The Hermit

Unaware of the darkness contained within her own uncertainty she steps purposefully out into a rocky, sunless and mountainous land, the narrow causeway upon which she finds herself, crossing a deep ravine, before winding upwards through the bleak greyness of the mountains. The breeze blows in like a wastrel from the north, shuffling across the empty plains, plucking at her clothes as she contemplates the way ahead.

Adjustment

The silence of the place is immense, but within it, a long gracious avenue leads through a beautiful moonlit garden where a tapestry of blues, greys, cobalt and silver, are intimately and elegantly entwined, waltzing through a colonnade of urns and statues that line the marble flagged walkway. What a place, she is mesmerized by the calm, meditative beauty of her surroundings, and starts to feel even more relaxed than she already is; a profound calm descends, her heartbeat drops and the stretch of her breathing slows and deepens.

The Chariot

She approaches this goddess of the steppes, and sits quietly on the ground in front of her, folding her hands in her lap, waiting for something to happen. A small child brings her a bowl of tea and the woman begins to speak, explaining her position in the tribe, telling how she sits in the centre of their universe, that she has no place that she calls home, that her home is within her. At all times, she must be ready to leave, being called upon by the seasons, the tribes, the herds and the turning of the earth, ready at a moment’s notice; all her time is spent in preparation, becoming ready to move on once more and that her life is a moving meditation, a journey of discovery.

The Lovers

The figure stands there waiting, dressed in robes of lilac shadows with a capacious hood pulled slightly about the face; she cannot see clearly enough from this distance to ascertain the features, but as she draws closer, she finds that she is soon bathing in the serene gaze of a woman of indeterminate age, who seems to possess a savage kind of energy lying within her like a resting bear. The hooded woman looks down with calm reassurance, and as she stands beneath her meditative gaze, she feels all her worry and fear and the thoughts and troubles that plague her mind, slipping silently away. She relaxes into the strange woman’s gaze so much so that she feels like she is melting, everything around her sliding into nothingness, the sounds, the smells, the heat of the street, the touch of the ground beneath her feet, it all goes, even she goes eventually, slipping away into nothing.

The Magus

Ascending the stairs, a heat rising like a fire within her, her unsteady heart beats a chaotic rhythm in her chest, and she wonders what path she will discover, what part of her will be revealed today. Stepping through the whirling blue and yellow colours of the portal as they shimmer and shift in the darkness, she finds herself surrounded by spinning fractals of colour that twist and turn and leap and fall all around her.

The Priestess

. A face of carved serenity gazes at me, a woman that time has touched, but has not yet ravaged, a woman whose strength has not yet been diminished by grief. Her beauty lies in the calm stillness of her eyes, emanating an aura of peace and power, I am in awe.

The Story of The Hanged Man

I am hanging upside down, in suspended animation, sacrificial inversion, call it what you will, but I am hanging upside down. All the fluid in my body has drained down into my head, which becomes to all intents and purposes, an alembic for some alchemical process

The Story of The Empress

I walk out onto a high cliff top… the grass is short and firm beneath my feet and is strewn with a riot of tiny flowers, buried in the soft green, giving the effect of a hand made counterpane embroidered with a thousand colours.

The Story of The Hierophant

How vain and brave her dreams of pilgrimage seem now, and as she looks at the reality of the situation, down there on the ground, in the harsh grit beneath her boots, she begins to wonder if her vision is crumbling to desert dust beneath her aching feet. Looking up from the baked earth to scan the scene before her, she feels dejected, almost hoping that a bus with “Home” written on the front will come, motoring happily over the hill, and stop, facing in the opposite direction, to wait for her to climb thankfully aboard.

Protected: The Sun

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