Wendywu
First off, a prose poem by Lorena Babcock Moore
BOX TURTLE
She has been called Earth Island.
The early spring forest trembles
As she dives for a mouthful of creek sand
To build the world.
From a leathery mud tomb,
From eggs as soft as a clutch of grubs,
From the reeking brushpile kingdom of centipedes,
Pangaea emerges.
Her ribs and vertebrae are fused into a map
Of the planet's sutured carapace.
She feels her shell eroding
Even as new growth rings stretch
Over a spine marked with her own tracks.
Turn her over at the end of each age.
Rattle out her bones like sand.
Then her shell is emptier than a geode,
White and fragile as anyone's skull.
Now, why the poem? In the Ironwing Red Earth is a long extinct species of giant tortoise called meiolana. I attach an image of a skeleton, and also of what it is presumed a fully fleshed meiolana would have looked like. They were huge, with a head spanning two feet, and a body about 8 feet long. I try to think of all the things that are “tortoise” for me. I think – mysterious (I’m always sure there’s loads going on in there – those black eyes look as if all the wisdom of the world is behind them. Tortoises are purposeful, and not given to doing things just for the hell of it. Everything happens for a reason, even if it is immediately obvious to us what the reason is.
This particular species of tortoise had spikes on her head which meant she couldn’t pull her head back into her shell. In effect, she’s not about to hide, even if she won’t clarify either.
She has a carapace – a shell – most things don’t really impinge on her consciousness. She is impervious to many things that would frighten, worry and upset creatures with no such natural defense. Red Earth has powerful legs and strong clause. She can dig her way to the truth she seeks if it is not immediately obvious to her, but who could doubt that she sees behind the Veil.
Attached to Red Earth’s carapace (if not to Meiolana’s) are fossilized stromatolites, held in bands of red jasper and metallic hematite. Stromatolites (and who knew this?) are among the earliest life forms on the plant; they are colonies of algae and for those preserved forever it is estimated they are around 2.5 billion years old. And they are fused to Red Earth’s carapace. She carries the wisdom and pain of the ages with her.
Lorena Babcock Moore, who created the deck, was anxious that people should not just read the cards as tarot but that through their understanding of the wildlife portrayed, their appreciation of the earth and all her treasures would increase. She chose the wildlife drawn on each card with enormous care. The creatures used are not, usually, conventionally pretty; there is little “ahh” factor in her images. They are the hard edge of nature’s “uglies” and we must learn to see past externals and acknowledge our total one-ness with Spirit in whatever form she chooses for her creatures. With Red Earth the connection is easy to acknowledge. She is beautiful. She can be hard as nails but is also as soft as a nest of feathers. She has claws and can use them. And yet Red Earth has such a soft, soft inner that without her hard shell she’d not survive – just like us, really.
Looking at the card the thing I am most drawn to – always – is that skeletal head. Bones picked absolutely clean and bleached to a pure white by the kindly sun. It looks like you could climb in and keep going – like the entrance to a glorious cave system. And inside, the structure of the skeleton forming the walls and vaulted ceiling of the cave.
How appropriate – in ancient times the Oracle of Delphi received her querents in a cave! So close to nature and Spirit – how could one not hear the Voice and see with clarity what it is that Spirit wants heard, seen and understood. Climbing deep in the heart of Red Earth, looking out through her eyes; being her, however briefly.
An obvious thing to look at are those terrible claws. The damage they could inflict if used as a weapon! But Red Earth uses her clause for digging – for revealing – not to deliberately hurt. If the seeress says something that hurts in the course of her vision – is this her fault? I don’t think so. The seeress is not in command of the voice that speaks through her; she is its instrument.
This card, this Red Earth, means a lot to me. The soil of my town has a very high concentration of hematite and as a result, it is the red colour of dull rust. It stains clothes and sheep pink! I wondered why the card is called Red Earth. I remember the ancient cave system in my town – Kent’s Cavern – and that feels like a connection with long extinct Meiolana and I wonder if the prehistoric people who sheltered in those caves were permanently red from the earth! I attach an image of my town’s red soil and of the entrance cave of the system.
I also wonder if living in caves and being so very close to nature meant that these ancient people were in fact closer to spirit as well, did they somehow have more of a connection than us? Or is it just different now.
I find the stromatolites interesting although I’m not clear on any symbolism that they introduce to the card. I see that they are attached to Red Earth’s carapace but were not parasitic. Red Earth possibly found them useful for camouflage – and here I think about the possibilithy of the modern seeress being camouflaged of necessity. In most areas, particularly those with loud devotees of an almost statutory religion, a visionary won’t be an over-welcome member of the community. So maybe I do understand the stromatolites and they have given me a sudden shaft of insight into the card.
I feel enormously sorry for the skeletal meiolana whose image I hold. Such depth, such insight – yet so slow, so vulnerable. Those spikes that meant she couldn’t retract her head – she was so at the mercy of the hungry and merciless.
She reminds me of an old granny who’s taken her false teeth out. And then next moment I am overwhelmed by her power as it glints out past the eye sockets that I have been looking into as if they were mere empty bone. Deep, dark hollows – it’s a long, long walk inside. And yet it is where we all here want to go!
I love this card because it’s not an image of a beautiful young woman, serene and safe. This is nature and power as it really is. Life and death, pain and power. It tells me that our Inner Vision doesn’t always bring us the images we might want or expect. Sometimes the real truth has claws, scales and a shell we have to work to get past.
The more I look at this card, and I mean just sit and stare at it – the more powerful and overwhelming it becomes. (It reminds me sooo much of that card of Poppy Palin’s in Waking the Wild Spirit – that one of the elderly lady in profile – they taste the same in my head). It was a hard life that Red Earth lived – that’s why she has so much to teach me.
This is a poor study, I feel as if I haven’t touched on any single part of the card that really matters. But it will have to do for now. All I can do is promise myself to come back and do it again at a later date.
BOX TURTLE
She has been called Earth Island.
The early spring forest trembles
As she dives for a mouthful of creek sand
To build the world.
From a leathery mud tomb,
From eggs as soft as a clutch of grubs,
From the reeking brushpile kingdom of centipedes,
Pangaea emerges.
Her ribs and vertebrae are fused into a map
Of the planet's sutured carapace.
She feels her shell eroding
Even as new growth rings stretch
Over a spine marked with her own tracks.
Turn her over at the end of each age.
Rattle out her bones like sand.
Then her shell is emptier than a geode,
White and fragile as anyone's skull.
Now, why the poem? In the Ironwing Red Earth is a long extinct species of giant tortoise called meiolana. I attach an image of a skeleton, and also of what it is presumed a fully fleshed meiolana would have looked like. They were huge, with a head spanning two feet, and a body about 8 feet long. I try to think of all the things that are “tortoise” for me. I think – mysterious (I’m always sure there’s loads going on in there – those black eyes look as if all the wisdom of the world is behind them. Tortoises are purposeful, and not given to doing things just for the hell of it. Everything happens for a reason, even if it is immediately obvious to us what the reason is.
This particular species of tortoise had spikes on her head which meant she couldn’t pull her head back into her shell. In effect, she’s not about to hide, even if she won’t clarify either.
She has a carapace – a shell – most things don’t really impinge on her consciousness. She is impervious to many things that would frighten, worry and upset creatures with no such natural defense. Red Earth has powerful legs and strong clause. She can dig her way to the truth she seeks if it is not immediately obvious to her, but who could doubt that she sees behind the Veil.
Attached to Red Earth’s carapace (if not to Meiolana’s) are fossilized stromatolites, held in bands of red jasper and metallic hematite. Stromatolites (and who knew this?) are among the earliest life forms on the plant; they are colonies of algae and for those preserved forever it is estimated they are around 2.5 billion years old. And they are fused to Red Earth’s carapace. She carries the wisdom and pain of the ages with her.
Lorena Babcock Moore, who created the deck, was anxious that people should not just read the cards as tarot but that through their understanding of the wildlife portrayed, their appreciation of the earth and all her treasures would increase. She chose the wildlife drawn on each card with enormous care. The creatures used are not, usually, conventionally pretty; there is little “ahh” factor in her images. They are the hard edge of nature’s “uglies” and we must learn to see past externals and acknowledge our total one-ness with Spirit in whatever form she chooses for her creatures. With Red Earth the connection is easy to acknowledge. She is beautiful. She can be hard as nails but is also as soft as a nest of feathers. She has claws and can use them. And yet Red Earth has such a soft, soft inner that without her hard shell she’d not survive – just like us, really.
Looking at the card the thing I am most drawn to – always – is that skeletal head. Bones picked absolutely clean and bleached to a pure white by the kindly sun. It looks like you could climb in and keep going – like the entrance to a glorious cave system. And inside, the structure of the skeleton forming the walls and vaulted ceiling of the cave.
How appropriate – in ancient times the Oracle of Delphi received her querents in a cave! So close to nature and Spirit – how could one not hear the Voice and see with clarity what it is that Spirit wants heard, seen and understood. Climbing deep in the heart of Red Earth, looking out through her eyes; being her, however briefly.
An obvious thing to look at are those terrible claws. The damage they could inflict if used as a weapon! But Red Earth uses her clause for digging – for revealing – not to deliberately hurt. If the seeress says something that hurts in the course of her vision – is this her fault? I don’t think so. The seeress is not in command of the voice that speaks through her; she is its instrument.
This card, this Red Earth, means a lot to me. The soil of my town has a very high concentration of hematite and as a result, it is the red colour of dull rust. It stains clothes and sheep pink! I wondered why the card is called Red Earth. I remember the ancient cave system in my town – Kent’s Cavern – and that feels like a connection with long extinct Meiolana and I wonder if the prehistoric people who sheltered in those caves were permanently red from the earth! I attach an image of my town’s red soil and of the entrance cave of the system.
I also wonder if living in caves and being so very close to nature meant that these ancient people were in fact closer to spirit as well, did they somehow have more of a connection than us? Or is it just different now.
I find the stromatolites interesting although I’m not clear on any symbolism that they introduce to the card. I see that they are attached to Red Earth’s carapace but were not parasitic. Red Earth possibly found them useful for camouflage – and here I think about the possibilithy of the modern seeress being camouflaged of necessity. In most areas, particularly those with loud devotees of an almost statutory religion, a visionary won’t be an over-welcome member of the community. So maybe I do understand the stromatolites and they have given me a sudden shaft of insight into the card.
I feel enormously sorry for the skeletal meiolana whose image I hold. Such depth, such insight – yet so slow, so vulnerable. Those spikes that meant she couldn’t retract her head – she was so at the mercy of the hungry and merciless.
She reminds me of an old granny who’s taken her false teeth out. And then next moment I am overwhelmed by her power as it glints out past the eye sockets that I have been looking into as if they were mere empty bone. Deep, dark hollows – it’s a long, long walk inside. And yet it is where we all here want to go!
I love this card because it’s not an image of a beautiful young woman, serene and safe. This is nature and power as it really is. Life and death, pain and power. It tells me that our Inner Vision doesn’t always bring us the images we might want or expect. Sometimes the real truth has claws, scales and a shell we have to work to get past.
The more I look at this card, and I mean just sit and stare at it – the more powerful and overwhelming it becomes. (It reminds me sooo much of that card of Poppy Palin’s in Waking the Wild Spirit – that one of the elderly lady in profile – they taste the same in my head). It was a hard life that Red Earth lived – that’s why she has so much to teach me.
This is a poor study, I feel as if I haven’t touched on any single part of the card that really matters. But it will have to do for now. All I can do is promise myself to come back and do it again at a later date.
