WEEK 6: NO WHITE MOPING, NO SIGHS

Cards from the Ukiyo Tarot by Pietro Turino

I’ve been saying to myself for a few weeks I need to pull out the Next World Tarot for this blog, it makes total sense given the content. Well, sometimes something can almost be too right. I did use it this week, or anyway began to, and found that it’s so specifically speaking to this moment that I don’t even know where to begin in translating into an actionable thing for the week. Which doesn’t surprise me, because I have really oblique way of reading, I’m realizing; it’s almost as though I need the cards to do just enough… but too much, actually doing too much of the work for me, confuses me. 

Anyway, I moved on to the deck I though I’d use, the new Ukiyo Tarot by—Pietro Turino, released by Lo Scarabeo. It’s handsome, if somewhat confusing deck. 

In this case, I pulled three card and allowed each what I’m calling a “dangling modifier.” Only because of the way I laid them out; not in the grammatical sense. But I feel like the dangling cards only work with the card they dangle from, not with each other and not with other primaries. 

That gives us: Knight of Cups (Dangling: 4 of cups); 8 of Pentacles (dangling: 6 of Wands); 3 of cups (dangling: Ace of Wands). 

This 8 of Pents is giving Disney, which reminds me that it’s a pain in the ass but necessarily reality to work at the middle-finger giving that we must do to corporations who don’t reflect our values. The mass exodus of the public from Disney-owned properties after their not-remotely-shocking capitulation to the current asshole in the white house demonstrated how quickly collective action works, especially when a big company is going to lose its bottom line. In fact, this may be the only way to protest effectively sometimes—especially given the current asshole in the white house. The 6 of Wands dangling from the 8 of penties, a) reminds us that it worked; b, that feeling great that it worked is ok (yay victory) but the good feelings don’t justify putting anything down yet. Six indicates progress but not a final victory, the implication that we’re heading to the Ten of Wands reminds us that the journey will not leave us camera-ready. But the work (eight) should be motivated by the little win (and it is a minor, minor “win” if you can call it that at all), not stopped due to it. 

The 8/pents finds it self flanked by two cups cards: a knight, riding out of the reading, and the three, dancing within it.  The Knight of Cups is modified by the 4 of cups, who has given up on the effort and suddenly finds themselves feel despondent. We cannot stop doing things that work and expect to keep feeling good about ourselves or the way things progress. We, like, actually have to do the labor. In this combo, the Knight and 4 of Cups are giving white people tears, the way that we throw in the towel the second gets hard while people of global majority, queer people, etc., are standing there looking at us like, “That’s it? That’s all you have?” And rather than saying, “Oh, no, didn’t we just have a victory? Is isn’t over?” We just get mopey and say “I can’t do anything right!” 4s are so conservative. So are white people, much more than we realize. 

The Three of Cups with the Ace of Wands reminds us that their can be some celebration, but we don’t put down the club. In fact, we have to keep celebrating the tiny wins, especially when there aren’t any others. We have to keep lighting matches and flicking them to see what we can burn down. And we need to do that in dance with the community of people who make us feel safe and connected, lived, and spiritually expansive. Spiritual expansiveness is important, too. It is the match that may ignite the fire!

There we have it, friends. 
Onward. ​