0lvr

Phew. An update on current projects and general depth year progress so far. After pushing the Tarot de Luz keyword journal to the finish line I became a little too attached to the idea of completing projects. What can I say, it felt good to see the progress, I wanted that for all my little goals. But after a few stressful and/or busy days I realized these projects are a refuge, not another to do list. The goal is incidental, the process is what I signed up for. These are ideas and options for spending time in a way that's meaningful and valuable to me, when I'm tired of scrolling through social media and refreshing the same browser tabs over and over. So I'm letting them merge and flow and recede, whatever feels good.

Continuing studying the Tarot de Luz, this time in practice. Armed with my personalized book of meanings, I've started a digital series of self-care readings. The last few days have been conducive to this sort of focus. It's not something to do daily or often, so it's just something in my back pocket, to pull out when the need arises.

I'm also just generally fooling around with it, but I won't be recording every single thing. I'm enjoying its “voice”, so to speak. So far the messages have been very insightful, but gentle. Kind of taking me by the hand and pointing at how various strands of thoughts and various experiences connect to each other. Even when it's calling me out, it's kind of tongue-in-cheek and fond-sounding. Usually you hear about cute decks being ruthless and dark decks being gentle, but here's one played straight I guess!

I've also spontaneously made a little crochet pouch for it when I felt I needed an easy win, but I'm not liking it. I made it a smoky blue to match the general palette of the images, but that brings it down too much. I don't have a pink to match the backs, but maybe I could try again with a yellow, there's some sunshiny yellow in the images as well...

Moving forward with the Tarot Z crafty journal. It has many elements, and I decided I'll prepare and use the actual book-like part of it for a play-through of Anamnesis, a journaling game that uses tarot for its prompts. I'll either need a few plays to fill it up, or I'll switch to some other (non-tarot) journaling games, there are many out there themed around a post-apocalyptic world. I don't know what the next step for the cards themselves will be just yet.

Made a lot of progress on the second tarot reading cloth, and realized I over-estimated its completion status previously. I knit furiously for a few days, watching Queer Eye season 6, but my tendons can't take any more for now. Not sure if I want to do a few more marathons, because I like to see solid progress and knitting is so slow, or just do a few rows here and there consistently. Meh.

I've somewhat retired the busy hands journal for now – need the desk for Tarot Z journaling, it's a big folder – and more-than-somewhat retired the New Tarot Handbook read-through. I haven't gone very far in yet, so I think I'll restart it once I pick a more-traditionally RWS-aligned deck to work with, and I don't want to do that just yet in case it'll draw my focus away from the two decks I do have out for study.

Of course with all the real-life hullabaloo I completely forgot about saving my art off the iPad – that's definitely not one I'll be doing for the enjoyable process of it, but I would like to get it done this month. That might be a more realistic goal than cramming it all in one week.

The first week of January is coming to a close and I have successfully stayed on track so far:

• journaled daily (twice a day!), pulling a tarot card with each entry,
• finished one book of fiction (re-read), started another (new),
• prepared the Tarot Z journal for a playthrough of Anamnesis,
• tried a little digital collage for a future project,
• most importantly: finished the Tarot de Luz keyword booklet! It's been dragging since November! As a reward I've treated myself to a marathon of QE s6.

All the above while staying on top of most of my chores and responsibilities (I say most because while I kept to bigger scale cleaning – what happens on each day – I've messed up a little with the daily maintenance – super messy kitchen etc. It'd been easier to escape into chores when I was bored bumbling around on the internet. Now that things are actually exciting it's more difficult to tear myself away from the project list and focus on the mundane necessities).

Next step for the Tarot de Luz – I will want to do a whole series of self-care readings with the deck and use the booklet I've made to get used to these meanings. Originally I wanted to do it by hand in my magical notebook or a specially bound journal, but my tendon's being wonky and typing might be easier. If I like the readings, I could copy down just the spreads I used into the notebook for future reference.

Considering what the next project should be. The above sounds like a natural continuation, but I'm more excited for the journaling game – that's also still using one of the two decks I have out, continuing a different sort of study, and just switching it up for a sec. Except: tendons. I'm worried that what I should be hurrying up with is getting my art off the iPad, because Procreate has been acting up recently and I wouldn't want to lose two years of drawings. But that's pretty tedious and uninspiring. I'm going to need to alternate that with a fun project if I take it up. I'll focus on it seriously after the weekend.

Hope everyone else is doing well with their plans and hopes for the year, too.

A not very organized list I can refer to once I finish something from the ongoing projects.

• polish up a .pdf for the official Margarete Petersen booklet, maybe expand with my own thoughts,
• a series of self-care readings – no longer part of Tarot de Luz study, maybe a continuation of the Margarete Petersen study,
• transcribe my Tarot of The Origins notes from old magical notebook,
• finish indexing my old magical notebook for easier reference,
• a LWB for el Dios de Los Tres Tarot, revisiting the keyword study format,
• deep dive with the Voyager Tarot – first with the little guidebook, and if things go well – with the giant pdf (requires purchase),
• work through the Tarot Playbook with one deck (or: at all, if one deck proves too difficult),
• for funsies – a lewd LWB, just the most dirty meanings,
• poem-writing with tarot,
• play through Anamnesis at least once (either in a journal or continuing with pretty pdfs),
• various new tarot techniques as a way to rekindle old deck love, or promote new understanding – give reversals an honest shot, reading tarot with cartomancy methods, deck pairing etc.
• I want to try spellcraft, or just use words better, even if it's in prayers and petitions,
• get back into trance-work, I also have some guided meditations/visualizations I want to try,
• magic-adjacent arty website for partner and me?
• recycled notebooks, bookbinding – more advanced techniques?
• I want to organize my finished digital projects – maybe figure out how to compile a nice pdf of my works, either encompassing the last two years as a personal memento, or in thematic chunks for people to have/look at if they want, hopefully I could wrap something like this up within a week?
• I want to experiment with zines – love the format, just not sure what I have to say,
• I want to try digital collage and make an oracle, in the Soul Cards style – no assigned titles or meanings (these are already two ideas rolled into one – efficiency),
• (but also I want to be mindful about making smaller art projects, with bigger chances of success),
• some sort of digital oracle? So many possibilities with the images and how they generate,
• knit or crochet a sweater, but I don't think I can do that w/o purchasing stuff. I tried previously with scraps and using different weights is too advanced. Maybe next year? Maybe this year should be about projects that use what I have? Also I'm not really into knit-wear. I'd have to make it for someone else.
• air drying clay – little figurines, altar stuff, fidgets, decor,
• play around with bitwig 👀
• I have 3 kalimbas I could actually learn to play on, I just love the sound and I've been seriously drooling over a steel tongue drum, don't know if this is a purchase for a Big Occasion or for next year,
• I'm not yet sure about art supplies. On one hand I want to encourage myself to create, and provide myself with whatever tools and supplies that spark that interest. On the other hand, I find using the limited supply of what you have to be a great creativity booster. I'm leaning towards no-buy/low-buy there.

Turns out I have more going on than I thought. I don't want to start anything new until I've finished something first. Obviously there's the Stoic Journal which is just a daily thing I don't expect to finish ahead of time, so it's kind of taking up a “slot”, when it comes to attention and energy to spare. (I'm not counting reading fiction or playing games as projects, this is only about Output and directing active energy into my passions.)

Tarot de Luz keyword journal

This one's slow going. As usual I was excited about the deck in theory, but once it arrived it quickly lost my attention. I was expecting it to be more pink and sparkly, based on everything I saw online. But I like the project itself, I've never attempted to standardize the way I read pip decks using keywords as a springboard. It's always numerology + suit, or corresponding Major Arcanum + suit, so this is in a way going farther, if not deeper. And this isn't even a learning challenge, it's just a bunch of little journaling prompts.

Luckily I'm halfway there, precisely 39 cards down. And the output is pretty, I'm making it into a little booklet in LyX. I'm even thinking that once I finish this, I might want to do it all over again with a different pip deck, maybe even another Fournier pip deck, like the Tarot del Fuego, see how different the meanings can get when accompanied by other images. See what my own associations with the keywords are at a different point in time.

I'm not sure what my obstacle is here, probably the project is not super accessible. I've already moved the file shortcuts to my laptop's desktop, I need to keep the deck somewhere within reach as well.

Tarot Z crafty study journal

Similarly to the above, the aesthetic held my attention for a few days, and then I kind of overdid the crafty aspect, put pressure on that, and forgot to actually study the deck. Doesn't help that I couldn't really get through its LWB (little white book). I practice reading with this deck often enough, just not entirely sure what I'd write down, how to make the best use of the physical journal I've built for it.

I can definitely see there are cards that don't really fit too neatly with the traditional RWS meanings, maybe I could take notes on how – if at all – these do fit, and what I see in that card instead. Maybe those other meanings would tie into some other tarot systems? I don't think they would, intentionally, they're not matching up because it's an art deck, but it could be a fun exercise. I could also maybe design a whole series of personal readings? Maybe around the theme of the pandemic, since we're talking zombie apocalypse? Hm...

Busy Hands Journal

My low- to no-effort collage book. I intentionally wanted to make something not too big, so that I can make quick progress and have the satisfaction of finishing it, but somehow it's still too big. There are 39 spreads to be filled, I've done 5 and the front cover. Admittedly it hasn't been that long, I might still easily do it. And depending on how fast it gets fat with all the layers of glue, gesso, papers, paint, and sealant I might have to remove some pages so the spine holds? We'll see.

Knitted Reading Cloth Nr 2

I've already done a simple red one which goes with many of my decks. I have been gifted yarn in two colors and the green is a really unfortunate shade I have no idea what to do with. I decided on another reading cloth for now – if a deck doesn't go with a red cloth, it would probably match a green one, right? (That remains to be seen, it is a really strange hue). I'm trying a new stitch this time, so that's definitely stepping out of the comfort zone. Hell, even knitting itself is more out there for me than crochet. I'm around 60% done maybe, so the end is in sight.

If it doesn't work as a reading cloth, well... the upside to yarn craft rectangles is that you can stitch them together and stuff them in a duvet cover – voila, a blanket, and nobody has to know your shame.

Pollack's “New Tarot Handbook”

I thought I'd refresh my RWS basics going through this book with a more classic RWS deck. I think I started with the Tarot of the Cat People (which was my first RWS and second deck ever, back in the 90s), but I'm getting frustrated at the art. This one has no excuse for the images not to match the meanings, it was painted specifically to be a tarot deck. I think the author/artist was more interested in the world-building, I hear there's a super exhaustive companion book that reads almost like a travel guide or long dry wikipedia article about the world she's created. So I switched, first to the White Numen tarot, then to the Deviant Moon, because that one's really well made, but again – it's such a quirky aesthetic I'm not always in the mood for it.

I suppose I can just keep swapping decks in and out in order to make it through the book, although originally it was meant to be a one-deck bonding exercise. Despite this being one of the pivotal motives for the depth year (yearning for a close relationship with a deck, like with any other thing you have only one of and appreciate all the more for it), it's also one of the effects I'm most doubtful about being able to achieve.

The first daily journal entry brought me some clarity regarding feeling overwhelmed. It is indeed a huge endeavor, a great amount of pressure to overhaul something invisible, intangible, difficult to assess. But it's much easier to take it just one day at a time. Maybe I should be thinking about it as a series of Depth Days? I can't say for sure that I can do a whole year of meaningful activity, but I can much more easily imagine focusing on today. On making good choices today, or just keeping to choices already made. Or in even smaller chunks – this morning, this afternoon, this evening.

I think I could also benefit from having One Organizing Principle for this daily sort of upkeep. Something along the lines of noticing what I'm doing, checking in, so that looking up something on the internet for a legitimate reason doesn't suddenly turn into snapping back to consciousness five hours later. So like meditation, but with actions not just thoughts. Observing and coming back to a desired default.

So far it seems to be working, if that's something that can be said after half a day of trying. I've been on top of chores and responsibilities, I did my little morning practice, made the daily offerings. We went for a forest walk with my partner (bunnies! squirrels! doggos!), talked with family on the phone, those are meaningful activities. I haven't actively pushed any projects forward yet, but I've used the Tarot Z – which I'm supposed to be studying – for my pulls. Not even sure I'll want to be productive today with my hobbies, maybe I'll do more passive things, with yesterday being such a long day. Time for rest – hopefully in a way I won't later regret.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Depth year... I'm embarking upon this year-long quest to deepen my relationship with the things I already own and care about. To heal my relationship with stuff and with physical reality itself. It's a vague project, with not so strict rules, and maybe this dooms it to failure, who knows. But mostly it's a practice – to be more mindful of how I spend my time, to not get trapped in numbing activities (hours of watching youtube and scrolling through tumblr), to not rush and fill unidentified emotional needs with buying, just because I can justify it as a purchase related to a hobby.

I'm into tarot. I have more tarot decks than I can comfortably use. I've put away a solid half of my not-really-that-impressive collection, and what remains still feels like too much to do meaningful work with. But from previous, smaller exercises I know I can't have just one or two decks out at a time, even for a week, not to mention a month, or year. Or can't yet do that. It's in my nature to skip between options, between projects and ideas, and there's nothing wrong with that. I want to work with my natural tendencies instead of against them. But all this skipping and jumping means many things get lost, fall by the wayside. I don't remember if I've ever completed something I've set out to do. Maybe my ideas were too big and I need to start smaller. Or maybe it's a matter of discipline, of circling back around to those back-burner projects, to see how they're going, to push them along at least a little.

I know I'm going to get scattered, and try to broaden instead of deepening my interests. I know I'm going to struggle to finish things, and struggle with the decision whether to dump them to free up time and mental space for something more rewarding. I'm not sure if I have a contingency plan for those instances just yet. Should I always try to go deeper, or should I go where my soul's calling me to, as long as it's not more escapism? I guess time will tell how these will get handled.

So far I've come up with the following rules for myself:

• try to buy as little as possible,
• definitely no introducing new tarot decks to the pool,
• I can buy fiction (I want to read more), but only after giving what we've got at home an honest shot – my to be read pile, partner's books, old favorites,
• I can buy replacements for art supplies that I've used up,
• generally: go deeper with things I already do and love,
• (not everything has to be productive, for down time see: books, and making the most use of our switch library),
• writing in the Daily Stoic Journal – that seems like the biggest challenge right now, a commitment to a daily activity, even though it's just a few lines.

I'm overwhelmed but optimistic. I hope this blog will be a place of accountability for me and a record I'll be able to look back on and learn from, should I try any such thing again in the future.