I have been stuck on this one for a moment.

When I was young I was struck by the courage,
the selflessness,
the way that Scheherazade stepped up and stuck her neck out,
quite literally,
to stop a madman from murdering more women.

I was taken by the vast knowledge that she had,
that she was able to draw upon,
in order to create a state of nightly anticipation
to stay the executioner’s blade.

I would chortle and guffaw to consider how easily fooled Shahryar was by this obvious ploy
I would consider the time she and her sister must have spent plotting the next story,
knowing that tonight might be the night he lost interest.
I thought about how she had to be wife, mistress, lover, mother to his children
and nursemaid keeping him constantly entertained.
But now I just think about all the women who came before her.

The ones whose fathers,
rather than encouraging them to read,
handed them over to the man who would be directly responsible for their deaths.

A king who murdered thousands of women he had married only the evening before,
how many of them would have traded their queen for a day status
for a long life of what some might consider
mediocrity?

Greatness is not measured in units of power,
or all of the knowledge that can be found in books.
It’s measured in the depth of the human heart,
in how it grows year by year
with every story we collect,
with every breath
with every beat.

Fear has no room to root
where kindness holds court.

No real mystery to it.

 

~~~~~

Being that I love fairy tales, myths, and folklore, this deck is totally awesome. Tarot of the Divine by Yoshi Yoshitani encompasses all the stories I love and some I’m just learning as a result of having it. The art is vibrant and fun, and Yoshi does a brilliant job of capturing the essence of the characters as representatives of the different cards. I will admit that I can struggle with it, as I do with any deck which has familiar characters who I might have mental and emotional associations to, but there is much joyful exploration in the realm of story here, so that balances it rather nicely.

The High Priestess is a card, a character I rarely see myself in. Wrapped up in the quiet contemplation of the moon and her cyclical nature, she is studious and patient where I have not always felt at ease. Though I have a love affair of my own with the moon, I feel it involves slightly more howling and poetic intoxication. But love is love, and appreciation comes in all forms. Scheherazade, being learned, must have been aware of the unjust cruelty to which the women of the world were subject to, but rather than burn it all down, she found a way to replace the poison with curiosity, which led to admiration, which eventually resulted in love and respect. I’m not sure I have that sort of patience, but I have great admiration for those who do.