Horned Men, Iron Hearts

This morning was something of a rara avis- I actually had a few minutes to spare in the morning- usually between breakfast and morning PT it's a pretty tight squeeze. So I sat down to do a Tarot reading, and picked up a deck that's sat on my shelf for a while, though I never really found opportunity to use it. It's called the Herbal Tarot, and I wound up with it after the love of my life left it down here in Oklahoma. It's basically a Rider-Waite derived deck, where each card is given a correspondence to an herb or plant. I don't really know that much at all about plants, except that they grow in the ground and many of them taste good.
Not that this actually has much bearing on the cards, as the cards are unlikely to taste good. I did find the deck surprisingly, well, responsive. This often happens with time and certain decks- I've heard a hundred and one explanations, but I tend to think it's largely psychological; you get comfortable and familiar with a deck, and interpreting the cards becomes an easy matter. However, this deck was one I had used only on rare occasions, although perhaps it's just easy to use.
As I went along, I noticed some odd changes to the cards- though the deck follows to a general extent the Rider-Waite/Golden Dawn system, there were a few puzzling substitutions. The first one I noticed was the High Priestess in this deck is the High Priest, though the two bear many of the same symbols- the two pillars, for example, and somewhat similar attire. I wonder why this change was made? The next I noticed was that the Devil was replaced with Pan, (the Greek god, not pan to fry eggs in). This one still confuses me, as the origin of the card is a figure called Baphomet, though I think the Judeo-Christian Devil kind of gives maybe a better picture here. At any rate, there is a Judeo-Christian connection, as Pan was proclaimed dead at one point, and Christians have kind of latched onto that as an indication that Pan was really Satan, and the fact of his death corresponded with the resurrection of Christ. Hence the occurence of the goat figure in the decks as the Devil- possibly. This is all conjecture, of course. I don't think anyone really knows, least of all me.
The next card I noticed was that the Hanged Man had been replaced with the Suspended Person. Political correctness aside, this makes some degree of sense. Hanging carries a connotation of death, though the Hanged Man hangs by his ankle rather than his neck. The fact that he's suspended underwater in this depiction is an interesting one- water often carries the context of birth or rebirth, or a primal life-giving element, and the Hanged Man in a general sense can refer to new knowledge coming through sacrifice, or life-changing knowledge leaving the learner forever altered. You could say that the sacrifice in this case is comfort, or the old, familiar way of life in the old, familiar world we thought we understood. But then again, change is inevitable, it's what we do with it that counts.
So, classes aside, that's about all the news that's fit to print. I do have a guardian angel of sorts, as my dear Kitty is watching over me. Not a deceased pet, or a feline at all for that matter- more of a fox, ha ha. But that would be my fiancee, who has the somewhat unnerving ability to reach out to me across whatever ether there is between us. She can pick out details of my immediate surroundings correctly, and can actually come in contact with me in some sense. How exactly she does this I don't know, some form of projection more than likely. She is a firecracker, that one. It's kind of nice to know there's someone at my shoulder, though I'd rather she be there in the flesh as well. But in time, the wheels of this particular machine are set in motion. I've been getting the consistent message from the cards that the mechanisms to bring us together are in place, and it's just a question of setting that juggernaut in motion, then guide it to the end I wish. The impression I get is pretty much that- a huge unstoppable force, with all the power of the universe behind it, just waiting for me to release the brakes. It seems (still) that there is some greater purpose that says go with her, you two need to be together. It could be some strange thing that we'll never even realize until much later, but there it is. Or it could just be that firecracker herself, which somehow would not surprise me either. But at any rate, things are falling into place- what's left to do except go for it? I've waited too long already, and have no intention of continuing to do so. Too much time has been wasted already, and though I have a long life ahead of me, why waste the days I have left?