Hanoi Vietnam, 5:25 a.m., air conditioner of upstairs unit just kicked on as I sit here on the 3rd floor balcony looking out into the hazy, pale, neon green light of hotel something 4 doors down in this tiny Old French Quarter Street. The cathedral bells just rang from, I believe, 2 different locations just slightly juxtaposed in time to create a layered sound that gave me impression of events happening just out of synchronization with each other, but in some collusion nonetheless. I'm in the glow of my terminal to the infosphere drinking the remainder of the Vang Dalat which I opened night before last and do not wish to let expire into vinegar world as I do not have a kitchen here to convert wines gone-off into sauces or marinades. (Vang Dalat is Vietnam's red wine)My mind is awash with topics of all sorts. There are Dali-esque mindscape with Hanoi-haze-clang-rumble sunrise, Motorbike beeps and putters, the prying sound I've come to associate with much of the Vietnamese which I do not understand and is spoken in the streets, My guerilla lover asleep in the room behind the french door to my right, what the hell am I doing? What is most provocative and piquant though is the huge tarot spread Ysiita (guerilla lover) and I put down yesterday morning. Of central focus and pressure to my mind is the Fortune trump card and the placement it occupied in the reading. I'm reading from a Thoth Deck that I've had for 15+ years. If you haven't worked personally with divination or don't believe in it, I can offer that from my experience, this deck knows me and it is no longer just a pile of paper rectangles with glossy images on them.
Fortune is simple, powerful and direct and gave it's "no bullshit" klaxon as the fist card pulled. The reading dealt with a lot of long reaching questions about our business interests and personal lives which we are joyfully and intentionally intertwining. Fortune, like a reaper and an angel was there at the door, or in this case, at the bifurcation point of every fractalized decision that one can make reminding us, "reap what ye sow". Yip, thanks dude.
The magic of tarot is that it always teaches, whether we believe it or not, like it or not, understand it or not. It exerts a pressure, which is very difficult to escape without reckoning. Even if one doesn't believe, still they are proving it right or wrong in their thoughts and so there! Still the dance of stars and archetypes parading in the twilight. I love it.
For me, now, this is a commentary on assertion in many forms. I am saturate these past days with this and with the balance of growth and decay as precipitates of our choices. In my meditations I am seeing the relationship of assertion and growth as the life expanding qualities which become aggression and decay in their destructive forms. The Fortune trump and many ensuing cards gave a great personal narrative to this dynamic within both our lives and prospective goals.
The shades of consequence between these words and the values they indicate are of great import in the world we have created together as a species and in the world we wish to create. If it is not apparent to you, consider the idea that the world we have been inhabiting is over with and a new one is being birthed right now, right on top of it and within it. This process is a seamless manifestation of collective dreams, thoughts and intentions and is determined just a bit more with every act, every thought, every word each day, each moment, each breath.
Of great import within collective dreaming if we would like it to go nicely is the framework of the creative dialogue and how we each understand and employ the tools. Assertion is a tool by which we make plain our intentions to ourselves and others around us. Aggression is when we export our assertions onto the actions of other people. One is necessary to create intentions, one triggers a cycle of decay. Choices.
Lack of assertion of one's desires or needs leads to decay. Simply enough, if one looks at the past, there is at least one thing that we can all agree on, that is, that in the next moment, something will happen. Seems stupid perhaps, but, what do you think is going on? Something always happens. Where does that Something come from? Who decides? uh huh. If we are just floating around waiting, wondering, ignorant as to our purpose and power in this everflowing river of creation then we get a series of happy or unhappy accidents. We're still creating our experience, but we're letting it be determined by our unconscious, often unexamined habits, motivations, frustrations or inspirations.
Know thyself, know what you want and say so. As long as we hide in ignorance of our own authorship of what we encounter we are deceiving our self, though not very well or for very long. For me this morning, with my gut in shambles I am reflecting on this as a simple constant choice as to how experience can unfold. On the morning after that rigorous encounter with divinatory art everything has fresh meaning. I see from this spot that there is a world which I have begun to assert as my chosen path. I see that the real results that occur in each moment as a derivation of the ones just past are always a precise reflection of the seeds that were planted.
My gut hurts because I ate too much and drank stuff that pissed off my pink membranes and other parts. I knew what would happen and I did it anyway. This was not assertion, this was decay. A little decay is educational and can lead to wisdom. Continued decay, in this case, is the refusal to become wise, which is in a sense, aggressive ignorance. In the light of the tarot's reminder of these facts and my own charting of new course, I see an important breakwater about me. It is time to unseal the vaults, use all that I've been given and be not blinded to what I know.
What we know is deep and I invite anyone to consider. Do I know? How to breathe? How to sit? How to chew my food? How to exercise my body? What food to eat? Which drink is good? What is too much? How to drive my passion? What extinguishes it? Who is a friend? Who is a trickster dissolved in their own confusions? What has value? But how often do we do something that disregards what we are certain of? Why might we do such a thing? Is there a cure?
Before I came to Vietnam about 4 weeks ago I asked the tarot what was of greatest consequence in this leg of my journey. It answered THE MOON. This was a forecast of a journey into the abyss of our own dark and hidden nature. AH, how I love the adventure. If a thing doesn't undo us first, how can there be a place for the gifts which it gives?
With Salt, MSG and Polysorbate,
J.W. Starr, Guerilla Love Artist
