Artist: Will Worthington

Authors: Mark Ryan & John Matthews

I want to learn the meanings of the cards. I am practicing finding meaning in the image before I look it up. I do have a lot of trouble focusing. It is difficult to ask a question when I don’t want to know anything, really. All I want is peace and happiness. Health is implied. Wealth is not. I suppose I don’t need a question.

The future is always uncertain. Anyone who thinks the future is certain is either self-deceptive or miserable. With this mindset, predictive use of the tarot deck doesn’t interest me. The present is always certain, tho it is generally impossible to see the certainty of the present in the present moment. Despite how certain we often are about what we think happened, the past fades into greater and greater uncertainty as time wears on— it is the future in reverse. Thinking such jumbled thoughts of uncertainty, I draw the Eight of Vessles.

I generally see cards in a positive light. They are affirmations. The keyword on this card is “rebirth.” In the Hindu religion, the concept of what we call “rebirth” is really “redeath,” for each birth necessitates its own death. After the final death there is no birth, whereas after the final birth death still has yet to come. The small vessels are individuals whose life pours out into the big vessel. The big vessel births itself once again into smaller, seemingly individual vessels. Nothing is truly individual; each necessitates the other. This continues the final death: birth as the river, the unifying entity, that place in which all souls are one. But is this truly the end? For the river itself flows on.

The authors write, “You have endured the past, its gifts were hard won; now the challenge of the future unfolds. Grasp it and shape it in your hands as you would have it manifest in your life.”