Tarot Reading The Cupboard Books
Exploring Others Ways To Interact With Word Collections
INTRODUCTION
While visiting a friend recently, there was conversation of ‘new bookshelves’, the flat being a ‘veritable library’, and there being a cupboard full of books that I might like to peruse.
I’m a bit of a Marie Kondo fan — and books languishing in a cupboard seemed to be calling out to me to be woken up, and to have their fate brought to the surface of their owner’s mind.
In recent years I’ve also been working with crystals, sentimental objects, cards (including tarot), dreams, memory and symbols/images generally. There’s a lot of superstitious mumbo jumbo associated with these things — some of which I buy into, and most of which I don’t. I do think it’s very interesting the way different objects, and kinds of objects, can be used poetically/metaphorically as ways of projecting the contents of our minds into our environment, and projecting the contents of the environment into our minds. To some people, my mesa might seem a little crazy or inscrutable, to me, it represents a sort of notebook made of physical objects, one that evokes emotions, memories, and the future, in fundamentally different ways from the written word.
I’ve increasingly been seeing books as an evolution of the poetry of the organisation of the natural world — the ways we rearrange nature, crystals, objects etc. representing our participation in that poetry.
Whether this opinion has much basis in historical fact or tradition seems more or less immaterial, it’s terrain that adds depth, colour, meaning to my life. One of the missing links between crystals and books occurred as the Godfrey Dowson tarot cards — unbound pages containing highly structured and symbolic imagery, operating as a stochastic/non-deterministic stimulus and index into the contents of a trained mind (reader). From there I got interested in making my own cards as a similar kind of stimulus/index into the idiosyncratic contents of my own mind.
It seems an attractive, and small, jump to use entire books as cards — thus opening access to higher levels of organisation and poetry.
To introduce a musical metaphor — if reading a book straight through from cover to cover is like reciting a piece of music, then what I am becoming interested in is the equivalent of DJing or sampling: seeing how the contents of books can be remixed together for an altogether different kind of ‘listening’ experience. (Which also evokes for me the idea of academic writing/referencing — writing that leans heavily on a web of other writing.)
Following is what we did over a couple of hours, from my perspective only. I look forward to exploring this kind of space again!
PROCESS: BRIEFLY, INTUITIVELY
- Decanting the books from the cupboard onto the floor.
- Arranging the books.
- Excluding about half of the books.
- Reading, out loud, from the books.
Anatomy flashcards, which had been stored with the books, served as markers for the (short) readings, as well as a way of grounding the readings in feelings in the body, creating another layer of interpretation and harmonisation.
This was a process of continuous, collaborative choice. The basis for choice in any moment was left largely unexamined, allowing conscious and subconscious factors to mix relatively freely.
Three thematic piles emerged, headed by 4 books, with Jung at the top, linking a circle (mandala) of books with the thematic piles that had been read from.
I took Love’s Executioner, opposite Jung on the mandala, serving as a link between this reading and future readings.
Following are the readings, headed with reading sequence number, book title, book author, who found the reading, and the anatomy card grounding the reading.
OPENING READINGS
#1 — The Psychology of CG Jung, Jolande Jacobi (C,B) — Mandibular Nerves
Mandalas are among the oldest religious symbols of mankind — we have examples from as far back as the paleolithic age.
The mandalas all show the same typical arrangement and symmetry of the pictorial elements. Their basic design is a circle or square (most often a square) symbolising ‘wholeness’, and in all of them the relation to a centre is accentuated.
Many have the form of a flower, a cross, or a wheel and there is distinct inclination toward the number four.
#2 — Leaves of Grass, Walt Whitman (C) — Brachial Artery and Anastomoses Around Elbow
TO A COMMON PROSTITUTE
Be composed — be at ease with me — I am Walt Whitman, liberal and lusty as Nature,
Not till the sun excludes you do I exclude you,
Not till the waters refuse to glisten for you and the leaves to rustle for you, do my words refuse to glisten and rustle for you.
My girl I appoint with you an appointment, and I charge you that you make preparations to be worthy to meet me,
And I charge you that you be patient and perfect till I come.
Till then I salute you with a significant look that you do not forget me.
#3 — As A Peace-Loving Global Citizen, Reverend Sun Myung Moon (B) — Nerves of Esophagus and Posterior Thoracic Wall
Our problem was that the Americans did not eat much fish. The Japanese, however, were extremely fond of tuna. There were many Japanese living in the United States then, and expensive restaurants operated by Japanese sold raw tuna at a high price. Gradually some Americans were learning to enjoy raw fish and started to like eating tuna.
#4 — Tao Te Ching, Lao Tzu (B — final) — Hip Joint
When one dies one is not lost; there is no other longevity.
THEMES
THEME 1 — ABSURD
#5 — The Bookshop, Penelope Fitzgerald (C) — Ear
Mrs Gamart had realised by now that though her visitor might be conducting the conversation according to some kind of rules, they were not the ones she knew. Some different kind of defence would accordingly be needed.
#6 — The Sane Society, Erich Fromm (B) — Surfaces of Liver
Selfishness is the driving force that makes the human race what it is, for good or evil.
#7 — Desire Under The Elms & The Great God Brown, Eugene O’Neill (C) — Bony Framework of Abdomen
[stage directions]
A half hour later — exterior — EBEN is standing by the gate looking up at the sky, an expression of dumb pain bewildered by itself on his face. CABOT appears, returning from the barn, walking wearily, his eyes on the ground. He sees EBEN and his whole mood immediately changes. He becomes excited, a cruel, triumphant grin comes to his lips, he strides up and slaps EBEN on the back. From within comes the whining of the fiddle and the noise of stamping feet and laughing voices.
#8 — The Other Hand, Chris Cleave (almost excluded, B) — Arteries of Stomach, Liver and Spleen
In the detention centre they did not open the windows because the windows did not open. In the therapy room they gave us poster paints and brushes and they told us we must express ourselves. I used a lot of red paint. When the therapeutic assistant looked at what I painted, she said it would be good for me to try to move on. I said, ‘Yes, madam, it will be my pleasure. If you will just open a little window for me, or even better a door, I will be happy to move on right away’ I smiled, but the therapeutic assistant did not think it was a good joke.
#9 — Black Snow, Mikhail Bulgakov (B) — Skull: Anterior View
After a while, sounds began to emerge from my box, and I could distinctly hear the grand piano playing.
THEME 2 — SYMPTOM
#10/11 — Like Mother & Nothing Natural, Jenny Diski (B,C — interleaved) — Mucosa and Musculature of Small Intestine, Gross Structure of Kidney
[interleaving sentences from readings from two books]
A — ‘What are you doing? Don’t. Stop it. Please.’
B — how do I get across the room and what am I going to do?
A — ‘It’s all right’, she soothed, ‘you’re my little girl. I can look at my little girl if I want to. All young and lovely.’
B — In a moment of stupendous concentration she finally came to the thought: I need help, and she hung on to it like a shipwrecked sailor finding the bit of flotsam that proclaimed the name of his sunken vessel.
A — Ivy pushed aside Francis’s pyjama top and began to run her hand over her daughter’s exposed chest.
B — She made no attempt to define what she meant by help, didn’t wonder whether she needed it for the purpose of life or death; help was the thing, it was a thing in itself.
A — ‘Nice little breasts. They won’t be as big as mine, but they’re coming on. Nice little rosebuds, you’ve got.’
B — It was simple and revelatory.
#12 — Black Venus, Angela Carter (B,B,C) — Muscles of Leg (Superficial Dissection), Abdominal Wall and Viscera Median (Sagittal) Section, Arteries Around The Scapula
[three separate readings]
1 — Sad; so sad, those smoky-rose, smoky-mauve evenings of late autumn, sad enough to pierce the heart.
2 — She never experienced her experience as experience, life never added to the sum of her knowledge; rather, subtracted from it.
3 — The other old man is some kind of kin of Borden’s. He doesn’t belong here; he is visiting, passing through, he is a chance bystander, he is irrelevant.
Write him out of the script.
#13 — The Memoirs of a Survivor, Doris Lessing (B) — Gallbladder and Extrahepatic Bile Ducts
The prisons were as full as ever, though expedients were also being found to empty them: so many crimes were being committed, and there seemed to be new and unforeseen categories of crime every day. Reformed schools, borstals, welfare homes, old age homes — all these proliferated, and they were savage and dreadful places.
#14 — Kleinzeit, Russell Hoban (C,C) — Muscles of Forearm, Male Perineum and Penis
1 — Sparrows rule the clocks.
2 — ‘You’re looking surprisingly fit’ said Dr Pink. Dr Pink was deeply tanned, looked as if he’d always look fit, as if everyone could always look fit if only they’d make the effort.
‘I feel wonderful’ said Kleinzeit, ‘except that I can’t sit up or anything’
‘Are you sure it isn’t in your mind?’ said Dr Pink ‘What are you talking about?’ said Kleinzeit.
‘We don’t know an awful lot about the mind, do we?’ said Dr Pink ‘On my holiday I was reading some books that were lying about in the villa we’d rented. Chap named Freud. Quite amazing stuff, really. Mind, you know, emotions. Mixed feelings about mum and dad, that sort of thing.’
‘What are you getting at?’ said Kleinzeit.
‘Sorry,’ said Dr Pink. ‘I was just wondering whether perhaps you mightn’t be of two minds about sitting up. Wanting to and at the same time not wanting to, perhaps. What they call ambivalence nowadays. Have you tried?’
‘Look,’ said Kleinzeit. ‘I’m trying.’ His mind sat up, the rest of him stayed lying down.
THEME 3 — MOTHER (AND FATHER)
#15 — A Shortened History of England, G. M. Trevelyan (C) — Veins of Anterior Abdominal Wall
The condition of the agricultural labourer, deprived of the industries previously conducted by his wife and children, was, indeed, most unhappy.
#16 — Scottish Fairy Tales, retold by Philip Wilson (C) — Individual Muscles of Forearm
There was once a young lad called Jack, whose father died, leaving Jack and his mother without money. So, for the first time in his life, Jack had to go out to work. He had few useful skills, but he knew that he was no use to his mother at home, so set off one day to seek his fortune, whatever it might be.
#17 — The Sense of an Ending, Julian Barnes (C) — Forearm Muscles
I remember, in no particular order:
- a shiny inner wrist;
- steam rising from a wet sink as a hot frying pan is laughingly tossed into it;
- gouts of sperm circling a plughole, before being sluiced down the full length of a tall house;
- a river rushing nonsensically upstream, its wave and wash lit by half a dozen chasing torchbeams;
- another river, broad and grey, the direction of its flow disguised by a stiff wind exciting the surface;
- bathwater long gone cold behind a locked door.
This last isn’t something I actually saw, but what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed.
#18 — The Black Eyed Blonde, Philip Marlowe (B) — Muscles in a Cross Section of the Forearm
She smiled coldly and, for a second I saw her mother in her, her tough mother. ‘Make a Pascalian wager’, she said.
‘Who’s Pascal?’
‘Frenchman. Long time ago. Philosopher, of a sort.’ She walked out to the living room. I followed her. I was barefoot. She picked up her purse and turned to me. Anger had made her go pale. ‘How can you say you don’t trust me?’ she said and nodded toward the bedroom door ‘how can you, after that?’
#19 — Talking it Over, Julian Barnes (B) — Pelvic Diaphragm: Male
I was a bit nervous about meeting her mother, I can tell you.
#20 — Reunion, Fred Uhlman (B) — Female Perineum
For the second time in less than an hour I almost hated my innocent friend, who had transformed my father (by his presence alone) into a caricature of his true self. I had always looked up to my father. He seemed to me to have so many qualities I lacked such as courage and a clear head, and he made friends easily and did his job punctiliously and without sparing himself. It’s true that he was reserved with me, and didn’t know how to show his affection for me, but I knew that it was there and even that he was proud of me.
#21 — Briefing for a Descent into Hell, Doris Lessing (B) — Lumbar Vertebra
Once adulthood is reached the newly grown ones join with the older ones, their parents, as they turn about and look back into their own infancy. They watch the infancy of their own children with the same futile anguish. Can we prevent these children from being trapped and spoiled as we have been, what can we do…? Who has not at least once looked into a young child’s eyes and seen the criticism there, a hostility, a sullen knowledgeable look of a prisoner? This happens very young, before the young child is forced to become like the parents, before its own individuality is covered over by what the parents say he is. Their ‘this is right, that is wrong, see things my way’. This meeting tonight, of young parents joining together to try and provide something better, a better ‘education’, was nothing more nor less than this phenomenon that repeats itself in every generation.
#22 — Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys (C) — Muscles of Facial Expression: Lateral View
After all I was prepared for her blank indifference. I knew that my dreams were dreams. But the sadness I felt looking at the shabby white house — I wasn’t prepared for that. More than ever before it strained away from the black snake-like forest. Louder and more desperately it called: save me from destruction, ruin and desolation. Save me from the long slow death by ants. But what are you doing here you folly? So near the forest. Don’t you know that this is a dangerous place? And that the dark forest always wins? Always. If you don’t, you soon will, and I can do nothing to help you.
#23 — Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë (B) — Muscles of Facial Expression: Lateral View
True, generous feelings made small account of by some; but here were two natures rendered, the one intolerably acrid, the other despicably savourless for the want of it. Feeling without judgement is a washy draught indeed; but judgement untempered by feeling is too bitter and husky a morsel for human deglutition.
