"....the darkness also contains truths that could bring the light to its knees." Andrea Gibson
TAROT: Daughter of Baskets / LENORMAND: Tower, Star, Scales / ADINKRA: Mpatapo
Last week, I talked about the importance of rest. This week, the message chosen by Tarot is not unrelated, but it comes with a twist. We are given the Daughter of Baskets from The Black Tarot by Nyasha Williams. This card is the equivalent of the Knight of Cups in traditional Tarot. That armor-clad Knight sits astride a white steed, and bears a cup in his hand. In this version, we have a young woman in a sleeveless white dress. She wears a straw sunhat over her long, bead-tipped locs, and she ambles through a field of lavender, a basket in her hand. In both versions, the card bespeaks an idealized version of love, and is meant to remind us to think creatively and expansively about that emotion and how it shows up in our lives, both as we give and as we receive.
The wonderful poet and essayist, Andrea Gibson died the other day, far too young. Here’s one of their poems:
A difficult life is not less
worth living than a gentle one.
Joy is simply easier to carry
than sorrow. And your heart
could lift a city from how long
you’ve spent holding what’s been
nearly impossible to hold.
This world needs those
who know how to do that.
Those who could find a tunnel
that has no light at the end of it,
and hold it up like a telescope
to know the darkness
also contains truths that could
bring the light to its knees.
Grief astronomer, adjust the lens,
look closer, tell us what you see.
~
I think that, these days, most of us would qualify as ‘grief astronomers.’ The test, I suppose, is the degree to which we are each willing to take up our respective telescopes. It’s easy to love what is patently love-worthy, of course: babies and kittens come to mind, as do sunsets and great meals and soft beds shared with our romantic partners. And there is art, of course, and music, and writing, all of whose beauty has power to make us weepy. If we were of the MAGA persuasion, we’d have considered 45 love-worthy, as well as the bill of goods he would have sold us. I guess. I suppose. I wouldn’t know.
The question we must ask ourselves is how willing we are to move past idealized love and towards a love that is clearer-eyed, ploddingly quotidian, messy, even. Our Daughter of Baskets glides through fields of lavender. If her bare feet sink into fertilizing manure, will her meandering still feel as magical?
Being one of Gibson’s ‘grief astronomers’ means being willing to turn inwards, towards the parts of ourselves and our experiences that feel less innately lovable, but are harder, sharper, uglier. Our all too human instinct is to avoid, to deny, to negate, to blame, to ignore as much of that as we can. But an astronomer seeks out what there is to see in that dark sky; that Daughter of Baskets plods through the manure, probably with determination, more than lightness of spirit, because she knows lavender will be her reward.
What is our reward for turning inward towards the tunnels of our deepest selves? Gibson tells us there are stars to be had and also to share. Lenormand would concur, with Tower, Star, Scales.
A YouTube viewer commented that I was a ‘terrible person who makes white people feel guilty.’ She advised that I rebrand my channel “for black people only.” While she would be considered a ‘troll’ in social media parlance, I have tried to think about her in the context of the Daughter of Baskets: she slung a little manure my way, once she found my field not always purple and sweetly scented. Could it simply be that the things I say struck a nerve for someone afraid to become a ‘grief astronomer’? They say there is no such thing as an ‘enemy.’ That enemies are simply mirrors that hold up to us those things in ourselves we find objectionable. How much easier it is to punch the other guy than to sit with ourselves in the dark, in hopes that, with our telescopes, we can find the light?
The Lenormand Tower is a card of independence, autonomy, resilience, fortitude. We need all of those qualities to learn to love ourselves in spite of our less lovable instincts. The Lenormand Star agrees with Gibson, that it is so worth it to sit in our own dark in order to find illumination and truth. The Lenormand Scale asks us to do a cost/benefit analysis: is it better (though harder) to plumb our own depths than it is to cultivate cluelessness, stay asleep, lash out at whatever invites us to learn ourselves more deeply? Each of us must draw our own conclusion. I suspect that many of the MAGA millions are asking themselves that now. I wonder if any of them will be out in the streets tomorrow protesting against presidents who would be kings. The Daughter of Baskets asks that we seal our lips against saying any version of “I told you so.” If that is a conclusion that some will reach, let it be with their own telescope gazing at their own internal sky. We must simply be willing to welcome them to the exercise. That will be no easy feat for us. It will require the stretching and expanding of that idealized concept of love the Daughter of Baskets embodies, into something more honest and clearer and true.
Adinkra gives us Mpatapo, the symbol for forgiveness and reconciliation. We may well not be there right now, any of us. But we can use the telescope that this great national grief has handed each of us, to chart pathways to forgiveness of and reconciliation with ourselves and each other in this deep, dark night sky.
Amen and Ase,
Erika
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The Language of Lenormand (My Book)
Thank you for these wisdoms as well as the thought provoking poem.
Oh, my goodness. This is beautiful and searing. Thank you for always raising the bar, calling us to do our best work in your presence. I can only imagine how deeply you touched your students when you taught them. So glad you are here!