LIVIN G & LE ARNING
PHOTO BY J. TEUCHERT
Christmas one year ago I knew I was severely depressed. From the failed marriage, failed career and a
life without friends. I realised too late the monster that had dug its claws into my back, through my ribcage and fixed itself steadfastly to my soul, but I had no idea what to do about it. Amidst the world of academic dispensation and stuffiness I had fallen into a deep coma and then around Christmas nearly fell out of the window of my flat. I had disappeared amidst the grey turrets and stone, locked in a self-made prison. So I ran. To the high north. But I was running from myself. From my past. “You cannot outrun the past”, I had heard the wind say. I responded, “I can try”. But I could not outrun the past. I sought to repress it instead. And while my memory packed the curse of
forgetfulness in its subconscious struggle to find meaning to the images of the past, I endeavoured to remain present, to consider the curse a blessing.
So I stayed on this island of night. I breathed. I smiled. Every day. And I walked amid the snow flurries, amongst the mountains, the half-light, the half-dark, half awake and half asleep. And the island embraced me.
Now this island, despite its vastness and snow that moves in rapid winds across the flats and off the tops of the mountains, doesn’t overwhelm any more. I was always a little afraid of her. I’m not now. She is what she is and we are comfortable in the way we are. My time here closes. The island tells me. I suppose I knew the end was coming before I knew. Several weeks have
passed since I had my last tarot reading. Part of the incendiary weirdness of the island is that it was up here, almost as far away from Australia as you might possibly get, that I found a woman who might provide a guide and friend for my path forward. Or perhaps it is the lasting sign that I am finally following the right course, that I am listening. “How about we do your reading?”, Joss had suggested, “We haven’t done
PHOTO BY J. TEUCHERT
one for you in a while.” I agreed. She unwrapped the cards from the double silk scarves that held them. I shuffled until I felt the urge to stop, concentrating on nothing in particular other than transmitting my energy to the cards. I lay them down. She dealt. I believe the cards can clarify what we already know. That is, the cards can
help us come to accept our path and those decisions we know must be made. It is a tool of sight because it allows us to realise our own intuition. I remember the reading. Ten of Swords. Knight of Wands. (Mind blocked by creativity.) Five of cups.
Devil. (Love is the cover for the real reason.) Lovers. The High Priestess. (Love is the past. The future lies within my subconscious, possibly something I am forgetting.) Death. (How others see me – that’s uplifting! No, really it’s about closure.) Seven of Swords. Ace of Pentacles. Judgment. (Where I am heading.) For anyone who knows tarot, the spread has a spectacularly obvious central
them: the death of a cycle and the birth of something new. A year ago, amongst the mountains and valleys of Svalbard, I had begun again.
And now a new beginning looms on the horizon Through the darkness the mountains rise. On days where the clouds linger,
they become spectres, their peaks sometimes cut off and drifting in layers of plume. Although it is dark and cloudy I know, far above, there is yet clear sky.
8 JULY 2015
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