Queen of Swords (card in Tarot of the Cat People) & XANTHERA PISTEX (dreamku series) by Roswila

XANTHERA PISTEX

“xanthera pistex…”
the doctor I.D.’s the little
reddish blisters

then she sagely adds
“This is a form they don’t
often appear in,
they’ll completely dry up
exfoliating your palms”

no biggie, I think,
I’m more curious about
that suggestive name:
“pistex” certainly echoes
how p.o.’d I’ve been,

and “xanthera”
strongly echos “panthera”
as in black leopard --
my googling only results in
drug ads and heavy handed cures

these blisters live outside the medical model
I turn down the drugs and continue on my own path


[a dreamku and three tanka capped by a two-liner on a dream of 4-19-13. The googling I just did on “panthera” was much more productive than the dream googling. Of course, I was seeking the mythology of the black panther, not information on the blisters as I did in the dream. Here’s what I found that really hit me hard, given what I just went through late last night. (I had one of those tremendous “ahHA!” moments late last night that resounded through me, with the potential to tumble a host of constructs in my thinking and feeling worlds.) From Veronica Conway’s site “The Black Paper” -- “The panther always brings guardian energy to those to whom it comes... The panther often signals a time of rebirth after a period of suffering and death on some level. This implies that an old issue may finally begin to be resolved, or even that old longstanding wounds will finally begin to heal, and with the healing will come a reclaiming of power that was lost at the time of wounding... Nietzsche once said, 'that which does not kill us makes us stronger.'" Phew! May it be so, even if only in small part. Image: The Queen of Swords in the Tarot of the Cat People. I just recently put up The Queen of Swords from four other decks on a sheet of black paper to represent a sort of protective psychological container, if you will, for all I’m going through at present. I think my sleeping mind made a connection to the panther on this Queen of Swords even though none of the other four Queens I have up are accompanied by one. I apologize for the small size and poor quality of this graphic I found online. My scanner’s down so I can’t make a better one from my own deck]

BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO DREAMKU (& PHOTOS): The dream-based poems posted on this blog -- dreamku, tanka, two-liners, and monoku -- are offered in the spirit of collaboration. I have done my part. Now it’s your turn to jump in and see what comes up for you. I.e., there is no right or wrong way to understand or interpret any of these dream offerings. Even my own understandings of them change over time. And it gives me joy when a reader sees something in any of them that I have not.

For more in-depth exploration:

-- very brief comparison of dreamku and haiku: DREAMKU ARE NOT HAIKU

-- a brief post about both dreamku and my photos THE AREN'TS OF DREAMKU & ACCOMPANYING DIGITAL PHOTOS.

-- detailed three-part post about dreamku: "A DREAMKU PRIMER: Writing Haiku-Like Poems About Your Night Dreams": PART ONE: Introduction & Writing Dreamku as Dream Work; PART TWO: Elements of the Haiku Form Used in Dreamku; and PART THREE: How to Write Dreamku (the second and third parts have some overlap).

-- a short up-dating post about the three-part "A DREAMKU PRIMER" -- Important Up-date to A DREAMKU PRIMER....".

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‘til next time, keep dreaming,






If you wish to copy or use any of my writing or poems, please email me for permission (under “View my complete profile”). Roswila's other blogs: ROSWILA’S TAROT GALLERY & JOURNAL; ROSWILA’S TAIGA TAROT; and TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT.