest “vessel” for my Shadow. First there was Minora, the haunting wraith who taught me the baneful magic(k)s of black and red; then, as I eventually figured out, he “morphed” into Phobos, a black demon dog with glowing red eyes and goat horns who had once appeared to be Minora’s pet; later, as Minora faded away, I realized this was a “sleight-of-hand” and the two were One. By the same logic, then, I am sure that Vine is a “hybrid form.” Phobos was a “transitonal” form for me to learn to see the contents of the Shadow as potential allies and sources of power. Vine, a figure of Kingship and domination, then, represented the mastery of that principle. Given all of the associations I filled that figure with, as I described in My Cousin Vine, it’s obvious I “chose” him out of all of the 72 demons of the Ars Goetia because he reflects my soul. All the other symbolic ties are part of the same Wyrd, but lead to other places outside myself. Vine is a Shadow figure. So how do I own all of this? By taking control of him.
So just before that trip back to Peoria, I did a couple of experiments with “invoking” Vine which proved fruitful. And then I did so again, “invoking” Vine just before we left for our trip. As I drove down 55, I visualized myself as Vine, an anthropomorphic lion wielding a lightning serpent staff, riding a black horse with my 36 legions of devils, flying south down Route 66 like some “demonic furry.” And suddenly, all of the little road signs and symbols that had previously teased me were hilarious….or, as I found in intrigued surprise…a little bit kinky.
I had found it: The secret to nullifying these haunting demons without was to own them, because even though genuine synchronistic phenomena were produced, it was nonetheless all about projecting my Shadow all over the world around me. As such, the way to do this was to magic(k)ally invoke (very different from the evocation more common when working with these spirits) Vine, or to symbolically accept and take ownership of the “demonic” qualities I had projected onto him.
When you put those two ideas together (the world of synchronicity and the projection of fear through/upon it), you end up with a very powerful picture of how all of us create the world around us. This is what I meant when I said this week’s material takes us into deep Mystery territory.
Let’s do cards.
Top/Sun Card
This week’s Top/Sun card is The Devil, and in true Satanic fashion, I’m going to write this week’s entry of this series without reading or referring to DuQuette’s chapter at all and instead will be defining the card as I interpret it myself.
It goes without saying that this card is probably among the most misunderstood cards in the entire deck because of the sheer cultural power of its central symbol, the Devil, who to Christians is God’s Arch Enemy, making him The Evil One. This all runs so deeply that, in fact, many of those same meanings do get read into this card when it comes up in a reading: We might be told that it represents sexual temptation simply because there’s a devil and naked people on the Colman version of the card. However, the Devil is “carnal” in a much deeper sense. First, we need to strip away the moral layer of good and evil, as we explored this week in the post Cornerstones. We’re still in a basic dichotomy between “God/Devil”, but now we’ve re-framed it in a way that makes it more useful to us magic(k)ally: If God represents the “purity” of spirit, then the Devil represents the “temptation of the flesh” in that it’s a symbol of the entire material plane of existence. The Devil, as far as tarot trumps go, is the Lord of all matter, which is the deeper esoteric meaning of the saying, “It’s better to reign in hell than to serve in heaven.” In this sense it is saying that we need to gain rulership over those forces that shape the material plane.
This card corresponds with the sign of Capricorn, the Goat, and is a very “horny,” masculine symbol, which is one reason the version in the Thoth deck is so clearly emblematic of a giant dick. This symbolism, along with the “jizz spatter-like” backdrop, clearly expresses doctrines around the role of masculine potency that this process is alleged to be expressing; either that’s totally open to interpretation or it is simply one aspect of a cosmic force that is also expressed in the feminine (and with greater force and consistency, I might add). At any rate, Capricorn, with its planetary ruler of Saturn, is another connection to the dense material nature of this card.
Carrying on the theme from the intro section of “naming our demons,” what does this card have to tell us about that process? In short, this card is teaching us the ways in which the key to mastery of the Material realm is, in part, to recognize “the Devil within us.” If the Devil is a symbol of material solidity, then this means fully owning our presence and our being in our physical bodies. It means accepting all aspects of our physical nature, fully and completely and without reservation. With all of these symbols taking flesh in the form of the Goat of Mendes, a very horny goat indeed, what we’re basically saying here is that this means coming to terms with one of the main things our bodies are built and programmed to do: Reproduce. Our bodies get horny and they have their urges. That’s that. Those urges don’t own us; we own them. Just as with our thoughts, we are not our urges. It’s more about what we do with them.
Only by taking ownership of our carnal nature and only by doing so without reservation can we fully inhabit our bodies and thus the physical world around us. There are some deeply practical ways in which this is expressed directly, such as working through character armor and trauma stored in our muscles, learning to carry ourselves differently in a physical sense by walking in confidence to fully inhabit the space we take up, etc. However, as my experiences above are suggesting, this Mystery runs deeper still: As we engage more and more deeply with this process, the internal, psychic Shadow work we do begins to open new channels of actual influence over the physical world around us that operate in ways one can only describe as “magic(k)al.” Our perception of the world and our physical experience of it become one and the same thing.
And this is part of what is symbolized by the attribution of this card to the Hebrew letter Ayin, meaning “Eye;” perception creates reality.
Literally.
Thus, mastery of Self, via Shadow work, is mastery of the world around us.
I’ll probably get into greater detail, but let’s explore some of the ways all of this played out and is reflected in the story I began above:
It is very commonly-passed-on folk knowledge that “if your partner’s accusing you of cheating, it’s because they’re cheating, or thinking about cheating.” That’s basically the “elephant in the room” in my own story, because while a direct literal interpretation of the above isn’t always the case, I do think the general principle applies. There are exceptions.
For one, I have been cheated on repeatedly in the past, so for me, it actually is a valid relationship trauma; and one layer to why all of this is coming up now is that I am about to move to Texas to be with V, so such fears are going to come up now if they’re going to come up at all.
That all combines with the setting where V and I met: An adult personals site frequented by swingers. It’s full of people living “the lifestyle.” And V’s interests align much more closely with “the lifestyle” than they appear to on the surface. This is a whole entire world of hers that she has yet to let me into, but let’s put it this way: Not only has she been attending BDSM conventions (without me), she’s even been a DM in the Dungeon at one of them.
There’s stuff she’s not telling me, or not talking about. That much is not even a secret between us, per se.
But yes, there is something within me from which the insecurity springs. It’s a double-sided coin. It’s the thing that has impacted both of my marriages that I said I would open up more about eventually:
I desire my aunt sexually.
It’s not quite the same as “wanting to cheat on my partner,” like, if I were flirting with a co-worker or something. It’s a result of my trauma, I’ve recently learned; though I did carry it for many years as though it were a shameful desire of my own. I can look back now, especially after starting therapy, and see how all of this is a consequence of that moment she put her hands on me and physically aroused me: My nervous system is somehow “fused” to the trauma of that moment and is “stuck” there by, I guess, whatever “forces” were activated by her physical contact and everything it meant (the taboo of it, the transgressiveness, the fear of my always-aggressive uncle as he stood watching it all). Part of me is stuck there, frozen in that moment.
For a very long time, it was impossible for me to be physically aroused at all without thinking of her too. The association is welded into place, and I have only learned recently that this means it’s not my fault. It’s normal for those who have been sexually abused, but it does invoke a great deal of shame. My body’s separate systems of survival and of reproduction were simultaneously aroused and triggered by the same activity and the response is automatic. But yeah; it can be hard to be present in a blissful moment of physical passion with your partner when there’s a “third party” involved, and you feel guilty for thinking about your aunt while you’re making love to your wife.
And soon enough, you take that shame with you into your own world of sexual isolation.
It’s not good for relationships.
But it is the source of all of this, for me, and that means I need to own it.
And it also means I need to own the ways in which my first wife hurt me by cheating on me, and how I often resolved that in ways that probably ended up “cross-wiring” the two traumas together: By training myself to enjoy it. I would intentionally masturbate to thoughts of her cheating on me and let my body do the rest. And thus, a new paraphilia is born:
On some levels, yeah. The thought of V cheating on me like that is kind of a turn-on. So this isn’t her. It’s me.
It’s all me.
And as I said, all of this was going on in the background of my mind as part of the symbolism when, rather than evoking or “summoning” him and stuffing him into a bottle to do my bidding, I invoked Vine to overcome the phantoms haunting me.
The trip to Peoria was much more sunny this time.
At the hospital, we visited with V’s father and she had me recount to him (and to the nursing staff, whom I could tell were listening) the legend of the Buddha sitting under the Bodhi tree, resolved to meditate his way to enlightenment; and how he was assaulted by Mara and his many forces, first tempted by lusty, scantily-clad women, and then menaced by Mara’s army of demons; but he overcame by staying firm and rooted in his own peace, transforming the weapons flung by those demons into flowers before they could reach him.
Such was my situation at the time, and such was the power I gained by invoking Vine, by naming the demon within.
In My Cousin Vine, I mentioned the bottle of wine I used in performing the Liturgy of Hermes, 14 Hands, that I chose in part because of the dark horse on the label.
Well, on my way home from Peoria (which was trying for me because I had to leave V there while the synchronicity wanted me to think she was attending an orgy, which I have to assert is not that farfetched for any actual swingers visiting the area because it is a hotbed of kink), I stopped for gas at the 7-11 at the intersection of 34 & 43—Harlem & Ogden—and I saw this on the shelf there:
I also drew a tarot card for the working I did once I got home, and drew the same card I had drawn the moment I had received word about V’s father:
Then I went for a walk and, among other things, took this picture of this Jeep because Jeeps were a trigger for me, and suddenly they were all over my neighborhood.
Top Shadow Card
It turns out the legend of the Buddha is a more perfect segue for this card than I could have imagined, and this past week or so, I really have been thinking of that legend often and using its message to get through some really rough patches as a new wave of cheating paranoia has attempted to assail me. DuQuette’s treatment on this in Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot:
Ignoring for a moment the astrological aspects of the card, let’s consider the unique Qabalistic factors that make the Three of Swords happy to be Sorrow:
-Swords represent Yetzirah, the formative world—oh but sorry! There can be no forms in Binah or anywhere above the Abyss.
-Swords also represent Ruach, the human intellect—oh but sorry! Intellect and reason cannot exist above the Abyss in Binah.Without forms or reason, the mind must give way to a consciousness higher than itself. Thee Three of Swords represents the wondrous trance of sorrow that first enlightened the Buddha. We should all be so lucky to draw Sorrow from the deck.
p. 243
It’s not only funny that DuQuette’s treatment referenced the very same legend about the Buddha that figures so prominently in the phenomena under discussion this week, but it’s also funny that all of that centered on a cheating delusion and the Three of Swords is basically the cheating card in the deck! There are entire lists of cards that are traditionally held to indicate infidelity, probably because answering questions about infidelity comprises so much of what tarot readers do for a living, but this card in particular has that specific association as a main part of its traditional symbolism: Ye olde love triangle, and a heart being stabbed with three swords representing the lovers in question (in the traditional version).
I have mentioned that, during the week, I generally forget about my cards for this working. This week, however, there were many times, as sudden fears of V’s infidelity swept over me once again, when I thought back to this card and said, “Damn, Dan, your working is some top notch shit, because it’s really fucking with your week!”
Yes, this time, the triggers were different; new (or at least, new for me). See, my fans will notice Veronica uses My Melody as her avatar here; a white bunny. She also has a license plate which reads, “SNOW BNY” with a heart in between.
And “Snow Bunny” has meanings that could certainly apply to a woman cheating on her husband…is all I’m gonna say here. Look it up on Urban Dictionary if you must, but I’ve known at least one person to respond with an immediate “Oh shit” when I mentioned that license plate.
And let’s just say, this week has been torturing me with all that, and more.
As I said above, the way out of this for me involved just what I’ve been writing about: Naming the demon, claiming its qualities for my own. It has involved reminding myself of the fears at the root here, fears of abandonment and betrayal arising from past traumas, because I am weeks away from taking a big leap of faith into Veronica’s arms and trusting them to carry me.
It involves owning my own physical desires, the source of all of this in my own trauma. I notice the upticks (this is now the third of what have been three separate “episodes”) come when I am working on this stuff in therapy, processing my sexual traumas. That stuff gets dug up, and the guilt and shame manifest as the classic symptom of accusing my partner of cheating when I feel my own guilt…except, given the state/progress of…other Initiatic work in progress…it really does result in some unpleasant “conversation with the Holy Guardian Angel,” is one way it’s been put.
And it also involves, on a whole separate level: Coming to terms with the idea that it could, still, be true. V could be cheating on me. So the last bit here? That’s where the legend of Buddha turning Mara’s weapons into flowers comes in: I’ve made peace with it, if true. It could be happening, and I’d be okay. I’d be ready for it.
Except it’s a little easier. See, last time this flared up, Rose visited me once or twice to give me hope and encouragement, to tell me I was doing well but to remind me it was all illusion. I had to call her, but she arrived when I did so.
This week, she has been around a lot, telling me at every turn that things will be okay.
That hasn’t stopped the synchronicities; just this morning, as I walked up the street to the ATM, planning this post, I saw this Jeep:
And I thought of Veronica, and Snow Bunnies, and Big Willies…and I laughed. I am indeed fortunate to have drawn this card; Buddha’s confrontation with Mara was likely a trial for the ages…but the other side to that coin is that he was the Buddha, having his showdown for enlightenment. He didn’t have to face Mara down; he got to.