94stranger
Directory of Meanings Set 7: Art and Life
NOTES
1. The blue group 7 is concerned with communication, and set 7 takes up this theme again. We consider that the ultimate form of throat chakra communication between human beings is art, so Rainring explores the issues involving communication by referring to the artist and his/her work.
2. Within the meaning section of each entry, we begin by quoting the definition given on the web, follow this with one or two general comments about the card, then move to specific indications about the querant drawing the card.
55. Impression: group – spirit (1 violet/purple)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Impression/55.aspx
The Image
Two figures are seen in silhouette against what could be a night sky lit up by fireworks. To the left, a man is raising himself from a reclining position. He is looking at a woman, apparently considerably younger than himself, who stands amid a great tangle of hair, looking back and holding her arms out towards him.
The meaning
Impression: the mark left on our being by the experiences of life; the process or result of imprinting the psyche
A: General
The sequence of cards which make up this set begins with the spirit group card Impression. This is a complex card with several layers of meaning. It can refer to the totality of the impressions imprinted in the psyche, which altogether form our conditioning. Or its reference can be simply to whatever we take in as we walk around etc – the myriad of sense impressions. Finally, when it is linked to words such as impressive and impressed, there is a feeling of being overawed by someone or something – this person or thing is great and I feel small by comparison.
B Specific
Someone or something makes an impression on you. You have an ambivalent reaction to this. One aspect of this is that you feel small, even possibly worthless by comparison – your ego is diminished. In some cases, you may resent and resist the impression, because it has the ability to destabilise you, to force you to question yourself, your views, attitudes, beliefs, behaviour, lifestyle and self-image. In fact, polemic forms of expression (card 56) aim quite specifically at this effect. With Impression, you are under a degree of threat, yet you cannot simply close yourself off from impressions, because they can also nurture, enrich and teach you. This is the origin of your dilemma – you want to open yourself to impressions that enhance your world, whilst avoiding those that detract from it.
Impressions, equally, can have emotional consequences. If you have been moved, it means that strong emotions were triggered in you, as a result of which you are no longer ‘in the same place’ as you were. It is also characteristic of impressions that they can cause a delayed reaction. You may have resistances at this particular moment, or your psyche may be like cold earth in which a seed cannot germinate yet. But that same seed can lie dormant, sometimes for years, and suddenly one day, at the appropriate season, it will burst into life. In relationship something similar happens: today you are impressed by so-and-so, feel insignificant in comparison to them – later, inspired by their life and / or work, having learned the lessons that their example had for you, you may find that you have risen to their level and now stand alongside them.
The card summarising the nature of Impression is Legacy, umpire Form. This elegantly summarises your situation. Whether or not you are aware of it at this moment, Impression means that a permanent and tangible impact has occurred: someone or something has had an effect upon you which will not fade away.
Despite this focus, we should also bear in mind, as mentioned, that the card may refer in a less dramatic way to a situation in which you have absorbed one or more impressions, without them having triggered such a strong response or been particularly ‘impressive’; equally, the card can occur in a context in which it refers to the effects of childhood conditioning – the imprint of early-life situations and events on your psyche.
Divination summary:
Being impressed, overawed, inspired; a genuine learning situation; feeling threatened or humbled by the size, power, capacities etc of a person or thing; envy, resistance; nurtured, touched, moved; seeds of future growth of self; sense impressions; issues of conditioning.
56. Expression: group – will (2 red)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Expression/56.aspx
The Image
The image is a close-up of a man of middle years with a moustache and goatee beard. He wears a red woollen cap decorated with white designs and a green tunic with a white band at the neck. He is holding up his left hand, the fingers of which are in very expressive positions, perhaps because he is responding to music. The trunk of a tree can just be seen to his left, and its bare branches overhead seem almost to mimic the movement of his fingers. He wears an expression of calm concentration.
The meaning
Expression: The urge to make our mark upon life, just as it makes its own upon us; the impulse to press out upon the world by creative acts
A General
Creative expression has come to seem like the preserve of a select few. Yet impression and expression are as central to human existence as inspiration and expiration – and one without the other is unthinkable. Just as impression belongs at the spirit pole, so expression is at the other pole, the Will, making emotion an integral part of expression. The literal meaning is to press out, and expression seems to be the product of what feels like an imperative inner need to externalise something of oneself.
B specific
Your journey of expression begins with gifts from the Unconscious. You may even have times of feeling absolutely compelled to bring out something that is running through your inner being like molten lava. Rather as the mother must push the baby into the world, so as the artist you must sometimes push your inner vision into the light of day. This intense process may cause you to have a domineering attitude – it sweeps all before it. Also, it means connecting to physical elements – whether the materials you use, the information obtained from your senses, the contact with objects, events and people which may be part of this process of birthing your vision. Indeed, this card signifies passion in relationship – that place where you are neither in control nor abandon, because it is the fine balance between the two which fits your purposes as an artist.
Perhaps you cannot avoid a sense of inflation, for it is a fact that you are a conduit from the immensity beyond to the level of the everyday world. Your art, if it truly has this beyond in it, causes you to shine. In fact, more than that, it represents a rite of passage from which you will emerge spiritually enriched. For this reason, what will oppose Expression is any anxiety felt about such movement, personal growth.
To sum up, Expression, or art as we tend to call its production, has some of the qualities of youth: exuberance, enthusiasm and usually, on some level, optimism. It belongs to the new: challenging the established order, too captivated by the intoxication which accompanies it to worry overmuch about what consequences it may have, what reactions it may set off, in the wider society.Note that a further meaning of Expression is also possible, namely that of saying what you feel, in the sense of not repressing it. No artistic reference need be involved in this case.
Divinatory meanings
creative work, self-expression, saying what you feel, passion, dedication, intoxication, radiance, inflated feelings of self-worth, journey of the soul, exuberance, naivety, infectious enthusiasm, challenge to established values.
57. Rapport: group – heart (3 green)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Rapport/57.aspx
The Image
In the upper part of the picture, two young men sit on a raised platform. Each leans against a pillar, they face each other with their legs intertwined, the one on the left is playing a flute, the one on the right a guitar. Below them, in the lower part of the picture, two young couples are dancing. In fact, the artist has amused herself by arranging for each girl to have given one hand to each of the two young men, so that if they attempt to turn, as they appear to be doing, they will end up in a complete tangle. The dominant colour of the image is various tones of green.
The meaning
Rapport: the essence of the artist as communicator – heart to heart connection with the other
A General
Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines rapport as ‘relation marked by harmony, conformity, accord, or affinity’. Rapport is the art and life card for the heart chakra. It describes a particular relationship, the passionate connection between artist and public – one which is full of intensity, yet at the same time has a distance, an objectivity about it. By extension, it expands to include relationships of a similar kind in any other context.
B Specific
This card means that you feel a close connection, affinity or harmony with one or more others. Rapport signifies that you feel a lot of emotion, yet part of this you will keep inside, rather than exteriorising it as you would do in a relationship of an intimate character. In rapport, you feel your inner barriers and defences dissolve, and you experience great warmth towards another or others. At the same time, this sense of closeness is tempered by the knowledge that this is not a relationship that will have the continuity of an intimate one: this person, these people will move on and you sense already the need to try and protect yourself from the worst effects of the shock which this separation will produce. There is a tendency to fantasize about how life would be with this person, ignoring the fact that the special connection being felt comes not from the mundane repetitions of daily life, but from an exceptional moment outside it. Ultimately, you are involved in a tug-of-war inside yourself, for the only way to balance the strong emotional urge towards this other is to use your spirit side to pull away.
The classic instance of rapport, that is, is the case where two people have had an intense experience together, such as a shared experience of an artistic kind: through music, film, theatre and so on. This has precipitated a deep feeling of affinity, but the emotional rush which results is counterbalanced by the knowledge that they live on different continents, both have a spouse and children…In fact, the feelings associated with rapport do not have to be of a potentially sexual nature: they may be of great warmth and affection for someone of the same sex, where no homosexual feelings are involved. The opposition to rapport comes, not surprisingly, from sexual intimacy, since once the feelings contained in rapport tip over into sexual expression, the nature of the relationship has altered.
To sum up, Rapport is marked by a quality of discontinuity: the power of it is likely to be successfully contained only where there is a lot of space between those involved. If we think of the ‘serious’ artist as a passionate, dedicated individual with special qualities of heart and soul, we can see how rapport will be a frequent, almost characteristic form of connection with others.
Divination summary
mutual warmth, affection, admiration and respect; affinity & harmony in relationship; repressed passion, emotional resonance; longing, feeling uplifted and ennobled, fantasies of exceptional intimate relations; using the spirit to distance oneself from strong attraction
58. Oeuvre: group – form (4 orange)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Oeuvre/58.aspx
The Image
A wood sculptor is chiselling away at the image of a large, unidentifiable animal. Only the upper part of his body is visible, and here he is wearing blue and white. Although we would expect him to be working with dead, seasoned wood, the artist has shown green shoots on the remains of the trunk which appears to form the basis of the sculpture. We can surmise that, whether intentional or not, some kind of symbolism is involved.
The meaning
Oeuvre: expression actualised through creative work – the vision of the artist materialised; directed, productive efforts
A General
Oeuvre marks a watershed, for it is the moment at which the unconscious of the artist moves from the passive absorption of impressions to the active production of work. If expression can be thought of as preliminary drawings, rough drafts of text, rehearsals and so on, oeuvre is the real thing: the creative work of the artist. In Rainring, the card Oeuvre can mean any form of activity – almost all practical activity allows opportunities for the worker to stamp her or his personal mark upon the task. Oeuvre can also refer to inner ‘work’ taking place: for example, a patient working with a therapist to resolve childhood trauma, or a special needs teacher studying and trying to understand the behaviour of an autistic child.
B Specific
This card means that you are actually doing something: you have gone through the preliminaries – getting an idea, working out the details, getting the tools and equipment together… now you are engaged in the actual task. This is the communication set, and what you strive for in this communication we call art is the development and balancing of spirit and will – inspiration and emotion. Great art speaks to the whole range of our human psyche. The same tension which you experienced in Rapport exists also here: intense emotion can be generated in the course of your creative process, but you must balance this by your ability to step back and find an objective viewpoint. The most successful art is that in which the emotion is powerful and authentic, but contained. The vitality which drives your art may well also drive you towards sexual passion, for the two are very close. If relationship features in your oeuvre – as with a painter and his or her model - then you will be possessed by the human object of the creation.
To sum up, with Oeuvre you are handling an explosive force, yet you are doing so in a balanced manner, for you cannot produce finished work without an ability to hold in check the various forces of disintegration which threaten that work. Yet despite, or even because of this character of living dangerously, on the edge, Oeuvre holds a seductive quality which means that you may well have to fight to finish the piece of work. If it comes to an end naturally, like a theatre performance, then you have to fight to come down from that explosive place into the humdrum reality of the daily round. The world is full of artists, writers and so on who have nothing more to say, but are trapped in a compulsion to produce. Equally, on the level of the bloke next door who is always fiddling with his car, this difficulty in completing what we find creatively rewarding is just as apparent.
Divination summary
practical activity, creating, inventing, applying one’s personal touch; expressing oneself in actual work, passionate involvement in activity, trying to balance passion and objectivity; reluctance to let go of activities we enjoy working at; inner states which correspond to the above.
NOTES
1. The blue group 7 is concerned with communication, and set 7 takes up this theme again. We consider that the ultimate form of throat chakra communication between human beings is art, so Rainring explores the issues involving communication by referring to the artist and his/her work.
2. Within the meaning section of each entry, we begin by quoting the definition given on the web, follow this with one or two general comments about the card, then move to specific indications about the querant drawing the card.
55. Impression: group – spirit (1 violet/purple)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Impression/55.aspx
The Image
Two figures are seen in silhouette against what could be a night sky lit up by fireworks. To the left, a man is raising himself from a reclining position. He is looking at a woman, apparently considerably younger than himself, who stands amid a great tangle of hair, looking back and holding her arms out towards him.
The meaning
Impression: the mark left on our being by the experiences of life; the process or result of imprinting the psyche
A: General
The sequence of cards which make up this set begins with the spirit group card Impression. This is a complex card with several layers of meaning. It can refer to the totality of the impressions imprinted in the psyche, which altogether form our conditioning. Or its reference can be simply to whatever we take in as we walk around etc – the myriad of sense impressions. Finally, when it is linked to words such as impressive and impressed, there is a feeling of being overawed by someone or something – this person or thing is great and I feel small by comparison.
B Specific
Someone or something makes an impression on you. You have an ambivalent reaction to this. One aspect of this is that you feel small, even possibly worthless by comparison – your ego is diminished. In some cases, you may resent and resist the impression, because it has the ability to destabilise you, to force you to question yourself, your views, attitudes, beliefs, behaviour, lifestyle and self-image. In fact, polemic forms of expression (card 56) aim quite specifically at this effect. With Impression, you are under a degree of threat, yet you cannot simply close yourself off from impressions, because they can also nurture, enrich and teach you. This is the origin of your dilemma – you want to open yourself to impressions that enhance your world, whilst avoiding those that detract from it.
Impressions, equally, can have emotional consequences. If you have been moved, it means that strong emotions were triggered in you, as a result of which you are no longer ‘in the same place’ as you were. It is also characteristic of impressions that they can cause a delayed reaction. You may have resistances at this particular moment, or your psyche may be like cold earth in which a seed cannot germinate yet. But that same seed can lie dormant, sometimes for years, and suddenly one day, at the appropriate season, it will burst into life. In relationship something similar happens: today you are impressed by so-and-so, feel insignificant in comparison to them – later, inspired by their life and / or work, having learned the lessons that their example had for you, you may find that you have risen to their level and now stand alongside them.
The card summarising the nature of Impression is Legacy, umpire Form. This elegantly summarises your situation. Whether or not you are aware of it at this moment, Impression means that a permanent and tangible impact has occurred: someone or something has had an effect upon you which will not fade away.
Despite this focus, we should also bear in mind, as mentioned, that the card may refer in a less dramatic way to a situation in which you have absorbed one or more impressions, without them having triggered such a strong response or been particularly ‘impressive’; equally, the card can occur in a context in which it refers to the effects of childhood conditioning – the imprint of early-life situations and events on your psyche.
Divination summary:
Being impressed, overawed, inspired; a genuine learning situation; feeling threatened or humbled by the size, power, capacities etc of a person or thing; envy, resistance; nurtured, touched, moved; seeds of future growth of self; sense impressions; issues of conditioning.
56. Expression: group – will (2 red)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Expression/56.aspx
The Image
The image is a close-up of a man of middle years with a moustache and goatee beard. He wears a red woollen cap decorated with white designs and a green tunic with a white band at the neck. He is holding up his left hand, the fingers of which are in very expressive positions, perhaps because he is responding to music. The trunk of a tree can just be seen to his left, and its bare branches overhead seem almost to mimic the movement of his fingers. He wears an expression of calm concentration.
The meaning
Expression: The urge to make our mark upon life, just as it makes its own upon us; the impulse to press out upon the world by creative acts
A General
Creative expression has come to seem like the preserve of a select few. Yet impression and expression are as central to human existence as inspiration and expiration – and one without the other is unthinkable. Just as impression belongs at the spirit pole, so expression is at the other pole, the Will, making emotion an integral part of expression. The literal meaning is to press out, and expression seems to be the product of what feels like an imperative inner need to externalise something of oneself.
B specific
Your journey of expression begins with gifts from the Unconscious. You may even have times of feeling absolutely compelled to bring out something that is running through your inner being like molten lava. Rather as the mother must push the baby into the world, so as the artist you must sometimes push your inner vision into the light of day. This intense process may cause you to have a domineering attitude – it sweeps all before it. Also, it means connecting to physical elements – whether the materials you use, the information obtained from your senses, the contact with objects, events and people which may be part of this process of birthing your vision. Indeed, this card signifies passion in relationship – that place where you are neither in control nor abandon, because it is the fine balance between the two which fits your purposes as an artist.
Perhaps you cannot avoid a sense of inflation, for it is a fact that you are a conduit from the immensity beyond to the level of the everyday world. Your art, if it truly has this beyond in it, causes you to shine. In fact, more than that, it represents a rite of passage from which you will emerge spiritually enriched. For this reason, what will oppose Expression is any anxiety felt about such movement, personal growth.
To sum up, Expression, or art as we tend to call its production, has some of the qualities of youth: exuberance, enthusiasm and usually, on some level, optimism. It belongs to the new: challenging the established order, too captivated by the intoxication which accompanies it to worry overmuch about what consequences it may have, what reactions it may set off, in the wider society.Note that a further meaning of Expression is also possible, namely that of saying what you feel, in the sense of not repressing it. No artistic reference need be involved in this case.
Divinatory meanings
creative work, self-expression, saying what you feel, passion, dedication, intoxication, radiance, inflated feelings of self-worth, journey of the soul, exuberance, naivety, infectious enthusiasm, challenge to established values.
57. Rapport: group – heart (3 green)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Rapport/57.aspx
The Image
In the upper part of the picture, two young men sit on a raised platform. Each leans against a pillar, they face each other with their legs intertwined, the one on the left is playing a flute, the one on the right a guitar. Below them, in the lower part of the picture, two young couples are dancing. In fact, the artist has amused herself by arranging for each girl to have given one hand to each of the two young men, so that if they attempt to turn, as they appear to be doing, they will end up in a complete tangle. The dominant colour of the image is various tones of green.
The meaning
Rapport: the essence of the artist as communicator – heart to heart connection with the other
A General
Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines rapport as ‘relation marked by harmony, conformity, accord, or affinity’. Rapport is the art and life card for the heart chakra. It describes a particular relationship, the passionate connection between artist and public – one which is full of intensity, yet at the same time has a distance, an objectivity about it. By extension, it expands to include relationships of a similar kind in any other context.
B Specific
This card means that you feel a close connection, affinity or harmony with one or more others. Rapport signifies that you feel a lot of emotion, yet part of this you will keep inside, rather than exteriorising it as you would do in a relationship of an intimate character. In rapport, you feel your inner barriers and defences dissolve, and you experience great warmth towards another or others. At the same time, this sense of closeness is tempered by the knowledge that this is not a relationship that will have the continuity of an intimate one: this person, these people will move on and you sense already the need to try and protect yourself from the worst effects of the shock which this separation will produce. There is a tendency to fantasize about how life would be with this person, ignoring the fact that the special connection being felt comes not from the mundane repetitions of daily life, but from an exceptional moment outside it. Ultimately, you are involved in a tug-of-war inside yourself, for the only way to balance the strong emotional urge towards this other is to use your spirit side to pull away.
The classic instance of rapport, that is, is the case where two people have had an intense experience together, such as a shared experience of an artistic kind: through music, film, theatre and so on. This has precipitated a deep feeling of affinity, but the emotional rush which results is counterbalanced by the knowledge that they live on different continents, both have a spouse and children…In fact, the feelings associated with rapport do not have to be of a potentially sexual nature: they may be of great warmth and affection for someone of the same sex, where no homosexual feelings are involved. The opposition to rapport comes, not surprisingly, from sexual intimacy, since once the feelings contained in rapport tip over into sexual expression, the nature of the relationship has altered.
To sum up, Rapport is marked by a quality of discontinuity: the power of it is likely to be successfully contained only where there is a lot of space between those involved. If we think of the ‘serious’ artist as a passionate, dedicated individual with special qualities of heart and soul, we can see how rapport will be a frequent, almost characteristic form of connection with others.
Divination summary
mutual warmth, affection, admiration and respect; affinity & harmony in relationship; repressed passion, emotional resonance; longing, feeling uplifted and ennobled, fantasies of exceptional intimate relations; using the spirit to distance oneself from strong attraction
58. Oeuvre: group – form (4 orange)
http://www.rainringcards.com/Cards/Oeuvre/58.aspx
The Image
A wood sculptor is chiselling away at the image of a large, unidentifiable animal. Only the upper part of his body is visible, and here he is wearing blue and white. Although we would expect him to be working with dead, seasoned wood, the artist has shown green shoots on the remains of the trunk which appears to form the basis of the sculpture. We can surmise that, whether intentional or not, some kind of symbolism is involved.
The meaning
Oeuvre: expression actualised through creative work – the vision of the artist materialised; directed, productive efforts
A General
Oeuvre marks a watershed, for it is the moment at which the unconscious of the artist moves from the passive absorption of impressions to the active production of work. If expression can be thought of as preliminary drawings, rough drafts of text, rehearsals and so on, oeuvre is the real thing: the creative work of the artist. In Rainring, the card Oeuvre can mean any form of activity – almost all practical activity allows opportunities for the worker to stamp her or his personal mark upon the task. Oeuvre can also refer to inner ‘work’ taking place: for example, a patient working with a therapist to resolve childhood trauma, or a special needs teacher studying and trying to understand the behaviour of an autistic child.
B Specific
This card means that you are actually doing something: you have gone through the preliminaries – getting an idea, working out the details, getting the tools and equipment together… now you are engaged in the actual task. This is the communication set, and what you strive for in this communication we call art is the development and balancing of spirit and will – inspiration and emotion. Great art speaks to the whole range of our human psyche. The same tension which you experienced in Rapport exists also here: intense emotion can be generated in the course of your creative process, but you must balance this by your ability to step back and find an objective viewpoint. The most successful art is that in which the emotion is powerful and authentic, but contained. The vitality which drives your art may well also drive you towards sexual passion, for the two are very close. If relationship features in your oeuvre – as with a painter and his or her model - then you will be possessed by the human object of the creation.
To sum up, with Oeuvre you are handling an explosive force, yet you are doing so in a balanced manner, for you cannot produce finished work without an ability to hold in check the various forces of disintegration which threaten that work. Yet despite, or even because of this character of living dangerously, on the edge, Oeuvre holds a seductive quality which means that you may well have to fight to finish the piece of work. If it comes to an end naturally, like a theatre performance, then you have to fight to come down from that explosive place into the humdrum reality of the daily round. The world is full of artists, writers and so on who have nothing more to say, but are trapped in a compulsion to produce. Equally, on the level of the bloke next door who is always fiddling with his car, this difficulty in completing what we find creatively rewarding is just as apparent.
Divination summary
practical activity, creating, inventing, applying one’s personal touch; expressing oneself in actual work, passionate involvement in activity, trying to balance passion and objectivity; reluctance to let go of activities we enjoy working at; inner states which correspond to the above.
