The Real Saraswati

My question for the week : Whom/what principle am I going to embody this week? What will be my strengths and weaknesses?
Answer: 8. Saraswati (Karma Oracle)

Goddess Saraswati is seen as beautiful, simple, humble (she is always dressed in white and wears way less jewelery than Goddess Lakshmi) divine patron of learning and art. So this story surprises me (courtesy Karma Oracle). Saraswati is the consort of Brahma (the creator of the world). All the Gods and Goddesses had to preside over a Great Sacrifice . But Saraswati who was taking too much time to beautify herself had not arrived in time (hmm, sounds too much like me). Since time was of great importance here, Brahma created a second wife (Gayatri) to take her place (It must be nice to be a creator; thank god, my sweetheart is not one). So as the story goes, Saraswati was very jealous of Gayatri and in conflict with her but it was later resolved. Her vanity in this story ties in very well with the picture of the peacock in one of the images shown in the previous post.

Coming back to the card and my question, the following are the strengths and weaknesses of this card and mine too for this week.

Strengths:
1. I come from a past life that has been devoted to beauty, art, music, and dance and feel the need to further improve my talents and transmit this learning to others. Every expressive technique is a means of communication and a joy to me.

I have learnt classical dance and painting when I was younger and I was decent in both these fields but haven't pursued it for many years. However, this week I have started dance lessons again and have talked to a friend regarding art lessons. Yes, I like to dress up but on a slightly different note, I find that no matter how mundane or boring a task or how lazy I feel if I add something beautiful to the task, it becomes a thing of joy and beauty.
The second sentence is completely totally too. Along with dance, tarot readings, and art, this blog is also a wonderful means of communication.

Weakness
"Aestheticism, an obsession for knowledge, eloquence, and image can sometimes change into superficiality"

I can see that. For me, everything has to be colorful and beautiful (from my perspective). Colors rule my life. My books, my home, my kitchen, myself, my laptop, my blog, the list goes on.....
For e.g. I will never buy a simple black folder; I just can't get over it. If I have to use a regular manilla folder, I will write some of my favorite quotations on it or draw something and make it pretty.

My Current task
Follow my path, immerse myself in studies, produce, and improve.
"Not to attach myself too much to my creations: Each one of them is not a destination, but a step forwards towards perfection."
A very profound and important statement.

I was very inspired by this card. So made a list of my five talents and resolved that everyday before going to bed I would make sure I had worked on atleast one talent.

Card for the week: 8. Saraswati

My tarot objectives for the week are: 1. practicing on framing the question 2. studying the Karma Oracle deck. Framing the question is of utmost importance in tarot as in everything else that needs an answer. You only get out of the tarot, what you put in. (This idea has been mentioned in several different ways using several different kinds of language). So ask a "precise and concise"question, as my friend would it, to get a precise and concise answer.

The Karma Oracle deck is a 33-card tarot deck which represents Hindu/Vedic Gods , Goddesses and their mounts, symbols, and philosophy. As an Indian, I felt an immediate attraction to the deck but haven't studied it as much as I like too.

My question was : Whom/what principle am I going to embody this week? What will be my strengths and weaknesses?

The card: 8. Saraswati.

Since, this is a week-long project, I will indulge in a deeper study of this card (so bear with me). I put in two images of Goddess Saraswati since there were different attributes that I would relate to in these pictures. Unfortunately, the image of the goddess in the Karma oracle didn't resonate with me at all.

Both these images have several things in common that correlates with my understanding of the Goddess. She is dressed in white which symbolizes the purity of mind, truth, and knowledge. She carries a scroll in one of her hands symbolizing that she rules learning, education, wisdom, and a veena (musical instrument) in the other as the patron goddess of music, sound, and speech. There are several schools and educational institutions in India named after this goddess.

There are a few noteworthy differences : in the first image, she is shown decked with more jewellery than I would normally associate with Saraswati (that genre would belong to her sister, Lakshmi, which incidentally is a name favored by jewelery stores). Also, one image shows a swan ( purity ) while the other shows a peacock (her victory over vanity).

Her attributes are mentioned in this Sanskrit shloka which I recited everyday as a little girl with my mother(Thanks, Wikipedia).

"Yaa Kundendu tushaara haaradhavalaa, Yaa shubhravastraavritha|
Yaa veenavara dandamanditakara, Yaa shwetha padmaasana||

Yaa brahmaachyutha shankara prabhritibhir Devaisadaa Vanditha|
Saa Maam Paatu Saraswatee Bhagavatee Nihshesha jaadyaapahaa||"

English Translation

"May Goddess Saraswati, who is fair like the jasmine-colored moon, and whose pure white garland is like frosty dew drops; who is adorned in radiant white attire, on whose beautiful arm rests the veena, and whose throne is a white lotus; who is surrounded and respected by the Gods, protect me. May you fully remove my lethargy, sluggishness, and ignorance."


Yes, I do need to invoke her. More on what specifically can I learn from this card and utilize in my life, the strengths, and weaknesses inherent in this card, and an particularly interesting story that my mythologically-obsessed mind missed in her teen years in the next posting.

Today's card:

As they say in poker lingo, today I played it "blind". This was a wonderful suggestion given by one of my friends. I asked the heavens to give me an indication of what my day was going to be like through a card. So I picked up a card this morning and have put it aside. As I write this, I still don't know what my card is. So the plan is to write about my day and then see the card and see if the card makes sense. The rationale is that this way I will not be influenced by the card while I write about my daily activities.

Today was a highly efficient day for me. A dear friend of mine gave me the most wonderful and delightful news. I made several personal and business calls, completed some pending correspondences, grocery shopped, cooked, and went to the gym with my sweetheart. I listened to one of my favorite albums and got nostalgic and emotional. In between, I also managed to follow a thrilling cricket match between arch rivals, India and Pakistan. Needless to say, I had a pretty wholesome day and I feel good about it.

I am trying to predict what card could I have got. Maybe I'll try predicting another time.


Ok, so the card is : King of Cups
Yes, I did have an emotional day (Cups) but then I was so efficient and practical too, so I didn't venture a guess. The King of Cups could represent a kind, wise man in my life who gives wonderful advice and is a healer. But today, I don't feel like a King of Cups visited me. So maybe the circumstances embodied the King of Cups. The K of Cups represents a situation where the emotions are just right and beautiful. I guess I felt that when my friend shared something beautiful with me and then again when I was listening to a certain album, some things opened up in me and I was in tears. The King of Cups also means giving your feelings a creative outlet. I wasn't really creative unless you can count dancing passionately while being emotional. Actually, I did have sort of an idea though. I was missing my parents and I thought my Dad would enjoy reading this blog too so maybe I should take a printout of some of my postings and mail it to him. But still, if I have to be objective, I would say that I wasn't channeling my emotions into creative pursuits (practical maybe).

Pink or Sunflower?

Dear Friends,
And now it is time for me to ask this all -important question. Most of you visiting this blog know about my obsession with the color "pink" or "sunflowers" or both. You know how happy both these words make me. The question is which word do you think most defines me, since I am still finalizing a posting name. Counting on you all.

Today's Card: 2 of Cups

Today's card was one of my favorite cards (you may hear this expression often). The number "2" typically symbolizes a partnership and the cups symbolize the emotions. So by just combining these two ideas (pun intended) you can arrive at the very romantic word "union". For me, this card is the union of equals. Like Arjun and Krishna (the two main characters of the great Indian book the "Bhagwad Gita"), it can be platonic love but it is between equals. This card reminds me of a line from one of the poems (which incidentally was read at my wedding) by Khalil Gibran.

On Marriage

"Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
......................................................................................
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow."

Infact, this card in the Osho-Zen tarot deck shows two trees (one with pink blossoms and other with orange) growing near each other but yet there is space between them for love to flow.

How was my day today? Well, I just want to say that I want to go back and live every moment of this beautiful today.

Night

Voila!! I can't believe it. I actually got a gift today (Yes, some cynics might say beginners luck, but :P to them). A dear friend of mine gifted me a CD today "Kirtana" by Robert Gass & On wings of Song. The CD is described as "sacred music to open hearts and awaken souls". Thank you!!

This afternoon, I also wondered if the Ace of pentacles meant that this gift from the heavens would be manifested in a one year time frame. I was inspired by this card to write down some of my creative ideas and I intend to add more details to these creative ideas as time goes by.

Today's Card: Ace of Pentacles

I am so excited about drawing my first card. Here it is : The Ace of Pentacles.
Such a beautiful card!!



My first thoughts about the card:
The card shows a divine hand coming out from the clouds holding a pentacle. My first instinct is that I will be receiving a gift from the heavens. This gift shall be on a physical plane. The garden under the pentacle is very fertile and abundance and points to the abundance this card brings.
I will keep this card in my thoughts and will touch base in the evening.

The Beginning

This blog will be my lab. I intend to design several experiments to study my understanding, the relevance and utility of tarot in my life. For starters, I will keep it simple. Every morning I shall pick a card for myself and then at the end of the day I will correlate my day with that tarot card.