Nell Grey's Blog - Posts Tagged "omar-khayyam"

A year or so ago I began creating a new tarot. I'd already painted 76 images to illustrate a set of meditation cards called The Mystic Rubáiyát, (one for each verse of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, plus a title card), a set of 22 tarot majors in pen and ink called The Pen Tarot and another, The Wild Green Chagallian Tarot, inspired by the work of the artist Marc Chagall and the precious wild herbs that thrive unnoticed all around us. The new tarot was (and is) to be a full deck of 78 cards plus a title card.

Working through the minor arcana, I came to the Six of Swords. When there is an image on this card (rather than simply pips, as on the Tarot of Marseille), it usually depicts a boat crossing a body of water. There are three figures in the boat; usually a standing ferryman, a woman in a hooded cloak and a child - all with their backs towards the viewer. Six swords stand upright next to them. The meaning is basically of moving on, but interpretation is very much an individual process, and can depend on the subject, the reader's intuition and influences of the surrounding cards.

I'd sketched some ideas and decided which to develop - I'd even made a small model. But that was it - all inclination to begin the painting fell away. Instead I decided to re-edit and format my books for Kindle. The process turned out to take far longer and involve more than I'd ever imagined, but I feel I have to complete it before moving on with the tarot images.

I think that what I'm saying here is that in life, or in any creative process - and life is surely creative - one needs to listen to the rhythms, feel the tides, and if possible go with rather than against them. I'm hoping I'll travel more smoothly by listening and flowing - that's the theory anyway. I'm not sure what the swords are for, but when the time is right I'll carry them with me.

The clocks went forward a week ago, and still I find myself taking an hour off the given time in order to know the 'real' time. Perhaps I just don't like change.

But who could fail to notice and be cheered by the fact that that Spring is well and truly on the way? The trees are showing signs of waking after their winter sleep - some are dressed in blossom; lily-like ramsom leaves already carpet the woods at the end of our road and baby rabbits wait until the last minute to dash to the edge of the park for cover as I stop breathing and hope the little earth dog hasn't seen them. He has of course, but he'll be fourteen this year and although still pretty fit is less interested these days.

I haven't yet heard a cuckoo, but the hollow tattoo of a woodpecker drumming high in the bare branches of a sycamore echos through the woods, and I wonder whether he's enlarging a hole for a nest or simply looking for insects.

The quatrain on the card is from Edward Fitzgerald's creative translation of
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. I don't know which bird symbolized Time for either Omar or Edward, but it's good advice.

Come, fill the Cup...