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49. Sensation / Despair: group – form (4 orange)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Despair/49.aspx
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 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: Despair, hopelessness, depression, auto-immune illness, suicidal inclinations; SENSATION: 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.
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Despair/49.aspx
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 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: Despair, hopelessness, depression, auto-immune illness, suicidal inclinations; SENSATION: 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.
