If you read the previous post in this blog, you know that on the last New Moon I started a tarot working called Pestle of the Moon, from the Katz-Goodwin book on the Smith-Waite tarot deck. It was based on the Yeats poem "Phases of the Moon".
The card I drew for the Waxing Crescent phase was 6 cups and it corresponded with "The Dream". What more pleasant card could there be for a dream, right? Wrong. It gave me nightmares on the first night. The tower-like building in the background, which I never really noticed much before, reminded me of my childhood church, so that when I went into the scene, I went back to the memories, disappointments, and all the pretty cups lined up for gifts that were never received.
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The next night I finally remembered in great detail the dream I had, which was set in a small town. Before the small town scenario, I was with my old friend, Lady Bridget, but I can't remember what we were doing. Then everything changed and I was seeing (but was not a part of) a row of passengers, as if on a plane or bus, who were delayed for some unknown reason. The stewardess was rudely eating a sandwich in front of everybody, offering people bites which they angrily refused. They were all mad because of the delay. Finally someone sent a sort of courier across the street to get something that would allow the passengers to proceed on their way. As I watched, the courier looked like they were enacting a drug deal or something suspicious, in the middle of townspeople who were aimlessly milling around. They parted to allow the courier to pass though them and they all seemed to be in on the deal, whatever it was. When the courier returned, there was a sense of release - although I never did see an actual vehicle, there was just a row of seats and people in them - and I assume the trip continued as the dream ended and I woke up with a 1950's pop tune in my head and the lyrics "I just found out yesterday - the girl I love is going away..." I couldn't make any sense out of this dream but at least I remembered it and it was accompanied by music, which was supposed to be part of the working.
Then to make matters worse, I got confused about the lunar phases, of all things, and went into a panic. It was Katz and Goodwin's fault though. The way they laid this out, each lunar phase supposedly lasted three days/nights. This obviously doesn't work out right and the number of cards pulled for the working will only fit with the lunar phases if the length of each quarter is three days/nights and then the dates of the actual New, Quarter, Full and Quarter Moon are one night apiece. It made me wonder if they actually did this meditation themselves. If they did, they would have explained it more clearly!
Next was Ten of Swords on First Quarter night, one night only, with the keyword from the Yeats poem being "adventures" or "whims". Not a harmonious combination. While visualizing the card, I bravely tried to focus on the positive sides of it - that Tens are the end of a cycle, the death of what's no longer needed - but I kept being drawn to the wounds or holes made by the swords, the ugly strata of brown ground, blue horizon, sulferous yellow sky and the falling black cloud. My mind wandered to ask who these ten swords belonged to anyway? I almost started naming ten people to whom they might belong but stopped myself at that point. I woke up the next morning in a terrible depression, unable to remember any dreams, but with a heavy, sad feeling that all my "adventures/whims" were dead and should be abandoned - especially this particular "adventure" of the Pestle of the Moon experiment.
Next was Knight of Swords with the keyword "Hero's Crescent". At least that combination made sense. The first night I tried to get into the card and ride with the Knight. All that happened was that I woke up with the opening bars of a violin concerto in my head. The rhythmic, striding melody was familiar but I couldn't remember the name or composer. After the second night, a chromatically down-sweeping waltz, something like Valse Triste, was with me when I woke up. By the third day, I sensed that the Knight of Swords was somehow traveling with me through my waking hours, a vague presence beside me. Someone posted the old Rainbow song, "Man of the Silver Mountain" on Facebook and as soon as I saw it and listened to it, it clicked as a theme song of the Knight of Swords, the Hero's Crescent. On the final night of this phase, just as I was falling asleep, a man's face flashed before me, sharp and foxy with a rough shadow of unshaven whiskers on his cheeks and chin and something suggesting an open helm around his head. He was looking right at me with slitted eyes that were sharp and bright and was about to say something - when suddenly I jerked awake! I had the distinct impression that the Knight of Swords was ready to tell me something and I missed it. I felt like he had gotten closer and closer through this phase until we were finally face to face. Then it was over.
That brought me to the Full Moon and the King of Pentacles, keyword "twice born, twice buried." That night I dreamt there was something horribly wrong with Ace, my cockatiel. In the dream, I uncovered him as I usually do in the morning and found that overnight his wing and tail feathers had grown extraordinarily long, and they were so heavy that they were drooping around him. It scared me so badly that I woke up. Later that day, someone posted a picture of 2 phoenixes on facebook and the feathers were exactly like what I saw on Ace in my dream. It gave me one of those classic chills of recognition.
Finally I got to the Waning Gibbous phase, the Ace of Pentacles, and the keyphrase "The soul at war/frenzy". I was able to remember all the details of a very convoluted dream that involved a waiting room in a doctor's office, working on embroidery to pass the time until my friend came out of the examination room casually talking about his bleeding ulcers that were "bleeding right now" then he went on to talked about a massive sum of money that he was trying to avoid paying. Meanwhile I decided to go into the kitchen of this place (a hospital?) and see if they had a bag I could put my embroidery into so it wouldn't get dirty. The cook said sure, but first he had to crack some eggs, which he did very violently on a metal griddle, and there were bloody chicks and water and all kinds of sickening stuff which he washed down the drain. He gave me the empty egg box for my embroidery and I wasn't sure it would fit, but I just wanted to get out of there. I went back into the waiting room and out the door, and there was a crowd of children there who seemed curious about what was going on but their mother kept shooing them away, telling them they couldn't go in yet. Suddenly I was in my old house and Jay was in his recliner which he'd placed on top of a stove or a heater for some reason, and I nervously cautioned him not to let it catch fire. A woman from one of my old covens was there in the background, like she lived there. I realized I hadn't thought about her for ages. Then I woke up with the Strauss waltz "Gold and Silver" in my head.
The next day I decided to just stop. I refused to go to sleep with "the soul at war" and "frenzy" while trying to meld into the Ace of Pentacles, such a totally benign image. It was crazy. I felt much better after that, as if some great pressure had been removed. Since I stopped (on June 5) I've still been remembering my dreams more clearly than before, so I guess it did work in a way. I didn't get much out of the lines from Yeats at all, though, which mostly didn't seem to fit in with anything. It was like trying to do a jigsaw puzzle in the dark.
New Moon is coming up and I do plan to continue my tarot adventures, although I have no idea what's next. I don't think I'll attempt anything else from Katz-Goodwin, though, as much as I love the Smith-Waite deck.
