Friday fortune: Hope

I decided to try a different deck tonight from my usual favorite, so I chose The Mythic Tarot. Strangely enough, I pulled the same card as my first Friday Fortune two weeks ago. Unlike the Russian Tarot of St. Petersburg, however, the Star of  The Mythic Tarot augurs the usual interpretation of "hope," but through this deck's unique association with Greek myth, it has a bit of a twist.

Card of the day: The Star

The Mythic Tarot's Star depicts Pandora unleashing the Spites upon mankind. Like Eve, Pandora is the creation of a vain, paternal god, and like Eve, she is blamed for all the miseries of the world because she just can't obey the authority of the man to whom she's given as a bride when he gives her a simple order.

Does this bug anyone else but me? I choose to interpret the stories of Eve and Pandora a bit differently. I think it's pretty clear that the miseries of the world were there all along, otherwise women would not be the pawns and property in these stories of the battles between petty gods and foolish men.

Instead what these much maligned women represent is a refusal to "keep one's place" and an insistence on independence and the right to self determination no matter the consequences. Thinking for oneself is bound to include some mistakes along the way; if you never take a chance on opening the box of potential and possibilities and facing the mistakes and failures that might be part and parcel of the journey, you risk never seeing your brightest hopes realized.

As writers, we have to allow ourselves the bad first drafts, the darlings we may later have to murder as part of the process of perfecting our craft, the queries and submissions that will amass a pile of crushing rejections. Because only in allowing ourselves those mistakes will we be able to experience the joy and beauty of reaching for that star and discovering worlds we never dreamed of along the way.

So go ahead, open that box, eat that apple, and to hell with any critical, disapproving voice that tells you you're being foolish to pursue your dream. There's enough misery in life already without keeping hope buried and playing it safe.

Jane Kindred
Jane Kindred