Ghosts and memory

Daily Draw, Wizards Tarot, The Wheel of Fortune

This card with it's ghostly figures in the background triggered my theory brain (good thing it is still working). Whether or not you agree with Marx's politics he could turn a word or two. Twenty years on from my history degree I still have almost total recall for this memorable form of words. 

'Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. 

And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionising themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honoured disguise and borrowed language'. 

Karl Marx, 1818-1883 

All things to all people

Daily Draw: The Wizards Tarot, The Hierophant

Neither horse nor man. Neither Fish nor Foul. Being all things to all people and no one to yourself. How many times do I have does life have to deliver this lesson before I learn it?

Get over yourself

Daily Draw: Wizards Tarot, Eight of Wands

Have I set hearts aflame with the desire to learn or just fired off eight (600) broomsticks before their riders could saddle up? Don't know yet. Clouds around the academy indicate unsettled conditions but the moon reminds me it is the evening and while my thoughts are still on my learners they are probably not thinking of me right now. As a young person would say 'get over yourself'. 

In learning you will teach, and in teaching you will learn.

Phil Collins, 1951-

Filibuster

Daily Draw, Wizards Tarot, The Dark Lord

Power and resistance, there's something of the devil in each. One method of resisting the power of managers in organisations is filibustering (a new word yippee). This refers to speaking at great length (often on irrelevant or obscure matters) in a meeting in order to prevent actions being agreed. 

Apparently there is a long history of the use of filibuster in the US Senate to delay or block legislation. Chris Murphy recently filibustered for a record breaking 15 hours on gun control. It happens in our Parliament too. Didn't know the word for it until now. Result. 

Credibility debits and credits

Daily Draw: Wizard's Tarot, The Chariot

This is the professor of astral travel with her familiar Pharoah Hound. There is debate over whether this breed originated in ancient Egypt. The breed club says yes based on the results of an archeological dig. Wikipedia says no DNA link between this dog (now national dog of Malta) and Egypt. Who to believe? A search of dolichocephalic canines on Wiki throws up long haired whippet. Er no such thing. Credibility dip there. 

And then there's the standard line that greyhounds are ancient but whippets a bantamised version originating in the nineteenth century. Wrong. There is a fourteenth century painting of the birth of Jesus with whippet type dog in attendance in our city art gallery. Can't find an image of it. Credibility dip for me. 

Whippets often known as poor man's racehorse, forever associated with the miners who raced them on Sundays. Yet in Ford Maddox Brown's painting the little whippet in red coat and gold collar is positioned as wealthy vis a vis the shaggy dog on a rope. Some kind of reversal going on here. 

One minor gripe about the hound in this card. The back legs and feet aren't right. Too stumpy and when airborne should be fully extended. This is one reason why it is good to have interests - it helps us see things with a critical eye. I'm inclined to believe the PH breed club on the origins - these people are interested to the point of obsession which means they do their research. 

Anyway I'm happy to get my hound card after months of buying decks featuring these breeds and a PH is a good choice for an astral flight dog. Credibility credit. 

As above so below

The draw of a new deck, Wizards Tarot, Page of Pentacles

It's so nice to receive gifts in the post (even if I have paid for them). The Wizards Tarot arrived today and it has me hooked. Usually I prefer painted cards to digital artwork but in this deck the images have been thoughtfully composed. The majors and the courts are bursting with symbolic detail (all explained in the book) without anything superfluous being added. 

The images are a little small they would have been better borderless like the Green Witch deck. Faces are a bit characterless but I have just been using the Tarot of the Hidden Realm which is at the opposite end of the spectrum in this regard. The courts are better especially the pentacles which are represented by gnomes. 

I love this description of the Page (the card that most closely resonates with me) 'The youngest member of the gnome family might not conform to our idealized standards of beauty but she is as her creator made her'. Happy with that. 

The guidebook (or mandrake academy manual) is one of the best I've ever read. For each of the major arcana there are lessons on symbols, practical exercises and new spreads. 

I did the magician's above and below spread. You place the four aces - wands, cups, swords, pentacles in a row and then place four cards above and four cards below. The top row depicts your spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical ideals and the bottom row will illustrate your realities. The aces are there to remind you which area of your life you are examining. This spread really spoke to me. 

In brief:

Spiritual development my ideal is magician and reality is page of pents (very much a learner)  - makes perfect sense. My spiritual journey only got underway this year!

Emotions: Ideal is the initiate, I long for emotional renewal and a return to innocence. The Knight of Pents reminds me I have come a long way, across difficult terrain a complete return to innocence may not be possible. I am where I am.

Intellectual: Ideal the Sun (professor of solar magic) or bright young star of the academy. Yes I'm an early career academic building a research profile. Reality Queen of Pents. I'm early career but I'm not young. I'm not hurrying and I don't feel the pressure to conform to 'mainstream' research. I'm planted firmly on my own theoretical 'throne' and that is where I will bloom. 

Physical: Ideal the six of wands. Yes I need to improve my public speaking by addressing the bodily as well as cognitive side of this. Reality Queen of Swords. I've been hurt before at conferences and in teaching. I'm sadder but wiser. I can spot trouble from a distance even when as Kenner says 'it's only a whisper on the breeze'. I'll need to use the sword to nip threats in the bud and as I've already learnt this week work behind the scenes (no open warfare).  

M is for manifest and P is for...well you know...

Daily Draw: Tarot of the Hidden Realm, The Magician

I am reminded by this card of the magic of writing technologies from stone tablets to quill and parchment to my iPad. This clever little thing that I was berating last night (having sucked it dry of energy) talks as if by magic to the speaker in my kitchen filling my life with rich sounds. I can move pictures from it to my Mac instantly via Airdop. Telepathy between devices - what I've always wanted. In the future maybe I'll be able to download brain thoughts without typing a thing. 

And then there is unmagic. My poor old laptop that I have so abused - copying and pasting from PDFs to Word, hammering out notes to meet a deadline for returning a library book, all kinds of silly trinkets inadvertently downloaded to the hard drive while downloading apps that turned out to be useless. 

My thesis graveyard. The thought of trying to resurrect it makes my shoulders slump. How to move thesis from the craptop to the Mac without introducing naughty pixies into the latter and killing that as well. It's a dilemma. Procrastination is beating manifestation. 

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic

Arthur C Clarke, 1917-2008

iPad on no battery so it is now making up words.  I tried to explain this in comments on other blogs  it took half hour. :( do you see still typos.? Too tired signing off....

Darth Vader and the Death Eaters

Daily Draw: Tarot of the Hidden Realm, Shadowdance

This (impossibly handsome) chap looks not so much wicked as knowing. Knowing what is is instead of knowing what ought. and all the pragmatism that follows from that.

I've been dancing in the shadows today (with the best of intentions). Not somewhere I normally go. I prefer up front and honest but I'm learning that tricksy team dynamics and office politics means that is not always possible. I should know this already being a management and leadership researcher...

New article in mind. The shadow side of leadership from Darth Vader to the Death Eaters. Catchy no? 

Food of the sun

Daily Draw: Anna K Tarot, The Sun

A beautiful artistic rendition of the sun, my third celestial of the week. We have had sunshine this weekend but the heat is less intense than it was in August.  In temperate conditions I can be grateful for all the wonderful vegetables the sun helps to produce. 

Suitably inspired I made lunch of leeks, baby corn, spring onions, sugar snap peas, cashew and pine nuts roasted in a drizzle of olive oil. Served up with perfectly ripe avocado and parmesan shavings. 

Delicious, surprisingly filling and no 'dirty' feeling after eating. Nuts and avocado can seem pricey but actually compared with meat very economical. I got a bag of pistachios for £2.60 and quarter of the pack was enough for both of us. 

As the cooler weather approaches it is easy to seek comfort in stodgy food. I'm making it a goal to eat veggie and carb free at least four days a week. 

It is my view that the vegetarian manner of living, by its purely physical effect on the human temperament, would most beneficially influence the lot of mankind.

Albert Einstein, 1979-1955

Finding water

Daily Draw: Anna K Tarot, The Moon

All but one card this week have had an element of water about them. The shadow side signified by this card reminds me that this time last year was the the darkest and bleakest period of my life. I wore a professional mask 9-7 but cried buckets most nights and many mornings too. This year will be different, our parents only die once not twice.

The other stuff (and every problem but death is pretty much just stuff) will kick in. The lesson of water is to go with it or go round it rather than hard up against. If it all gets to much there is always the coast. I don't have a break booked but different to last year I know that I can and if needs be I will. 

Particularly in the academy, we have paid a lot of attention to the ‘life of the mind’. There have been great advances that have come from encouraging and enabling people to think differently and more innovatively. But I would like us all, just for the duration of this lecture, to imagine the institution that we would create if we deeply cared for our own and others physical wellbeing. Even further, I want to suggest that a primary task of leadership is to pay attention to and work towards the flourishing of others, and I don’t mean only cognitively. I mean the flourishing of our physical selves. 

What might this look like? It would include paying attention to the feelings and insights that come from our bodies. It would include structuring our days to ensure people did not over-work and were encouraged to harness their energies to what gave them pleasure. In this institution, there would be discussions about what was really happening in people’s lives, of what they were dealing with when elderly and not so elderly family members got sick or died. These discussions would be a prompt to ensure that we don’t waste time on things that don’t matter.

Amanda Sinclair, 

Musical renewal

Daily Draw: Anna K Tarot,  Ace of Cups

Emotional renewal and fresh start. The sounds and smells in this card, crisp fresh snow and tinkling clear glacial water remind me that a fresh start is a highly sensory experience. As a young undergrad I could hear and inhale hope and promise in every dawn air. I can't remember when that stopped but it does come back from time to time usually when I'm at a conference...So on to music:  

One of the most significant developments in music in the period 1100-1500 was polyphony. The motet was a composition for multiple voices that emerged in northern France in the thirteenth century and spread throughout Western Europe by the fourteenth. Motets were the results of a cross-fertilisation of liturgical and courtly music. Which means you can hear it as you will as an expression romantic love or something more spiritual. Here is an excerpt from one such piece:

Triplum (the third part in a medieval polyphonic composition)

When both leaves and flowers return

and summer approaches,

God! Then I remember love

which always

has been gentle and sweet to me.

which contents me

by relieving my suffering

Much good and honour

come from being at its service. 

Redemption, really?

Daily Draw: Anna K Tarot, Judgement


This looks like an escape into the promised land but the cloaked figure at the foot of the stairs is not so sure. Strip off and run headlongstrong into the light or maintain some cover? 

For Anna K this card signifies redemption - rising from the darkness into a new life. I think opportunities for redemption are few and far between. Human beings are not that forgiving although it is easy to forget our own mistakes. And then there is the whole issue of digital media, an immense archive of abject foolishness. Not sure I trust the angel in this card either. 

Anna K says that if you want to be truly redeemed you must account for your past, acknowledge what was good and bad and then let go. Oh that it were so simple...

Bad faith

Daily Draw: Anna K Tarot, The Wheel of Fortune

The visual expression of zero sum mentality. For some to be at the top there must be some at the bottom.  It's been a thesis research day today and I've been reading an article on 'venus envy'. The paper questions the Queen Bee label (a negative representation of senior women who do nothing to aid the progression of other women) and replaces it with the notion of bottom up female misogyny. Blaming the senior women is thus replaced with blaming the women further down the hierarchy. Junior women are positioned as envious whereas the selfishness of senior women is airbrushed out of the picture. 

I accept that elite women leaders may not be interested in or see it as their responsibility to further the careers of other women. Fine if they never signed up for that. But I do find it a bit rich when women academics win a career boosting research grant based on a promise to tackle gender inequality but in practice use the funds as a vehicle to 'feather the nests' of the 'old girls club'. Saying one thing and doing another is bad faith. 

Being professionals of discourse and explication, however, intellectuals have a much greater than average capacity to transform their spontaneous sociology, that is, their self-interested vision of the social world, into the appearance of a scientific sociology. 

Pierre Bourdieu, 1930-2002

Beacon of hope and healing

Daily Draw: Anna K Tarot, The Star

The first of the celestial cards. I've been thinking of health and healing these past few days so it is interesting to read Anna K's interpretation that Star offers the prospect of healing and becoming whole. She writes that 'even if we have suffered a lot in our personal history, we came into being whole and uninjured and therefore we can become whole again'. It is with the hope of healing that the healing process begins. In this way the Star holds out the promise of what in the World card comes true. 

Now I've just done a life expectancy quiz and my estimated LE is 77. Ouch! The good news is I am clear on the two things that will increase it by 10 years + (more exercise and quitting the cigs). 

Even better news reducing my wine intake will only add 2 and bit years. I'm willing to do that trade. According to the quiz giving up wine altogether will actually reduce my LE (by a month or two). Feeling smug now...And the day started off so well...

I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.

W.C. Fields, 1880 -1946 

Committed researcher and sometime cultural dupe

Daily Draw: Anna K Tarot, King of Cups

I know this feeling. When you read a passage in a book and it's so good you stop to draw breath. Finger on the page you read it again but it's too much to take in and you close the book and your eyes to savour this wonderful idea, an idea you thought no one else had ever had. And you want to sing and dance because suddenly things seem possible again. The thought of reading on fills you with trepidation - surely this level of magic can't be kept up. Either way it doesn't matter the mind is now energised and this is the point at which you start to write. 

This image represents how I want to feel about my thesis (I also quite like the whitewashed walls, inglenook fire and wooden floor - even critical researchers can be cultural dupes). After a morning of looking (with a lazy eye) at too many commercial fashion and lifestyle blogs and wondering if I should do something similar I am reminded of the value of my own path as an academic researcher. My job is to study these cultural intermediaries and expose their effects on other women not join them. 


Cultural intermediaries are the taste makers defining what counts as good taste and cool culture in today's marketplace. Working at the intersection of culture and economy, they perform critical operations in the production and promotion of consumption, constructing legitimacy and adding value through the qualification of goods. Too often, these are processes that remain invisible to the consumer's eye and in scholarly debates about creative industries. 

Sage Publishing, 2013

Amendment: Big Hair:

(C) British Museum

Justice is part of temperance

Daily Draw: Ship of Fools Tarot,  Justice

In the image Justice is deprived of her rightful role by the fool.  Late medieval and early modern society was quite litigious and the original woodcut was intended to show the folly of "Quarrelling and going to court' or recklessly taking every dispute before a judge. 

Within the moral scheme of the seven virtues justice comes under the heading of Temperance along with humanity, honour and abstinence. As well as restraint Temperance refers to the practice of mindfulness of others, judging among different courses/causes of action and rightful moderation between self-interest versus public interest and the rights and needs of others. 

Amendment.

Here's a link to a tarocchi card with the image of justice without blindfold dated 1530-1561. 

http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/collection_online/collection_object_details.aspx?objectId=1447008&partId=1&searchText=tarocchi+justice&page=1

Lurching from one mistake to another

Daily Draw: Ship of Fools Tarot, King of Coins.

The image here is of Midas complete with ass's ears praying for his golden touch to be revoked. It is somewhat anachronistic as legend has it the ears arrived after he had learned his first lesson. 

With hands back to normal, Midas turned his back on wealth and splendour, relocated to the country and became a follower of Pan, the god of the fields and satyr. 

One day Pan had the audacity to challenge Apollo to the ancient version of an X Factor sing off. Pan insisted that his little reed flute could make more beautiful melody than Apollo's harp. The two agreed to a contest complete with judging panel which included KM. 

After hearing both performances all but one judge (Midas) hailed Apollo as the winner. There are different versions of the exchange that followed. In the first Apollo whispered gently, 'I see the problem. It's your ears. They are too small to hear properly. Let me fix that for you.' In version two he was more succinct: 'Must have the ears of an ass'. Either way the outcome was the same... 

King Midas felt his ears quiver. His ears sprang out and turned into the large hairy ears of an ass. Mortified he grabbed his ears crying. 'Pan, help me!' he cried. But Pan, with one eye on Apollo, turned his back. 

King Midas tried to hide his ears by wearing an impressive variety of hats, helmets and headdresses. The only person who knew his secret was his barber who was sworn to secrecy. 

The barber kept his word (at first). But the burden of the secret began to wear him down. Eventually he dug a hole in the midst of some reeds and whispered into it 'King Midas has the ears of an ass. King's aaaass ears! King's aaaass ears!' 

Alas, for King Midas, the barber had dug into a piece of echo who ever after whispered over and over, 'King's aaaass ears, king's aaaass ears'.

Before long the whole kingdom knew Midas's secret. 

There's a lesson in there about overcompensating for one mistake and in so doing making another. 

Seven Sins to Ten Commandments

Daily Draw, Ship of Fools Tarot, Four of Cups

The image of a sleepy fool about to receive a rude awakening has been adapted from a Narrenschiff image that satirises sloth. In the middle ages through to the fifteenth century the chief vehicle of the moral tradition in the West was the doctrine of the seven deadly sins. In order of severity: pride, envy, anger, avarice, gluttony, sloth and lechery. 

They were often divided into sins of the spirit and sins of the flesh with the former to be avoided more than the latter. Pride, envy and anger were in the first category and gluttony, lechery and usually sloth in the second. Avarice could be one or the other. 

According to John Bossy they formed a system of community ethics making more excuse for sins of concupiscence that for those of aversion. The reasoning being that sins of aversion destroy community but without some dalliance with the sins of concupiscence there is unlikely to be a community at all. 

This doctrine of sin expounded by parsons, friars and town preachers is expressed by the parson in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. For him pride, envy and wrath came first. Pride being a social phenomenon which consisted of putting claims of status before those of sociability. 

Envy had two main forms - jealousy of other men's prosperity and pleasure in their misfortune. It implied the doctrine of limited good - the idea that there is a finite amount of good fortune in the world so that what accrues to one member of a community must be taken from the rest. The parson thought it the worst of all sins because it was the most directly opposed to solidarity and charity (meaning love of God and one's neighbour) and the root of much backbiting and discord. 

Rather than denoting bad temper, wrath meant a longstanding firm hatred of a neighbour expressed in acts of malice or vengeance against him. This included manslaughter, cursing, swearing and verbal abuse but also usury, the withholding of wages and alms, witchcraft, conjuring and divination.

The fifteenth century witnessed the Church sanctioned transition from the seven deadly sins to the Ten Commandments as the principle moral system. The results were nothing short of revolutionary. 

Henceforth sins against community previously regulated by private arrangement were replaced with punishable sins against God, the State and the Church. In the new order a drive for chastity, respect for authority and property were to supersede the medieval concern for charity.  

Source: Bossy, J. (1985) Christianity in the West, Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

An honest trade

Daily Draw: Ship of Fools Tarot, Eight of Coins

Whether or not you're interested in religion the Oxford Dictionary of Saints has value in showing the sheer abundance of historical crafts and trades. 

There is St Honore patron saint of pastry chefs; Saint Crispin and Crispinian, patron saints of cobblers, curriers, tanners and leather workers; St Andrew patron saint of fishmongers (as well as sore throats and old maids) St Agatha patron saint of bakers, bell-makers and nurses; St Ambrose of Milan, patron saint of bee keepers, candle makers, wax melters and refiners; Erasmus of Formiae, patron saint of pyrotechnicians, steeplejacks, chimney sweeps and anyone who works at great heights.

Eligius was a particularly hardworking saint covering metal workers, jewellers, mechanics, farriers, harness makers, vets, farmers and numismatists (those who study coins). 

Peter the Apostle also had a broad remit protecting popes, fishermen, fishmongers, sailors, bakers, harvesters, butchers, glass makers, carpenters, shoemakers, clockmakers, blacksmiths, potters, bridge builders, potters and cloth makers. Venerius the Hermit was more of a niche saint focusing only on lighthouse keepers. 

Unsurprisingly Gabriel is the saint of communications workers, postal workers, broadcasters and messengers. St Genesius' role call of trades made me smile - actors, comedians, dancers and theatrical performers of all kinds are grouped together with attorneys and barristers. 

Alas I can't identify a saint of diarists (and therefore bloggers) although I have found Catherine of Bologna, patron saint of artists, Agabus, patron saint of fortune tellers and Francis de Sales, the patron saint of writers. 

One of the disadvantages of the current emphasis on university education is that it devalues young people who want to get to work straight away as apprentices learning a craft or trade on the job. But there's a dignity in wanting to be a great baker, beautician, builder.or bookbinder as well as in passing on those skills to the next generation. I suspect that the results of such efforts make a greater contribution to human happiness than a whole heap of paper qualifications. 

Stalking cards and penny drop moments

Daily Draw: Ship of Fools Tarot, Knight of Staves/Wands

Of all the courts I seem to get the Knight and King of Wands most often. Not sure why and not sure I know who or what they mean. According to Brian Williams this knight can denote a traveller especially one who withdraws or departs. First thought isn't that all travellers? Second thought actually travelling can be about arrivals. This reminds me that cards wise I am still on 'a journey' .

I did have a penny drop moment when reading through the Book of Fools this week. The High Priestess card (which I have previously struggled with) can be seen as the conceptual and meditative aspect of the feminine principle as compared with the active Empress. Now there is a personal connection as I am definitely more theorist than activist. Representative of unwritten histories? Like that too. As Minerva/Athena she is Goddess of wisdom arts, crafts and more. Known for her calm temperament she will only fight for just causes. 

Best of all as Williams observes the idea of a Tarot Papess is heretical and likely to agitate the powers that be. I'm starting to like her a lot...

Movement of Music

Daily Draw: Ship of Fools Tarot, Ten of Cups

Prior to the development of systems of notation, music travelled slowly in the middle ages. Songs and instrumentals had to be learned 'by ear', from one person who knew a song to another person. This limited the geographical spread of music and explains why the role of troubadour was synonymous with traveller. 

Troubadours were often clergy educated inventors of poetry and song. While the troubadours enjoyed a certain status their assistants, the illiterate and itinerant jongleurs were deemed to be untrustworthy vagabonds. Their repertoire included various acts including, acrobatics, conjuring, dancing and juggling. 

The clergy were eventually to associate the jongleurs with such dubious 'professions' as prostitution. Henceforth they were subject to certain theologically instituted legal restrictions including refusal of the eucharist on account of putting their bodies to unlawful use. 

Later in the medieval period the foundations of notational and theoretical practices were laid enabling composers and musicians to set out their songs on paper. This made it possible for songs to reach a wider audience. Music could now travel on paper rather than in person. 

A jar of moonbeams

Daily Draw, Ship of Fools Tarot, The Mountebank

From the Italian montambanco (quack who mounts a bench to hawk his wares) contracted from 'Monta in banco' (mount on bench). 

According to the character John Bull 'there is no nothing so impossible in Nature but mountebanks will undertake; nothing so incredible but they will affirm'. 

Reminds me of the modern day beauty companies. How do they get away with their claims? Check the small print and it will say a study of 20 women confirmed...

The latest lark is caviar face cream with a price tag of £300. According to the beauty editors it does work (a bit) and (how marvellous) doesn't smell fishy (surely that's a basic requirement not a bonus?). 

Only thing is it is perfectly possible to produce the same stuff with an RRP of £6.99. Available from a well known German owned budget store. 

Are you allowing yourself to be fooled by this mountebank, this harlequin? Do you cringe before a religion compounded of clouds and moonbeams. 

Isaac Asimov, 1920-1992

Competing wands

Daily Draw: Golden Tarot, Two of Wands


The choice card. Kat Black writes that there is a sense of dissatisfaction and yearning in this card. The merchant holding unfulfilled dreams in his hand. 

The discarded 'idea' on the wall reminds me that teaching and research are competing wands in my institution when they should be complementary. 

I came into this profession because I wanted to be a 'merchant of ideas'. Without research I have nothing to 'sell' but second hand junk. Time to pick up that wand. 


In the case of sociology however, we are always walking on hot coals, and the things we discuss are alive, they're not dead and buried.

Pierre Bourdieu, 1930-2002