Day 13*: New Year's Day, Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, the Octave** Day of Christmas, January 1, 2022
This card shows us where we've come from, where we've come to, and therefore where we must go.
Card: 10 of COINS
Aptly enough, this card contains a gate (among other things, Dylan is a metal welder who specializes in gates), indicating a portal to another place. It also suggests being closed-in. The 10/COINS card is of course one of abundance, inheritance, and privilege. The verdant forest theme, along with the notion of Eden, suggests both paradise lost and paradise found. 10 is the top number of the suit, indicating accounting and accountability. COINS are currency but, more importantly, they represent the Earth. These things together impel me to infer that this card points to the biggest issue of our time - bigger even than COVID - and that is climate change. The time of making money from the earth without regard for our "mother" must end. Yet, even if we made radical changes, we and our descendants must live with what we've made of our world - perhaps a cell we're locked in.
The card's upright song, Gates of Eden, is an early Dylan jewel. It's an example of his fusion of Blakean and Beat poetry into modern folk music which influenced the '60s generation and reset pop culture standards. This implies change is possible, even as the song itself describes something forever out of reach. It is both a metaphor for death and an exploration of Utopian ideals, and probably refers to Dylan's favourite Evangelist Matthew who states the way to destruction is broad whereas the way to redemption is through the narrow gate. The card's reverse song, Señor (Tales of Yankee Power), is a Heart-of-Darkness-like story of imperialist exploitation on the one hand, and a personal tale of addiction and ruin on the other. This, of course, is where the wide gate leads.
So, together with the riches and resources this card shows us we have, it is also a quickening call to pick up our mats and walk. The demands will be many, challenging, contradictory, themselves destructive, insufficient, and surprising, but anything less spells total bankruptcy.
FOOTNOTES:
* I have a personal theory that 13 is considered unlucky, in part, because the lunar calendar has (at times) 13 months, as opposed to the solar calendar. The sun, as seen with the 19th Major, is the essence of Male energy, hence the sacrosanct and "perfected" stature of 12 (the last non-compound number), and why 13 is Death (even the Zodiac dispenses with the 13th constellation). I also note that the Tarot Queens are the 13th card of their suit.
** It just occurred to me that an octave in the dodecaphonic scale of western music is the 13th note if we include the black keys, and of course the 8th note (hence, oct-) if we think in terms of scales. I wonder if this has some bearing on the placement of Strength as the 8th card?
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