Short Story - 8 of Swords

“I feel trapped,” Mike uttered to himself as he watched the gas-masked scientists open his cell door. After all, why would they let him go now, out of the blue? What awaited him on the other side of his cell, outside of the re-purposed jailhouse?

“Follow the path,” came a breathy, mechanical response from one of the lab coat wearing figures, the lights reflecting off the glass goggles.

Mike hesitated, wondering if they were waiting for him to let his guard down before pouncing on him, then forcing him to succumb to their poking and prodding like a lab mouse. Slowly, he walked out of his jail cell, and was greeted by two other scientists grabbing each of his arms and escorting him towards a heavy door with emergency exit warnings around it. Instead of being greeted by an alarm as the door was unlocked and shoved open, he was greeted by the early morning light and pungent smells of the zombie’s rotting flesh.

After getting his bearings, Mike noted the tall fence, encircling the building he assumed, as well as long stretches of metal mesh creating what appeared to be large outdoor corridors.

“I’m not some goddamn Guinea pig for that psycho doctor,” he huffed as he followed the chain-link maze to the next building. There was no hope of escape; razor wire lining the top rods of the fence, razor wire and cement keeping the bottom firmly in place.

He knew the doctor that was behind his capture. This same doctor was controlling the scientists that poked, prodded, and branded him.

As he walked, he heard the hisses and growls from nearby zombies scavenging about for their next meal.

“What the fuck?” Mike gasped as he saw a row of buildings; each had a chain-ling fence winding to the doors from the same building he came from. There were odd symbols above the doorways, obviously separating the other survivors and doing sick tests on them as well. The building he was being sent to had the same symbol as the brand that scarred his left forearm; a bladed weapon of some sort, either a knife or a sword. He didn’t care about figuring that out, he had other problems to worry about.

Drudging along, Mike finally made his way up to the door of his next prison where he was greeted by two guards wearing gas masks. One of the guards grabbed his arm and forcibly twisted it to see the brand.

“He belongs here,” said a robotic sounding voice as the guard holding his arm signaled the other guard to open the door.  Once the door was opened, he was shoved into a dimly lit hallway and told to follow it until he reached a big room and someone would pick him up.

Mike followed the hallway, tortuous sounds echoing keeping him on edge. He arrived at the brightly lit room and saw a few others sitting in chairs, scared eyes watching him as he observed his new surroundings.

(To be continued...)

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Author's Notes:

This story was a bit of a challenge to write as I haven't written in years. Having a prompt did help, but trying to keep the feeling of my assigned card while still spinning the story in the setting I was envisioning proved to be a bit more testing than I was expecting. I hope I did the general feeling of the card justice. I hope to finish out the story in the near future as I was unable to complete it before July 8th due to my personal life and work interfering a lot with my schedule. Perhaps the Eight of Swords energy had something to do with it?

About Eight of Swords:

(Zombie Tarot (c) Paul Kepple, Photo (c) Coyote Tarot)

The Eight of Swords is a card that can indicate restriction or imprisonment of some sort. While Zombie Tarot's take on the card doesn't follow the appearance of the traditional RWS artwork, yet the feeling of being stuck or trapped is still there. While that sounds like a negative, it can also have a silver lining of bringing underlying issues forward in order to assess them. Bringing the negatives to light and working through them is how we move forward and grow. There are a myriad of other cards that have a "negative" association to them, but in actuality, they're not as negative as they seem. They offer some sort of positive aspect though it's not always seen right away.

Swords are predominantly a Gemini suit. The number Eight (8) shares traits with Gemini in regards to having the duality. With Gemini and Eight being associated with the Eight of Swords, they can be a driving force in breaking out of the imprisonment that the card portrays.

Sometimes we have to face our demons in order to get to where we want to be. Don't be afraid to ask for help if needed, or to get a little dirty along the way.

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I hope you enjoyed this short story for the very first International Tarot Day!!

**Will update to add 7 of Swords link once I receive it!!**
Here is another blog for you to enjoy, based off of the 9 of Swords by Attila!

Deck Lust Wednesday - Erotic Tarot of Manara

In one of the Tarot Groups I'm in, someone posted some of their collection. One of the decks being the Erotic Tarot of Manara (CW: This has explicit sexual imagery!! 18+ deck!!)

The image of the trio sitting on the bench is what really jumped out at me and caught my attention. So far, I only have a Thoth deck (that's missing the Wheel of Fortune), a few different Oracles, and all of my other tarot decks are based off the RWS system, so this Manara deck would be a whole different system to learn as it's a Lo Scarabeo deck.

I don't have any erotic decks in general, but this is definitely one that I would love to have.

Podccast Saturday - Menage a Tarot

Menage a Tarot is a monthly podcast, and is also about an hour long per episode.

It's a podcast between three people: My Own Minister, Daily Tarot Girl, and Modern Oracle Tarot.

June 26th, 2017 I listened to two of the episodes as I had some time to listen to and focus on a couple of hour long episodes.

The first episode was essentially getting to know the trio involved with bringing the podcast to life, the second was more about doing third-party readings (i.e. reading for someone that's asking a question about a spouse/partner without said spouse's/partner's consent) as well as other questions that each reader refuse to answer.

I wasn't sure how I'd feel about hour long podcast episodes, but I thoroughly enjoyed the longer length and listening to three different viewpoints all at once.

D.I.Y. Decks, Pt. 2

Along the lines of my other D.I.Y. decks post, I'm sharing this website that also offers a colour yourself deck; Dark Tarot: Archetypes Deck to Print.

The deck loosely follows the RWS decks, but has a whole different art style all together, as do all decks that are influenced by RWS.  This is another deck that I'm considering printing out and colouring with colours that have meaning to me.

I know I can print them at the library on standard printer paper, which isn't the best, but I'm unsure if they allow printing on card stock paper if I were to supply my own paper.

I think the next time I'm able to visit the library, I will talk to them and ask if they allow card stock printing, then I can take enough of my own card stock to print the two decks out on and bust out my coloured pencils, markers, and paint pens.

Blog Sunday - Tarot Prose: What I Wish I Knew

Over in Tarot Nerds, one of the regulars in the group posted a blog that they had recently typed up;

What I Wish I Knew

I gave the blog a read and found it to be quite useful in the realm of getting a new tarot blog up and off the ground, while keeping it consistent and true to oneself.

There are a few subtopics in the blog that cover different areas on blogging:

Dare to Be Different: essentially staying true to yourself and your own tarot journey through blogging.

Deck Lust: Keeping a public wish list of decks to add to your collection (I will be doing this eventually, especially as most of my decks can be found on Amazon easily).

The Follower Game: basically keeping your blog mostly for yourself, not for mass followers.

There are a few other topics, but I'd rather the blog itself be read as a whole piece and not just my own breakdown of it.

Definitely some words of wisdom here for new tarot bloggers.

Podcast Saturday - Biddy Tarot

Since I started going a little more in depth with my tarot studies, I decided that podcasts would be a great way to glean more information.

My first podcast is Biddy Tarot. I'm only 15 episodes in out of approximately 80 (at the time of this posting). Each episode is about 30 minutes long, and is a great listen while I'm driving to and from work.

So far, I've really enjoyed the first few episodes and am looking forward to slowly getting caught up with the rest of the episodes as time goes on.

Also on the list of tarot based podcasts, I'll eventually be checking out Karen and Kira Can Read. Their episodes are a little longer; an hour long, give or take a few minutes. It seems like still a fairly new podcast, so I won't be delving into it too much right now.

I'm also open to other tarot podcast recommendations! Feel free to contact me over on Twitter on my tarot account, coyote_tarot, with what podcast(s) you're currently listening to.

Colour Your Own Tarot

I've been rather inactive when it comes to updating this blog, for that I apologize. My job has been keeping me incredibly busy and with rather early hours (up at 4AM to start work at 6AM). I've been working on my International Tarot Day story and have pushed my other planned short story to the back burner for the time being.

As of recently, I'm finding myself with a little more free time, thanks to the Universe making it known that I really needed to take a break from traveling for work. I will hopefully be able to keep this blog more regularly updated, or start doing scheduled posts to keep the blog "active" when I'm offline or unable to post myself.

All that aside, this has been on my mind for a while now; Colour Your Own Tarot. This is something that I've wanted to do for some time now, but have heard mixed reviews in regards to the card stock on already printed decks sold on Amazon.  I did some searching on my own and reading D.I.Y. threads in Tarot Nerds and the "Colour Your Own" deck that's on TarotTaxi.com had been popping up.

Once I can find my tablet and get it reinstalled on my laptop (lost everything in regards to it when my C Drive needed to be replaced a while back), I'm planning on downloading and colouring the deck digitally, however, I'm leaning towards straying from the traditional RWS deck colouring and going more the route of using colour therapy meanings that I feel would also "fit" each card. I also have a website bookmarked that I can submit my re-coloured cards to in order to have the deck printed. If their cardstock is a good quality while still being easy to shuffle, I'll gladly use their services again to get prints of the D.I.Y. personal decks I have planned.

Tarot Class

This afternoon was part two of my Tarot Class down in Taos, New Mexico. Due to it being a holiday weekend, the class consisted of myself, the instructor, and one other student.

The focus of this class was primarily the Minor Arcana, and how the numbered cards related back to the Major Arcana cards starting from The Magician through the Wheel of Fortune.

(Photo (c) Coyote Tarot, taken in class this afternoon)

I used my secondary deck, Fenestra Tarot, for this class. Tamera, the instructor, helped me lay out the ten Major Arcana cards, then showed me how to lay out the numbered cards in relation to their Major Arcana archetype. She used her Thoth inspired deck for her layout and we discussed colours and symbols that carry through from the Majors down into the Minors.

The four seasons/elements/directions were also covered in this class, though we didn't go too in depth with colour, she did skim over it and said how colour can be used to tie in the Minors with the Majors along with other hidden clues.

The other student got there a little late, so she and I had already had our decks laid out by the time he arrived to the class. Since she and I had taken up the vast majority of floor space between our two decks, he sat to the sidelines and studied the archetypes off of my deck with me.

This was a very informative class, and packets were handed out with even MORE information, plus a yearly spread that Tamera designed herself and went over how she reads it.

There is a chance that she will repeat this class in the autumn, when her own studies have ended, before doing a few other Tarot based classes.

Perhaps if she decides to redo this class, I will take my Zombie Tarot deck (as I'm hoping to make a pouch for it sometime soon to make it easier to carry) and see how those look with this layout.

(Fenestra Tarot (c) Chatriya Hemharnvibul, more information on the deck can be found at Aeclectic Tarot)