Alchemy of the Human Spirit

So I was chatting with that Dan guy from the Tarot Garden the other day, and he was going on about Alchemy of the Human Spirit, and it got to the point where I just couldn't take it anymore.

"You don't know poop."

"What? How can you say..."

"You don't know poop."

"Well then mister big shot know it all, 'splain yerself."

"Back in the California gold rush, do you have any idea who really made money?"

"No."

"Didn't think so. Sam Brannan. He made the more money than anybody else during the California gold rush. And he never found a speck of gold."

"You're insane."

"Sam Brannan sold shovels. In addition, most of the forty-niners didn't have a clue how to find gold, but they all needed shovels."

"And I suppose you know how to find gold?"

"Listen. The first key is you have to learn how gold acts."

"How gold acts? Are you serious? How gold acts? Tell me how gold acts."

"Depends. Before you can learn how gold acts, you have to understand something about hydraulics, You have to learn how water acts. Then you have to start to learn what happens when water and earth mix. Stuff doesn't just 'go downstream'. It takes a while looking at streams during all stages of a yearly cycle. You want to study how a stream acts durning flood stage, you have to listen to huge bolders moving under water, watch how water moves the earth, and how the earth reacts. And you have to learn how water and earth act as floods cease, how earth is deposited."

"Yeah yeah yeah, gold is heavy and it sinks." Dan pushed himself back from the table and signiled the bartender for another round.

"Only when it is no longer in suspension."

"Suspension?"

"Right, its going to be moving along with heavy boulders during spring floods. And yeah, it's heavy. It will want to sink. It will want drop on down to bedrock as soon as the current allows it. It will hang in creaveses and anyplace the current releases its hold, especially once the hydraulic pressure of current flow begins to abate.

"However when its suspended, it can hang in moss and grasses along the riverbank. It tumbles in the boil. You can study all the geology you want, but if you don't understand how gold acts when its in suspension, you could be standing on a gold mine and never know it."

"You're telling me you can find gold in moss? I've never heard of such a thing." The Bartender sat glasses of amber swill in front of us and took that Dan guy's money.

"That's cuz you never get your head away from them dandy cards of yours to expand your knowlege. If you want to find gold, you have to understand how earth and water act when they mix."

"Mudpies. I learned mudpies in kindergarten."

"But you didn't learn how mudpies act when they are in motion, combined with another force called gravity."

"Okay, but humor me and tie this back to Tarot." He started rolling one of his hand rolled cigarettes.

"Can't light that here. We have laws. Look – swords are about knowlege, information, learning. In this example, learning how earth and water mix – cups and disks. Cups and disks act differntly together than say cups and swords. Cups and disks together move things and produce things – water and earth."

"Dude...what about wands – fire. I guess fire's about refining it all down and melting away the impurities..."

"You really wanna know what wands are about? Just look at gold in the bottom of your pan for longer than fifteen seconds. It will all become clear."

"Dude, you never cease to amaze me." he tucked the cigarette behind his right ear and got up.

"When you come back from enjoying that, we'll discuss square versus round pans."

He paused briefly. "Where does gravity come into it?"

"Ever read what Crowley says about the number five...?"

"Dude, you never cease to amaze me."

Nice.

More, Master, MORE!

Oh. My. G*d.
totally awesome
*sitting on carpet swatch in rapt attention*

Au(m)

That would mean that Wands and Swords are the applications and cups and pent's are about observations.

It's not that easy , though it is .


The real money spinners in those days, if they lived to spend it, were the whisky peddlers.Not the sellers but the makers.
Each may have bought a shovel once, but each drank whatever was available many many times.
Many would recycle used gear , but none recycled drink. (Hopefully)

Just like your story suggests, the drinks were served quietly, and accepted in the same manner.
The barman takes the cash, you take the conversation and plans.

Okay, so I was just sitting at this bar, thinking about the High Priestess and all this jazz about Intuition and Thinking and Feeling and Sensing. And I knew that She had to be intuition...water and

Then...

I couldn't help but overhear your conversation with that fellow Dan.

Well, you see I've done a little gold panning myself. It's all hard work and suffering and failure...but I'm getting ahead of myself.

I set out to the gold camp to get rich, you know, find that big nugget!

So I went into the general store and this old dodger asked me if I had done any panning before. I said I had.

He pointed at the pans on a shelf. There was a square one with holes all over the bottom and some that were eight-sided and a few round ones.

The eight-sided ones had steps going up four of the sides. There were short steps at the bottom and larger steps at the top.

The old dodger he said, you take this here octagon pan. Now that gold out there is deposited in the earth, but it used to be in suspension. That's how it got there

You gotta use that shovel of yours and the water and get that gold back into suspension and then deposit it right here in the corner of this pan.

SO...

I did...I got plenty of dirt and plenty of water. I even made some mud-pies, but I didn't see any gold nugget. I sat on my bucket and watched the sun go down. The evening star came out. The number five kept coming to my head.

So? That looks like Dan coming back from his smoke. What is it about the number five anyway?

I don't have anyone in my life I can have awesome didactic arguments like that one with, sadly. (All my multiple personalities are in complete agreement, because we're all perfect).

Consider yourself lucky, Nisaba. I'll be sitting at the bar, having a nice, quiet business-related conversation with Dan... and then suddenly, out of nowhere, that Umbrae guy shows up and starts spouting off with one of his iconoclastic metaphorical tirades. When that happens, I know I'm not gettin' any work done for the rest of the night.



(LOL! Jes' kiddin', Umbrae -- you KNOW I love ya, sweetie!)

~ Jeannette