balance of your existence? Well, my sister, Anne, and I just discovered such a "game"...or Grasp as we now call it. What you will need to get started: One regular deck of 52 cards, one nickle, a willingness to understand and, perhaps, most importantly, one, or two, bottles of wine (the quantity and quality of which is entirely up to the weight and willingness of you wallet).
Grasping for the wind...is this not what the rigid and habitual survivors consider a futile pursuit? Nonsense! Let flow the the uncertain and sumptuous vitality of experience. Let question beget question and life beget life. Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, fall prey to our inquisition and desire to discover! Behold, the Beauty and the Revelation....
Key:
Clubs = Family
Spades = Work
Diamonds = Money
Hearts = God/Love
Ace = Self
King = God
Queen = Soul Mate
Jack = The Variable Humor
1-9 = Degree of Measurement/Quantity
No formula here, just a simple and totally open communication within a symbolic and representational framework according to the musings of two siblings under the influence and in search of their souls. Bear with me, or bare with me.
Each player/seeker is dealt three cards. A nickle (as it is neither too rich nor meager) will be flipped or spun to determine who will be the first to show. The first card represents "Transitional Trials," and having called heads, I flip my first card....
Ace of Clubs = Family break down. Joined the Army for my self, resulting in my ultimate seclusion from the lives of my family and general disconnect from the rest of conventional society. My hand is now open to the insights of my quisling sibling. I am fair game to any and every association she might make with the Ace of Clubs. We dive into a dynamic and searching stream of consciousness to dance with the circle of life and dispel notions of a linear reality. Anne flips her first card....
7 of Clubs = Inclusive family break down. In touch with the transitional trials of each immediate family member and the symbiotic effect of each. Our father is dead and now more a part of our lives than ever before. A holy number, 7 is the measure of his influence: Divine. We all know him more intimately in his absence and feel the love and provision he embodied now that it is gone. Regret is destructive and instructional. We miss him and move on.
We step outside for a cigarette and ponder the providence of our immediately recent development, not only as card-readers, but as friends. Anne tells me things I've never known about her and I stop feeling so frustrated about returning to Iraq. There is such great meaning in everything and Anne's heart is a new treasure. We really are growing up together. The next card will represent the potential resolution of the first. We return to the table and I flip it over....
Queen of Spades = Work will be required and my soul mate and I will work together. Our union will consummate a love that heals the transition of one era to the next. A woman I love with my entire existence will require a sacrifice greater than I can give. Grace will prevail and the Holy Spirit will replace my desires. Anne flips....
9 of Spades = 3 being her nemesis number, representing uncertainty and irresolution. Hard work toward acceptance and simply being will be required. The trinity will never be grasped enough to make a representative image of God. Faith is required by the moment. 9 is also phonically "No" in German, whatever that means. Another cigarette... back to the cards and the third is the "tie down," the reinforcement of resolution. I flip my last card....
5 of Spades = More work. There are five immediate family members to whom I owe my love and understanding. To whom I am the seed of their father and husband and the brother by whom they have stood and encouraged for these 27 years. For rushing headlong into the infantry and war I've taken days of their worries on my shoulders and given them cause to fear. They understand, but to ask them to is the weight of my soul in their hearts. Forgive me. God give you peace. Anne shows her final card....
8 of Spades = Acceptance of family as a group of individuals and reality as infinite. "Time" is but a measurement that renders reality as a linear reference-point and a convenient ear-mark for masturbatory memories and masochistic indulgences. The end is as often the beginning as the beginning is the end. Embrace the vast expanse of experience and the dynamic throbbing of existence that is your life. Fight and bleed.
The "game" was over, I thought, then Anne swiped a card off of the top of the deck and flipped it over on the table between us. Up to this point, our hands had been only black and of work and family. The card was the 2 of Hearts. How beautiful, I thought. The two of us imagining and exploring God's infinite creation. The thoughts surging between us on our breath like lightning, like the Holy Spirit.
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