I’ve been away on vacation the past couple of weeks visiting family and friends in Baltimore. I lived for 12 years in Baltimore before I came to live in Louisiana. I worked as a legal advocate, a waitress, a burlesque dancer and found my calling as a hairdresser and a Tarot reader there. Some people look at me funny when I tell them that Baltimore and New Orleans are like sisters, but both places have connections to Jazz legends, gothic literary heroes, inspiring independent creativity and both are port cities surrounded by huge bodies of water. Bodies of water have a mystical significance much like the idea of the crossroads.
For last night's show I drew the Devil card which is the 15th card in the Major Arcana. As usual the music was inspired by the themes in the card. The traditional depiction of the Devil in the Tarot often combines elements of Pan and/or Baphomet to form a kind of composite boogey monster who represents our lusty, sensory driven and often greedy animal nature. This card also features a man and a woman chained to this character as slaves. This image is symbolic of slavery and attachment to our desires in the material world. When this card comes up in a reading it can mean that the person is in debt, struggling with addictions of various kinds, or otherwise tied down to the material realm in a way that can feel like enslavement. Unchecked capitalism or authoritarianism are examples of this in the context of a collective reading, The themes in this card also include the realms of the prison industrial complex, immigrant detention centers, human trafficking and the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries.
The Devil represents our tendencies as humans to become too attached to our worldly material desires, to the detriment of our happiness and wholeness as creatures of both a higher and lower nature. Our consciousness allows us to mediate between the light and dark. We dance between spirit and matter, intention and invention. When this archetype of the Devil shows up in a reading it's a sign that we may be weighed down or tricked by our addiction to something in the material world which can sever our connection to spirit.
Last night I predicted a week full of more sex scandals in places of power. I wrote this prediction before I managed to read the news yesterday. Sometimes I get my news from readings-which isn't really something to brag about. Of course we're seeing all of this unfold already with the hearings for Supreme Court Justice and the woman who recently came forward to say that the nominee sexually assaulted her when he was 17.
On a more personal level, This is a good week to examine the things in our lives that make us feel like we are chained to them. If there's one thing humans have proven time and time again, it's that we weren't born to be perfect, but to learn, evolve and transform and take care of each other. We all have bad habits of one sort or another and we all have our own limits. If they don't destroy us, our mistakes are the best teachers because they are the toughest. It’s a good week to be more mindful of our actions and desires, noticing how certain behaviors make us feel and how our attachment to unhealthy or destructive habits can have a disempowering effect on us or other people around us.
Playlist
Devil in Disguise-Elvis
Rocket Queen-Guns 'N' Roses
She Shook Me Cold-David Bowie
One More Thing-L7
Survive or Die-Nekromantix
Nine-Patti Smith
Halloween-Siouxsie and The Banshees
Bullet Proof...I Wish I was-Radiohead
Satan on My Side-Quakes
Hollywood Babylon-Misfits
U.S. 41-Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers
Carry That Weight-The Beatles
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