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.