For the April 'poem a day' challenge in 2022, I'm writing haibun to explore and reflect on my new Tarot deck, Forests of Enchantment.
13 January 2023.
I'm sharing this, months after it was written, with Poets and Storytellers United, where this week's prompt for Friday Writings #59 is 'Use the word wheels or wheel somewhere in your piece.'
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The Wheel of Fortune shows the ups and downs of Fate, Luck, Chance, Destiny – whatever we call that. As it keeps going round, where we are on the wheel keeps changing. However, in a reading I always see it as a change for the better.
In this deck it’s The Enchanter’s Wheel – which looks rather like a big dream catcher I made for myself in a craft workshop, out of long, thin branches bent into a circle and adorned with various items which I found either beautiful or meaningful.
Here the circle of branches (or maybe vines?) is out in the forest, suspended between trees. It’s not rotating up and down, but contains other opposites in the kinds of symbols hanging from it: ‘tokens of life and death, healing and poison, mystery and wisdom, time and timelessness.’ We are informed that these all contribute to the wheel’s power, just as all our life experiences make a whole.
This Wheel was woven by the Enchanter (the great Magician, most powerful card in the deck).Then, this text includes actual magic – real spells you could really do!
Life, we’re told, is the great unknown, full of complexity and challenge, impossible to control or comprehend. We can find meaning only by engaging with it. This reminds me of the saying, ‘Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards’ (by the philosopher Kierkegaard).
I used to find that obvious truth frustrating, back when I longed to know the meaning of everything. I prayed to be given that ultimate understanding, if only on my deathbed. By now, I’m happy to accept that such complete understanding is impossible. And if one did attain such a blinding flash of insight, perhaps there would be nothing left but to die? No point continuing if there is nowhere further to go. I have become enamoured of the mystery, the eternal quest – where understanding does unfold but never concludes. (What if that IS the ultimate awareness?)
The true meaning of the Wheel is that ‘change is the only constant’.
after the storm
the sunny sky washed clean
pure blue
