Chosen.
Acts.
Reveal.
Our.
Thoughts.
Not meanings.
Not messages.
Not predictions.
But movement.
And gesture.
People doing things.
Figures taking action.
Thought made visible.
Energy given form.
Theatre of behaviour.
Someone offers a cup.
Someone carries a burden.
Someone turns away quietly.
Someone steps into sunlight.
Someone clings to certainty.
And all of it matters.
Not because symbols stay fixed.
Not because tarot predicts events.
But because acts reveal patterns.
And patterns reveal the mind.
That, at least,
is CAROT.
Chosen Acts
Reveal Our Thoughts.
It is a way
of looking at tarot.
Not by asking
what a card means.
By asking
what is happening.
Who is standing.
Who is holding.
Who is offering.
Who is leaving.
Who is staying.
Who is doing what.
The Rider-Waite-Smith deck
is good for this.
It is theatre.
It is full
of little dramas.
Not abstract ideas.
Visible acts.
A figure lifts a sword.
A figure grips coins.
A figure pours water.
A figure walks away.
A figure waits.
A figure kneels.
A figure begins.
That interests me
more than meanings.
More than lists.
More than
dictionaries of symbols.
Thought does not
always announce itself directly.
Sometimes it slips sideways.
Into habit.
Into posture.
Into gesture.
Into choice.
Into action.
The act becomes
the visible trace.
The clue.
The footprint.
The lantern.
Or perhaps
the lantern is wrong.
Perhaps the thought
is the lantern.
And the act
is what it illuminates.
Either way,
I keep returning
to the possibility
that tarot is useful
not because it explains us
but because
it stages us.
It puts behaviour
on the table.
It lets us watch
thought becoming movement.
The solstice is not
just a date.
It is a turning.
A high point.
A pause full of light.
A reminder
that energy matters.
Where it goes.
What it feeds.
What it strengthens.
What it reveals.
The Sun belongs here.
Not only as card.
As season too.
As excess of light.
As available force.
As attention made bright.
As the energy
that keeps things moving.
Lately I have been
thinking about beginnings.
Not neat beginnings.
Not sensible beginnings.
Not chapter one
followed by chapter two.
Other kinds.
More shuffled beginnings.
More oblique beginnings.
The kind that arrive
sideways.
The kind that
make themselves known
through a card,
a line,
a coincidence,
a nudge.
I have two books
I want to write.
Between them,
one hundred and fifty-six chapters.
That sounds
far too organised.
Far too architectural.
As if the books
already existed
and I simply had
to walk through them
in the correct order.
I do not think
that is how
I want to write them.
Or at least
not how I want
to draft them.
So tomorrow,
on the solstice proper,
I am going
to begin differently.
I am going
to shuffle.
Perhaps one deck.
Perhaps two.
I have not
quite decided.
But I will
let the cards
choose the first steps.
Not the whole structure.
Not the final order.
Just the openings.
Just the first acts.
Just the first
pieces of weather.
Two cards.
Two books.
Two first chapters.
Or at least
two first attempts.
The random act first.
Then the chosen act.
A card appears.
I respond.
Something begins.
That seems close enough
to writing.
Close enough to tarot.
Close enough to thought.
Close enough to life.
I like that
it resists management.
I like that
it introduces chance
without surrendering everything
to chance.
The shuffle matters.
But so does
what follows.
The card arrives.
The writer answers.
The act is random.
The response is chosen.
And somewhere between
those two things
a chapter starts
to take shape.
That feels
like a decent method.
Or at least
a decent experiment.
A way of giving
the books some movement
before they become
too settled.
Too explained.
Too obedient.
I do not want
to begin with certainty.
I do not even
want to begin
with a plan
so complete
that it leaves
no room
for surprise.
I would rather
begin with energy.
With sunlight.
With a shuffle.
With two figures
stepping into a tunnel.
With the possibility
that order emerges
not from control
but from attention.
Tomorrow, then,
I begin.
Not at page one.
Not at the start.
Not in sequence.
Into the spiral.
Into the cards.
Into the first
small acts of making.
The books can
sort themselves out later.
For now,
it is enough
to choose the method.
To step forward.
To let the light in.
To trust the shuffle.
To see what appears.
Every journey
likes to pretend
it begins
with something grand.
A revelation.
A decision.
A map.
A first stone.
A first sentence.
But often it begins
with much less.
A pause.
A turn.
A blank.
A gap.
A hesitation.
A hand hovering
over a deck.
A figure
standing at the edge.
A spiral.
A circle.
A zero.
A Fool.
Almost something.
Almost nothing.
nothing.