THE HIGH PRIESTESS (original Tarot design) & EIGHT STEPS OF THE CAMEL (about a dream) by Roswila

EIGHT STEPS OF THE CAMEL

your only choice: to keep working on this new black
and white Tarot deck you’ve been creating, card by
card; in fact, note that you’ve actually designed
and drawn them all, and that your efforts should
now lie in finding the one you or the querant most
need at any given juncture in time; yes, they are
difficult to get at, hanging back at a distance in
the dark night air, but see, here’s one, and here’s
another; ah, the querant’s asking for a specific
card now, the Eight of Pentacles; note how it leads
you on a merry chase even though you know exactly
what it looks like and what it basically means: it’s a
visual form of the expression for spiritual work –
“making pentacles;”
ah, yes, here it is at last, landed like a gulping fish
whose land lungs haven’t been used in a long time;
hey, wait, shush that chatty, demanding querant, what
the card now whispers is crucial for you both to take in:
“eight steps of the camel;”
nay, not just a repeat of what the Eight of Pentacles
is saying but also a way of pointing to what wanders
across the far edge of The High Priestess card: time
to assiduously seek spiritual growth again, to embrace
this haunted and hobbling ship of the desert,
sustained by its capacity to store the rare gift of water
when stumbled across: eight big steps, plodding
and unforgiving, but each landing surely
ahead of the other

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[written on a dream of 7-14-19. And what a drink of water after an awful day! Seems my recent resolve to withdraw as much as possible into the inner/spiritual worlds is agreeable to my dream mind. That resolve surfaced in a two-and-a-half-hour Tarot reading I did for myself a couple of days ago. Which resolve also includes returning to working with the Tarot. Both doing readings and working on the designs for the couple of decks I’ve got going. I’ve been doing next to nothing with Tarot for way too long.

Here’s the Eight of Pentacles in the Universal Waite Fantasy Tarot deck, which is what I saw in the dream:



And I did not recall until I googled for it, but the actual Aleister Crowley quote is “five footprints of a camel,” represented as V.V.V.V.V. As with all of Crowley’s writings I’ve never been able to get at what this is referencing (his writing’s endlessly abstruse and I sometimes suspect unnecessarily so). But this particular image has always resonated somehow with me. And my dream’s turning the number five into eight is just fine with me. As that mention of a camel is how my dreaming mind made the connection to The High Priestess (II) card in the Crowley/Harris Thoth Tarot. Via that camel wandering across the bottom of the card. That upping of the number of steps may be my dream saying I’ve got an even longer path ahead of me than I’ve suspected. Here’s II in the Thoth deck:

Image at top of post: The High Priestess in my Taiga Tarot deck-in-progress (taiga tarot II4[2]) by Roswila]

PLEASE NOTE: in most browsers you can click on the above image for a larger version. Also, the photo accompanying a post is not necessarily meant to illustrate it, but to reflect some small, even slant aspect of the verse, similar to Japanese haiga (illustrated haiku).

There are many other sorts of posts on this blog. I indicate which are about or influenced by dreams. Some non dream focused posts are book reviews, "regular" poems (some by other writers), scifaiku, writing exercises, Tarot haiku, photos, haiga, and so on. However, most of those are in much older posts. There's a listing by month going back to early 2006, at the end of the sidebar.

* * * *

until next time, keep dreaming,





[a/k/a Patricia Kelly]
**** 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 blog (dedicated to her photos only, i.e. no poetry or other writing; daily post); TRYING TO HOLD A BOX OF LIGHT.