Deck In Progress: The Lovers and Spirit Vertigo

My deck in the works has a finished illustration for The Lovers and (finally!) a title. Introducing the Spirit Vertigo Tarot.


Spirit Vertigo is a phrase I use in my diaries to capture a peculiar feeling I encounter sometimes in nature and dreams. Have you ever laid down on the ground late at night, somewhere very dark, with so clear a sky, and so little light pollution, that you can see the arms of the Milky Way? What did you feel then? Did you know viscerally, throughout your body, that we live in a galaxy incomprehensibly beautiful, which drifts through a universe incomprehensibly large? Do you ever still your thoughts and allow enough of your surroundings into your field to overwhelm your senses, including sense of self? 


When I allow myself to lie beneath a starry sky long enough to wonder which way is up and which way is down; to get dizzy in each of my cells; to feel as if I might, at any second, drift out of my body and fall up; to instinctively clutch at the grass or dig my toes into the sand, afraid in the ancient, critter parts of my brain that gravity might stop working at any moment; I call it Spirit Vertigo. 

Spirit Vertigo is a yummy sort of mystical disorientation, characterized by awe, sometimes fear, and instinctive grounding in reaction to one’s partial dissolution before something incredibly beautiful or palpably ineffable. 


I’ve felt it nature: on canyon ledges, beneath starry skies, and off in the woods. I’ve felt it in dreams:  in the presence of large creatures, hearing disembodied choirs sing melodies I don’t get to remember, and suspended in deep space. We can feel it in response to a work of art, a beautiful performance, or a mesmerizing vista. We can feel it, as the Lovers do here, in the presence of someone we love, when we recognize another’s spirit in their immensity (especially when we’re well acquainted with our own immensity). 

It’s not a feeling that lasts long. It’s not a feeling that should. I think if you stayed in that state indefinitely, you could lose your mind completely.  The trick is to appreciate the disorientation for what it is, to learn what you can when you go there, and to bring what you learn back into your grounded state. To become aware of how the solid parts of the self interact with the fluid parts of the self, which extend out towards others and into your surroundings. To become aware of how the energies around you touch you. (And just so we’re clear, I haven’t mastered any of this, myself. Not by a long shot. I’ve only glimpsed the goals. If all this quasi-ecstatic babble comes off a bit grandiose, know that it’s only here for poetry and inspiration.) 


My hope is that the characters in this deck will be grounded enough to tell everyday stories, for creative exercises or divination, while the pictures as a whole might serve as focal points for meditations and mystical inquiries. I know that’s ambitious, and might be a bit much. I don’t know that my artistic skills match my aims. (My hand is pretty decent, but it’s not exquisite.) I’ll take it card by card. 


Stay tuned for The Chariot sometime in the next couple weeks. I have no idea what I’m going to do for that one, so I’m as curious as you are to see what falls on the page!