Turn turn turn

Roots of Asia Tarot was one of my first decks, purchased as a sort of replacement for my very first deck, Osho Zen. The Osho Zen and I fell out. I decided it made me feel bad, and it just seemed to want me to feel that way. But I resisted buying Roots of Asia because to me the art was muddy, imprecise and, well, foreign. Someone on Aeclectic Tarot recommended it to me because I was seeking a deck with a deeply Buddhist sensibility, and I truly don't think you can get much more Buddhist than this deck. I know the deck is by a Thai artist who is/was possibly a Buddhist monk, and he used his hands and a knife to create the art, but that's all I know and to be honest, I'm not really terribly interested in details like. When it comes to decks, I'm more concerned with my personal reaction.

Two things I really appreciate about this deck. One, the names are all traditional RWS names, which is unusual when a deck is adapted to a theme. It really annoys me when people mess around and change the suit names. You got a Native American deck? Oops, better change the suits to sticks, arrows, rocks and peace pipes. You got a cute girly deck? Uh-oh, quick,  make that buttons, bows, lipstick cases and curling irons. It's ridiculous. But I digress. Two, the LWB is amazing. It's 87 pages long and uses every card meaning as an opportunity to educate the reader in solid Buddhist teachings. Plus it contains 3 powerful spreads and a surprisingly detailed introduction to insight meditation!

One thing I don't like about this deck. The backs. I think they're just repulsive. There's something here that is deeply sinister to me. Some people have that reaction to the Haindl backs. Well, I love the Haindl backs, I find them soulful. But Roots of Asia backs? No...just horrible, nightmarish even. I may have to devote a whole blog entry to parsing this back, but just look at it. A nose spouting smoke out of its nostrils. At the top of the nose, the eyebrows sort of turn into arms and then it looks like a man's back, with the red dot for the back of his head. But the arms/eyebrows are flaming claws, and one eye's a shiny moon that looks like the eyeball has been punched out and this light is piercing through. The other eye is covered over by a buxom angel with glowing nipples. Which then leads the eye around to notice all the big-breasted angels on this card. There's one at the bottom that seems to have three boobs, each one spouting a beam of light onto a smiling mouth. Then you notice the hands at the bottom of the card and realise the whole thing is a portait of a meditator. But if this is the stuff swirling in the mind when meditating--no way! Speaking of swirling, what is that gaping maw in the middle of the card sucking everything into it? Why is it between the nose and the mouth? Oh, it just doesn't bear thinking about. I never look at the backs of these cards if I can help it. They just freak me out.

But back to the reading. I asked the cards, 'Why am I drawn to use Roots of Asia this week'? I then pulled Hermit, Magician, 8 of Cups. Well, I've just embarked on a new project this week, and there's the Magician. I am feeling drawn again into my magical/spiritual/meditative path, which I've been away from for many months, and there's Hermit and 8 of Cups.

Let's have a look at a sample of one of those wonderful LWB tidbits:

8 of Cups. Awareness of Change and Impermanence. As nature has the motions and changes of the seasons of the year, so too our lives hold various changes and times. We wish to hold on to those seasons of happiness and run away from those seasons of anxiety. Our goal is to learn how to move freely within and in between the seasons that continue to come to us. The eight seasons of our lives are: time of accomplishment, time of loss, time of dignity and fame, time of obscurity, time of being blamed, and time of being praised, a time for happiness, and a time for pain.  Divinitory key: Searching for insight. Introspection.

I have noticed something about the seasons in the last couple of days. It's a curious thing. But I'll share that with you later.