"Our Feelings Are Our Most Genuine Paths to Knowledge." Audre Lorde
TAROT: 7 of Baskets / LENORMAND: Clouds, Child, Key / ADINKRA: Owo Foro Adobe
I woke up this morning feeling like I wanted to line up everyone in the world so I could slap each cheek soundly. I choose to believe that Audre Lorde is correct, and our feelings are indeed our most genuine paths to knowledge. Therefore, instead of waiting for my palm-itching urge to pass, instead of ignoring it, I am calling attention to it here. I want to examine the urge with a flashlight and a magnifying glass, so that, in the end, I have served both my soul and my readers in ways that are helpful, hopeful and healing. The cards, as always, drive the message.
From Nyasha Williams’ Black Tarot, today’s card is the Seven of Baskets (Cups.) The card contains a plethora of temptations, and this interpretation tells us that six of the baskets are filled with gifts representing love, property, wealth, revenge, victory, and death (in the form of junk food, lol.) The seventh basket, Williams tells us, represents our Higher Self, and the Ancestors. With odds of six to one, no wonder the world is as mixed up as it is. Things like wealth, revenge, the desire to win at all costs are powerful tugs on the psyches of all of us. It is why 45’s son-in-law, Jared, can coldly count the cash that could come from the beachfront property developing he would do once the inevitable razing of Rafah happens. It is why Hollywood is lining up to sign the letter condemning Jonathan Glazer’s Oscar speech, where he accurately compared apples to apples by equating Nazi genocide with Israeli genocide. It is why courts, including the Supreme one, are slow-walking 45’s date with destiny. It is why so many southern states are seeking supremacy of the palest kind over….everyone not them, and why states that are other than southern (Montana, Oregon, etc, etc, ) are busy taking notes in hope of joining the club. It is why men are so successful in asserting dominion over the bodies of women. It is why some women acquiesce and support such dominion, thinking it somehow advantages and protects them. It is why climate change is denied; why education is dumbed-down: it is all for the love of what is in those first six baskets.
Lenormand adds her commentary with Clouds, Child, Key. It is true that we are primates, led by the lures of those first six baskets. We also have the ability to be self-reflective; to be meta about our motivations. We feel the urge (albeit faint and faded) to glance at that seventh basket, the one filled with the wisdom of our ancestors and our own Higher Selves. Our first response is Clouds. They represent confusion, dissonant thinking, disequilibrium, which, of course, makes perfect sense. How, we ask, can we make peace with our Higher Selves and yet find ourselves so serially-seduced, either in our actions or in our silence, by the contents of Baskets 1-6? What is WRONG with us? Cher comes to mind, with her “SNAP OUT OF IT!” line from the movie Moonstruck.
Lenormand’s Child card suggests that that urge to slap sense into ourselves may need to give way to a newer, fresher approach. Where once we may have believed that people are intrinsically and essentially good, we may have to reckon with a less naive, more pragmatic truth based, I suppose, on physics, which says that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
We have the capacity to be and do good. We each also have an equal and opposite capacity to be and do good’s opposite. And the odds, remember are 6 to 1 that we choose the wrong capacity. The temptation to throw up our hands and take the path of least resistance, either through our ugly actions or our silence, is great. But our capacity to speak up, to do justice, to love mercy, are ours in equal measure. That seventh basket may be only one basket, but it is limitless and longing for our attention. Knowing that 6 need not be greater than 1 is Key, Lenormand reminds us.
This week’s Adinkra symbol is Owo Foro Adobe, which represents a snake climbing a raffia tree. A raffia tree is thorn-filled, and so a snake must navigate its way carefully if it is to scale the tree unscathed. So must we wend our careful way on life’s basket- filled, thorn-strewn paths. We must remember that six is not always greater than one, that we choose our basket in each moment. We are not powerless in determining what it means to be human. We may not be intrinsically good, but we can choose goodness, in every moment. That is why I write, and do not slap.
Amen and Ase
Bingo. Target hit!
You know the video of evangelist Benny Hinn taking his white coat and slappin' folks with it? This piece is a smackin' coat if I ever did read one. You hit all the targets, as usual, Erika. You interested in running for 47? You'd have my vote!