Last Friday was my birthday and it was a glorious day. Not only did I submit my shiny Paper draft to my collaborators, but after our regular happy our we went to a chocolate happy hour, followed by eating delicious burgers, then drinking wine, and finally closing out karaoke. My sister Kara came up for all of it (except for the Paper part) and we brunched at Golden West on Saturday. She had decided to give me a set of Tarot cards for my birthday, and I wanted the round Motherpeace set that she had, because I believe in the symbolic power of circles.
As luck would have it, the Motherpeace deck was at one of the local Hampden shops, “Crystals, Candles, and Cauldrons” that we stumbled into after brunch! She also got me a crystal that I picked out (turned out to be blood-red calcite which symbolizes vital energy and the opening of the heart chakra! score!). Despite telling her that it would only collect dust in my room, I love the color and the feel of it in my hand. It is both a meaningless rock and a symbol of Great Meaning, which will grow over time because I choose to see it as special. I won’t, however, expect it to cure lower body pains.
We are coming nearer the point now, trust me. Later on Saturday, after a gorgeous hangover nap, I got out the deck, looked at them, read the book, shuffled a lot, and decided to pick out some cards. I would pick a few, one at a time, reading about their meaning and considering how it might apply to me in this moment. The first I picked was the Two of Discs. The book describes the picture as: “A woman nurses twin babies as she is held in a circle by a double-headed snake.” Because the Tarot deck is round, the card can be upright, to the left, to the right, reversed, and anywhere in between, with a different take on the card’s meaning associated with each position. The upright meaning in the book says: “She is able to handle a lot now and there is a great variety of things she does or roles she plays. She can meet many diverse needs.” To me, however, the card appeared to the right, which says: “She’s handling more than her share.”
Well, okay… I don’t actually believe that I’m handling too many things right now, but maybe I could give myself more credit for what I’m actually doing. There’s the Paper that was put off for a long time with a variety of talks, conferences, a summer school, and a good measure of “idontwanna”. Maybe I expect too much of myself to think I should have been doing all of that plus the Paper? But then it’s not like I’ve been working too hard lately (or ever). So okay, that’s what that card says. It’s an interesting card, with the snake weaving itself through two wheels that are on either side of the woman, and with the fact that the snake has two heads.
I first hesitate whether to put the card back in the deck, but then think to myself, what are the chances that I would pull it again? So I shuffle everything for a while and cut the deck again to pick a new card… which is the Two of Discs! The card I just picked! I picked it again! And this time, it appears to the left. I picked the same card twice (a card whose number is two) and in opposite positions! Cue Jack Skellington singing “What does it mean? What does it mean??”
Simultaneously, I am fascinated by all the apparent meanings that I can extract from these events, and I am fascinated by probabilities. There are many examples of things which are a lot more probable than our intuition would tell us, such as the number of people (only 23) you need before the probability that two have the same birthday is greater than 50%. In my case, the probability of choosing a specific card is 1/78, and of choosing that specific card twice is (1/78)*(1/78) = 1/6084. Sounds small, but this only applies if you specify the exact card. The probability of pulling any card twice is only 1/78: given that a card is pulled, the probability of pulling that specific card again is 1/78. It is slightly more than 1% and within 3 standard deviations for a normal distribution, which pulling random cards certainly has. Though 3-sigma events are rare, they happen – even the 1/6084 case is within 4-sigma and falls below the 5-sigma astronomical standard of being a significant event. So who cares?
What can we say other than “that’s interesting”? Well, it turns out we can say a lot, though whether what we say is meaningful is a matter of opinion. While pondering probabilities I was also pondering how I could interpret this occurrence. The Two of Discs to the left says: “She isn’t fully available to everything that pulls on her.” So apparently, I am handling too much, while not being available to everything. This is not obviously contradictory, but I can see how by not being “fully available” I wouldn’t actually be “handling” what I’m taking on, so in that sense it is contradictory… Or maybe I am doing a lot, and by having too much to do I am not doing enough. The suit of Discs represents the Earth or physicality (the others are Swords (air and rationality), Cups (water and emotion), and Wands (fire and energy)), so it relates to tangible things. It is true that I have a lot of (work) things to do (first pull), but also that I don’t feel like I’m actually doing enough (second pull). So, there’s an interesting personal interpretation here that I could take away from the reading and leave it at that.
And then there is symbolism. The two-headed snake is trying to go in opposite directions. The number 2 symbolizes duality, polarity, choice, and receptivity according to the Tarot guide. So the number 2 of discs (circles, the Earth, everything, unity) appears twice but in two opposite directions, and here we have the symbolism of the Yin-Yang, for example. The dual is embodied in the one, the opposites are part of the whole, and what at first appears contradictory is understood to be two different reflections of the same thing. In the realm of the Earth (discs) you have pairs of opposites (night and day, man and woman, up and down, being and non-being). There is choice between one and the other. The two apparently contradictory pulls of the very same card are unified by occurring together.
There is another interpretation besides the unity of polar opposites that could be made, which is embodied in the symbolism of the Fool, the Zero card which is at once the creator goddess and the creation itself (wombic symbolism applies here), also known as the Trickster god. The Fool says, “Don’t take me seriously!” Don’t be stuck on the symbol! The Tarot, crystals, and organized religion are all metaphors that people become lost in by believing they are Real with a capital R. By pulling the same card in opposite positions, the Fool is showing his hand. Everything is possible, but nothing is True.
To wrap up: pulling the same card twice is unlikely, but not by much (not accounting for the directionality), so it’s pretty meaningless. On the other hand, pulling the Two of Discs in opposing positions is very unlikely, and means everything. The choice is yours: meaning is not something that exists out there, but within you.
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