I first knowingly came across tarot in this lifetime in the UK TV series “Tales of the Unexpected”. It was one of the programmes we watched as a family when I was a teenager. We changed the title to “Tales of the Fairly Predictable” because it was usually possible to guess the endings / twist before the denouement. The cards appeared in the titles.

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As a rule of thumb I am less scared of witchy and occult things than most people. I used to buy 18+ horror comics when I was around 12. It did result in one recurring nightmare in which I was gobbled up by a tree and trapped therein for ever after. As a greasy and acne faced teenager the librarian at the local library was very happy to help me source books on witchcraft and witch finders. I read a great deal. I like a good occult / exorcism / demonic possession type of film. Story telling is best done without too many special effects and with good music. CGI looks like CGI and spoils things. Just mentioning the word exorcism can give some people the heebie-jeebies. I am not bad at telling stories and we used to scare the house servant when he was baby-sitting us in Zambia. I would talk of an evil magic-man rumoured to be walking the housing estate. Usually my dad would give him a lift home to the township. Which is more scary a magic-man or six pints of lager behind the wheel?

It is at least to me interesting how much the Easterly Jewel forbearance has played in my life. Time and again I have been asked to practice forbearance. Śāntideva in the Bodhisattvacaryāvatāra has a whole chapter devoted to this spiritual virtue. I have on occasion been described as patient. This was not something I exhibited in my late twenties and early thirties, it was before then and is since.

In terms of Le Pendu, tarot 12, when there is nothing you can do to influence things all you can do is hang out and maybe whistle a merry tune. If it is a “not my monkeys, not my circus” scenario there is no point in sticking your nose in. Unsolicited advice is less popular than a dose of penicillin resistant gonorrhoea. Even solicited advice is rarely popular.

Over the years it has become clear to me that I have a predilection for the clarity of the East and the process of time. After dreaming it is my second preference.

This morning’s dream is pointing at not rushing…

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It is evoking many of the Jewels of the East, a sense of measuring and decision, paring anything unnecessary looking at only that which is written in the book of fate. It is about taking time… measuring.

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“According to the Anthology of the Patriarchal Hall, Bodhidharma left the Liang court in 527 and relocated to Mount Song near Luoyang and the Shaolin Monastery, where he “faced a wall for nine years, not speaking for the entire time”, his date of death can have been no earlier than 536. Moreover, his encounter with the Wei official indicates a date of death no later than 554, three years before the fall of the Western Wei.”

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Patience is a supposed root of the Zen patriarch Bodhidharma. We arrived here early 2019 maybe there are a few more years before I am ready to leave my cave.

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