Chomp down on the magic mug...

Brothers, and sisters,

My brain pan is boiling -- questions arise at every turn with the seventy eight.

I'm eating yards of tangled string, each strand tied to another wonder (though challenging, said strings are a rock star super food, spun from rich fibers of both questions, and mad insight -- and yes, beer goes well with this heady dish).

Sure, I'm Jack bird reading, and scribbling (meta maps, baby, hooking above mentioned strings into knots, and weaves), but always looking for a better compass, or a fellow traveler to point the way.

Last weekie week, I had to drop by the corner store for some Camels, was chatting with the owner Bruce Smitty (the one arm dude -- that old freak is so funny, he can make change with that single like there's no tomorrow, and shuffle a deck of cards like a windmill in a thunderstorm -- spooky), so, I'm chatting with him about the proper way to do Jack bird who knows what, and without warning, he donkeys down under the counter, and comes up with half a book -- I mean a book torn in half.

"Some "filly" left this next to the Ruffles. This "devil stuff" gives me the warm Willies."

He hands me the half book -- The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, by Arthur Edward Waite.

"Your into this mumbo jumbo, ain't ya DH? Keep it. If that girly girl comes around, I'll send her around ti your place, not a bad looker she was."

Sometimes old Bruce sounds a good bit like Jack bird Yoda -- "Take you to him, I will" -- Right on you little disappointing green sward swinger, sad wielder of the no longer cool force...

That dude George Lucas is now such a pathetic writer director, that his latest three horrifying films actually created a rip in time allowing him to go back to 1977 and destroy the original STAR WARS film.

What clumps of junk.

And that dumb little kid he brought in to be slave boy? What kind of slave lives with is mom, and gets to make cool crap out of junk all day long?

The little wiggler should be living in a ditch covered with a steel grate, and there should be all manner of retched scum and villainy tapping there flu shanks onto his noggin.

No fun robots -- just dirt, and bugs.

I digress...

So the bit of book is torn off right at the Queen of cups, and I've been working on a few ideas about her, and dig that action, but here's the "Q of the D," what is the origin of that funky mug?

I understand the hot curve Queen is scoping out that covered cup to see the future, correct? Or is it a "side winding other reality" of sorts (I sense she's tripping).

It's been spinning in my noggin that these questions of past, present, and future, have little, if any real meaning in regards to the 78, given many of the notions bubbling up out of the fog of quantum mechanics.

However, viewing all that "science" through the morphing lenses of "human perception" is always a very tricky endeavor.

Riffing is perhaps the key, no?

The spin of the moment, perceiving it that moment of viewing.

I was drinking with friends once upon a day, and met this poet, a women who kept bee's (in those bee boxes you see along the road sometimes, by orchards, and what not), and drank Laird's blended AppleJack on ice, and she was crack talented (I've a few of her poems around here, killer quick good), and she had this funky leg action -- Deep Vein Thrombosis.

So?

So, she'd built this weird round doorway looking kind of a deal at one end of her barn out of some old barrels, and in the early morning hours she would stand in it, and "take in the earths moans, and cries," whatever the Jack bird that sounds like -- but it made her feel better.

I'm not sure about all that, but she had a tattoo of the Queen of cups' cup at the base of her neck, and she called it her "kaleidoscope grail."

What's the story with that? I've googled "kaleidoscope grail" but just come up double Z.

Please bring the mad insight, and we can bust out a new mix.

Durant "the universe expands around me" Hapke

I've never hear of a kaleidoscope grail, but I suppose she means her portal into the multi-faceted unknown. That's what tarot is for many of us.

"kaleidoscope grail"

I know that the Cups, especially the Ace of Cups is considered as representing the Grail. The Queen of Cups is 'water of water', that is, the Queens are considered to be of the water element and of course as are Cups. So, one could see that 'water of water' would give a shifting shimmering image. Like a kaleidoscope.

So, maybe as Solitaire* says, she sees it as her view into the shimmery, shifting unknown. Maybe.

That beekeeper sounds just like the Queen of Cups. On acid with honey mixed in . She forgot the sea, but no matter - the sea is vaster than description can manage. The Cup is her heart, her brain, her soul, her creation, her action (when she is moved to it), her sex, her anger and her forgiveness. Oh - and anything more you want to add to the mix, but keep it fluid.

It's riffin' - but then again, it's singin'. And sometimes it's buzzin' (bees create tarot in the air - have you seen them describe the 78?) - and most of of all, it's livin' - with your ears and eyes right open, and with the grace of the tarot gods... Eyes in your cards, nose in the air, brain in your books and heart travelling the world. Or vice-versa.

It sounds like you're having fun - are you? Tarot's a portal - just like Solitaire said - or perhaps a wormhole (sounds like you'd LOVE the Quantum Tarot!) - and you'll never know where you'll land when you open it

bees...

Brothers, and Sisters,

Jack bird interesting -- right, each, and all.

Bees... I've been thinking about those workers. Scary, but necessary -- critical to life:

Girl in white, "really, this bee architecture is the bomb!"

Girl in blue, "big kabloomy, I'm impressed,"

Girl in white, "I'm all about it. It's inspired."

Girl in blue, "like a rocket, right up in front."

Girl in white, "swinging."

Girl in blue, "don't look behind you, some freak's waring her prom dress"

Girl in white, "push a button."

Girl in blue, "you know it."

Girl in white, "it's really warm, let's take off our clothes. Did you bring your spoon?"

Durant "bad drama" Hapke

take a sip...

Brothers, and Sisters,

I had a dream last night, of me carefully removing the lid from the Queens mug...

I used a freaky set of little watch maker tools (I can't Jack bird say why they were instruments of the talented watch maker man, but you know dreams, some times that action is just there in your noggin -- busting out).

I'm flipping over the lid, and inside (under the top topper that is), there is in fact a hornets nest of complex little gears all moving in an extremely fascinating way (several little cogs have numbers engraved in them, others are scored with perplexing patterns of vines, leaves, and insects).

In the center of it all is a small "key" -- clearly for winding the rock star action, which I do, and hold the entire mechanism up to my ear... Yeah, baby, it's making an awesome sound, very faint, but precise, and rhythmic -- a dance party goes off in my brain pan, and I'm breaking the moves.

Sure, the beat goes on, and doing the jitter bug is fun, but in no time, I'm studying the contents of the lower portion of the mug -- the shiny vestibule of hope fantastic.

Yeah, it's filled with ice cold water... Sparkling clear, but as I look I see bubbles rising up, little Jack bird strings of pearls, like one finds in a good glass of beer (the fluid might indeed be gold in color, but in a dream, details sometimes speak up after the fact, and I've found they're not always reliable at that point in the party -- "hey, you have a place we can go?").

A rocking rock show.

If anyone, can let me in on a detailed picture of the Queens lidded cup, I'd be into that action.

If not perhaps I'll have to take it on as a bit of a design assignment.

Durant "turn the key" Hapke

wow, what a fascinating dream! I have a large RWS deck and will scan the Queen of Cups' lidded cup for you.

fule...

Brothers, and Sisters,

Marion has provided the goods -- toast up a slice, and bust a bit of "berry" jam -- your efforts are on -- and rock star appreciated.

I will commence envisioning invention.

I've been thinking about the whole notion of this action viewer, the reflection on the surface of the water within (perhaps a bit like that described in White Crow Haiku -- I bust out that Haiku action whenever the spirit gets a party going), what struck me was:

Relevance is relative.

This is fuel baby, mind fuel. I've got a lot of notions here... Lot's of note cards to fill.

Canada... I've Jack bird taken a visit there.

I saw a big sail boat up in Vancouver -- ate every kind of fish there.

Never been big boating on the sail front, but was on a tiny plastic deal as a kid -- something we called a "Sunfish." Looked like a bit of a big surf board -- big and yellow -- with just a single triangle sheet for a sail (kind of at an angle, rather then straight up, and down on a mast deal).

Bring it.

We took it fishing, which is a bad idea as there was no real compartment to the thing, and all your action just drug in the water, and when John "O slice of pie," hooked hold of a little perch, it nearly sent us tumbling in.

"Damn, get the water out of the worm can!"

So, didn't really dig it, it was hardly sailing, but we did see some curves floating around on an inner tube before it got dark, so pulled up to their dock (not by wind power mind you, rather by spooning with our hands, and working the tiller/rudder deal), and invited ourselves up for a sit -- lots of mosquitos in that neck of the woods, nothing more confusing then a young women's white skin -- the part that hides under her bikini top, out of the sun -- sporting a few raised red bug bites.

It's not that hot per say, but draws your eye, and then your watching them breathing -- and that's working -- but then there's the bug bite again -- then the soft smooth skin -- and on, and on... (I just go for the novelty at some point, and it always ended up working fine).

Back to studies.

Durant "I'll take a brain vacation" Hapke

Durant Hapke said:

Riffing is perhaps the key, no?

Click to expand...

Well "Yes" actually. My ideas on riffing concern mixing disparate books and cards.

Ones that often have nothing to do with tarot. Kind of tangential explorations into the clear, blue sky of Cloud Cuckoo Land.

Wave when you take the leap Daddy-o.

That lidded cup looks like a robot: from its inverted funnel top to the stove-pipe 'arms' on which perch dark winged figures down to its base. The arms also resemble the claws of a lobster or crab, both water creatures & Water the card's element.

Eerily evocative of The Wizard of Oz' Tin Man & Star Wars' 3-CPO; & 'short' like R2D2. The spot of red at its 'chest': the heart the Tin Man yearns to acquire.

A synchronistic 'aha' moment of sorts--Cups associated with feelings; sensitivity; matters of the heart.

With much appreciation to Marion for the amazing detail scanned because I never saw it in quite that way before.