savetheearth | o2 ; text

You may want to look into a good antipsychotic.

Not those kind of voices.

The past me heard them too.

Oh. [considering.]

Tarot, psych...

[hmmmmmmm.]

There's a book I read for research back in college. Jungian criticism. The idea was to examine archetypes and the monomyth through the Fool's Journey and the Major Arcana. [former English major with a love of the occult. it was bound to happen.]

Besides that? I can't think of a connection between the two. [and it still leaves a lot of questions unanswered.]

Edited 2014-02-13 18:03 (UTC)

[Matt's not a dumb kid by any means. But this is Greek to him.] What, exactly, does that mean?

I mean I get it's the tarot, especially since the ones I've heard about so far are the Magician and Death, so there's not much else it can be referring to, but most of that's lost on me.

This'll be easier on video.

[aaand the frame turns on. darkness surrounds one of her hands before her tarot deck moves from across the room to land in her grasp. Basic Rider Waite deck, hard to go wrong with it.

She separates the Major Arcana from the Minor, returning the latter to the box.]

The Fool's Journey is kind of a metaphor, for the journey everyone takes through life.

Right, so we start off with the Fool...

[a card lifts up off the coffee table, facing the camera and floating.]

He represents beginnings - sort of an everyman that represents everyone at the beginning of life. His arms are wide open, his head is high, he's ready to see the world and face it - but he's about to fall off a cliff and doesn't realize it. He isn't stupid, but he's pretty simple. He has a sort of innocence and faith that let him go through this journey, never mind the danger and suffering. The number of the card, zero, represents possibilities. He's empty, the wild card - only really knowing himself and his own surroundings. He wants to go out and learn.

With me so far?

Edited 2014-02-13 18:37 (UTC)

[There's a beat and a moment where he looks confused by something. He stares at the fool before looking at her with a frown.]

That's me. The fool is me. [That sounds dumb, wait. He shakes his head.]

Like how Pharos was Death and Kenji and Anthony are Magician--I'm the Fool. [And that's why he has personas of different arcanas--which he doesn't quite understand the meaning of. He's the wild card. That's important for some reason.]

[she nods, carefully. this is starting to make some amount of sense.]

Then for now, why don't we push this further? If we can examine the Fool's Journey a little more, maybe we can make sense of how you get these Arcana associations.

[He nods.] Magician's next, right? [Maybe he can tell Anthony why he's getting these voices from him.]

[she nods in return, picking up a cup of tea from out of frame and taking a long sip.]

Right. Let's see...

[she plucks the Fool Card out of the air, placing it back down. With a flick of her wrist, two more float up into frame: Magician and High Priestess.]

The Fool meets the Magician and the High Priestess as soon as he leaves on his journey. The two of them balance each other as creative forces making up the visible world. The Magician - [she rotates the card around once to emphasize] is the positive side, the active power of creative impulses and shaping the world through one's own power and will.

In a lot of ways, the High Priestess [she does it again.] is the Magician's Shadow archetype, the flip side of the coin. She represents the unconscious, and potential waiting to be realized.

Edited 2014-02-14 00:43 (UTC)

[Eventually it's going to occur to him that she's definitely not touching the cards. At such a time he might ask questions. Until then--]

So why does the Magician come first, if he knows he can do it, and the Priestess is waiting to do it? [Matt shut up. Not the time for questions.]

[really, Matt? that's what you ask? Rachel just shrugs.]

The Priestess is more passive than the Magician. She doesn't wait to do it herself, she provides the opportunity for others.

[It's a good question!!!]

Yeah, but why would she go first if the Magician's the o--never mind. Keep going.

[YOU'RE TAKING THIS WAY TOO LITERALLY MATT]

Riiiight.

[The two cards drop. Two new ones come up from the table and turn around. The Empress and the Emperor.]

So after those two, we've got the Empress and the Emperor to deal with. As the Fool grows, he's gonna be more aware of his surroundings. The Empress represents a motherly, nurturing influence. Her card emphasizes abundance, nature, and all of the sensations and resources that the world has to offer.

In the same vein? The Fool's father figure is the Emperor. He brings authority and structure to the Fool's life, showing him the world's patterns. Rules are the big thing, and he'll start to see that the world doesn't revolve around him and what he wants. The Fool isn't gonna like it, he's going to bridle under limitations like these. But with the Emperor's help, he'll start to understand the point of them. Or something. That's the idea, anyway. [she tries not to let her contempt for this particular card show too much. DADDY ISSUES]

Edited 2014-02-14 04:41 (UTC)

That's exciting. [Matt shut the fuck up.]

But they're not actually people, right? Just conditions? So if the fool's journey is a thing, then why are people I'm meeting getting labeled with other arcana?

[considering...]

I think that's where Jung comes in.

And why is everybody not the fool? If it's everyone's journey.

In the context of the journey, everyone is, at some point. But - I think ...

[god, this is difficult.]

This is all conjecture, I'm making a lot of assumptions here from what I've studied, but... bear with me? [she raises up her hands, before running one down her face.] I think whatever assigns Arcana to the people around you might be using Jungian archetypes. It's looking at their psyche, at their personality and the specific problems they're dealing with - and maybe the role they play for you. If they were at the Fool's stage, that isn't what they're dealing with right now. It's picking a Major Arcana that represents them best.

I think you're at the Fool's stage in your "story". It might be taking the metaphor and applying it that way.

[He considers it. It somehow seems wrong, but he doesn't know enough to figure out why yet.]

What comes next?

The Hierophant and the Lovers...

[then she starts to type.]

Maybe it's time to speed this up. [then text pops up.]

The Fool's Journey. Failing that, the tl;dr version is hard to go wrong with.

[He pauses only because that's a lot of names and faces and he's kind of surprised they eventually peter out and stop.]

Thanks. This could help.

Not a problem.

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