Eery Ace

©Nemo's Locker

This week, I have chosen the Book of Azathoth Tarot (Nemo's Locker, 2012).  This self-published tarot is very striking, with its richly detailed, gold-on-black images.  It follows traditional RWS symbolism closely, yet with little gruesome and bizarre twists.  For example, the beings on the Cups cards are amphibious swamp creatures, the Wands cards show devils with curly horns, tails and hooves, Pentacles are represented by almost-human-looking beings, but with bald heads and heavily ridged spines, while Swords show elfin creatures with pointy ears.

For this first day, I drew the Ace of Cups.  A rather skeletal hand holds out a cup on which strange images writhe, while an equally skeletal bird drops a host into it.  Below the cup is the traditional, lily-strewn water, yet darker because of the black background.  Five streams flow from the cup, arching up unnaturally, while a total of 22 drops fall to either side. 

The card border, too, is strangely eery.  A many-toothed, serpentine monster on the left looks like it's trying to reach out of the card to eat us.  Meanwhile, smaller serpentine creatures swim in either direction along the top edge.  Some of the look as though they're swimming straight into the mouth of another big, hungry beast.  There is also a starfish, point down, in the left column, and a strange creature with four worm-like limbs on the right.  The word macabre springs to mind!

And yet, perhaps the message here is that there is love and a spiritual connection possible even in the midst of horror, fear and bare survival.  Even the ugly, disabled or monstrous (and there are days I would count myself among them) feel and seek joy.  And just because things look dark, we should not give up on the possibility of love, of relationship, whether to ourselves, others or the divine.

Taking time to feel and express love seems like good advice for today.  Likewise, taking time to seek joy - yep, Arwen, I hear you ;)  After a busy week, I will make the time to meditate, and take the opportunity to tell my nearest and dearest that I love them!

I am grateful for all the love in my life.