This post is for http://willowtreetarot.com - if you’re interested in cards, check it out!

Rainring on Rainring.

The link is to a print-screen from the interactive (play) section of the Rainring website.

 describe-the-cards.doc

The question put to the cards is: How would you describe Rainring? and the spread used to answer the question has four positions: 1. the view from the unconscious at lower left, 2. from consciousness at lower right, 3. the interface between these two at the apex position and 4. the overall result at centre.

(Note, the Rainring site provides a facility enabling the reader to reverse any indiviual card - unseen of course -  as desired).

The cards four cards which appeared were - in the same order -

1 relation 2. resistance reversed 3. soul 4. despair.

The meanings for these are given in detail with the images (accessible via the visual directory link on the site). I quote from there

RELATION: right relation with others, with no compulsion either to withdraw or invade; ability in the art of friendship; soundness of heart

RESISTANCE: necessary opposition; friction of emotion against the unfettered impulse of spirit (reversed)

SOUL: balanced relation to one’s unconscious; psychic openness, but with adequate control; action from, or being within, one’s deepest nature or self

DESPAIR: the emotion felt when there seems no desirable or bearable outcome to one’s situation, circumstances or condition; the illustration on the card- Sensation: the function corresponding to the material dimension; the intelligence of the body

Can I admit to being knocked sideways by the result card? But then, that’s what the unconscious does!

O.K. The unconscious sees Rainring cards as consisting of three components - an unconscious one: relation; a conscious one: resistance reversed, and a balancer for these two: soul. But then the wallop - result of these three: despair.

The unconscious element present in the cards is one of warmth - a heart connection. The conscious element is one which does not resist the impulse of spirit. The conscious attitude informing Rainring is that we want to access, not fight against, what the unconscious has to offer us. These two elements come together in soul, as mentioned below.

It is, however, the fourth, result card which is going to need some real ’soul searching’. Rainring posits a cycle of emotions, in which the nadir is reached with the fourth, despair, which corresponds to the world of form, the material world. This is followed by stage five contact:hope -  ’intervention from without or within enables one to feel that a desirable or bearable outcome is possible.’ This stage corresponds to the unconscious. The conscious mind, with its planning, struggle, ego-effort, rationality gives rise, in the end, to a state in which one can go on no longer. In terms of feelings, despair is the one which corresponds to this stage. There is no way out. There must be contact before hope can be born - resources become available from the unconscious, whether from within the individual or from outside, and the deadlock is broken.

The unconscious seems to be seeing Rainring Cards as epitomising this stage of despair. In other words, we go to cards because we are in a blind alley or cul de sac. We appeal to the unconscious to help us move things forward.

For me, this reading has given me a salutary jolt. It is a reminder that this collection of glossy pieces of card with images and words on is, materially, a dead thing. It can be brought to life only in so far as it is able to act as a channel for the unconscious, because there alone is the source of power capable of moving us beyond the confines of the world of form.

I don’t deny or seek to belittle that world. It is simply that we are not single, but double beings. To animate form, we have to be able to move across the boundary into the other world, the other dimension of the psyche. Hubris, inflation, is the inevitable consequence of losing this crucial sense of the limitations of form. There are no pockets in a shroud says the old adage. We take nothing with us when we depart this world - no THING we have, but what we ARE. The apex card, SOUL, makes the point - balanced relationship with the unconscious, the qualities of soul, are those needed in the material world, and they can be found through using Rainring cards as a channel.

Afterword (March 200 I have just  been working on the expanded meanings for the cards, and this has made me realise that although the result card now carries the mention Despair, this in no way alters the fact that the Unconscious continues to use the other meaings on the card, notably its principal one: Sensation. It may be necessary to re-evaluate the above in accordance with this finding.