Dave's Step 18
Since this step is all about imagination, specifically its free usage, I'm going to set up this step in the following way: My card is the FEY HERMIT, a card which I have used for several steps now. The Hermit is dressed in a tall hat and full length coat, carries the requisite lamp, and is placed within a tower full of criss crossing stairs, multiple doorways, and little creatures. Since I've discussed this card extensively prior to this step, I want to assure that I have access to a bit of "freshness" --- so, I've chosen two other cards at random.
** The six of Chalices will/may serve as a "prior" event/situation for the Hermit if I need or wish to include that card. An angle-winged Fey sit upon the rim of a large chalice holding a large egg (about half her size) over a surface covered with other eggs of various colors.
** The Nine of Swords will/may serve as a "following" event/situation for the Hermit if I need or wish in include that card. A winged Fey kneels close to the ground, a large hanging sword is poised above her back. Stairs and a doorway are before her. She is unrestrained.
I'm going to write what I see and feel right now so that this exercise will be as "live" and current as possible. I have no idea where this will take me.
****
I'm stepping down, the light is sufficient to show the stairs, the ladders, the doors and the little creatures. I can't see what difference it might make as to which way I go. I'll skip the doors until I see how far up or down this inside-of-a-tower goes. This isn't right, the down is twisting up, I'm not in a tower and I'm not right-side-up or up-side-down. I don't like this, I should not have come thru that door. I'll go out another door.
I should have answered that Fey with the egg. Her question of why she was given that egg instead of any of the hundreds of others on the floor was a good question. Fluffing her off with an excuse of not having time -- that wasn't good to do. Same question then as now, "Of all the choices, why this one?" Damn, why didn't I remember that avoidance of a lesson just brings it back in a different guise. There's no getting out of this place until I stop and figure out that question there.
Why one choice? Was I chosen by the egg --- I mean, was she chosen by the egg. Confusing here in this place. Think, how can an egg make a choice? Eggs are potential. Potential needs a way to happen. The egg puts itself in small hands on a high place. Now, that's potential. How to turn it loose? Will she drop it?
I didn't answer her, but that is the answer, make a choice that will or may change everything. I should have stayed to see what happended. Now, I have to see what will happen with my choice. That door! Open it, just open it and step out.
Another Fey in a quandry. "Hey, do you know you have a sword hanging over your back?" No answer, no response. I kneel in front of her to speak more quietly. Her eyes are closed and she makes no response to my query. What is she waiting for? She has something to work out. Does it require a passing of time during which the sword may fall? Is this a self-imposed trial or was she required to do this? What's the question? It has to be the same question as before, twice before. Make a choice! A choice of what? To move, to think, to choose, to give one's life up to chance? What?
Stop, deep breath. You've made your choice in the tower, you stopped long enough to consider the choice relative to the egg. This Fey and Sword situation isn't your choice, it's someone else's choice. Offer to help, and then move on through the arch and be on your way. It's not that easy. Stop. Think some more.
That Fey isn't moving on until something "right" happens. Everything is chance, subject to the sword unless the mind develops the answer needed. What did I learn in the tower? Nothing is as it seems, the tower wasn't a tower, it was a trap that could be walked away from. Why walk away? Because there was nothing to learn there. So, why doesn't the Fey walk away? She has no vision, no answer, no need to move!
"There is nothing to find here, under the sword. You need to find both the question and the answer. You need to live, to move, to experience that which you may find. The door, the stairs, the stars you see are what you need to seek. There are no answers and no questions here, bound to the chance of ending all that is."
*****
So, everything I found in the cards were questions that led one to step out, to move from doing or experiencing nothing, to seeking anything that one would come across. The cards, all of them, were saying that we should experience life and find both questions and answers. One is coupled to the other, neither can be found by staying in one place.
My imagination led me to questions and puzzles. I didn't so much leave a card for something else. I found the same question, the same answer by moving onward. The focus card, the Hermit, was experienced because I didn't help or didn't stop to find an answer. Once it experienced the need to face a question, I could step out. But, I had to again see the consequences of not stepping out in such a way that I "knew" that answers were found seemingly outside oursleves through experience, through action. This is not what I thought my imagination would lead me to before I started this.
Dave