The Red Tent

No…it’s not what you are thinking. There’s no iTarot yet, and i don’t have any Apple Deck to announce…hehehehe.

I was reading today the text by Steve Jobs, the creator of Apple, Pixar etc., delivered on June 2005 during a commencement. It’s a really beautiful text, but surprisingly, i found it related, in many parts, to the tarot world. I’m not going to quote the whole text…because right now i want to comment on two quotes that really touched me…

“…you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”

I see here the Star. I say that because…in moments of hopelessness, my boyfriend told me many times to ‘trust that the dots will connect’. Sometimes it seems impossible..dots connecting? After everything else seems to be falling apart?

Many people take the Star as the fluffy-happy card, that tells you to relax, all is fine now. But hey…you just faced the Tower. When you look backwards, all you can see the ruins of something that was - and many times, the ruins of what you were. So how can you be all fuffy-happy?

I think the Star is much more about recovering from the falls… and trusting the dots will connect somehow. Trusting that things will be fine. Maybe now the things aren’t all right…but you trust they’ll be better - something inside tells you that they will, even if now it seems impossible. Instead of closing your windows and blame the whole world because the sun doesn’t shine, you open them and wait until dawn breaks.

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.”

He says that after he tells a story in which he almost faced death thanks to a cancer. For me, it’s a quote about Death. It’s like i found new words to explain the card when i read this quote.

I think Death might be just that…being released from other people’s voices, opinions, chosing not to listen to them and follow you own heart. Because many people are out there just to make you feel like you cannot do it - and sometimes, you are the one who convince yourself you cannot do it. You are your own enemy - you need to get rid of this part of yourself. You need to die….be reborn…and make you life be what you want it to be. Never settle for the minimum score, for the little satisfaction, for the least you can do, for the easiest path.

Changing isn’t easy, but facing Death - either physically or metaphorically - most of times leaves you without a choice.
I know these quotes apaprently have nothing to do with tarot. But they have a lot to do with life, and life has everything to do with the tarot.