The Chariot
The cool air grew colder as she neared her apartment. Lexi shoved her hands deep into her pockets in a half-hearted attempt to try and keep them nice and warm. She hated it when her hands got so cold that they could not move at all for almost an hour after being outside in the cold. She could never hold a pen or feel her fingers as they pressed down on keys and it seemed as if everyone else had an easier time warming their hands up than she did. Her apartment's keys jingled in her purple ski jacket's pocket as she fumbled around in an attempt to grab them and open the door to her modest abode.
Her copper and silver door key with a green plastic casing slide flawlessly into the matched keyhole. She turned it, along with the door knob, and gave it a little push. The door moved inwards and exposed the warm, dry and stale air within her room. Quickly she brushed by the door, not wanting to alert the boys who lived across the hall from her. She really did not want to deal with their innuendos and cat calls this evening. She had more, immediate, things on her mind.
Studying anything but the tarot deck just did not seem to appeal to her. After taking off her jacket and boots, she tried to settle back into the book about the bird lexicon people but after last night's dreams and how they disturbed her, she thought better about pushing her mind back into that mindset. Instead she tried to pick up another anthropological tome on some mythology surrounding common global symbolism and numerology. Halfway into the first chapter, however, the lids of her eyes slowly started to slip and close and her body temperature rose in a slow expanse of sleepy warmth that threatened to consume her if she had not slipped and the book fallen on her big toe.
A slight, sharp, stinging pain entered her left big toe as the book attempted to cut off all of the circulation entering it. Lexi yelped, "Huh! Ouch...waaah" and sat a bit stunned as she stared at the book balancing precariously from her limp hand onto her knee.
She pulled the book off her toe and pushed it over the side of the futon unceremoniously. It gave a sudden THUMP WUMP as it landed on the hardwood floor. Lexi winced at the sound, remembering suddenly that she had neighbors just below her apartment downstairs and that they probably did not enjoy the sounds of her heavy and large textbooks landing smack dab on their covers on the hard wood floors.
"Fuck. Shit. Sorry," she silently whispered towards the soft brown floor boards as she picked the book up off the floor and reset it back on top of the nearest stack. "I really ought to be more careful with these books. They are, after all, not my property and I think that the school's library would have a coniption fit if I carelessly destroyed precious school property. Okay, Lexi focus... it is way to early to head to bed, but you are tired. So either you go to bed now or stay up a little while longer, what is it going to be?"
Lexi looked around her room as she always did; she always figured that something mystical could happen and a book or her dishes would speak back to her as she tried to figre out what to do and tell her exactly what she was supposed to be doing at the moment she needed to do it. It had not happened yet, but Lexi was ready for the day when that special weird event could happen. Unfortunately, today was not that day and she was left to her own devices and mind to come up with whatever a game plan she wanted to do for the rest of the evening.
"Oh, yeah," she said and darted off the futon. Her soft grey and green and off-color blue bedspread was crumpled into a mold that almost looked like she had been stuck in bed for a few weeks. "I was totally going to go get the tarot deck and play with it, maybe try one of those weird spreads that the book has inside of it. Now," she scratched her head as she thought about what she was going to do next, "Where did I put my Tom Bihn sling back."
Still scratching her head she slowly sauntered over to the bag and picked it up. The futon frame gave a brief crunching sound as she sat back down almost in the exact same spot. Her bag made a softer but similar ploofing sound as it perched in front of her. She unzipped the bag to expose the innards and then sifted through her prized posessions to find the deck. Finally her fingers rested on the raw silk stubbles and she manuevered it from the bag along with the compaion book.
The corners of the book were finally beginning to show the slightest and tinest signs of wear, from having bounced around in her sling back for a few days now. It was the sign of a well worn and loved book that bore those battle marks. Lexi set the Windchaser Tarot next to her for a bit and turned her attention to the book that she set into her lap. Flip, slip, flip went the pages as she purpously searched through the book to locate the section on Tarot Card Spreads that she knew that she had seen inside the book earlier that weekend while she haphazardly read through it all. Finally, around page one hundred and twenty five, she stumbled across the chapter that contained the spreads. Lexi slowly started to read the section and learned that spreads could be used to answer specific questions or determine certain fates about a person. All one needed to do was to select the best spread to use for the matter at hand and then draw the corresponding amount of cards from a fully charged and energized tarot deck. Then you read about each postion of the spread and what the card's meaning was and tried to determine how the two matched up and combined in some provokative way to give you some interesting and prophesized message about your life or the question asked of the cards.
"Easy peasy, I can do this," Lexi thought to herself as a sly grin spread across her face. "Now I sort of understand why and how mystics and fortune tellers have to be careful about lawsuits and malpractice issues, because reading tarot can be relatively easy and since it is so personal you can end up telling someone exactly what you want them to hear or what they want to hear and pass the reading off as being something that the higher powers gave to them or as an omen one saw in a symbol. So, yeah, without further ado, let us try this."
She ceremoniously pushed up her sleeves and shoved both arms straight out at chest level. "Ladies and gentlement, I give you, Lexi's first tarot reading," she said to an invisible audience. "As you can see, there is nothing up my sleeves and no notes or anything written on my skin. What I am about to attempt is a feat of magick sent straight from the heavens." At this point Lexi swung her arms up high over her head and looked at an imaginary sky that was filled with stars that had suddenly painted themselves on her ceiling before she continued her monologue.
"Tonight only, I will be," again she paused, only this time to shift through the chapter to locate the particular name of the tarot spread that she was going to do, "I will be conducting a tarot reading using a spread from this book, called The Dragon's Eye Spread, with my trusty and faithful tarot deck compaion, The Windchaser Tarot. Ths spread sees far into the future and makes the hidden known for all to see."
Lexi stopped once more to hold her tarot deck out to the audience as if it were a new born baby. In her mind, she could hear the oohs and ahhhs as men, women and children bent and stretched their necks to the glory that was her tarot deck. She pulled the deck back to her chest and imagined the worldly life blood of energy pour through her and into the deck as she dumped as much energy as her body actually had into the middle of the deck.
She stared back out into the barren apartment and said, "Silence please, I am just about ready to start laying out the positions of the cards in the way that the holy book prescribes." She shuffled the deck seven times before cutting them in half and switching the lower portion with the top portion. Then she laid her warm and flush right hand on top of the deck and deftly revealed the first card.
"Position one, the Wisdom from the Ancestors," she read out of the book, pausing slightly so she could view the text better. "This card describes the Querent's current situation. And any influences surrounding the event in question. The Winchaser Tarot has given me The stately Emperor. With its picture of a man sitting slighly off center on a throne, looking down over what I believe are his subjets. His throne is made of stone and uncomfortable and he longs for the wilds of the outside Nature, the real authority in this world."
Lexi paused for dramatic reflection on the position and card's meaning and thought about what it meant in relation to her. She bookmarked her spread's page with a red sticky note and then flipped to the meaning of The Emperor. It was a card of authority and structure. Making the world confirm to one's ideals. She pushed the pages back to The Dragon's Eye Spread and flipped over the second card.
"Position two, the Spirit of the Tribe. This card represents a culumination of the culture surrounding the querent and the events in question. For this postion, The Windchaser Tarot places The Ace of Swords. This card is the primal energy of air and shows all the possibilities and potentials for new energies and giving the culture the right time to digest and adapt to new ideas and suggestions.
"Position three, the Spirit of Time. This card represents the influence of the fourth dimension of time on the querant and question. And what does The Windchaser Tarot think about this? Well, it places the Three of Pentacles here. This card is all about teamwork and that by building harmonious relationships come the fruitful seeds of success." Once again, she paused for dramatic effect for the cards and the positions seemed to fit but Lexi was still uncertain at what they all meant and how they were going to fit all together.
"Position four, we are almost getting close to being done with this spread, ladies and gentlemen," she started, "The Spirit of Place. This card shows the influences of the birthplace and residence of the querant and the situation in question. And the card that sits here is the Two of Wands. It represents a fruitful partnership where each side recognizes each other's strengths and weaknesses and allows the personality to remain intact while pushing forth to amicable goals."
"And finally, Position five, or The Fruits of the Journey. This position shows what is in store at the end of the tunnel that exists in the dragon's eye. It displays a knowledge and wisdom that is greater than one lifetime's worth. And the final card that The Windchaser Tarot pronounces to be here is The Sun. It suggests that in all aspects of life there is a warmth and a smile and that new endeavers shall be as successful as creation itself. It is a card of outward optimism and new beginnings."
She sat the deck and picked up the book. Once again the feelings of sycrincity washed over her and while she understood the connetions and relationships between the card positions and meanings, she was missing the ultimate message and meaning of the five cards and their positions. "Okay, now what? I am not sure what I am supposed to take away. I do not see how this relates to me. It all makes sense but I am not getting the feeling that this is a reading for me, personally. It feels as if it is for something bigger or further away." She kept staring at the cards, hoping that some revelation would come to her and smack her on the back of her head to tell her the connection that she felt she was missing. But nothing came. No intergalactic clue by four came to smack her upside the head and call her foolish and dumb for missing the connection.
"Guess that is all, ladies and gents, thanks for witnessing the anti-climatic first reading by Lexi the wonder non-mystic," she wispered under her breath as she started pushing and sorting all the cards back into their correct homes in the deck. She folded the silk back up and realized that an half hour had passed and she was still tired. Actally, she was more tired now having completed the reading than she thought.
Lexi smiled, "That was fun. I want to do more readings but I am afraid to do more in such a short amount of time. I really do not want to stress the deck or myself out. So I think I will go ahead and put it away for now and maybe start doing some daily one card draws like Naomi suggested I do. Till then my little fiend, good night and see you tomorrow." She kissed the deck before setting it down besides her pillow, hoping that keeping it close to her, it may fill up with her energy and teach her more about it's meanings through osmosis. And then, Lexi closed her eyes once more.