Patience, patience

Hah! My next "weekly" reading appears only a day later! I know that when the weather warms up, I'll be spending a lot of time doing garden-related things, so I may as well post while I have time on my hands. If I do 52 posts over the course of the year, I'll call it "weekly enough".

Today I asked Quantum a simple question. I've been coveting the Bohemian Gothic, because it is beautiful, dark, mysterious, and has different imagery from anything else I have--should I actually need a reason to covet it. It still isn't available from amazon.ca, but amazon.com has it. The base price is reasonable, but shipping, taxes, duties, and the exchange rate nickel and dime it from being within my price limit to being well out of it. I'm just worried that the deck will go out of print before I buy it. The question I asked the Quantum (and it doesn't seem like a jealous deck) is whether I should buy the Bohemian now, or wait for an unspecified later.

I intended to take a single card from the top of the deck, but the second card insisted on coming along, no matter what. So I included it. Behold, the Three of Wands and the Knight of Pentacles. For me, these usually mean waiting for one's ship to come in, and exercising patience.

Here, the imagery is the night sea sparkling and dancing with the reflection of a galaxy cluster. There are ghostly ship's sails and a silhouetted watcher, whose arm is raised as if to say, "Behold!". The Knight somewhat mirrors the Three in the form of a silhouetted centaur, arm raised toward a flourishing tree. A schematic rendering of the constellation Centaurus is superimposed on the image.

Feeling furtive, because my nose was literally deep in the Little White Book (which is very small, like a prayer book, and the print threatens to disappear into the binding, and the whole thing loves to snap shut so you lose your place), I read of galaxy clusters and the myth of Chiron.

A galaxy, of course, is a cluster of stars. A galaxy cluster is a cluster of galaxies. A galaxy supercluster is a cluster of clusters. Are you keeping track? Can you comprehend the scale? Then, the void between the clusters make those clusters seem tiny. The message of the card is to THINK BIG. Think beyond the limitations of what we believe to be the real world. "...We can have our heart's desire if only we are willing to expand our horizons in time and space."

Chiron was a wise centaur who was a teacher to Jason and Hercules. Hercules accidentally shot him in the knee with a poisoned arrow. Chiron gained much of his healing wisdom trying to cure himself. As the Knight of Pentacles, he represents plodding progress, doubtless because of his injured leg. "This is the card of small steps rather than giant leaps."

Placing this reading back to back with yesterday's, which counselled patience, I can only read this as the same. I can only appreciate so many decks at once. Build the collection slowly, just in case this is a passing craze with me (but I doubt it). Think beyond the "urgency" of the moment. All kinds of opportunities could turn up. The ship could come back with more than I'd imagined. The tall tree that Chiron points to is vigorous, but didn't spring up in a day. They could even be gesturing to something BETWEEN the cards that I can't see. Patience, patience!

I could have read this intuitively, based on my RWS experience, but I would have missed the richness of the mythology and the science. And that would have been a shame.