Description
A U-Haul truck is departing Boston harbor for points unknown. The John Hancock Building and the Prudential Tower loom upon the horizon. The sky is blue and cloudless, the water glassy smooth. The truck drives across the water leaving a petite wake. Six large swords are thrust into the roof of the truck.
Symbolism
Air and water predominate. The open horizon and the broad expanse of the harbor indicate the spaciousness and scope for broad movements. The truck represents air as its purpose is to provide empty space for filling, and its function is to provide transport. The rootedness of the buildings give glancing acknowledgment to earth, but their height reveals their yearning for the sky. If they could, they would leave earth behind. They cannot, but the truck can. The truck provides travel, the ability to flee, to leave town and seek out new horizons. The power of flight. The swords? Forged of earth and fire, they still represent air because of their whisper thin blade, occam’s razor, the power to divide, to separate, to take a thing and free it from obstruction, to send it into flight.
Card Meaning
Modern citizens of the world are frequently in motion. Fewer people live where they grew up, fewer people stay in one place for very long. Many of us move every few years. Many find ourselves washing up upon the shores of new cities with startling frequency. At some point, the moving van begins to seem more familiar than any given apartment. This is one of the biggest freedoms of the modern world, the freedom to pick up and start over, as often as we wish. Like all freedoms, it must be handled responsibly or the cost begins to mount. The swords give us the power of flight, the option of new horizons. But at the same time we are cut off from earth. We view the sliver of earth upon which our buildings stand as the launch pad for the next flight. Too much air and not enough earth leads to the inability to find home again. We begin to struggle to remember our past, our connections, the smell of pollen or harvest. We lack the rootedness of our friends who live where they were raised, who see every day the places and people that remind them where they are from. Instead we struggle to remake our home, remake our history, search in new places for our purpose. The card suggests the infinite possibilities granted by the freedom to fly, but warns that with too much time in the air we forget that we also belong on earth.
Artistic Media
Clipart from the web, manipulated in PhotoShop Elements 2.0.
Artist's Bio
Gardener lives in Central Massachusetts with contrascarpe. She used to be a corporate lawyer in Boston, but the corporate life didn’t suit her Queen of Wands personality. After the disappointing and abrupt end of the latest of the corporate jobs, she fled to Canada to hang out with the Ottawa Tarot Circle, but members of the Mass Tarot Circle lured her back to the US in August. She is working on three novels, two tarot decks, a partridge and a pear tree. Unemployment gives her plenty of free time for scuba diving, skiing, painting, reading philosophy and hanging out at Aeclectic. What she misses most from her old home is her garden, but in the spring she hopes to begin anew.
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