Queen of Air and Darkness

Breathing is good. The older I get, the more I appreciate breathing. I know it sounds a little stupid. Our bodies are marvelously designed so that we can control our breathing and when we're not paying attention, like when we're sleeping, we keep on breathing.

Mostly.

My boss at my Day Job noted more than once that I'm not a Morning Person. Well, no. I'm not. Now, don't get me wrong. I love mornings. Early mornings in California can make you think, at least for a few minutes, that the whole place belongs to you. It's quiet. More and more I like quiet, too.

I didn't realize I was such a fan of quiet until I went to a conference for work recently. I went to DreamForce along with, oh, 160,000 of my very best friends. We all carried blue backpacks and followed trails like hamsters on a camping trip. Seriously, for an empath, being in a crowd of 160,000 of motivated software seekers is like being screamed at by dolphins, locusts and maybe a few jumbo jets. Somewhere in the middle of my days of enlightenment, which WERE valuable for my work experience, truly, I declared that I was no longer an extrovert.

I don't know if it's possible to resign from a personality trait but I was willing to try. I no longer was energized by the frisson of others' happiness. I no longer wanted to talk all night, an extrovert's idea of dancing all night for you non-verbals. I no longer thrilled to the roar of the greasepaint and the smell of the crowd. I thought being in a real forest with songbirds, the occasional insect and fresh air was maybe the best thing I could think of--or maybe the beach with the sound of waves and seagulls and the smell of salt and seaweed. Those things were all I craved while I was surrounded by my eager companions from all over the world with their identical blue backpacks and program guides of presentations spread over 14 buildings and several days.

On the other hand, the bicycle rickshaw guys were aces! Better than taxis with the breeze in my face, less sardined than the Muni buses, my dedication to my rickshaw peddlers was something like the euphoria of adopting a kitten at the animal shelter. The separate peace was transcendent, a rolling air-bubble of serenity through the bumper-filled City streets. I could finally absorb some of avalanche of information from the conference with the air blowing in my face. I tipped.

And then recently I saw a clip about a guy who liked to sing Frank Sinatra style. He'd been blinded in the most extraordinary way. It seems that he had a common problem, sleep apnea. It doesn't seem so remarkable except that he had stopped breathing for a long enough to cut off the blood flow to his optic nerve, resulting in blindness.

I was thunderstruck. Well, maybe literally. It would be an understatement to say I snore. One of my friends told me that my husband MUST be a saint to put up with that for so many years. It's embarrassing. My goddess girls have learned practical ways of dealing with it, like putting me in separate sleeping quarters. When I go to Tarot conferences, I tend to pick roomies who are somewhat hard of hearing or all-night partiers. I try to spare them the worst of my nighttime serenade.

After I saw the Sinatra singer's story, I wrote a note to my doctor. Have we ever talked about this? I don't just snore like a freight train. Think 747's or Cape Canaveral rockets. Think super-villains with world-threatening sonic weapons. And I don't just snore. I laugh, talk, whistle, sing, fight demons with mad martial arts skillz, hell, I even talk on the phone--I do just about everything except walk in my sleep. Walking might give whoever is in the room with me a break, you know? Apparently my subconscious draws the line somewhere. I've heard of CPAP machines that might help.

One night's Sleep Clinic testing showed that on average I naturally stop breathing around 79 times per hour. Stop. Breathing. 79 times per hour. It's like an all-night panic attack. One of the questionnaire items was Do you feel more tired when you get up in the morning than when you go to bed at night? Uh. Yeah.

Cue Star Trek's Bones (Doc McCoy) shaking his head saying, "She's dead, Jim."

In Tarot the Queen of Swords is the Queen of Air and Darkness, the recipient of logic, the supporter of knowledge, the disciple of Truth. She is classically the smartest girl in the deck. Often she is unhappy and often she likes to share, not to make people unhappy too, but so they know the truth. She is without romance, but not without feeling. She knows the Truth often isn't pretty. But the Truth is something you can hang onto, even if it's like hanging onto the sharp end of the sword.

Picture Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord

It was time for me to call upon my inner Queen of Swords. I needed more air in the darkness before I lost brain cells or an optic nerve or something I valued.

On the first week with the CPAP machine, I went from stopping breathing an average of 79 times per hour to 7 times per hour. I actually LIKE mornings now. They'd really like it if I got that 7 down to 4 or fewer because, well, stopping breathing is just not good for your heart, your head, your weight, your sanity. It's a long list.

I'm fortunate that I have access to health care so that I can get the right mix of air all night long. My dreams have changed and have become more fun, although I did dream of Leonard Cohen the night before he died. Leonard had never been a guest in my dreams before, so it was nice to meet him on his way out. He was friendly, neighborly, positive, pleasant.

They are still experimenting with the right model of machine is perfect to shove a little more oxygen into my bloodstream. And my nosecone does make me look a little like part of the Borg collective, 6 of 4, I've dubbed myself--not that good at math.

The harsh truth can be like shoving air down your throat. You can fight it with a panic attack or you can treat it like the joy a dog has with his schnozz stuck out the car window. Sniff ALL the sniffs, I say.

Oh, and I'm told I don't snore anymore. Score.

Best wishes.

Attack of Conscience

I talked to anything when I was little. Mom got me a parakeet. Jill, a male parakeet as it turns out, seldom got a word in edgewise. He could say, “Drink,” especially when he heard water running in the kitchen sink. Jill and I were adoring friends, though. He liked to sit on top of my head and play with my long blonde hair.

We had dogs when I was very little, springer spaniels, I think. Clementine, named for my very favorite song that she and I would sing together, encouraged to stay outdoors, shared a dog biscuit one day when I was in need of deep doggy comfort. Of course, I talked to Clementine, certain she understood my every word.

Clementine and her brother Rocky had to go away though. I don’t remember why. It was some grown up reason of course. Having had and lost a dog all in one year, a year when my parents were in full bloom of their years-long, most bitter and violent fighting, I switched roles in what now seems like a perfectly understandable way from a psychological point of view. I became protective of all animals who needed someone to hug them and love them and talk softly to them. I became detached from people who were angry and sad and loud and frightening. I built fortresses of stuffed animals to buffer me from the screaming and tears when I wasn’t trying to actively intervene to make it better.

I quickly learned to read and became a fan of children’s mysteries, usually stories where the adults who were supposed to help didn’t or couldn’t. The children rose to the occasion, most often with their animal companions who understood and supported them. Often the children, the animals or something interesting they found was magical in nature. Sometimes a kindly older person would give them a hint or let them in on a secret most adults had forgotten.

Half Magic by Edward Eager was one of my favorites. Four children, left to the latch-key because their father was gone and their mother was forced to work, stumble across a nickel that wasn’t exactly a nickel. It was, of course, magic. Each of the children had an adventure, first by accident with one of them musing that she wished kitty could talk. The cat started sputtering in nearly-English epithets and the children worked out that the nickel was, well, half magic. They got half their wishes with unpredictable results.

One of the children, Kay, wanted to be part of King Arthur’s Round Table and found herself seated on a horse in full armor, a knight, “Sir” Kay. After knightly bravery and feats of derring-do, she takes off her helmet to reveal that she is, after all, just a little girl. I loved this part.

How could I be strong, brave, noble, effective, triumphant, rescuing, able, protected and protective? How could I be all those things and still a little girl? I liked being a girl. I just wanted to be all those other things too. Kay got her chance to wear her armor and was assumed to be knightly until she revealed herself to be herself, someone who was underestimated.

It should not be a surprise, then, that all my pets are rescues. Maybe it is because I wanted to be rescued from my family’s unhappiness and turned it around so I would not cast myself in the role of victim without hope.

In the transition from talking to stuffed-toys to adult stray critter collector, I had some bumps along the way.

It was 7^th grade, a year of bitter disappointments, social disasters and dashed fantasies. It was winter in wind-bitten New Mexico and lunch-time. We huddled in groups, near doorways, behind trees, anywhere on the junior high campus to shield us from the relentless blast that went through all the layers of clothing, sometimes laced with “dry” snow, little ice balls with a grain of dust at the center of each. We waited for the teachers to let us back into the building.

A commotion on the east wall of the main building drew my attention. It was one of the teachers, Mr. Burke, a bull of a man, history teacher and football coach. A shivering puppy had wandered onto the campus and sought shelter in a winter-dormant flower patch. Mr. Burke was kicking the puppy, kicking its head against the wall, the rough brick wall. The puppy was squealing in pain. Mr. Burke was yelling. The kids were yelling. I snapped.

I had no armor but I charged. I landed on the teacher’s back like a creature from a gothic horror, screaming, trying to strangle him. I had never tried to kill anyone or anything besides cockroaches before. I was only partially successful. The puppy got away. Mr. Burke lived.

For the next two years, I called him “Fatty” to his face, daring him to hit me even as he punched my cafeteria lunch ticket each day in line. I learned he beat his children. I saw his daughter bear the bruises of his brutality. My loathing grew. This abuser of the weak had power over us. He learned I played football in the summers with the boys, one of only two girls the guys allowed to play. Mr. Burke said it was too bad I couldn’t play varsity junior high football since I wiped up the sandlot with his team off season. I smirked but hated him still.

Finally, junior high was nearly over. I had a hall pass, a valid reason to be in the hallway during class for some errand. And Mr. Burke stopped me.

“I have a hall pass,” I glared defiantly, all 5’1” of pure resentment. Oh, this teacher inspired me, all right. I determined to be a teacher. One more of me meant one fewer of his kind. I couldn’t kill him even though I tried that one day long ago but I could be what he never could.

“See here, McCord,” he sputtered. “I have to ask you a question.” I waited, feet planted.

Tea Tarot
(c) Copyright 2011 Marcia McCord

“All this time I thought you were just some ordinary ornery kid, calling me names. Now I find out you’re one of the smartest kids in school. Why don’t you treat me with respect?”

I was astonished. He didn’t know. His depravity was so complete that it never occurred to him what he was. My chin started to crawl up my face, about to crumple into tears. But Mom had taught me if you’re going to talk, say something intelligent. I spoke distinctly, knowing I would not be able to repeat myself.

“I cannot respect a man who kicks dogs,” I spat out word by word, suddenly 6 feet tall in full armor, my hall pass a sword in my hand. I had risen to become not the Knight but the Queen of Swords finally able use the truth as a weapon in defense against tyranny. And I ran for the girls’ bathroom and stayed, sobbing until the bell rang. I was half magic too.

Best wishes.

Fire Works

It occurred to me just now that several of the cards in my various decks have a smidgen of USA patriotism portrayed in them and that, in honor of my country’s birthday, I might do a reading with them. So first, let me get the cards in question assembled here in between moments when I have to assure my various small creatures that the explosions they are hearing are not gun or cannon fire but good-natured fireworks.

Oh, and while we’re waiting for me to pull those cards, more than one person I know has commented on the irony of the EXTREME FIRE DANGER signs posted by the people trying to keep you, yours and parklands from burning up juxtaposed with FIREWORKS FOR SALE at the corner of "hay stubble" and "countryside brown and crispy as matches." I know they’re saying that people will someday think that Manhattan was built in astronomical alignment with the sunrise on July 11, a “Manhattanhenge.” What will they make of our unwitting mixed messages like these? I know, I know, it’s an election year and folks, even you folks are going to remind me that mixed messages are the fare of the day. I suppose.

At any rate, if you plan to set the world on fire, do it with inspiration and kindness and not with fireworks or any other incendiary device, if you don’t mind. It’s just my preference. I was just in Colorado after all, between two fires that the press isn’t even talking about that much.

You’re burning with curiosity about these cards. I can tell. So let’s get going.

Tea Tarot
(c) Copyright 2011 Marcia McCord

Looking through my decks, I find I have made only one major arcana card patriotic-themed. That’s the Emperor from the Tea Tarot. And such a theme that is in our news constantly, isn’t it? The President, the election, the nature of effective leadership, what kind of leadership is needed in our country today, all these things are foremost in our consciousness, often because that’s where the people reporting on the news want us to focus, often because those who have strong feelings about political themes want us to focus and, occasionally, by accident. The Emperor’s themes are temporal rule, the idea of boundaries, power, its uses and abuses, decision making, the Executive Branch of anything including your life. It’s what you do with it that counts. Of course, by making a decision, you’ve necessarily decided against, if only temporarily, the alternatives. The Emperor stirs emotions, both positive and negative. In this year of the Hierophant, the two major cards struggle. How do we separate religious belief from rule of law? Can we do it?

Art Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord

Within the same theme of politics and leadership, especially leadership style, is the King of Wands from the Art Postcard Tarot. Theodore Roosevelt was that “walk softly and carry a big stick” guy, never subtle, known for his “bully” enthusiasm when bully could mean something positive instead of the oppression of strong against weak as we understand the word today. And yet critics saw that other definition looming so this card is actually a cartoon where Teddy’s own Teddy Bear whispers in his ear, “No third term.” Should we have term limits to avoid entrenched thinking? Or should we have constant turnover that boots the incumbents just as they are starting to make a difference? It’s another theme in our country.

War, the military, how we treat others, how we defend others and ourselves, how we treat those who have defended us, all these things show up in the next group of cards. Like it or not, we in the USA have a love-hate relationship with war. We want to honor our heroes because they are our loved ones as in the Picture Postcard Tarot 8 of Cups. Too many families have said goodbye to their loved ones in the military, hoping for them to return. And when they return, will they be whole? Certainly, they will never be the same, no matter what their experience. Will they have lived bravely through the gut-wrenching decisions and heart-pounding luck? Will they have jobs when they come home? Will they be hated or loved or feared or ignored? Will they be thanked?

Picture Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord

Picture Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord

Will their dedication to the principles of freedom and liberty be recognized, even late? Kady Brownell who is the Queen of Swords in the Picture Postcard Tarot was the only woman to receive official discharge papers from the Union Army and granted an Army Pension and recognized as a member of the Grand Army of the Republic for joining her husband in battle in America’s Civil War. Her thanks came late. Her pension was $8.00 per month and started in 1884, 20 years after the end of the war. Her recognition is a footnote. Was she the first veteran to be officially given a bad deal at the end of her service?

Picture Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord

Like Custer in the Picture Postcard Tarot 5 of Swords, will those who stand out in the field of battle be too confident and lose everything, including the glory they so longed for? Is war a win-lose scenario? A lose-lose scenario? Custer hoped to be President someday but is remembered today for his remarkable defeat in a battle with First Peoples. Will those who strive for glory be remembered for folly and pride, misjudging the task at hand, leading their loyal followers to a place of curiosity and shame in history?

Picture Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord

The Economy. The words are on everyone’s mind and not just in the USA. The Picture Postcard Tarot Ace of Pentacles is both a look backward to the past idea of the USA as a world economic power and a look forward. Is the USA past its prime as an economic power? Can we renew the engine that has kept everyone’s hope for comfort, security, shelter, health and well-being? In this hottest of topics before us, how to spend our limited dollars is perhaps the one thought on everyone’s mind and yet likely the subject of bitterest debate.

Victorian Trade Card Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord

The Victorian Trade Card Tarot 4 of Pentacles shows the American eagle, our symbol bird, feeding her young, tending the fledglings who will become the future, ever mindful of those who would prey on them. Our eagle shows us charity begins at home. I think we have no argument there. What divides us so often is where that care and nurturing ends. Do the strong protect and foster the weak and young, but only their own? Do we abandon the old, the infirm, the less-fortunate to predators? How do we care for those in need? What if, in the midst of crushing poverty, there was a mind so remarkable, a talent so undeniable and so necessary at the perfect moment in time? It doesn’t happen today, but in our past, several of our Presidents have come from such humble circumstances. Should only the strong and wealthy survive?

Art Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord

So, this July 4, while we exercise a power we are barely able to control, like the Art Postcard Tarot Page of Wands, let us continue to learn and grow wise. I hope that we use the spark of inspiration, not to set fire either accidentally or purposefully to all that has come before us, but to grow and glow as a nation, diverse, opinionated, reckless, sometimes bright as lightning, sometimes ignorant and dim, but always striving to make the world a better place for everyone.

Best wishes!

Turn the Page

Summer time gives me a chance to have my tarot classes in my backyard, hence the name “Marcia’s Backyard Tarot Classes.” I was trying to avoid being overly clever with the naming so that the purpose and perhaps even the location would be clear. Even the best of efforts, of course, can fail.

“I teach Tarot. In my backyard.” It seems simple enough but I do get questions. This year instead of dragging my tent to all kinds of festivals to read Tarot, I’ve limited that to just a fun few and set the ol’ tent up in the backyard. My husband had been threatening to trim the privet tree (you can’t call something that big a bush when it’s as tall as the house) and one of my Cecile Brunner roses (same height, old rose) which are intertwined so that the fence would stay up and the branches wouldn’t open a living room window, suddenly. And he did. It was such a good job that my shady patio wasn’t that shady. The sparrows pouted about their reduced real estate and the cats were fascinated about the improved view. But I still need my shade for the patio.

California is different from other places I’ve lived. Places like Illinois and Missouri don’t cool off on summer nights when the sun goes down. But California is delightful in its weather-etiquette. If you are in the shade, you are likely to be comfortable even on the hottest days. It’s just that California also has these desert sections that seldom provide shade for those over two feet tall so it can still be hot here. That, and the “Santa Anas” come when the wind patterns shift and suddenly the hot valleys empty their furnace-blast towards the ocean and everyone complains, with good reason, about the high fire danger. That time doesn’t usually last that long, thank goodness.

I don’t like to gloat but while lots of people have been having the sticky-gummy-runny-can’t-take-your-skin-off kind of summer, we’ve had another fairly cool one this year. Still, if you sit in the sun long enough, you’ll scorch, no matter how cool the breezes are. So, tent it is but with the side panels off so the breeze can blow through.

My last class focused on the Tarot Court Cards. Those are the page, knight, queen and king of the four suits, wands, swords, cups and pentacles. There are 16 court cards in all and they are sometimes thought of as the “personalities” of the deck.

So, not to bore you non-Tarot folks with too deep a dive into the class, my students are a fun bunch of gentle people with varying experience. This is just the kind of classroom diversity I like: extraverts, introverts, novices, experienced folks. Of course, since I’m an extravert…ok, raise your hand if you couldn’t tell. I like to say that I’m the quiet one in our family since John is an extravert also, maybe pegging a bit higher on the E scale than I do. This amazes my long-term friends who were used to my let us say “breathless” charm and banter.

There’s a cute post on Facebook right now that talks about the TLC needed by introverts. If you don’t read too carefully, you get the idea that introverts are people who are tired of listening to extraverts. Ha-rumph! I need my space too, you know. And I don’t always talk in my sleep.

Furthermore, there’s some assumption that introverts understand extraverts because they hear them talking. Who says we E people say everything we’re thinking? While I’m chatting you up about how much your hair doesn’t make you look like Justin Bieber really, I’m also remembering my dental appointment on the 16th, fighting off some song in my head that intruded when I smelled your cologne, about to get the appetizers out of the oven, noting the utterly divine red shoes across the room and about to change the topic to the piece of the tragic Columbia shuttle they just found in Texas because you are obviously uncomfortable with any further reassurance about your hair. In short, I’m trying to be nice to you but you have no idea of all the things I’m thinking from just what I’m saying. That would be like saying that all introverts have a one-track mind, certainly unfair too.

Actually, this is all good-natured banter. About 50% of the population of the world is classified in the Jungian-based MBTI as introvert while the rest of us Chatty Cathies are extravert. And interestingly, here we are back at the Tarot Court Cards. So one of the fun exercises we did in my class was to randomly pull a couple of court cards and have them talk to each other. What do they agree about? Where do they differ?

Our first pair was the King of Swords and Queen of Swords, whose pillow talk ranged from complaining to each other how stupid the rest of the world is and that they have to do everything themselves, despairing in the dull wits especially of their child who must be the result of an error in the maternity ward. The King groused away without a thought for her feelings, while the Queen sniped that his problems were, after all, all his fault. It was starting to get fun. Then we had the Page of Pentacles, who must be the dullard child of the K and Q of Swords, being asked to the prom by the Knight of Swords, a sort of irresistible force meets the immoveable object kind of thing. And the class was getting the hang of the energies of the personalities of the Courts.

So, I thought today, what if we got the four Pages in a room together, mostly because Mercury is going retrograde today and Pages are all about communication. They’d be something like students at Hogwarts without those cool wands or brooms. Maybe the Page of Wands would have the wand, OK. So what do they say to each other?

“C’mon, guys, let’s DO something! Wanna toss around the ol’ pigskin or go through a bucket of balls?” gushed the Page of Wands, always first to voice his not-too-well-thought-out impulses, raw energy apparent without too many specifics.

“Wow, hope this doesn’t hurt your feelings or anything, but I was going to watch that new Chick Flick. They say it’s a whole box of tissues. I just feel so connected when everything looks like it’s going to be the worst and then turns out happy for everyone,” smiled the Page of Cups, staring dreamily into his green tea, looking for leaves clinging to the cup. “I’ll bet you’ll have a great time, Wands-y.”

“Naw, I’m getting a pizza and watching the Dirty Jobs marathon. Me and my remote. After all, we’ve already paid for the cable,” said the Page of Pentacles, patting his solid “table muscle” and sinking solidly into the couch to ready himself for some serious downtime. “I gotta save my energy.”

“You guys are all idiots,” muttered the Page of Swords into his iPhone as he texted some smart people he really liked and put his earbuds in to block out the din of others’ voices. He had heard enough but wasn’t about to tell them anything more than that. He thought about taking the skateboard out but was drawn deeper into the mental gymnastics of the multiple games he played simultaneously in his electronic world, oblivious to his fellow Pages.

All of these Pages are going to grow up to be Big Courts someday, just like we did. When they’re older, they can afford their own places and not have to be bothered with each other. At least the Page of Pentacles can.



Best wishes!

***

All of today's Pages are part of the Tea Tarot, (c) Copyright 2011 Marcia McCord.  The Tea Tarot is available for sale on the Tarot Decks page of this blog.  Reproduction of images from this deck and others copyrighted by me is forbidden without my prior consent.

My next Backyard Tarot class is Saturday, August 13, 2011, starting at 1 pm Pacific Time in Vallejo, California.  Cost per person is $30. Contact me via the email link on the right for more information.

And don't forget there is still time to sneak in a reservation to SF BATS, the Bay Area Tarot Symposium August 27-28, 2011.  If you like Tarot, you will love BATS!  Can't go both days?  You can go one!  Check it out!

Legacy

Since my husband and I hosted his family's reunion last weekend together with his sister and their cousin, I'm exhausted but still thinking about family ties.  I do, of course, plan to write about the family reunion, keeping with the tradition in blogging, if there is such a thing, that no topic is safe from discussion via a blog.  However, until I can gather my wits...or was it just the one wit?  Until I can gather myself back together, this is a reprinted column previously published in Aleesha Stephenson's lovely Timeless Spirit eMagazine, November 2010.  I hope, if you have not already, you will take advantage of the free subscription.

Mom married late in life and had my brother and me eleven months apart when she was 41 and 42 before there were a lot of special medical processes to assist with late in life babies. She was overjoyed to have children. It was her lifelong dream. She had tremendous insecurities about her own looks and attractiveness, so two happy babies with big blue eyes were a miracle to her.

It didn’t matter that I didn’t have hair for a year or so; she taped bows to my head until my first wispy, then thick blonde hair grew in. She marveled that I spoke complete sentences at 9 months then realized the downside of an introvert mother raising an extravert child.

“The reason you talk in your sleep,” she explained, “is that you just didn’t get everything said during the day.” Most of the time, she adjusted as much as she could to having a chatterbox child. She was curious and eager about childhood mental development. One of my earliest memories is sitting in my high chair in the kitchen telling “Banana Stories” with her.

“If I had three bananas,” she held up her fingers and drew bananas in yellow chalk on our chalkboard on the kitchen wall, “and you ate one of them, how many bananas would I have?” I giggled uncontrollably at the thought of the delicious naughtiness of a possibly purloined banana and answered. I never tired of Banana Stories or the stories of her childhood. I became her confidante, her sounding board and sometimes her only friend.

Over time I realized my mother, despite her delight in her children, was almost constantly depressed. She held onto what was painful in her life like clutching a knife at the blade or gripping broken glass. I knew the stories of her pain so well that it was almost like being there. Her first grade teacher made fun of her drawing of a 4-legged bird. Her mother always dressed her sister in blue dresses and she got brown ones. Her college professor held a tuning fork to her head to prove it was a vacuum. She was flashed on a train. She was humiliated by her parents, her sister, her teachers, her first boyfriend, her friends, her friends’ families, her bosses.


Picture Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord



Of course, she persisted in life. She had a journalism degree from a respected university. She was a reporter and an editor. She was a WAVE and worked at decoding secret messages. She was a wiz at Blackjack. She started her own business as an antique dealer. She loved baseball.

She told me in a matter-of-fact voice more than once that the more intelligent you are, the more suicide seems like a good option. The smarter you are, the more you realize how hopeless everything is, she explained.

Even as a small child, alarms, healthy alarms went off in my head when she would say this. She had praised me for my intelligence, rewarded me for it. I wanted to be smart. It was fun, fun being me. I wanted her praise. But I did not want to die. My mother had an encyclopedic knowledge of the world and voracious urge to learn more. She explained that the requirement for being a truly good journalist was to know everything. And I watched her every time she posited the correlation between intelligence and suicide, Chatty Cathy made silent at these times.


Picture Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord



Must I choose between being stupid and alive v. being intelligent and dead? And of course, was she going to succumb to her idea of the ultimate intelligence? Was she the realization of the Queen of Swords reversed: bitter, sad, so focused on the negative, denying her own empowerment, hopeless, angry, constantly disappointed with herself and the rest of the world? Was she the embodiment of the 8 of Swords, the limitations of her own thinking imprisoning her? Was she also the 5 of Pentacles, always feeling on the outside, rejecting all comfort of religion with her professions of agnosticism, citing her favorite Biblical moment identifying with Doubting Thomas?

You never know the gifts you will give others, especially your children. In spite of her enduring and passionate negativity she had given me a few gifts, one consciously. “Just remember,” she told me, “Nothing, nothing diminishes you.” I don’t know exactly where this ray of hope came from within her. Perhaps she, like any ferociously protective mother, sought to sacrifice herself to her demons but save me.


Picture Postcard Tarot
(c) Copyright 2010 Marcia McCord


An in her terrible Sphinx riddle connecting intelligence to suicide, she gave me another gift, unwittingly. She cemented my identity as separate from hers. I could not agree with her. I realized the limitations of logic, especially hers. I could not be diminished by her depression. I could not be dragged down into the hell of her sadness. Sensitive as I was, aware of spirit as I was, I was given such an important gift. I was able to separate myself from those near me.

Being a tarot reader, I hear and sense some amazingly wonderful things but also some horrors beyond the most frightening movies or books. Some tarot readers ask each other, “How do you separate yourself from your sitters or from a reading? How do you keep from falling in a hole with them?” Even if they survived an “identity crisis” in childhood like I did, I recommend exercises to maintain sense of self.

Take time away. Do something linear and tactile like wash the car, walk the dog, pull weeds. Meditate. Be conscious of your own boundaries and revel in them. They distinguish you, in more than one sense of the word. Soon, the paradox we live in, of being all connected, yet all separate in this life will settle in comfortably. We are spirit and matter. Both are important.

You’ll find the gift, the legacy of learning from others’ lives. Nothing diminishes you, either.

Best wishes.