Adjustment

[Alobar]

dynamic and healthy, and NOT static!

i tried to find an alternate version of this card here...
http://www.occultartgallery.com/occultartgallery/harris/harris.html
... but unfortunately Adjustment isn't included.

 

[Goldenhair]

Four Fold Symmetry

The first four that comes to mind are the four suits of the minor arcana. Cups (emotions), swords (thought), wands (physical action) and disks (physical items-matter) need to be adjusted in our lives.
The four suits can represent the four elements - water, air, fire and earth. These, also, need to be in constant adjustment to support life. A plant grows in the earth, needs water, extracts gasses out of the air and needs the light of the sun (fire). Any imbalance affects its survival.
The Goddess Ma'at weighs the human heart against her feather. The human heart is a four chambered organ that pumps life thru the human body. The heart adjusts its pumping rate when we exercise or when we rest.
There are the four seasons of the year. And four weeks in a lunar month.
I don't know if any of these examples are consciously reprsented on Adjustment but they are food for thought.
The number four beats within us and extends to the four corners of the earth.

 

[Moonudjat]

Re: Four Fold Symmetry

The first four that comes to mind are the four suits of the minor arcana. Cups (emotions), swords (thought), wands (physical action) and disks (physical items-matter) need to be adjusted in our lives.
The four suits can represent the four elements - water, air, fire and earth. These, also, need to be in constant adjustment to support life. A plant grows in the earth, needs water, extracts gasses out of the air and needs the light of the sun (fire). Any imbalance affects its survival.
The Goddess Ma'at weighs the human heart against her feather. The human heart is a four chambered organ that pumps life thru the human body. The heart adjusts its pumping rate when we exercise or when we rest.
There are the four seasons of the year. And four weeks in a lunar month.
I don't know if any of these examples are consciously reprsented on Adjustment but they are food for thought.
The number four beats within us and extends to the four corners of the earth.

Four medium circles below and four above, four “feathers” along the legs on each side, four small circles (3 in the sword one on top of Ma’at’s head) Could these four points have something to do with chakras? I wonder if the four in Qabalah has any significance with this card? It seems as if all the fours of the four suit are all ordered and balance.

Just some side stuff
During the journey to the afterlife (which Ma'at was a part of) The removed internal organs were separately treated and, during much of Egyptian history, placed in jars of clay or stone. These so-called Canopic Jars were closed with stoppers fashioned in the shape of four heads -- human, baboon, falcon, and jackal - representing the four protective spirits called the Four Sons of Horus. (maybe this has something to do with the statues in The Chariot, but it's still four) Maybe 4 had a significance then also?

 

[Parzival]

The four-chambered heart. Perfectly joins the fourfoldness. Also, the canopic jars fit in. There is in this picture something cosmically expansive , yet crystalline. The quarter circles in the four corners suggest the four masks in Hierophant and the four beasts in Universe-- as to where they are in the whole picture. I still do not see all this as karma . Maybe it's about how the Universe in its entirety holds harmony or restores it ?

 

[Moonudjat]

The four-chambered heart. Perfectly joins the fourfoldness. Also, the canopic jars fit in. There is in this picture something cosmically expansive , yet crystalline. The quarter circles in the four corners suggest the four masks in Hierophant and the four beasts in Universe-- as to where they are in the whole picture. I still do not see all this as karma . Maybe it's about how the Universe in its entirety holds harmony or restores it ?

Interesting i never really thought of the four flowers to the four masks in the heirophant and the four beasts in the Universe.

 

[Dean]

Adjustment balanced equal partnerships.

 

[mooiedragon]

I know this is kind of an old thread, but I pulled Adjustment as my daily card today and couldn't quite get a hold of what it was, so I started reading.

I really like a lot of the ideas from this thread, it's really given me a much clearer picture of what this card represents!

For me, this is a card of focus, of re-evaluation. She is balancing Sooo many things and it's taking all her concentration. It's like there is only one way in which to make it work, and she has found this way. And I do see the double edged sword there because perhaps it's not the way she had envisioned it. These speres, etc are bound to her, they don't seem to be of her choosing and yet she finds a way to hold them all up.

 

[Sedi]

For me, this is a card of focus, of re-evaluation. She is balancing Sooo many things and it's taking all her concentration. It's like there is only one way in which to make it work, and she has found this way. And I do see the double edged sword there because perhaps it's not the way she had envisioned it. These speres, etc are bound to her, they don't seem to be of her choosing and yet she finds a way to hold them all up.

I think your last line is important. To me there seem to be so many opposites and contradictions in the card, but with the caveat that she makes them all work.

To me the card is very Zen (in a straightforward way) of being X yet not being X. For example a point of balance (on her toes) but having no chance of moving from that very fine point. It is not a comforatble stance, but she can maintain it. It is like an inverted mountain perfectly balanced on its peak.

And yet it is also NOT like that! It represents to me infinite skill in 'being able to keep all those balls in the air at once" and hence is a *dynamic equilibrium*. This is like homeostasis, mentioned earlier, but where everything changes but everything stays the same. You see this when you walk down the up escalator. Or if you fill a bath with water, keep the taps running and pull out the plug. Moving, but balanced.

So she seems both frozen in the moment of perfect balance, unable to move and also keeping everything going and making it work. Any adjustment to her position and she will topple, but to maintain the balance adjustments must be continually made. Talk about contradictions. A rock and a hard place. Irresistable force and immovable object. The perfect moment.

Just some thoughts.

 

[Alta]

Sedi, I like your description. Really added to my understanding of the card.

I also think that the very 'adjusted stillness' of the card in some ways allows other things to happen. It is not just a card of maintenance to me. But an ability to allow things to keep working because of this stance.

 

[Sedi]

Yes, that is interesting too. It is another contradictory duality. The point (sorry about the pun - the purpose, then) of the balance is to maintain the balance, so it is focused on itself. (If it loses concentration it may fail.) But in doing so it allows something else to happen. That would seem to make it both internal and external balance and focus.

This is however within the context of *adjustment* though. This implies something is being monitored for changes in some way (monitored pre-, during and post-) and that change may be micro- (to keep your tippy-toe balance) or macro- (to keep everything under control).

Change of subject - it just hit me again. . . Does anyone else find that once they start writing like this that suddenly everything seems to click and you have to just stop writing and just let the thought explosions go off like a firework display before you can go on? Kind of 'blissed out' there for a moment.