Ten of Swords
Flying at the light again and again
Stupid little moth .It's overkill of something already killed. There's nothing you can do now. That's a relief: Releasing control. Lay it down. Lay down. On the cool ground. Sink into the earth. The cycle has ended
Rut-ro. The ten of swords. Deep breaths. Dang it really, Universe? What am I beating to death again and again, reserecting and killing off? Over thinking.
So many possibilities here because, well, by this age, I've really dragged the same dead carcases behind me. Occasionally pointing back to show them to people or get upset about them. (That would be a good painting if just a TAD heavy- dragging a bunch of dead animal headed people corpses behind me). How about competition? I've been dragging that one way too long but have a really hard time severing the line. We're all in it together. But still I feel redundant. Edging on just being another old lady artist. Competition has been massively played out. Feeling like I can't compete but have to- as an artist, a mother, a wife, a friend.
Also, as mentally negative, end of the cycle, tens, go- it may be time to stop berating my body for not being perfect. For aging. Yes yes, you say I still look pretty dang good for my age, but my neck has started looking like the trunk of a palm tree, my eyelids have vanished and no matter how many ointments I slather on my face it has started sliding towards my toes. I could set down that corpse too. Can I? Or is that, as the French matrons say, letting yourself go? Tisk tisk. Wouldn't it be nice to not give a f@#k?
I pull a second clarifying card and its the five of coins. Maybe this 10 is really about my mother? I've been trying to help her stay in her home as her brain gently descends into the wak-a-doodle land that is dementia. It's exasperating and exhausting. I would looove to set it down. To stop shifting the hoards of stuff in her home, to stop cleaning rat shit, to stop caring if her refrigerator is breeding the next plague, to stop worrying about the house caving in and her cancer surgery and falling and cats being feed cat litter and too much wine with medications. But I can't cut that one free, though it has about 20 swords stabbed in it already. Could I paint mom laying down with the swords in her? Yikes...no. (though, weirdly, she was laying in the position when I discovered her passed out on the floor recently).
So you tell me - which 10 the deck is showing me? Which is it showing you?
I tried to lay in the position of the person in the RWS image, as Mary Greer suggests, hoping for that feeling of relief, but it didn't come. In fact it was quite uncomfortable. I recently saw the sleeping woman- a tiny Paleolithic statue found in the caves of Malta where our ancestors buried their dead. Turned backwards it may be the same pose as the stabbed person that Smith illustrated. To me she is not sleeping but laid out in her grave as though she is. I considered painting her with ten swords in her but it didn't feel right. An image that finally took hold was the blades of 5 scissors (10 blades) cutting a paper image of the RWS person, their red cape falling in bits of paper like blood. But oh my God- I love this idea but did I really want to spend that much time painting the detail of such a dark image? I did say I would do just as much work on each card, major, minor, happy or otherwise...Life was too busy to consider it- mom in the emergency room again, trip planning, sick kids. Then I was randomly reading through my tarot notes and at the very end was written: "10 of swords, 10 pinned bugs".
I dont even recall writing this! Five years ago I painted a woman with one pin in her heart, and bugs pinned all around her. I must have seen it and thought it could be a good 10 of swords! Of course I didn't know the card then and with new understanding I envisioned a person with moth wings and ten pins pinning them to the display. Moths represent over-thinking and neurosis in my art since they fly and fly at the light although it burns them. I thought i would paint Leonardo DeVincis perfect man- you know the drawing, but somehow I forgot to add the extra arms and legs. Still it's there. Do you see it? And 10 pins is certainly overkill. The person is laying in Shavasana, yoga's corpse pose, releasing themselves to the earth. Letting go. Severing the lines. It's about time.
“Overkill” oil on wood. 14” x 17.5 (I’ll have to size this one for Tarot Later)
