94stranger
50. Intuition / Contact: Hope: group – Unconscious (5 indigo)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Contact__Hope/50.aspx
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)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Freedom/51.aspx
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)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Longing/52.aspx
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)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Play_Of_Love/53.aspx
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.
Conjugation
The 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 Love
The 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 summary
CONJUGATION: 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.
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54. Quest-ion / Bittersweet: group - quest-ion? (9 grey / brown)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Bittersweet/54.aspx
[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]
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[1] Merriam-Webster online dictionary.
[2] provided they have not previously suffered irreversible psychological damage,
[3] Merriam-Webster online
[4] The famous last lines of Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ are a classic evocation of longing; in this case, the longing to rest from the struggle of life:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
[5] psychific = of the psyche
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Contact__Hope/50.aspx
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)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Freedom/51.aspx
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)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Longing/52.aspx
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)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Play_Of_Love/53.aspx
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.
Conjugation
The 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 Love
The 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 summary
CONJUGATION: 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.
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54. Quest-ion / Bittersweet: group - quest-ion? (9 grey / brown)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Bittersweet/54.aspx
[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]
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[1] Merriam-Webster online dictionary.
[2] provided they have not previously suffered irreversible psychological damage,
[3] Merriam-Webster online
[4] The famous last lines of Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ are a classic evocation of longing; in this case, the longing to rest from the struggle of life:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
[5] psychific = of the psyche
