Rainring: post-tarot psychological cards

NOTES

1) The cards of set 6 constitute an important anomaly in the Rainring pack. All other cards carry an illustration at south, representing the principal mention on the card: Tides, Form, Charisma and so on. In set 6, it is not the principal mention at south which is illustrated, but the feeling side mention at west. This serves to emphasise the fact that the feelings carried on the set 6 cards are of a different order of importance to those which can be found on the other cards.

2) In the web version of the pack, the single mention allocated to each set 6 card is NOT its principal one at south, but its illustrated one at west. For example, in the orange (Form) group, we have not Sensation, but Despair; in the blue group, not Making Sound but Longing.

3) In order to serve the needs of users of both the one-mention web version and the 4-mention hard copy version, in this set we will therefore analyse both the south and the west mentions. In fact, the divinatory meaning of anger, grief or the others is simple – in this case, what is needed is rather to explain how each card is positioned within the wider context of the rest of the set and even of the grid as a whole.

4) In Rainring, six is the number for Self. The cards of set 6, therefore, are concerned essentially with the journey of the self.

46. Thought / Anger / (Hate): group – spirit (1 violet/purple)

The Image
In the foreground of the picture a powerfully-built man is kneeling. He is barefoot, wears blue trousers, fastened by a belt with a buckle, and a red T-shirt. He has a medallion round his neck. His arms are raised above his head and he appears to be forcing apart the black ropes which bind them together. There are pink rose-like flowers behind him and the image is framed by a border of thorns. A small badger-like animal is entering the scene from the right.
Thought:
 The thinking function

The functions refer to the typical ways in which we face the world – how we normally respond to the challenges of life. The thought function corresponds to the qualities associated with the mind: reason, analytical thinking, discrimination, perception and so on. It is the typical way of looking at the world, of responding and of functioning that we associate with the crown chakra, hence with Spirit. In terms of your energy field, this means that you will tend to have a stronger and more consistent output from your crown chakra then from any other. You will be rather cool, cerebral, not given to intense emotions – calm and thoughtful, inspiring respect rather than affection: an ‘intellectual’.  

This is not to say that if you are a thought-function type, you are unable to use intuition, feeling and the rest; only that thought represents your typical response or reaction to the outside world. Faced with a challenge from life, you will instinctively attempt to resolve the problem by thinking out a solution. Obviously, there are times when such a response is not ideal, or even possibly downright prejudicial. The challenge facing you is that of developing forms of response which do NOT come naturally to you; of acquiring a more rounded personality and being better able to cope with the whole range of demands which life makes of you.

The meaning

When this card comes up meaning thought, it will not have anything to do with your function-type, but simply indicate that you are using your mind, that you are approaching a situation in a mental way – trying to think something through, or doing intellectual work for example. This contrasts particularly with emotional reactions, which will have the opposite character. (In the bi-polar octagon, Spirit at east is opposite Will at west).

 Anger 
The place of Anger

Anger, which looks like an aggressive reaction, is in fact a form of defence. We get angry because we are afraid, so that it is fear which drives anger. In the cycle of emotions, we could therefore say that, strictly speaking, fear is the first. Rainring has anger, associated with Spirit, in first place, because this is the first emotion to manifest. Personal profiles include, as with the functions, a typical feeling, which is the one most characteristic of that person.  This does not, however, mean that anger will automatically be the typical feeling for thinking-function people.

The meaning

Anger: This card will normally appear not because anger is part of your overall profile, but because you happen to be angry at a particular moment. Anger is one of the emotions which is often not socially acceptable, and is therefore frequently denied. Blocked anger often resurfaces in a sideways fashion as sarcastic remarks, putting people down, irony and certain forms of teasing. The latter can be particularly offensive, as it enables the angry person to be cruel and hurtful while claiming that they are just ‘having fun’ in a harmless way. Irritation and annoyance are also either mild forms of anger, or anger which has not yet erupted or is being partly stifled. 

You should expect that this card will come up in situations where you will react indignantly: ‘nonsense, I’m not angry!’ Don’t believe it. One of the features of Rainring is its ability, properly used, to help you to get in touch with your feelings, improve your awareness of them, and encourage you to accept them rather than judging them as proof that you are sick, wicked or both. 

Hate: Just as fear repressed produces anger, so anger itself can be repressed, and if this goes beyond a certain point, the result is that you feel hate. Hate is anger which has become so compressed that it is dark, heavy and almost immovable. If feeling anger is not always socially acceptable, then how much more is this true of hate. You may experience great guilt around feelings of hate. But hate, like all emotion, needs to be moved, to have light brought into it, if it is to have the chance to evolve.

 The one-mention (web) card ‘anger’ 

Card 46 carries the meanings of both hate and thought, so that it will have to be considered carefully when making an interpretation, as is true of all these set 6 cards. [See also the corresponding section under card 47.] Although we chose to name these cards for the web according to the illustrations, this has not meant that we could eliminate the other meanings associated with them. Each card carries all the possible 4-mention meanings, because that is how the Unconscious uses them, and any conscious decision to override this would be completely ineffectual – the Unconscious does not take orders!

 Divination summary

Anger, rage; hate; reasoning, rationality, logic, analysis; meditation, reflection; perception; discrimination.

47. Emotion / Fear / (Guilt): group – will (2 red)

The Image

There is no definable context to this image. Three figures, possibly of a kind of sub-human species, are advancing towards us, carrying primitive clubs and seemingly intent on violence. The whole scene is portrayed more in the style of a nightmare than of any naturalism. The image, rendered in red, is intended to convey an emotion – fear – rather than any factual content.

Emotion
The feeling (emotion) function

If you are an emotion-function type, you approach the world in terms of how you feel about it. You will radiate energy especially from your root chakra, though you will be able to access all the others. Your feelings will be the dominant factor in your way of reacting, and this means that you will be volatile, intense and hyper-sensitive. Because of the universal repression of the emotional side in the contemporary world, your emotionality may not be immediately apparent, or expressed, i.e. exteriorised, in the manner which would be expected of your type.

The meaning

When this card comes up, it indicates that your emotions are in play. You may not always recognise that you are in an emotional state. For example, you may feel great anger, but keep it all inside where even you yourself are scarcely aware of its existence. Or you may feel acute sadness or despair which you cannot bring yourself to acknowledge, for fear that you would ‘fall to pieces’. Again, you may feel several emotions at the same time and be thoroughly confused by them. We are all of us emotionally retarded, compared to our mental development. It is almost certain that nothing in our education, either at home or school, has prepared us to be in touch with our feelings, still less to be able to verbalise them. 

One feature of the design of Rainring has been very deliberately to provide you with a vehicle for developing awareness of your feelings. Note that your emotions can also create inner both great inner tension and exhaustion, not too mention fears associated with letting go, especially if this is a novel experience for you. It has been said that ‘there is always a feeling’ and we need to recognise that feelings can be delicate, almost imperceptible energies – not all emotion is ready to take us over and drown us in its intensity! Finally, openness to emotion is not selective. To be able to feel intense joy or happiness, you must be able to feel intensely, period. Then you will also feel intense rage, hate, despair and so on.

Fear
The place of fear

In the present phase of the psycho-cosmos, fear is the root emotion. It is also the most heavily denied and judged against. It is associated with the female pole, Will, and the red energy of the root chakra. We know fear as a motive force for survival – it helps protect the integrity of our person. Ultimately, fear is involved with the self – the conditioning presently in existence is that the basic situation of the self is that of being in danger from others. Those who say ‘actually, self is an illusion, so why be afraid?’ are not solving, but deepening the problem: by denying fear. To evolve the psyche, the fear must be felt, not magicked out of sight.

The meaning

Fear: This card may indicate that you are feeling a number of different emotions. For example, you may be experiencing the extreme form, terror. Or you may be feeling anxious, worried, nervous or uneasy. These four words are either being used where the feeling is milder than fear, or where it is in fact strong enough to be called fear, but you yourself or other people around you are not willing to hear the words ‘scared’, ‘frightened’ or ‘afraid’ being used. The denial of fear has gone so far that you may easily be like so many people who are afraid to admit that they are afraid – because you learnt in childhood that the least admission of vulnerability caused still more negative reactions from others, compared to pretending that you weren’t afraid.

Guilt: This is also included on the same 4-mention card. Although we say ‘I feel guilty’, guilt is not a feeling, but the stagnation of emotion: emotion which is not moving, i.e. emotion reversed. Guilt too is frequently in a state of denial, so that people using the 4-mention pack and having the mention guilt turn up may not always be able to recognise and admit to the fact of it.

The one-mention (web) card ‘fear’

Once again, the interpretation of this card is going to be complicated by the fact that emotion, fear and guilt are all within its ambit. If you use the reversal facility, guilt will be one of the possible interpretations for any set 6 emotion card – anger, fear, grief etc reversed. These complications will not apply for users of the 4-mention hard copy version of the cards.

Divination summary 

Fear, terror; anxiety, worry, uneasiness; guilt; emotion, moodiness, inner instability, confusion; intensity, tension, exhaustion.

48. Heart / Grief: group – heart (3 green)

The Image

The left side of the image is occupied by the upper half of a figure, seemingly a woman, with the face hidden and the posture suggesting a state of grief. She wears a white blouse-like garment, and we see the beginnings of an orange red skirt or trousers below a belt. The latter is marked with stripes in the nine colours of the groups of Rainring. The effect is perhaps to suggest that, using a parallel metaphor, ‘every cloud has a silver lining’ – beyond grief lies hope. The right side of the image is occupied by an imposing tree in full leaf. This might imply the reassurance that grief, like rain, is natural in the sense of being a part of nature.

Heart
The Heart function

The bi-polar octagon of Rainring is comprised of the four sets of opposites which make up the psyche. Heart lies at the centre of these. The two basic ones are male-female (east-west) and unconscious-conscious (north-south). Heart is at the mid-point of these, as of the other psychic influences. Heart energy is that associated with the green of the heart chakra, which lies at the centre of the body’s seven energy nodes, the chakras. Its fundamental characteristic is as the source of balance. In the 4-mention pack, Heart north (unconscious) is Rainring, because the latter’s essential purpose is also balance. As a heart-function person, you embody all this, meaning that your natural position will always be in the middle, never at the poles, whatever parameters are involved. The ‘heart of the matter’ means the core or centre of something.

The meaning  

If you are a Heart-function person, you will be moderate in your opinions, diplomatic in social relations and dislike extremes of all kinds. You will be a warm, caring and supportive friend, and have an instinctive empathy for children.

When this card comes up, it means that you display a warm and empathetic  attitude, neither cool, reserved and aloof as at the Spirit end of the spectrum, nor passionate, wild and extravagantly emotional as at the Will end. It may also refer to adopting a position as mediator – helping people in conflict to resolve their differences, or simply using your influence in a social situation to assert a moderate viewpoint and secure a retreat from extreme positions.

Grief
The place of grief

Given the extreme distress caused by systematic heavy repression of emotion, it is no doubt inevitable that there should be at least one emotion more socially acceptable, and therefore capable of acting to a degree as a safety-valve. This is the position of grief. Having said this, anyone who has heard the distraught parent trying desperately to shut up the small child wailing its heart out in a public place will know that the acceptability of expressing grief is a matter of degree. Fear and anger are crisis emotions: associated with an immediate threat to the self. Once that immediate crisis has passed, the sense of relief expresses itself quite naturally as grief. Both anger and fear lead there, as anyone who has experienced grief following on from either of these two can attest. It is therefore the third position in the cycle of the emotions.

The meaning

Within the word grief, we include various shades of feeling.

You are sad. This may express itself in tears, perhaps involving crying or even, in intense grief, deep sobbing. Or you may be carrying a weight of pain, hurt which could show in your expression, but is not being externalised in any specific form. The word grief is also often used for a longer-term situation than is sadness. Grieving is a process which may extend over many months, for example after the sudden death of a loved one. We would then expect the card Grief to come up for you more often than in other circumstances. You can of course experience such grief both as an agonising pain and equally, at other times, as a dull ache which persists somewhere in the background, reminding us that Grief covers a range of feeling, from greater to lesser intensities. You may talk about heartache, a broken heart etc which confirms the association of grief with the heart – you can experience it in some cases as an actual physical sensation in your heart area.

Finally, the words hurt and pain are often associated with grief, though they can apply to other emotions also, such as despair. But we tend not to talk about being hurt or in pain in relation to anger or fear, for example.

Divination summary

sadness, unhappiness, grief, sorrow, hurt, pain; mediation, moderation, reconciliation, lack of extremes, taking a middle position; friendship, warmth, empathy, affection, kindness, caring attitude, emotional support; steadiness, reliability, tolerance; getting to the core of an issue, being at the centre of what is happening

49. Sensation / Despair: group – form (4 orange)

The Image

It is evening. A young man sits in the shade of a well, his head in his hands, in an attitude of despair, his face blank. He wears a white shirt, a buff-coloured lower garment, and sandals. All around is desert, and there are no other signs of life, or hint of a mount which might have carried him here. The wall of the well is damaged, the cross-bar has partially collapsed and the rope does not seem to hang in the normal way. We are left to suppose either that there is no water, or that it cannot be reached.

Sensation
The sensation function

If you are a sensation-function type, you approach the world through the physical senses – what you can touch, taste, smell, hear and see. You will radiate energy primarily from your belly chakra. Of all the types, you will be the one most at home in your body and in the physical world. The form position (orange) in Rainring is that associated with consciousness. You will be a down-to-earth person, not given to flights of fancy, nor approving of the vague, insubstantial world of the intuitives, readers of tarot cards and the like! You could be the thinking type of sensation person, or the feeling type, but the world of the unconscious and of intuition is your polar opposite, so that you will find it far less congenial and more challenging than either thought or feeling.

The meaning

This card refers to your being pragmatic. You may be actually using your physical senses, such as choosing a new perfume (smell) or cooking (taste), or you may be involved in some practical activity, particularly something manual. You are demonstrating a down-to-earth, common sense approach, and may be getting something done: mowing the lawn, repairing the car. You may be involved in an activity related to buying or selling antiques, objets d’art and so on, as these rely on sensation, as does dancing or engaging in physical sport of any kind. Any physical recreation that you engage in such as cycling, walking the dog, going for a swim or indeed having sex would also fit the card sensation.

Despair
The place of despair

Grief requires comfort, and if this is forthcoming, the hurt can be resolved. However, there are circumstances in which no comfort is available, in which case grief, if it is intense enough, will give way to despair. Hope is the opposite of despair, so despair must be understood as a total absence of hope, otherwise it is misnamed. Despair is the feeling of having come to an end, of facing inevitable destruction or annihilation – again, the self under threat. Between this fourth stage of the feeling cycle and the next, fifth one there is thus a break in continuity. In despair no outcome is assured: indeed, it may result in actual suicide.  

The meaning

In despair, you feel that there is no way out, no remedy, possibility of relief from pain, no hope of a light at the end of the tunnel. You experience despair when you feel that there is no hope, nothing left to live for, no reason to go on. This does not mean that you will jump off a bridge. You may, if despair is a sufficiently dominant emotion in you, contract an auto-immune disease such as cancer, in which apparently you destroy yourself from within.

The card despair will normally come up under far less dramatic circumstances. You will almost invariably experience despair as a passing emotion, finding resources – from within or without – to lift yourself out of it. For example, you might ask the cards what remedy to apply to your despair – so that you are already seeking a way out. Typical despair will not kill you, but that it will disrupt your continuity – it will require an extra effort, or perhaps a change of attitude. For example, despair can cause us to let go, and in that state the help that we were blocking by clinging on to our own ego-control can at last become available.

We may also consider depression as a state related to despair. In depression, there is a similar blockage or disconnect of the will to live, at least with enthusiasm and vitality. Depression, on the other hand, seems marked primarily by extreme lassitude, rather than suicidal feelings.

Divination summary

Despair, hopelessness, depression, auto-immune illness, suicidal inclinations; pragmatism, common sense, down-to-earth attitude; manual skill, sensitivity to the qualities of objects, awareness of the natural world; sense-perception, physical activity & sport.

50. Intuition / Contact: Hope: group – Unconscious (5 indigo)

The Image

A flat, empty landscape features only a damaged well, clearly the same one as that on the previous card, sensation. It is night, and the young man has fallen to the ground, or perhaps lain down, in a gesture of submission, to die. However, the scene is lit by a soft gold radiance which emanates from the figure of a young woman who kneels behind him. Her hands touch him in a gesture of comfort and concern. He seems to have raised his head, so he may be aware of her, but his eyes remain closed as though in sleep.

Intuition
The intuitive function

With intuition, we reach the last of the four functions which complete the two pairs of fundamental opposites, for intuition is the polar opposite of sensation. It is associated with the ‘third eye’ chakra at the centre of the forehead, whose colour is indigo. It is concerned with what is sometimes called the sixth sense – an indefinable something which tells ‘James Bond’ to reach for his gun or look over his shoulder. It is about presentiments, hunches, omens and superstitions. The intuition-function person is the one most in touch with the Unconscious, hence furthest away from the world of form and practicality.

The meaning

You are using your intuition. You may be reading cards, feeling out the winner at tomorrow’s race meeting, sniffing the air to decide whether to buy or sell Yen or increase your portfolio of mining shares. ‘Sniffing the air’ because the card intuition means that you are not taking decisions purely on the basis of the available facts or statistics – you may study them, but then you suddenly back a long shot or go against what all the financial analysts are recommending – and you are proved right (or not!) You may have seen an omen, and sensed that it was a message to act in a certain way, or had a dream which you felt impelled to take account of in your waking life.

 Contact: Hope
The place of hope

Hope is the fifth station or stage in our cycle of the major emotions. Under appropriate conditions it follows despair, which can be thought of as the nadir or lowest point of the cycle. It has been argued that there is a neurotic element to hope: the pathetic belief that our parents will one day love us (they never have done), or that in the afterlife we will be rewarded. Nevertheless, it is hope that sustains us all as children: hope that, when we can at last lead our own lives as independent adults, we will find happiness and fulfilment. Without such hope, how many children would survive the pain of their early lives? But we have forgotten all that, buried it so deep that can in turn mete out to our own children the selfsame destruction which has been wrought upon us. And what we can’t finish at home we leave to the schools to complete.

The meaning

Hope – the sense that however painful your present, things will improve - does not automatically evolve out of despair. For that to happen, some kind of support is necessary. Despair, like grief, feeds on solitude. Conversely, your hope comes with contact, the sense that your isolation is broken: whether through the external agency of a person, song, book, tree, animal or whatever, or as some inner sense that you receive support and perhaps even guidance. If despair is a sense of being cut off from the stream of life, hope comes when you re-establish contact with that stream. With hope comes optimism, the belief that the best in life lies ahead of you, not behind.

As for neurotic hope, it requires great inner strength to be able to let go of that. Realistically, only as you gain a solid foothold in life, begin to acquire a sense of self-worth, of individual identity, can you begin the process of letting go of that illusory hope which for so long has been your lifeline. In any case, until you, and all of us, have reversed enough denial to remove death from our energy field, neurotic hope will be necessary and will remain with us.

Divination summary

Hunch, presentiment, ‘irrational’ feeling, intuition, subjective sense; shamanic practices, psychic channelling, card reading etc; religious or spiritual experience, epiphany (‘illuminating discovery, realization or disclosure’)[1]; gambling, financial market trading; risk-taking business style.

51. Vibration / Freedom: group – self (6 yellow)

The Image

A woman, perhaps aged between 35 and 40, is pictured setting out the market stall on which she sells jewellery. She herself wears a number of items, apparently of her own manufacture or at least from her stock, together with a simple, well-cut orange dress. Her expression suggests concentration. This is clearly someone who looks after her appearance, in addition to which she radiates prosperity and self-confidence.

Vibration
The vibrative function

The vibration function is that which promotes the power or authority of the self. It is associated with the solar-plexus chakra, which has a yellow colour, and in Rainring is seen as having female energy. Vibration is the set 6 card which, because it belongs also to group 6, has a double dose of self (6) energy. In the bi-polar octagon, the position opposite to yellow is occupied by brown, so that vibration is polarised to quest-ion? In other words, vibration involves reinforcing the status quo of the self, whilst quest-ion? seeks to extend it, or ultimately to extend beyond it.

The meaning

Like thought, intuition and the rest, vibration is a faculty that we all exercise and require. You are concerned here not only with self-promotion, but also with self-integration. Your approach to the world is to consider how situations, people and events are going to affect your personal identity. It is the clarifying, preservation and development of this identity that is your principal concern. This makes you reluctant to engage emotionally with people, and in relationships to prefer either a pragmatic, practical form where you do things together, or if sexual, then sensual but not involving strong feelings.

The above is a portrait of the vibration-function type; when this card comes up in a reading, it will refer to a situation where you are taking this kind of approach, acting in a similar fashion. You will probably also have some mother-energy in play here, but of the domineering kind. You are not taking any risks in relation to others; you will not favour conjugal relations if these involve any sacrifice of your personal autonomy. Vibration in an intimate relationship might well be two young, single professionals who will share sex and meals out, but not a home life or plans for marriage or children. Whatever its downsides, vibration indicates that you are not dispersed but centred, pursuing whatever is to your advantage.  
 Freedom
The place of freedom

Freedom is an essential pre-requisite for the flourishing and development of the individual self.  Where an individual lacks freedom, it becomes the central goal and obsession of their existence to obtain it[2]. This is not merely true of the inmate of a Siberian labour camp, or a young woman forced into an arranged marriage, but of the world’s children. Every healthy child aspires to be an adult, and to take control of their own destiny. Finally, there is also the inner issue of the need to free oneself psychologically.

The meaning

The card freedom is going to appear in Rainring in relation to your conditioning. You are like all of us in having psychological blocks: things you can’t do or say or look at or cope with because you do not have the requisite inner freedom. The restrictions imposed by others became restrictions that you imposed on yourself; once you became aware of that, you wanted to be free of them.

This card can have an outer reference: for example to a work situation in which you have escaped, or wish to escape from control at work. It could be about a conjugal relationship where you are feeling or have felt stifled and have got, or want to get out… and so on. Equally, the reference may be to something inner: like freeing yourself from rules of behaviour which your parents, social group or religion implanted in you, and which you have come to find intolerable. Issues involving freedom can also be less dramatic: perhaps you want your spouse to look after the kids on Tuesday evenings so you can be free to start a drawing class.

There is no absolute freedom: you are not free to murder people, just because you would feel frustrated if prevented from doing so. The boundary of your freedom is the point at which it would limit mine, and vice versa. This card may well be a teacher for you, for example in the case of freedom reversed, since we are never aware of every way in which we lack inner freedom.

Divination summary

inner or outer freedom, individual decisions, personal autonomy, self-centred action, de-conditioning, focus on one’s own advantage; self-assertion, breaking out of inner or outer restrictions, gaining personal space; doing what you truly wish to do, refusing the restrictions and taboos imposed by society, religion, ethnic group etc.

 52. Making Sound / Longing: group – communication (7 blue)

The image

The scene is of a man alone in a small brown rowing boat on a large expanse of sea. He wears a red shirt and green trousers. He is not rowing, but gazing pensively – however, his eyes appear to be focussed inwards, and his face wears an expression of sadness. There is no land in sight, but the rower is not the only living creature in sight, as there is a seabird overhead.

Making Sound
The communicative function

Making Sound, associated with the blue throat chakra, is the communicative function, which aims to bridge the gap between self and other, particularly in terms of the male-female polarity, both as the search for sexual and spiritual union with another and, on an inner level, as the development of both ones male and female sides, and their integration. Both the flowering of the self and union with the other are integral to the attainment of personal fulfilment. The bridge is therefore two-way: from self to union and back again. And it is the role of the communicative function to create and maintain that bridge.

The meaning  

Merriam-Webster defines sound as being (adjective) ‘free from flaw, defect or decay’; (noun) ‘mechanical radiant energy that is transmitted by longitudinal pressure waves in a material medium (as air) and is the objective cause of hearing.’ (my italics)

When you are making sound, you are transmitting energy. You are engaged in a process of attempting to deal with isolation and aloneness, to repair the inadequacies of the solitary self. Innerly, you experience resistance, whilst the external, practical effects of this attempt are fear and pain. You are willing to pay this price because your isolated self has reached a point beyond which it cannot go. In your relationships, you take the position of the Seer – looking below the surface, concerned with the reality behind the mask of appearances. You take into account the signs and omens that life brings to you, you deliver yourself into the hands of fate. You trust that forces over which you have no control will steer your life to the healing and fulfilment of union with a beloved.

You experience inner tension here, because if one face of your solitude is surrender to destiny, the other is the compulsion to socialise in the search for a future partner.

As for the entirely inner sense, this may involve you, for example as a client in psychotherapy, or as a Rainring reader, working on your inner male and female. In the vibration-freedom stage of development, inner unity is your paramount objective. In Making Sound, you are going to make room for whichever pole - Spirit or Will – has been subordinate in you. This polarisation will make your inner world more unstable, dynamic and kaleidoscopic. Ultimately, of course, inner and outer will mirror each other. Any appearance of this card may potentially refer to either.

Finally, Making Sound has its other meaning: you may be producing words or music, typically as an amateur or professional singer, actor, poet etc. To sum up, the challenge of Making Sound is that of finding your own personal charisma: of discovering the power of attraction, in order to attract who and what you need to expand your psyche.

Longing
The place of longing

Longing: ‘a strong desire, especially for something unobtainable.’[3]

Once the individual has acquired sufficient freedom for this to cease to be the obsession which eclipses all others, we move into the next phase.  Longing comes into play at the moment when the solitary individual opens themselves to the pain of being alone, and desires to remedy it. Union with a suitable partner cannot be brought about by an act of will. The person in this situation is throwing great energy and effort into the search, but at the same time being forced to acknowledge that no amount of either can of itself deliver a result.

The meaning

The ‘classic’ meaning of this card, as we have seen, is that you are not in a relationship, but want to be. You Have acquired sufficient personal autonomy, but you lack, and long to find, love. Of course, longing relates more generally to any intense desire which is likely to be unrealisable, at least in the immediate future. You might, for instance, be a refugee, an exile who yearns for a sight of your own country.. Or you may long to look like such and such model or movie star, or to become rich or famous.

Again, longing may not have an immediate reference to externals. You may long to feel carefree, the way you remember having done as a child. Or you may long to be brave enough to speak in public. Here the emphasis is first on what you wish to feel, and only secondarily on what you wish would happen. Longing is a powerful emotion, hinting at the pain and suffering of a long and difficult journey  to be made before there can be any hope of satisfaction.[4]

Divination summary

MAKING SOUND: search for a soul mate, being unwillingly single, compulsive socialising; working on yourself, seeking inner balance; communication by word or music, especially with intent to heal the wounds of psyche; surrender to the designs of fate; search for sources of one’s own charisma; LONGING: longing, yearning, intense and unrealisable desire;

53. Conjugation / Play of Love: group – conjugation (8 magenta)

The Image

A young man and woman and a small girl, all smiling, are riding some horses on a fairground carousel. The man, who wears a dark blue shirt and green trousers, is reaching across to touch hands with the woman, who wears a red dress. Their daughter, riding slightly behind them, wears a sky-blue dress and holds some candy floss. A fourth horse is just visible in the background. There are also banks of lights in bright colours.

ConjugationThe conjugation function

Again, in magenta we are in the future. Conjugation at present is not an independent colour of the visible spectrum, or a chakra centre of the human body. Outwardly, it represents the balance point between the male pole of one individual and the female pole of another. Conjugation here refers to a particular type of attraction: between the spirit vibration of one person and the will vibration of another. This expresses itself as a complementary relationship – the will person absorbs spirit energy and the spirit person, will energy. The result is a relationship in which there is a blend of the two. Conjugation function exists in all of us (not only in heterosexuals), but if you are a conjugation-function person, you will have a particularly intense orientation towards this. It will be your central preoccupation, not only in terms of search for a suitable partner, but equally in the priority you give in your inner life to balancing your spirit and will energies.

The meaning

The conjugation situation is an emotional one, this emotion being always there, even when in the background, in the unconscious. You and your partner feel driven, despite the challenge involved, towards bridging the gap that separates you. You experience moments of psychific[1] completion, then lose them again. Conjugation is an experience of communication, but with a strong emphasis on the feeling aspects – it is not at a distance, but close in and hands-on! In conjugation, you will be ion touch with your soul, your unconscious core. Your reaction to the pressure on your self will be to seek for ways to control your experience – to limit its intensity and ability to de-stabilise you. You will also resist anything which would change the status quo between you and your partner. This card can also refer to more low key instances of spirit-will interaction, such as might happen during a business meeting or on a train, and may not even involve sexual elements, or one-on-one encounters  

Internally, conjugation involves issues of energy flow between crown and root chakras – violet and red. It then refers to spirit-will tensions experienced within your own psyche. This is likely to involve identity issues, with your attempt to accommodate the two poles within yourself by developing the weaker one, and to re-balance yourself after each new amplification of your psyche. This kind of disturbance and instability, therefore, may well occur in tandem with an actual relationship with another person. But this is not necessarily so. The card conjugation can also relate to these inner male-female energy issues, even though you do not have a conjugal partner at a particular moment in your life.

Play of LoveThe place of Play of Love  

The appellation ‘play of love’ makes clear that this love is not a thing, somehow tangible and fixed, but an energy movement, a dynamic and a compendium of different elements. The phase of longing gives way to that of the myriad feelings and inner states associated with ‘being in love’, or with the subsequent longer-term relationship which develops out of that initial, euphoric period.

The meaning

You are experiencing the emotions associated with conjugation – with having a sexual and spiritual partner. The full range and amplitude of these emotions will never feature in a casual sexual encounter, in a friendship, or where you have feelings which are not reciprocated. Conjugation is a two-way street. In Play of Love, as well as joy, delight, exhilaration, hope, contentment and love, you will also experience anger/rage, fear/terror, grief, despair and even hate. In other words, you will be prey to a whole kaleidoscope of emotions, and you will need your spirit side, with its ability to reflect, appraise, discern and analyse, to support you on this roller coaster.

Finally, among the many lesser reasons you might have for seeking to live out this drama, such as relief from loneliness, conformity to social norms, security and so on, there is always the central goal or ‘holy grail’ of union with the other – of a transcendence of self which takes you to a higher (i.e. more complete) level of being. We cannot avoid this path, for it is written into the fundamental instructions for the human psyche – what we could think of as the psychic DNA.

Divination summaryCONJUGATION: conjugal relations, being in love, seeking psychic wholeness through love; will-spirit issues between individuals; seeking inner male-female balance, opening up to both poles of your psyche; PLAY OF LOVE: joy, euphoria, exhilaration, emotional tension, instability, turmoil, urge to control the latter; attempt to overcome loneliness and longing.

 Quest-ion / Bittersweet

 [We have decided to withhold the detailed meanings for all the cards of group 9 until we can publish all this material commercially. We are really sorry for the inconvenience this may cause. See 9 Ebb (set 1) for details]