Tarot

I am starting to test my hand with tarot. I bought a gorgeous, gorgeous deck, Manga Tarot by Lo Scarabeo.
I am still figuring out the symbolisms, but I think it is very interesting. The gender roles are reversed in most cards, with a female Fool and a male Justice. The Princesses-Knights are riding on mounts: a horse, a whale, a tiger, and a dragon. Princes-Pages go on foot, holding the item of its Suit.
First things first, I tried a few spreads and asked a few questions. No, I don't remember, and no, I did not write anything down. It was a simple trial run, not of hte deck itself, but of my (crude) understanding of the symbols.
But on the 4 trials, I noticed there were 2 cards that showed everytime. I was completely reshuffling the cards, so it should not happed, but there it was.
The Tower, and the King of Swords (inverted).
So... The Tower, showing a burning pagoda under a sky crossed by lightning, and a female warrior holding a broken sword over her head; talk about ominous. It warns of a nearby crisis, a shock to the system, a disaster of some kind.
I truly, truly did not want that card to show up. Specially since it can also mean an earthquake, and since we share the same plaque with Haiti, there is some talk that we could be next. Superstitious blather, but there you have it.
And the King of Swords, a paragon of intelectual achievements, a verifiable genious, inverted, so it is either telling me not to rely too much on my rationale to overcome the crisis... or warning me that my mind itself is at stake, that I might snap and go crazy.
...
Not too worried. I have always been a bit of a skeptic at heart. I am like Mulder on the X-Files: I want to believe. I don't actually believe all that much, but I very much want to believe.
And even if I were totally convinced that I received a direct message from the aFlying
Spaghetti Monster ... this was my first time. Surely I need more time to get used to the language of symbols..

Sister Haiti

Haiti, our neighbor, our sister...
You truly seem to be cursed.
Blow after blow, and no time to recover.
No time to stand up.
Just barely time enough to register a new punch in the gut, a new kick to the back of her head.

The magnitude of the tragedy overwhelms me, and I try not to watch the images on TV. Haiti has been had such a rotten luck, such a rotten deal, out of EVERYTHING that somehow this...

Slavery, war, disease, famine, floods, hurricane after hurricane, poor crops, depressed economy, and now an earthquake.

I don't know. Maybe the equations of suffering have nothing to do with past sufferings. September 11 shook the world, made us cry at the sheer amount of suffering contained in that single episode of American history. It was disconnected from everything else, yet it contained universes in anguish and horror.

Or maybe it does, softening the flesh and tenderizing the senses for the final blow, so that it can hold all the pain inflicted throughout the whole beating.

I mean, fuck!, these people were already eating mud!!! Clay cookies, with a bit of sugar and oil to make it palatable.

...

And reading on the NYTimes today, I learned of a new (old) outrage commited against the Haiti people.

Haitians have been punished ever since for claiming their freedom: by the French
who, in the 1820s, demanded and received payment from the Haitians for the slave
colony, impoverishing the country for years to come[...]

What the fuck!!!!
Since when does the victim of a rape have to compensate the rapist!!
What is the logic behind such a preposterous claim?

How much did the French receive?

And I hope to hell they are planning on giving it back. 'Cause the French have always been some of my most favorite people in the world, and if they don't make at least a gesture in this direction, I think I am going to hate them.

And maybe I have been misinformed on this point, but I heard the first international aid on the scene was sent by the Chinese... Like, really? There was nobody nearer? This thing happened on Tuesday, and the first ones to get there are the Chinese? Kudos on the Chinese; they clearly have taken this seriously enough.

Tropical Wiccan

I have for a time considered myself a Wiccan.
Not much of a Wiccan, mind you, as I am not as observant of the rituals as I probably should be, but a Wiccan nonetheless.
The biggest problem I have is the matter of location and regionalism. All hte books and info I find on Wicca are related to European pantheons and seasons. And you know, their seasons and our seasons are not really interchangeable. Their version is taught in our schools: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. They even illustrate it for elementary kids with the usual pictures of red leaves and white snow.
But, really, it is summer here all the year! The only real change is the amount of rain you get.
Our seasons look more like this: Rain Season, Storm Season, Second Rain Season, and "Dry" Season (not that dry).
Hard to pray for the return of the sun, when the AC has to be On or you would melt in a puddle.
So, I feel I have to find a way to mold my religion into my environment for it to work.
I have turned my sight to the native gods:Yocahu, Maquetaurie, Atabeira...
But I know so little about them, there are so few books...
And I know that there are groups out there that claim direct bloodlines from our Eyeri ancestors, and they practice rituals they claim are the same as the indians did.
I have my doubts.
And other politheistic tropical religions leave me feeling icky.
I am all for dancing in the moonlight around a bonfire, but as soon as you have to kill a goat, I lose all respect for you and your religion . Go fuck yourself and leave the goat alone.
And I suppose the tropical aspect of religion has something to do with this need for bloodshed. I think I read it in a Joseph Campbell book, that religions around the Equator tend to involve (human) sacrifices because in hte jungles, life feeds on life. Nothing has to be properly dead before something elsewill eat it. Thus, the idea that for life to continue, life must be spilled. Or else, the sun will not shine again.
You know, the Eyeris practiced human sacrifice too. There are eyewitness accounts of sacrifices by arrows, in which the victim is tied to a post, and a ring of dancers danced around it, and they shoot arrows at him, aiming for the genitalia and non-vital parts, to make the ritual last longer, until he expired.
Soooo not liking it!

And my question is, how far can you stretch a religion until it is something else entirely? How much can you reinterpret a myth, and a god/dess, before you are creating a new entity?
I don't want to worship Zoamel Gustav, you know.