|
 One
of my favorite pastimes is creating tarot decks.
Every so often, I get an inspiration about a tarot
deck concept, plan out some of the details, and
start making cards. Not that I manage to
finish any of these decks, mind you. I can't seem
to get through 78 cards before being distracted by
a new inspired deck concept, or some other
project that draws my attention.
I'm
obviously not the only person who gets inspired by
the idea of making a tarot deck: there are
hundreds of different decks in print at any given
time, and there are surely many thousands if one
includes self-published and unpublished decks as
well.
Although
tarot is a wonderful divination tool and includes
many fascinating and evocative images, that is not
really enough to explain why I keep getting new
deck concepts and become enthused about executing
them. For me, a big part of the fascination of the
tarot is that it is a system, but a system
whose pattern is somewhat fluid. In the
minor arcana, there are four suits and fourteen
ranks, much like one finds in ordinary playing
cards. So when I think about a card like the
three of cups, I not only think of that particular
card and the meanings I associate with it, but
I also think of threes (the threes in the
other suits of the tarot, and also threes in a more
general sense - all the triplets and threefold sets
in the natural and human world), and I also
think of cups (all the cups cards of the tarots,
and real cups as well, and things that go with
cups, like water, wine, urns, bowls . . .). The
connections in the major arcana are less direct,
but perhaps even more interesting: an Emperor and
Empress; a Priest and Priestess; a Star, Moon, and
Sun; three of the four cardinal virtues (Justice,
Strength, and Temperance - Prudence, the fourth, is
strangely absent); and so on.
When I get
inspired by a tarot concept, I don't just think of
a card or two and then wonder what to do about the
rest. I get excited about the system, about the
interconnections and relationships. I ask
questions like, "What will the Knights be like?" or
"What are swords about in this deck?" Those kind of
questions stimulate my creativity about the
particular cards, in a way that just sitting down
to make a picture of a knight with a sword does
not.
It may seem
ironic, but structure can be the friend of
creativity and novelty, rather than its
adversary.
This is a
profound principle for me, the complementary
relationship between change and form. Some people
see the relationship simply as one of conflict:
change breaks old form, forms restrict change. But
I see something much deeper than that at work.
Forms and structures do not just appear out of
nothingness, they are the legacy of growth and
change that has gone before. Each chamber of a sea
shell was once a new addition, created by the need
to grow beyond the limits of the chamber before.
This is true of human institutions as well. Every
law and custom was once a novelty: some creative
solution to a problem, which eventually became
habitual, codified, and fossilized.
Conversely,
it is structure that enables change. If there were
no pattern, change would be meaningless, just part
of a random flux without direction or intention.
The stable structure of language and its
conventions enables the expression of new ideas;
the precise rules of logic and engineering on which
my computer runs helps me to write and paint; the
recurring pattern of the seasons allows new life to
erupt in spring. And, as Robert Frost remarked,
good fences make good neighbors.
Many people
seem especially devoted to either structure or
change, accepting the other only grudgingly, or
perhaps rejecting it altogether. In the
Myers-Briggs personality typing system, there is
the dichotomy of perception and judging. People who
favor perception are spontaneous, carefree, and all
about new experiences. They go on trips without
making any plans, their personal space is randomly
strewn with objects of interest, and they dislike
having to be anywhere on time. People who favor
judging are exceedingly organized, become extremely
stressed when something unexpected happens, and
take comfort in rules. The one type has an
unquenchable thirst for novelty, the other an
intense attachment to order.
Either
polarity is limiting, it seems to me. An abhorrence
of structure makes it difficult for anyone to
master a system or skill. So however creative your
daydreams may be, you lack the tools to manifest
the change you seek. On the other hand, fear of
change is crippling. One goes through the motions
of something repeated a thousand times before, not
allowing anything new to grow for fear of breaking
the pattern.
Ideally,
form and change dance together like inhaling and
exhaling, each making the other possible, together
creating something neither can produce on its
own: true growth.
Page
Two: Stepping through the Door
|