Give It Up

“What is behind you: 4 of Cups. Boredom, discontent, dissatisfaction. A mood of glutted apathy shrouded you. Feelings of yearning for something which was, at that moment, too generously fulfilled, turned into rejection, revulsion, and vexation. The foul temperament indicated may have extended from a persistent nagging to intense forms of strife, spite, and embitterment. Overcoming sightless inertia helps you see tangible opportunities.”

I awoke at 5am today, light streaming in through my dreaming-into-wakening thoughts. Gah. Once my brain is engaged, which takes milliseconds not minutes, it is useless for me to attempt the final hour and a half rest I am rightfully due, so trying not to worry too much about tiredness later in the day, I got up. Leaving the bedroom silently, I went next door to where the day things live. They fell quietly back into place as soon as I entered the bright morning room, careful not to give any sign of the abandoned revelry that happens during the night when we are not looking.

Without questioning what I was doing, I went straight to my iBook, lifted the white plastic lid on my online life, and typed in the Mystic Games URL. I need to know. I want to see. I am not even awake yet (that’s a lie: I am awake, I am in control, I am choosing to do this) but I am going through the motions. I choose: Tarot: Popular 1910 deck: Celtic Cross Spread.

Celtic Cross, spreads straight from the fridge, delicious on warm toast. I am doing this, I realise, before my head has a chance to wake up completely and censor me.

I am supposed to have to given this up, but like my old friend said to me once, what are you doing in the barbershop if you don’t want a haircut?

I feel surprisingly little guilt at this irrationality, not just because I feel surprisingly little guilt anymore about anything. Fortune telling, readings, divination, these are things I purport to have put behind me during the Great Rational Phase which coincided with my therapy, but actually, like an alcoholic sneaking a pint, I have sometimes dabbled – backslid – whilst definitely not allowing it replace careful cogitation, and consequent measured, sane action.

I have consciously forsworn my garish wizard’s cloak with it’s swirling esoteric emblems for a stylish navy blue showerproof jacket by Balmain, Paris.

Recently I have indeed been unwinding, and some of it has been more like unravelling, which although occassionally chaotic, is no bad thing. My therapist once said to me, wracked at the time with the kind of pain that comes from pulling rotten psychological teeth, “You will probably become distressed when you first start to let go – the process is likely to increase your anxiety in the short term.” He was right, and now I find myself many moons later, remembering his wisdom, as represented by the King of Cups, he makes a swan song appearance, soothing me on the water, as unseen currents pull and twist my little boat towards a shore I know not where.

As I repeated myself like Pavlov’s poor puppy, I remembered the list of things I no longer do, by way of reassurance. I no longer read my personal daily horoscope, I no longer use esoteric methods to balance the books, emotional or financial, and I no longer offer up advice to people using the tools of divination and the skills of interpretation which I have developed over 25 years. My I Ching readings are down to one a year. Honestly.

And after all this excuse making, and rationalisation, and hand-wringing, having lifted the lid as best I can and peeked into that dark, do I believe any of it?

Of course I do, it’s my future, after all!