MASKS (Coins)
About Masks
The suit of Masks generally refers to the “performative” mask, the mask of role-play, both in imaginative terms and in terms of everyday life. This suit corresponds with Coins in the Tarot. The Mask suit in general refers to the many kinds of “masks” worn in daily life, the role one plays in society, and the impact this role has on how one experiences reality.
The suit of Masks bears similarities with the suit of Coins in the traditional Tarot. Coins represent wealth and worldly possessions. Coins stand for the money and resources one needs in life, the practical things one requires on earth, to survive and navigate successfully. Masks likewise allow one to function in a social system, and to benefit in a world that frequently rewards and punishes, with wealth and with poverty, those who succeed and those who fail to “perform.” The suit of Masks concerns the roles we are compelled to play, or invited to play, and what those roles bring out in us. As with a theatrical production, everyone in society must fit into a role of some kind, whether it is one chosen by them or one they are forced into by others. The mask is the interface, the surface, between one’s inner self and the self known and seen by others, as a symbol it refers to the total identity one seeks to inhabit on the earth, an identity which may or may not be complete, or fulfilling, or even true. Masks provide safety and often the “masks” of ordinary life are worn so one can traverse boundaries where one’s unmasked self might not be allowed. A mask can become so all-encompassing and so integral to someone’s life, however, that one may come to wonder whether an unmasked version of oneself exists, and whether the mask is all there is.
Masks, in real practice, have served myriad uses, from the theatrical and artistic to the ceremonial and religious. There are protective masks, functional masks, virtual masks, and invisible masks. Masks can be sacred objects, mundane objects, tools of art, or works of art themselves. Masks are linked with drama and performance, myth and stories, illusion, identification, celebration and celebrity and idols. The cards in this suit are often about the ways we disguise ourselves, and the relationship we have with our disguises. They can also be about the ways these disguises can become portals to extreme truth.
A mask can be a kind of magic object, but different masks are magical in different ways. Some masks are used to embody the divine, and are sacred objects, portals or doorways of a kind. These portals go both ways and enable ecstatic connections with the other side. Other masks contain a different magic: a hypnotic kind of power to transform the wearer, to enable one to experience another life, and to suspend the disbelief of those who watch. A reality-shift can take place, displacing the mundane with the impossible, acting on deep susceptibility, desire to believe and capacity to imagine. Masks hold the potential to open the doors of the world to possibilities not normally accessible. Masks reveal by hiding, they play games and pull off lies we want to believe. They have an extraordinary power to convince people of the impossible, because to some degree everyone is always performing one or several roles. We all mistake a mask for a face at times.
Some say that masks bring out who one really is: the entity at the core of one’s reality, too truthful and too real to inhabit the ordinary world, which is based on illusion. Masks exaggerate, and also subdue certain features over others; this helps tell stories, it also helps spread lies. Sometimes one finds oneself enrolled in myth-making, whether compelled by glory and excitement, or under pain of punishment. Masks may be frivolous, and worn to ends of debauchery and rule-breaking, even crimes. Both heroes and villains mask themselves, to become what they cannot be and do what they cannot do. To both, the mask is a tool of survival: to be unidentified, to keep one’s truth concealed, is freedom to the criminal and safety for the hero.
Description:
The Inner Mask found a tree covered in many carvings, hearts like lovers carve to mark their unions. In the distance, two lovers sat watching the earth and sea intertwine. As the Inner Mask gazed at the etchings on this tree, a message formed in the emptiness inside its plastic head.
The Inner Mask thought, as it looked at the carved words:
“My memory begins with a division. They tell me we were once united, that I was part of something else before I was here. All journeys are journeys back, they say: two halves looking for the way back to wholeness, the way back together. They say we long to be part of something larger than ourselves, is that my halfness seeking you? What is that other half I’m looking for, is it you?”
Nothing answered but the crashing of waves.
The Inner Mask saw hearts saying things like “I + Me” and “My + Self” and didn’t understand. Meanwhile in other dimensions, people said those were the etchings of someone who’d gone crazy, or else who must not speak the language very well. The forests of the world have seen lovers come and carve their promises in bark, like tattoos written on nature’s body instead of their own. These were oaths of loyalty and declarations of togetherness, promises made between two people, but never to themselves. This is the one tree, the Inner Mask decided, out of all the forests, where people have made that promise to themselves.
The tree was many centuries old, and not all the hearts carved there had survived the test of growth, the test of time. Separations become new journeys, new selves to seek.
The Story:
This card is called “The Tree of Promises” or “The Tree of Unity” or just “The Tree,” and this is no ordinary tree. People come here to declare their intentions to cure themselves, to know and improve themselves, to love themselves and to find peace. The Tree has no interest in illusions or self-deception, and as it grows some hearts change shape: some melt away into its bark, some divide apart and drift up separate branches, perhaps to meet again someday in the canopy as leaves, and others become deeper and larger with time.
This tree grows at the collision point of two worlds: earth and sea. You can imagine this tree growing at the crossing of all paths; all journeys have this initiation point, the point of making a decision, the time when the previous direction no longer works and a new path must be chosen. This card concerns useful dissatisfaction. Being no longer willing to stay the same, the querent has made up their mind to seek change. One comes to this tree a querent, you could say, and leaves a seeker. This is the card of making choices and setting intentions, and making those intentions known even if only to a cosmic tree. This is also a card of mission: the hero of the journey comes into being when the non-hero no longer satisfies the need.
This tree grows at the collision point, but also at the separation point, eternally overseeing significant departures, and also significant intentions to stay together. Sometimes separation is necessary, to see what else can be grown into, what other shapes and forms are out there to be embodied. The couple in the background signifies unity, joining back together, finding commonality and acceptance. They fuse together and remind us that reunification is possible, is one of the directions our journeys can take us. Some paths are meant to fuse as one, others are meant to take persons on an individual quest.
Down at the base of this tree, woven amongst its roots, is written a paradox. What is the “I,” that looks back on itself, what is the “self” that the “I” must understand? The answers lie embedded in the trunk of this tree, but no one looks there. The fates have foreseen a day when hearts carved into this tree slowly disappear in their own logic.
One of this card’s themes is that of being “split.” Feeling “split” can mean conflicting feelings or ideas, beliefs which don’t match experience, or being uncertain of oneself. One might feel unsure at times why one needs or wants or does certain things and not others. The desire to close this gap, to have greater cohesion, is the impetus for many quests. Profound answers to our most difficult questions lie at the base of our very being, but sometimes it takes a quest to unravel them.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Growth, Feeling “Split”, A Quest, Division
The Ace of Masks, “the Tree,” suggests unity and unions, self-understanding, the development of relationships over time. Relationship as shared direction. Well-being as relationship with self. Sitting with oneself, being with oneself, finding a single direction to go in.
Reverse Meaning:
The Ace of Masks reversed can mean fracturing relationships, unity under fire, devotion eroding. Being of two opinions, indecision, feeling “torn” because there is more than one logical answer. Unclarity about what’s “right.”
Ace of Masks • The Tree
Description:
Two abandoned masks lay partly buried by a quiet sea. Sea creatures make their homes in them, and in the distance the sun (or perhaps the moon) rises (or perhaps sets). Out of something left behind, something destroyed, new creatures rise, releasing themselves from the folds of another’s defeat.
A Voice from Deep Within:
In one place I start my journey, in another I lie buried, whatever I may have discovered buried inside me. Did the journey end at sea, or begin there? Who will find the essence of my quest, even if it lies only in the shadows of my forms, and learning from it, continue forward?
Some say this is how Liberated Voices come to rest, others say the Liberated Voices have no end, and someone else must have left these masks here. The Liberated Voices are mysterious to many.
The Story:
The 2nd Mask symbolizes the end of one journey and the start of another, things changing hands, the entry of new and unexpected players to the scene. Imagine actors, or someone else with a mask, passed this way and left their masks behind, for whatever reason, and now these masks have become the homes of small creatures the previous owner of these masks might never have noticed. This card can suggest recovery after destruction or calamity, rebuilding and innovation. It can mean new “ownership” in many ways, whether that be literal property or intangible things like stories. It can also suggest birth and rebirth, and persons who might’ve never gotten their chance finally getting it.
This card depicts small crabs making their homes out of the abandoned “shells” of things that came before. It suggests things being put to new and unexpected use, it may also suggest a new focus or function. It can signify territories or tools changing hands, the transformation of neighborhoods or habitats, or the taking of things that had one purpose and flipping them to serve a radically different one.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Burial at of the Old, Rise of the New
Imagine an actor who has left these masks behind and continued on with their life, and now these masks have become the homes of these crabs. This card hints at unexpected turns, innovation, and people making the best of their circumstances.
This card indicates transitions, things changing hands, different things taking priority, new ideas coming to the forefront. The new inhabitants of these masks gesture dramatically, as though it is now they who put on a show. This image suggests “the meek inheriting the earth,” someone who had little influence before is finally getting their chance to speak, to express their perspective. There are also two masks in the scene, one rises above the sand and one sinks below, suggesting choices, also chance. There will be winners and losers.
This is a card of beginnings and also endings, it is a card of inheritance and changing hands. A major theme of this card is “moving on.” It is also about overcoming. One must make adjustments, make room in life for the new, and say goodbye to what no longer works, in order to move forward.
Reverse Meaning:
Dwindling light, stale and rusty ways of doing things being clung to past their prime, their usefulness. Clunky machines that need replacement, or at least repairs. Old expected resources have all been spent, there’s a need for fresh insights, to think “outside the box.” One should make oneself humble again, despite accomplishments and experience and confidence, in order to see what one has been overlooking.
This card reversed can also be a signal to walk away from something that isn’t working. Sometimes can suggest someone being displaced or moved out, forgotten about, or left out of the direction things are taking.
2nd Mask • Burial at Sea
Description:
The Inner Mask follows a winding path, deep inside a huge cave. Upon reaching the top of a pinnacle, a shadowy emanation from the water below rises up to greet the Inner Mask. They connect briefly before the shadow vanishes. There are many such precipices, and many such visitors have climbed them for encounters. In the foreground, three beings, Inner Masks themselves perhaps but of a supernatural variety, stands watch. This creature has been called the Fates, however we do not know if these really are the Fates. This three-being, face of five; triple angel and quintuple mind, has seen many make this encounter before.
Witness One, Voice Two:
We have seen this meeting many times before: form in search of meaning and the shell, the ghost come wandering home. This is the Cave of Secrets, wanderers come here for the truth. The water will reflect you, show you in your deepest truth; but you cannot bend down to see your reflection in the water, you have to climb up to meet it on the mountain’s top. This place is far from the waking world and it takes courage and perseverance to get here. Nevertheless many seekers are afraid when they find what they came here for, seeing themselves as a shadow. Some seekers cannot stand the sight, and flee when they meet their own full truth, their shadow.
Witness Two, Voice Three:
The Masked One came to this place looking for itself, and found it at the top of that spire. The truth came in the form of emptiness, and sadly the Mask did not recognize it. Soon, the Plastic One was filling the void with ideas, answers, until it couldn’t see the void at all, but a reflection of the shell it brought with it. We have seen this many times.
Most seekers believe these three are here to light the way out of the cave, but that is not why they are here. They are waiting for the day when those who come here show they are unafraid of themselves, do not run or fill or resist their shadow form. When visitors to this place show this courage, the three will speak again. For now, this meeting is sacred enough even if it is only brief, and there are no words the witnesses could add which would increase its meaning. They wait for this courage because they know it exists, we merely must be willing. They will wait centuries for it, because when it becomes commonplace, they will be able to share their secrets. Their secrets will be worthy of us, the ones they know we can be; the ones they see when they look at us in our wholeness, light and shadow together.
What the Moon saw:
I’ve forgotten who I am many times, in the course of sailing through other people’s skies. Here, I rise like smoke and for a moment see my light in front of me, though it always blows away in the moment of doubt. The shadow rises from the sea and I am created, come into existence, leave existence again, and am back wandering between the stars. People come to this place in order to find out that they are nothing and no one, but none of them realizes it. I am the messenger and the message, in this place. When I appear here, I am a gateway to larger truth than light can occupy. When I make the connection with the other side, I am filled with the real. When I lose it again, I am smoke.
The Story:
The Cave of a Secrets is a place of light and shadow. The truth lies forever partly in light and partly in shadow, because we are limited by many things: our knowledge, our fear, our self-imposed boundaries. It is said that those who traverse light and shadow and are unaffected by the force of opposition can know all things. Seekers of truth must be prepared to meet their shadow. This card concerns mysteries and secret knowledge, things that lie undiscovered, and overcoming fear.
The 3rd Mask indicates perseverance and courage, rising to meet a challenge and facing one’s demons. It also suggests dealing with the past, facing truth, and venturing bravely into the harsher aspects of reality. Wisdom at some point requires courage, strength and inner fortitude.
One theme of this card is inner strength. Inner Strength means ability to face dangers that aren’t part of this physical world, to endure difficult emotional and mental experiences, and the ability to look upon darkness, and even the void, without fear or hatred or resistance. When we harness such strength, we open ourselves to greater wisdom, because we will not fly away from truth.
This card also symbolizes a meeting with one’s true purpose, one’s core need or source of joy. This thing is mysterious, its different for every person, makes us feel whole when we find it. The three Watchers in the foreground refer to this mysterious source of wholeness simply as home. In the Cave of Secrets, “home” doesn’t mean a house or living-space, but a condition of life where peace is commonplace, where one belongs and can be one’s complete self. The 3rd Mask is an invitation for the querent to ask themselves what this concept means for them, what is the most meaningful aspect of existence that drives them forward? Whatever this thing is, even if it is only a dim idea, it is the guiding light that gets people through this cave.
The three fates and five witnesses are here both to observe the countless encounters between the strong and their shadows, to see who will cherish the meeting and who will run. They also watch for who will accept their calling, and who will shy away for easier goals. They make no judgement and speak no word, they are here for now to watch only. These three watchers know the deepest truth lies in nothingness, but to find oneself in nothingness takes courage. They are aware of something else also: they know that we can do this, that we can gaze directly at what we fear most and not shatter, they know we have greater resources of strength than we imagine.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Calling,“Home,” Light & Shadow, Hidden Truth, Fortitude, Three Fates and Five Witnesses
The 3rd Mask takes place in a vast cave, where the Inner Mask climbs a steep path to meet a shadow at the top. In the foreground are three conjoined angels watching the scene. This card concerns encountering truth, even difficult truths we shy away from or avoid. The courage to encounter our deeper truth leads to a deeper understanding of one’s mission.
The 3rd Mask indicates one’s deepest longings and highest callings, that which the querent lives to do. This thing is known by many names and is understood in different ways. However, in the end, most names fail to capture it, and most descriptions fall short of what it means and how it works, because it works differently and means something different for everyone. Losing touch with this thing can mean a dark night of the soul for some, however others are not so vexed by not having it, going for years sometimes without knowing what it is. They say that true happiness belongs only to the ones that know their calling. When one finds it, one becomes a guiding light of one’s own through any cave.
This card suggests that one is able to face what one fears. One can overcome adversity, and needn’t fear the unknown. What’s coming is within the seeker’s powers to endure, to learn from, to become greater in the aftermath, even if it doesn’t seem that way. The three witnesses have seen seekers meet their opposites and survive many times; there is no need for them to merely believe in us, they know beyond all certainty that we can do this. They wait patiently for us to know it too.
Reverse Meaning:
3rd Mask in reverse suggests being out of touch with one’s true purpose, one’s source of joy, or one’s sense of “home” in various ways. Even after we find our “calling” and see the path forward illuminated for a while, many times we can still wander away by mistake and need to find it again, the world of our choices can return to unclarity. This card upside down can also suggest that one is going through the motions of life without a sense of the higher purpose these motions serve, or is feeling a shortage of pride in one’s work or creative satisfaction. In general this card reversed suggests a period of feeling lost, or confused. These periods, however, all have their ends. One must be willing to reconsider things that seem to be “given” or unquestionable.
3rd Mask • The Cave of Secrets
Description:
The Inner Mask beholds a long road, curving up to the sky and into a doorway shaped like an epic mask, adorned with wings and also horns. Spotlights seem to point themselves toward the doorway in the sky. The Inner Mask feels a strong pull, desire and longing to walk that path and enter through that doorway, into a land which seems perhaps better than this one. This desire has come into the sky, inserted itself into the Inner Mask’s quest, perhaps also into the quests of multitudes of others, and there is something poetic in it, and something sinister in it.
This is the Path of Stars, and it selects a chosen few to rise into the land above the chaotic world below. Many walk this path in hopes of passing through that gate, but judgements about who gets let in are made according to shifting and capricious metrics. This Path is the way of celebrity, fame and glory, riches and success, beauty and popularity, power and strength. It is the path to many things a person is led to want, sometimes these things fall in line with a person’s inner drives, and sometimes not. It is hard to resist the pull of this path, once one is aware of it, and it has an influence over whole societies.
This portal is sometimes associated with the realm of celebrity, associated with ultimate desire. Those admitted into the realm of fame will become the object of envy to those excluded. However it is an envy combined with worship. The Arc Angel of Celebrity whispers, “I offer you a place in the mind of Everyone. Keep close to the path, and soon many will seek to embody you, as you embody me. So great are the rewards of glory, that you will be glad when you become an idea, a picture of yourself. Don’t fear being duplicated: to achieve renown, you must be reproducible. You will become both the decoration and the litter of ordinary life, it is the greatest honor our age has to offer.”
The Arc Angel of Glam adds: “It is glamor that causes royalty to keep resurfacing in new places, and allure that keeps monarchy from leaving the world completely. All sense of inequality is forgiven when those who have it all are, themselves, known to be the most desirable in the land. Desire is more powerful than jealousy, you will find.”
The pathway severs the sky, and the Inner Mask’s mixed emotions are silenced by the suggestion of these desires, no matter how brief, and passionate imitation by others, no matter how shallow. This is not what the Inner Mask came looking for, but oh how it shimmers in the sky.
The Story:
The 4th mask speaks of desires and dreams that are perhaps shared by the masses, perhaps sought by whole societies, which can motivate a seeker to pursue greatness, and can also deviate them from their own path. This card concerns the lures of glory and renown, temptation to imitate the “stars” of society and also tendency to join in a shared desire for the stars. However it also refers to success, most usually of the material kind, this card can also speak of the pursuit of wealth or security.
This card points to ideals as power, wealth and success. These are dreams shared by many, and exert a magnetic influence, perhaps the seeker has felt it. There can be good outcomes to this influence: the seeker may be moved to work harder, fight adversity, rise to a challenge. There are also possible pitfalls: it might have displaced what the seeker truly wants, made it harder or more complicated to pursue the unique dream, or even made the seeker’s own dream strange to them, when compared to the larger and more obvious goals that glory offers.
This card asks us to be able to discern the difference between our true north star, and a north star prized by society; between a star that is within us, and a star that’s placed in front of us. It is possible that glory awaits us if we pursue our true north, or that wealth will be the outcome if we stay our course: it is indeed possible the Path of Stars intertwines with our own path. However, it is also possible to spend one’s energy pursuing things because its popular to want them, not because the seeker truly and deeply wants them. One can from time to time be led to mimic or pretend to inhabit the life or lifestyle of someone, even if the outcome of such mimicry has nothing to do with the seeker’s own reason for being.
This card can serve as a wake-up call, for the querent to consider the source of their own day-dreams and whether those dreams are really theirs. Things of hype lay a steady influence on the shape of things individuals silently hope for, and can even shape individuals themselves.
This card speaks of illusions believed in willingly, and distractions sought intentionally. Enchantment is a product of entertainment, some of which draws on living people for its material. The lives of stars become the source of fables, making the real lives of the audience a little more couched in fantasy; a little more prone, at any moment, to being pulled into a more fabulous world. Entertainment is valued for the ways it distracts from ordinary life, the grind and the toil. One of the privileges had by stars, and few others, is the freedom to self-express without regard for social norms, to be eccentric without punishment, though they become stuck to an “image” of themselves. The ability to shock and still be admired, to act oddly and still be followed, is the right of those that dwell in fame. Some celebrities can go so far as to commit crimes and still have fans who look past it, grateful for the gifts, the inspiration and stimulation, which has been drawn from that person’s life. This card can therefore also refer to the dream of fully liberated self-expression.
This card can also indicate a moment of decision between a more-traveled path, and another path, more different and rarely traveled. The heavily-traveled road may outshine the one the querent quietly intuits as true. The Path of Stars can have a very powerful impact and exert a force over the seeker’s community; it can become so ingrained into our feeling of what is normal, that it may take effort to step back from it long enough to see it as only one option. Much-hyped concepts of success can have a strong pull, and can even make us feel strangely guilty for not attaining them, not chasing them, or not wanting them at all.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Success, Distraction, “True North”
This card concerns big dreams and goals, ambitions such as power, fame, wealth, success, and so on. Many of us crave such ends, but this card asks that we become aware of the difference between our true north star, and shiny objects that have been put before us. It is important to seek the true distinction between our own path, our own true dream, and the magnetic pull of things treasured by the world around us.
This card can indicate the seeker is on a road towards success, truly on the Path of Stars, and is about to achieve a very desirable goal. However this card is a signal to consider, before one ascends to a truly desirable position, what one truly wants. Achieving the dreams of others rarely makes anyone happy. Do the goals you are pursuing align with your true purpose, with what you really want?
Reverse Meaning:
The Path of Stars reversed is called “misled sacrifice.” It suggests pursuit of things because we’re taught to want them, desires that have become lodged within us by outside agendas, distractions, inclinations that take us away instead of towards our truth. This card upside down can suggest efforts put towards the wrong ambition, or perhaps one’s ideas of the sought-after life are clouded by ideals which are not one’s own. This card might also suggest deviating from the path or getting derailed, investing time or resources with little return. Alternately, however, this card reversed could also signal rejection of the Path of Stars and veering off in a radical direction.
Sometimes the personal stories of those who have achieved success and glory can teach us how to forge our own path of stars, and leave a more meaningful world behind to inspire others.
4th Mask • Path of Stars
Description:
The Inner Mask seems to emerge like a reflection from a creature covered in feathers. Both reflections wear masks inspired by the other, both gaze upon each other and are hidden, both seem to emerge from the other. They grasp each other’s hands as though pulling each other in.
The Voice of Someone New:
From the lake’s surface, two monsters appeared: the monster that emerged from the world, and the one that wanted to pull the world into itself.
The Mask thought:
This creature in myself, whose reflection I found in the water; I have a feeling we create each other, reaching out through a wall of time and space. Are we soul-mates, or enemies?
The creature in the reflection does not answer.
The Story:
The 5th Mask is about harmony, and also about power-plays and competition. Just as the 4th Mask points to the degree to which we are formed by the world we’re submerged in, the 5th Mask points to influence individuals apply to each other. Each of these creatures is pulling the other in a direction, also wearing a mask that is inspired by or referring to the other. The Inner Mask has donned, perhaps magically or by accident, a mask designed to appeal to the other, and likewise has the bird-creature. Each one has undergone a little bit of transformation, becoming something the other is looking for, answering a need the other seems to have. This card speaks of delicate subconscious dances between partners, companions and collaborators, friends and strangers and others.
There is a “tug of war” going on in this card, each side is trying to bring the other closer. This effort is not without benign intentions: each side thinks of itself, if slightly, as the preferred way to be. There is also a complimentary impulse to find common ground, and bring two opposites together. There are metaphors in this meeting of competition for dominance, desire to make meaningful connection, and effort to make sense of differences, and also similarities. These creatures, two ends of one body and also emanations from a single surface, are both the same and different at the same time. They are two different ways of occupying space, two different interpretations of being. Their appearance in each other’s lives is not without contestation, but at the same time they are both seekers in their own right.
This card can indicate complex relationships or interactions, meetings with interesting people, or seeing one’s own struggles on the other “side” of some divide. This card can also suggest struggling to find commonality and get along, a desire for friendship or kinship, and reaching out to others not quite like oneself. One can learn a great deal from those with different experiences, one can also encounter one’s own internal barriers, or those of others, in the process of reaching out.
In some situations, this card can mean contacting another part or aspect of one’s own self, becoming self-reflective in a new way, and learning to relate to one’s own self in a different way than before; becoming a stranger to oneself, possibly productively.
This card can sometimes mean polite disagreement, or attempts to convince others of one’s own position. This card has a relationship with the 9th Mask (The Truce), both can concern opponents and opposition. The 5th Mask concerns opposition which is complicated, there is a chance for resolution, there is a sense that both sides desire peace, harmony, union, even if that union will always be complicated.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Diplomacy, A “Tug of War,” Complicated Relationships
The 5th Mask suggests efforts to connect, find common ground and see the other’s side. Two very different creatures are trying to become closer and see eye to eye, and it isn’t very easy to do so. This card suggests efforts to connect, to communicate, to relate and experience relationship across difference and distance. This card also reminds us that such efforts aren’t always easy, their outcomes not always smooth. Occasionally we find someone who clicks with us so well, it’s like we’ve always known them. Other times we must find a way to relate to someone who doesn’t understand us very well, doesn’t see things the same way or has different ideals than us. This card suggests differences exist, but also similarities. We are all on a path, and the stranger’s deepest intentions are not unlike our own. This card can also indicate patience, or a need for patience, to extend one’s maturity and tolerance to encompass others who may or may not share in the effort.
This card can also point to relationships within a person: one’s creativity with one’s logic for example, or the conscious with the unconscious. There may be some area within that the querent is seeking to understand, which remains mysterious. Sometimes one can learn a little more about oneself this way, other times one needs to sit with strangeness and let it be.
Reverse Meaning:
The 5th Mask upside down can suggest people being “fake” or inauthentic towards each other, uneasy relationships, being unable to relax and be yourself. This can also suggest people being unforgiving or judgmental towards each other, deeply misunderstanding each other or refusing to share common ground, impatience. This card reversed can suggest divisiveness, or people engaging in disrespectful practices, trying to convince the other of their own position without consideration for that other’s experience. This card upside down can speak of contention, or extreme lack of clarity, with another or with some area of one’s self. One’s dreams could be uninterpretable, one’s creativity could be noncooperative.
5th Mask • Connection
Description:
The Inner Mask is preparing to dine on a mask beneath a glass cloche. The other mask appears to smile, perhaps to laugh. This dome is perched on top of a pillar, last in a row of pillars leading off into the distance. The distance is split into two horizons, in one there is a desert with pyramids, in another rises a city with a helicopter.
The Inner Mask has found what its been searching for, or so it thinks. It appears at first as though this mask its found is the answer, the solution to its questions, the resolution of its mystery. The Inner Mask’s reaction, however, is to consume this seeming reward, a somewhat rash and desperate response. The Inner Mask prepares to become whole by literally filling itself up with the object it has found. All around this scene, an iron mask accumulates, or perhaps it crumbles, which could be a sign that the Inner Mask has found not true fulfillment, but a cause of hunger.
A voice from the cage:
I want to have you in my hands, make you a tool to carve out my reality. I want to make you happen, I want you to be there where I put you, to exist each time I need you to.
The Story:
The 6th Mask shows the Inner Mask, seemingly eager to feast on another mask beneath a glass dome. The weathered iron mask around the scene seems to indicate the Inner Mask will not find satisfaction here, either because this act is futile, or this meal will only create greater hunger. The mask beneath the glass seems to jeer: either welcoming the Inner Mask to dine, or certain that it won’t be devoured this way. This card points to some sources of satisfaction that are actually a trap, a means to become dependent or obsessed. It also points to reliance on external sources of one’s identity and self-realization.
This card concerns satisfaction, obsessions and hunger, and things relied or depended on. In some aspects this card refers to confinement, and in other aspects this card speaks of finding liberation.
This card can also point to brash decisions and actions made in desperation, without the clearest of thinking going on. This card can reflect pressure and intense need or desire, forgetting patience and process.
There are those who desire to control others, who demand deference to their ego. These needs come from a childish place, and when satisfied make a person more childish. There is a counter-tendency of the universe towards balanced states, in which all beings have equal share of power. This principle exerts a pull on us, it erodes unequal systems and pains unbalanced relationships. Some say this force is our base awareness of justice, our innate morality that precedes laws and religions. Some have looked in their crystals and say that all imbalances of power are doomed; that one day the world sees no one in position to abuse another. Others interpret these visions as what the universe wants, that tides of justice must always be correcting for, washing over upsurges of selfishness and greed to even out.
One theme of this card is captivity: one entity is in power over another, however neither is free. The one in power steps into a role prepared for them, and can only be free if they choose to step outside this pattern. The one beneath the glass must find other ways to be free. One way to do this is by performing to the expectations of the captor, making a game of their dependency on being unequals. Another way is to find the source of power that cannot be taken, which is a trick the Inner Mask has yet to learn.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Attachment, Dependence, Hunger, Obsession, Addictions, quality and inequality, Confinement
The 6th Mask indicates obsession and dependence, things and ideas and persons on which one depends. This card can also indicate something that seems to be a solution or an answer or end of a journey, but is only the feeding of a single craving, fulfilling a particular desire but not one’s overall quest. This card can signal someone getting what they want, but perhaps not what they need. This card can also suggest attachment to a belief or idea or opinion about something, which is creating a barrier or constraint. Remember the iron mask is not forever, there are ways out of these things.
This card can also suggest needing external validation of one’s identity, or powerful desires for something one doesn’t have.
Reverse Meaning:
The 6th Mask in reverse suggests overcoming obsessions and releasing cravings, freedom in spite of limitations and going inside to find a pathway out. This card can point to unexpected roads to freedom from confinement. There are things that cannot be chained down, held back or even forbidden, (there are even things which cannot be killed but that’s a conversation for later.) This comes as a shock because we are led to believe that some are powerful enough to truly obliterate all the powers which others have. In truth, the heavens have given all human beings the same rights, and no law of humans can change this, and they have also given us all access to power.
The ability to laugh in the face of ignorance, to mock greed for what it is, to point out the ridiculousness of the ego in such a way the consciousness behind it can see, all these things are breakthroughs that aren’t “supposed to” happen. One can undo one’s programming sometimes, flip the story. One can become bigger than the powers that run the world, just by demonstrating the hugeness of the human being, just by laughing it off the stage (sometimes). When one understands how weak the powerful have made themselves, when one understands those who are in charge, one can find their soft spots. This card suggests the querent taking leadership, perhaps ownership over themselves and their direction.
6th Mask • Indulgence (The Iron Mask)
Description:
The Inner Mask emerges through a door shaped like a half-mask, breaking free of darkness to embrace the day. A tidal wave glistens in the background and the gentle tide rides up to meet the stones.
The Mask sang out, in a mixture of languages:
No more trying to control how I am seen. No more trying to control what others see. No more trying to control the way I seem, to reach or thwart some scheme. I am out, I am everything I seem. This path that led me elsewhere, I leave it now. Those desires I thought were mine, I release them now. It is clear now, I cannot control a thing. It is clear now, I cannot know everything. It is clear now, and there is more before me than behind me!
The Story:
The Inner Mask has found its way out of the cave, whether that be the Cave of Secrets or another cave, and is in a state of relief and revelation. The Inner Mask has solved a labyrinth, escaped from confinement, emerged from obfuscation and let go of what held them back. The door in the shape of a Phantom mask slides to the side; truth is revealed, the facade needn’t be a shield anymore, and the shield needn’t be a prison anymore. While this is not particularly a card of goal-achievement, this is a card of celebration nevertheless. This card points to a significant personal or internal accomplishment, liberation or triumph over something that kept one from being free. This is also a card of suspended inner dialogue, when one’s inner contests are given a moment’s rest.
The Breakthrough card generally describes a abrupt or dramatic enhancement of one’s relationship with “truth,” be that through changing belief and narrative or through finding one’s way out of toxic pattern or self-talk. This card illustrates a moment of escaping one’s own “maze” or story, like waking up from a dream, breaking open a door one didn’t see before and finding the way out of a cave built around oneself. It is a renewed and reborn creature that emerges from this cave, one is ready to endure greater challenges, and take on new missions. When one emerges from ignorance, whatever the source, one comes more into harmony with the world outside oneself, gains more mental clarity and greater access to joy by bringing one’s awareness closer to truth.
Truth is not an absolute, nor something anyone can claim they have in totality. In fact, the more one insists one has a monopoly on truth, the more likely they live under a heavy blanket of self-delusions. Breakthroughs help improve our relationship with the world beyond ourselves, and liberate us from that which constricts experience and distorts awareness. Truth has a relationship with joy through its kinship with freedom. Freedom is a feeling that validates truth when we have found it, truth can be recognized by its feeling of expansiveness.
This card can indicate rare and important knowledge, insights into some of the mechanisms at play in the world, awareness of the origins of our life-myths. This is possibly knowledge which cannot taught or learned easily, which only extraordinary or rough experience can impart. Sometimes such knowledge is paired with the wisdom to know when to share these truths and when its better to wait. This card indicates increased wisdom through overcoming obstacles, a new and deeper understanding of the world, and a time in which one encounters existence afresh.
This card also signifies an end to suffering, sadness, regret and other bitter feelings. The Breakthrough card reassures us it is possible to overcome trauma and hardship, it can be done, there are examples throughout our world if we look for them; many different avenues have been used, and can be used again.
The wave in the background warns us against total abandon - one must remember certain responsibilities or else there’ll be trouble. It also warns against false assumptions: one might believe this is what total freedom looks like, but there are always more layers of occlusion to be broken through in the future. Each breakthrough is occasion to celebrate, but there will always be more breaking-through to be done.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Name: Emergence, Freedom, Knowledge
The 7th Mask is about breakthroughs, overcoming obstacles, and achieving freedom. This card symbolizes coming through difficulty and emerging safe and sound on the other side. This card also signals the falling away of false masks and unneeded shields hiding who one really is.
This card can indicate recovery from a destructive past, or the ability to overcome trauma. One’s traumatic experiences can feel heavier than the entire earth, but this card suggests the invocation of superhuman powers of resilience, seemingly enough to raise the dead, to lift oneself from turmoil and be a phoenix. These powers will help one better thwart future injustice, survive against crises, and shrug off the daily slights of life.
The 7th Mask can also mark a significant discovery or moment of extraordinary insight. Things make sense and a path is clear. An increase in perspective creates triumph over setbacks. Blockages which once seemed monolithic and crushing have been moved aside, and what once seemed insurmountable is now proven to be paper thin.
Reverse Meaning:
This card reversed means false reverie: one feels that one has freed oneself from illusion, but is nevertheless still lodged in illusions one has yet to be conscious of. To be thinking oneself woken when one still sleeps is an even deeper state of delusion. False reverie can cause a person to become even more controlled, submerged, addicted, fooled; all made worse by believing that one has been “cured.” This card reversed can be a warning of conformation bias, unproven conspiracy, and other mistaken revelations. One may have overcome certain barriers, but stronger, taller walls haven’t been recognized for what they are yet.
This card upside down can mean that one has gone back to the same way of doing things, participating in the same processes and routines that one sought escape from before. It suggests replacing an old mask with a new one, equally false.
Upside down, this card still reminds us that recovery and breakthrough is possible, and that trauma is not necessarily a life sentence. There’s a narrative that “it just takes one terrible day” to create a monster, to undo a person. Sometimes there’s a shortage of counter-examples to this narrative, but this card reminds us, in both orientations, that there are ways back out of the cave.
7th Mask • Breakthrough
8th Mask • The Vessel
Description:
Inner Mask stands on a cliff and empties a jug of water into a canyon. In the middle of the canyon, a giant mask hovers. Water overflows from its eyes, becoming a waterfall that descends into the huge ravine. Those eyes appear to be a door somewhere, someplace with endless water. Perhaps that place is the origin of all emotion, the source of all human tears.
There are two directions where infinity can be found in this image: downward, and inward. This is a ravine so enormous it can swallow all grief and suffering, it absorbs these things like a sponge and takes them away from us, so we needn’t bear them. The world behind the giant floating mask, however, is also endless: the water of emotions is inexhaustible, there is always more in there, more tears to be shed. We can only manage when we hold them back, to carry inside us, and when we let them fall.
The Story:
The 8th Mask concerns all kinds of emptying: the emptying out of no-longer needed things, of emotions or emotional baggage, letting go of thoughts or beliefs that no longer serve their purpose. This card can also signify forgetting, or releasing one’s grip on memories. This card is about rites of purification: cleansing oneself of the past and releasing that which clings to one’s mind or energy.
In this scene, the Inner Mask pours out old water, symbolizing getting rid of things no longer needed, physical, mental and emotional. It also represents ridding oneself of things which have absorbed negative energies: toxic relationships, unhelpful ideas, and wasteful habits. The canyon in this scene takes it all away, the harm and the dregs and the runoff and the leftovers of life, so that we don’t have to carry any of it with us. We nevertheless often find ourselves carrying much with us, this card is a reminder that we don’t have to, there are ways to release.
They say that tears exist to cleanse the eyes, but when emotions become more than a person can contain, tears also serve as a way for emotions to escape. Perhaps tears do this to let others in one’s group know what one is going through; perhaps they provide a way to ask for help when one cannot or doesn’t want to, sometimes the mind needs help that its hesitant to ask for. Here, tears come out in the form of waterfalls from eyes that are portals to some dimension seemingly filled with water, the mask holds back a possible sea, a never-ending source of water falling into a never-filling canyon. Releasing emotions lets certain realities come into public view, experiences become the surface. One might “hold back” emotions in order not to appear weak, or expose vulnerabilities to others with perhaps not our best interests in mind. But emotion can, if pent up inside too long, bore holes in us. Emotion is a powerful and unrelenting force, and has a stronger influence on our world than is often given credit. Like a river that gradually carves a colossal canyon into the earth, emotion can gouge deep wounds in us over time, if it isn’t given an outlet. The 8th Mask tells us we must release what we feel like we’re drowning in, even if it merely entails writing down our anguish and burning the paper afterwards. There exist rituals for things one cannot say to others. The past can start to compete for attention with the present if it remains un-dealt with. In order to clear our eyes of that which blurs our vision, we must somehow release what’s bottled up inside, get it into the universe. By letting things flow freely, we can start to see the past, present and future with better accuracy.
The 8th Mask suggests acts of personal cleansing and purification. This may be a time for a journey back to the source, to a place with sacred or personal significance, and to emerge from there renewed. This is not running from one’s problems, it is giving them proper context, remembering what is larger and older than one’s problems, and then finding the right way to deal with them, if necessary washing them away. A visit to some place of great personal importance, or a talk with the source of consciousness, or a look at the bigger picture, can help one see what one must do.
Some of us are born with vast wells behind our surface, karmic heritage to deal with and untangle. Some things don’t wash away easily, fountains well up buried things to the surface again and need to be washed away time and time again. There may be an eternal reservoir in all of us, to which we all are connected, which the greater scars of some of us accesses in greater portion. Beneath many masks lie extremely deep wells of grief. The canyon is a symbol of infinite forgiveness, a place vast enough to absorb all the world’s suffering and still have room for compassion, that is openness for more and capacity to receive and take this suffering. To repair the past, the one who emerges from it, one must create space to accept the forgiveness. One must then accept compassion, and also become compassionate for those whose suffering is worse at this moment. From there, we can proceed to play our part in the mending of the universe, bringing it closer to the balance which it seeks.
Nature itself recognizes the dignity of grief, says this card, having provided a tool to make it known, even though we don’t always feel able to use it. However, although nature respects the reality of suffering, it does not mean that suffering has precedence or ownership rights over one’s future mind.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Emotion, Memory, Letting Go
The 8th Mask is called “The Vessel” and its focus is things we carry within. This card is very heavily about emotions: both sadness and joy are good to let flow freely sometimes. The weight of things held onto, picked up through the years, mementos of the past, can be harmful to ourselves and others if kept behind lock and key too long. By emptying oneself out, one makes space for new things. This card suggests allowing oneself the proper outlets and venues for what’s inside, and it also points to recovery, and pathways to becoming emotionally free. This card could also symbolize ritual or emotional cleansing.
If one looks on the universe as a loving receptacle for one’s grief, and lets out all one has inside, these feelings might grow back but at least one will not drown. The universe has much more room than any of us do inside. We must, from time to time, empty out.
Reverse Meaning:
This card reversed means the suppression of emotion, suffering without outlet, secrets, and holding despair inside; containing it without productive methods to deal with it. This can also indicate a pressure to keep a certain “face” and not let one’s emotional realities break through.
This card upside down hints at a need for an outlet, otherwise these things may burst forth one day in an unpredicted way, turmoil with no apparent source. The universe wills you to be well, and has offered an infinitely vast gully for you to empty your woes into. Sometimes wellness means dealing with unresolved things, sometimes wellness means letting them go.
Description:
Two masked rivals sit at a table in a paper forest, various masks watching over the scene. It’s time for tea, but neither is having tea. They toast, but neither toasts with great enthusiasm. They sit in conflict even though they seem to be at peace. They both wear masks that are partly composed of illusion: ghosts or other gases.
These two have come together in a truce, but they are just as much at peace with their conflict as they are with each other.
The humanity and the air were squeezed out of the table, all faces hushed to watch two come into being who were not themselves, not creations of each other; but creations of ideas not even here, not even at this table.
In situations like this, one must appear as one is not: one must appear stronger than one is, or kinder, or crueler, more compliant or more hostile, in order to survive or win the fight. Such encounters tend to render everyone a false creation, crush all humans present and replace them with ghosts.
The Story:
The 9th Mask is about troubled relationships, opposing forces in life, and situations which place people in antagonistic relationships. The 9th Mask also speaks of certain kinds of equilibrium: these two have come together in a truce and are in agreement to a certain extent. This card illustrates a situation where two parties are in disagreement or misalignment, however are also aligned enough to follow certain rules of decorum, at least outwardly. Truces are a pause in conflict but are not peace. This card speaks of peace that is superficial or temporary, it may also speak of fighting and sporadic arguments. In fiction, it is the antagonist that forces a hero to take action, giving a story more complexity and interest. In life, antagonists are much less desirable, but they still might push us forward in certain ways.
This card might suggest losing track of the doorway to forgiveness, or one or both parties losing interest in the long-term, or compassion, or recovery of a relationship. The doorway to forgiveness is always there, but sometimes human beings will lose interest in finding it, or become so blinded by present fury that they cannot even imagine it, let alone grasp its handle.
This card points to those one is connected to in a troubling dynamic. The scene in this card depicts a stalemate of sorts: neither is free to move on, neither can be themselves, neither can get out. There is a possibility for both to escape unscathed: the doorway to forgiveness is available even when two people cannot see eye to eye, or anything else in common.
To forgive one’s enemies, to thank them for the role they play in your life, is an exquisitely powerful act and quite profound, because it is so difficult and it remains extremely rare. It takes an act of greatness within a person to summon up all that it takes to forgive a nemesis, and to thank a nemesis is yet a level beyond. For many, even imagining this poses a challenge. One might work towards this ability, and even working towards this point is profound, to have an interest in that ability is a hopeful sign for all humankind. We aren’t coming from a world that taught us how to do this. We are moving towards a world where this is possible and common, but the world must be taught how, all those trying to learn are the first among those to do so.
The 9th Mask can be seen as a card of coming to understand one’s enemies and opponents, of becoming more resilient in the face of adversity and more able in the future to establish peace in adverse situations. In the effort to understand one’s opponent, one must not fall into the same pits they have let themselves fall into. It is possible that fear is there, even hatred, these things are available for the lazy and in enormous supply. People are at their worst, and shallowest, the most unlike their real selves, during conflict.
This card can also be a reference to situations in which persons are pressured to “lose themselves” or become something else. The two figures in the scene are playing a war-game of politeness. They are on guard and wearing faces that respond to the other’s anxieties and fears. They are two who cannot be themselves in each other’s company, and each wears an uncomfortable mask which neither can take off in front of the other. Sometimes a mask is a needed shield, even if it was carved by one’s enemies.
One theme of this card is “small comforts,” the comforts gained from establishing ground, making small wins at the expense of something more expansive. The “battle” in this image takes place over tea, where war is not invited but goes anyway. Sometimes two people are not free to act as human beings, and must let shallow impressions of themselves do the talking. When labels are the subject of conversation, there tends to be little room at the table for human beings. Politeness makes hatred palatable, and monsters thrive in moments of cordiality. “Small comforts” put the mind at ease, while ignoring the violent subtext. A person could be fighting for their lives behind a calm-looking conversation, hostility due to ignorance, or true enmity for imagined roles. Can one be “real” in circumstances like this? Can one even keep what’s “real” in sight, when all of reality is seemingly uninteresting to the moment?
Another theme of this card is “poison,” though usually psychic poison. The outcome of poisonous conversations is that one or the other participant leaves it poisoned, and has to deal with that poison for a long time afterwards. Poisonous conversations are in fact struggles over who will be covered with more poison at the end, they are a spiteful and filthy enterprise. When the topic of a conversation turns to who is good and who is bad, there may be an apparent winner and apparent loser, but in fact the only winner is the ego, the addict, who will need that feeling of one-sided victory again and seek it out elsewhere.
The 9th Mask advises us to practice, when one is not in the throes of such psychic warfare, to foster a strong sense of the one that stands outside such labels. One can quietly work on deflating the stories that make people smaller and less detailed than they are, and foster an environment of peace inside oneself, so that one can prepare oneself to have the relationships one would most hope for. One can give oneself permission to be “real” even when others deny it, and also give others that same permission, and by doing so give oneself higher ground to retreat to in case the ego is attacked. One must not focus on hospitalizing the ego, or satisfying its need to be the best at the table. The ego is the part of oneself that demands recognition as “good” or “right,” it is the desire to be recognized a certain way by certain others.
If one is having trouble telling the difference between the feelings of self-worth that come from ego, and the feelings which come from one’s actual worth as a human being, one can think on the following example. That same ego, which values itself so highly, would be shredded if it knew exactly how highly the heavens prize each human being. The value is astonishing, it is profound. To realize even to a small degree the incomprehensible worth that each human spirit is judged to have in the eyes of heaven, is enormously humbling. This is the difference between the ego’s sense of importance and one’s actual importance: the ego’s self-importance is flimsy, based on superficial traits and questionable attributes, whereas true importance is shared with all others. No amount of contestation changes the way the heavens consider worth: it is the same across all humans no matter the outcomes of battle.
This card reminds us that there are situations which force us to be inauthentic, to wear labels instead of our human faces, and force others to do the same. In a situation where no one can be “real” or authentic, a kind of invisible starvation goes on. The only way to cure a situation which strangles authenticity is to be as authentic as possible, and this is one thing a war-mindset does not abide. It might therefore be impossible sometimes to break free of a supremely unconscious circumstance, however even then one can at least foster a sense of awareness from within, to show to others later when its time, when they are ready.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Truce, Agreement, Opposition
The 9th Mask, “Tea Time,” is about contestation and rivalry, argument and disagreement. This card concerns understanding the enemy, or one’s opponents in life, external and internal. Making peace with one’s opponents is not always possible; it is not always wanted by the other side. However understanding the nemesis is the only way forward with certain opponents. Understanding does not mean surrender, nor giving in to the fears and other flaws which might be at play in the nemesis.
This card can suggest recovery from a poisonous encounter, or dealing with others inclined to provoke or mistreat. This card advises us to foster a strong sense of self-worth that contradicts what the ego needs, so that when ego is attacked one has the option of higher ground. It takes a great deal of fortitude and spiritual stamina not to become small in the presence of someone acting their smaller self. It is advanced wizardry to remain large, remain a warrior of peace, when someone takes on the role of the dragon.
Reverse Meaning:
The 9th Mask in reverse can mean giving up on rules of politeness, slipping into behavior that’s fueled by anger and unconsciousness. Some say the rules of politeness exist so that we act harmlessly even when our desire for balance and equality is malfunctioning. Disinterest in peace.
The 9th Mask in reverse can occasionally point to war, on a small or a larger scale. There may be a circumstance which is not conducive to wisdom or consciousness or people being their best, the querent may be finding themselves in a position which demands less-than-admirable interactions, and it’s possible the only way out is to survive. War is a condition that requires humans forget they are human for a while, and focus on some smaller aspect of their identity, in themselves and others, forgetting for a while that anyone is human or that human beings exist at all. War is an outlook in which the human species is flattened, turned into a game of human versus less-than-human or other-than-human. War needn’t involve guns, it can take place over a dinner table. The most polite of exchanges can be intensely violent, sometimes people opt to play a game without winners, a game of blame, to figure out who is human and who isn’t. No one has ever won this game. This game causes all sides to lose except for war itself, which is expanded when this game is played.
There are those who seek the destruction of others because it is their “vocation,” or because they interpret it that way. Whether there is hope for these persons, sometimes it is for us to play a part and sometimes not. A certain aspect of nature, of survival, has fostered a destructive instinct, it is in fact easy to understand: because anger is very simple, and power over others is emotionally lucrative. Exerting power over other humans is a feast for egos and egos luxuriate in it. This card says beware, there are those with egos bigger than themselves about: those who cannot stop themselves from caving in to what their egos want the most: to grow larger, and take over more of the human they occupy. There is a way out even for these, but they have to grow larger than their own ego and you cannot always help with that.
Sometimes, the 9th Mask in reverse can indicate social norms becoming stale, irrelevant, wearing thin or growing transparent: the “wild” self, untamed and ungovernable, a destroying beast or a free being in touch with its essential self. Whether the querent sees their own “wild” state as a destructive animal or as a creature of peace is not up to the card, the card however does remind us that this “wild” self is one of many masks on the wall, to be worn in different situations and referred to at different times.
9th Mask • Tea Time (Truce)
10th Mask • Mischief
Description:
It is a night of tricks, and a scarecrow with a jack-o-lantern head is the lone defender of a field. The Inner Mask, disguised as a fallen angel or other creature from the sky, makes mischief under a bright moon. The Inner Mask is creating crop circles: things which some see as the work of visitors from space, and others see as pranks to fool believers.
The Story:
The 10th mask represents the playful aspect of disguise, departure from the serious aspects of life and a return to childlike openness. A child’s outlook is more open to belief in magic and the supernatural, and is more ready to entertain the possibility of monsters and ghosts. This is the card of the trickster: the intentional fool who delights in jokes, pranks and mischief.
The jack-o-lantern is reminiscent of Halloween, a night known for tricks, treats, and escaping into different roles, a celebration of monsters. Many cultures have a day of ghosts and witches, often coming at the transition of seasons, when the veil between the living world and the spirit world is at its thinnest. Monsters are permitted to escape their cages and roam free on nights like this, and we too are allowed to invoke a little of our monster-side. This card takes place during a “night of tricks,” when the distinction between the real and the imagined, normally firm and concrete, becomes murkier and harder to discern. The world is a more dangerous place when such boundaries become unfixed, but everyone is also more free to cross the borderline between who we are, and who we want to be.
The 10th Mask represents fantasy becoming reality, exploration and experimentation. It also represents the trickster. This card signals opportunities to ignore conventions of acceptable behavior, and explore arenas of ourselves that are ordinarily forbidden, disdained or dismissed. The trickster of the night of mischief feels at home amongst the supernatural, appreciates its wonder, and understands deception to be no infraction, but a means to bring out the deeper truth. This card can also indicate newfound powers to control one’s own destiny, the shape of one’s world, and a newfound open-mindedness towards things once assumed to be impossible or inadmissible. Play and experiment is encouraged, the power to change and transform is at its peak.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Name: Magic & Wonder, Night of Disguises, The Trickster
The 10th Mask is the card of the trickster. It suggests mischievous behavior, pranks and deception, the “wild” undisciplined or unruly self, a return to childhood and a childlike ability to believe in magic. This card describes opportunities to experiment and entertain wild ideas, and partake in behavior that breaks away from norms and rules. This opportunity is not just a matter of time and place, but mindset. This card suggests an open-minded attitude, receptiveness and ability to see other options.
This card can point to a need for freedom and expression. It is accepted that children need play, but adults also need from time to time to become playful. Naughtiness may serve a necessary infringement on others sensibilities, but it might also veer into harm. The difference is keeping one’s awareness on one’s higher ambitions even when unleashing one’s “lower” aims. The trickster is a cosmic figure who deceives us in order to show us the flaws in our “normal” perspectives. This card suggests letting loose and misbehaving but with an eye on the mission. “An’ it harm none, do what thou wilt.”
Reverse Meaning:
This card in reverse suggests misdeeds, gullibility or pranks with harmful effects. Sometimes this card upside down can refer to crimes, hoaxes, or the perils of letting oneself be fooled by conmen, cults or partisan factions. Instead of inner truth rising to the surface, untruths are being brought into the light and clung to.
This card upside down also indicates weakness in conviction or certainty, gaps where ‘spirits’ or other superstitions and influences with agendas can get in. A fragile awareness of one’s own enough-ness opens the door for others to suggest, subliminally or directly, that one will be completed with a solution of their design, a gap in knowledge causing false theories to sound correct.
11th Mask • The Explorer
Description:
Suspended from strings and being lowered from a tidal wave, a puppet, fashioned like an astronaut or an angel, is lowered from somewhere above to somewhere below. Is the traveller prepared for what lies beneath the surface?
The Story:
The 11th Mask refers to great sweeping change, often transformative, as in relocating to a new place or submerging oneself in new surroundings, bringing both inner and outer changes as the result. The Explorer card is about the experience of arriving new to a new place, which can also be a new state of mind. One may change, consciously or unconsciously, to match one’s new surroundings, while staying an outsider at the same time. The 11th Mask concerns the ups and downs of adjustment, and the inner and outer changes which occur as someone enters into a new life or place. It can also refer to self-imposed changes, taking a leap into the unknown.
Change can be both exhilarating, and massively disorienting. After a period of sameness and stability, change comes in, unsettles and upsets things, leaves behind a mess from which order must be remade from scratch. Sometimes such a change is longed for: a reconfiguration of life and the things which have become lodged there. Transitions into new places can take a person outside themselves and the small world they’ve collected around themselves, exposing the true grandeur and scale and awesomeness of the world. One has the opportunity to become more expansive and grow as a result, but not without overcoming challenges.
Different people adapt differently, at their own pace and, in the end, to their own degree. Sometimes we are frustrated by our own inability to adapt at the rate we want, sometimes others are frustrated by us for this reason. Something within us may cling to the way things were, to something left behind. There may be things the seeker never accepts in the new order, there may also be things the seeker finds particularly appealing about it. Changes can seem overwhelming, and one can find oneself hindered in many ways that one isn’t used to. Just feeling oneself to be in different waters, one can feel weightless, one can feel stimulated constantly. Plunging into a new adventure, one can feel long unused instincts awaken, one can feel instantly transported from the position they typically held in the last world, to a position-less state, new to the world, for the first time in forever. There can also, however, be unfamiliar burdens, difficulty moving around, making oneself heard, getting things done, these difficulties also come with massive transitions, one must be willing to endure the challenges of dwelling in a place one was not made for. In the context of a reading, this card can point to challenges the querent is undergoing as a result of a changed environment or new living situation.
There is a gap between the previous world and the next, like a plane flying two locations, momentarily located in no single country. This is a pause, a state of peace between two phases, like the eye of the storm. This card is also about a contemplative suspension between two states of stability, when one is dissociated from who one was and not yet grounded in who one will become. For just a moment, one might feel the disembodied sensation of being a creature free from meaning. An infinitude of options for oneself lies just outside the life and world and reality one has selected and allows for oneself. The 11th Mask suggests a brief window on the sheer vastness of those options, the possibilities of who one could become. This card also represents taking one step closer to the unimaginable, to the source of creation itself.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: Shift, Change, The Wave
The 11th Mask suggests adventure and the exploration of new things, becoming a stranger in a strange land. It foretells of an exciting experience in a new or different setting. This card speaks of experiences that change a person, but also the imprint one leaves on the places one visits. This could refer to physical travel, or delving into a new lifestyle or community. This change of scene may be challenging on some level, disorienting or uncomfortable; such things open doors to strengths revealed by discomfort and getting lost. This card points to the unknown as an exciting place.
Reverse Meaning:This card reversed symbolizes a drastic change for which one isn’t prepared, so extreme one has little chance to experience freedom or bliss in the interim. Abrupt shifts, an immediate need to adapt. This card reversed can be interpreted as disaster, either personal or massive and interpersonal, as in a natural disaster.
Natural disasters break more than buildings: relationships seldom survive the destruction of cities. A change in one’s relationships can turn a familiar place strange, a change in one’s profession can change more things than expected. Large transformations often break the little things, seemingly minor but when absent, are the cloud of reminders of a lifestyle lost. This card reversed can describe a situation which demands constant re-thinking, which refuses to become sensical, where one keeps feeling one has lost one’s footing. This card reversed can also indicate disorientation, confusion, and unfamiliar territory with which one cannot form a bond and in which cannot become comfortable. It can mean changes for which one isn’t ready, an inability to shift all at once, or sufficiently; failed attempts at becoming a member of a different world.
Every so often, nature burns its creatures to make way for new growth. There is no reason, and it isn’t personal. It’s no one’s fault and it isn’t caused by anyone’s flaw. Every so often life casts us into turmoil, as part of the dynamic movement that marks a living world. Earthquakes and other geological contortions are part of this. If things were to remain the same forever, the new and unknown possibilities of life would never be given a chance. It is possible to recover, and become stronger after disaster. However, instead of a gap of contemplation between two points of stability, here that gap is chaos, and stability must be recovered before life-progress can be made again. Like the period of quiet after the dinosaurs became extinct, things had to build up from small pieces again, and so they always will.
12th Mask • Snowfall ("the little death")
What the Mask thought in the quiet of its plastic head:
“In my head, these words have not had their meanings long. I kept wondering, why is it so important that I understand this? A star in one place is a sinkhole in the next. Understanding without seeing words. Seeing, without needing words. Words without understanding, understanding without words. Languages are for details. You can say so much with nothing. The dream taking place inside of dreams.”
The Inner Mask then went quiet for a while, speechlessly watching while its own body departed on the wings of an imaginary bird.
What the Moon left written on a wall:
“The death of Death, a shadow which casts a shadow of its own, stands waiting at the end of endings and the decimation of all histories. There, ghosts rise that are endings without ends, the true endless. These are beings whose origin is non-being. This is a time when words can take no shape, cannot wrap themselves around the nothing that is everything there.”
These are the bold new directions, the setting sail on a new quest, the death free of mourners.
Description:
The Inner Mask floats above a city, its flesh falling away like a shadow cast on the air. As it falls apart, its body coils up into the sky and forms a set of towers; a city all its own. The mask wears cardboard wings, like many imaginary angels we’ve seen. The body, in its thin disguise, disintegrates in several directions, sending snow falling across the city. In the midst of all this, the mask waits patiently and breaks into many pieces, becoming many things. A small mask emerges from all this unravelling, flying in a different direction, fleeing the body it leaves behind, taking part of that body with it also.
The Moon Spoke up a Second Time:
“High above the city, the snow coming, the time passing, the year turning, the angel (of death) rises and undergoes a change, itself dying. The death of death is the candle that burns at both ends, the shadow that eats itself. We witness the return of shadows to their capital city, the flight of a disembodied mind to the city it knows, not to walk but to wander further, the future of life is other kinds of life. This city is buried every time it snows.”
Story:
This card, the last in the Mask suit, is another “death” card, but a smaller death; something is lost but something else survives. This card depicts a kind of violent “unmasking” which impacts the individual and the world. It highlights the role of death in the cycle of life and time, disintegration becomes the season of winter. This card suggests there is impermanence in all things, but there is also the possibility of resurgence, persistence and recovery. The event taking place has an impact on the individual and wider world; the micro and macrocosms. This suggests our inter-connectedness with the world and events much larger than ourselves.
Destruction is a theme of this card, however it is not without hopes of resurrection: for creation to access the full potential of its power, there must be destruction. Death is here shown as a violent rending of a previous state, an escape from current restraints (bodies) and return to a more elemental form. There is a poetry in the loss of words; an expansion in understanding as a result of leaving things unexplained. This card describes departures from restraints of many kinds, be they mental or emotional, physical or spiritual, to access a wider and more fertile arena of possibility. Snow clears previous growth to enable new growth, the mind empties itself of what it knows to allow the voice of creation to speak in its own way.
It is said that ashes and dust are our origin and our destiny. From ashes we rise, into ashes we fall, as well as dust. Dust and ashes are the creative medium from which all things are drawn: the inert matter of the universe which, when given to a mystery we continue seeking, provides consciousness a vehicle through life. Our destruction is the source of creative dust, driving this and other galaxies to continue turning.
This 12th Mask depicts a cataclysmic event, throughout which the central figure remains calm and accepting, as though looking forward to its multiple new destinies, as mask and body go separate ways. This card also contains themes of acceptance and moving forward. Death is a mighty and powerful teacher, one of life’s finest: nothing else in life reminds us that all this is limited and finite, so well as death. Death remains abstract much of our lives, an absence to be feared, avoided by thoughts and danced around by the mind. When we have a close encounter with it, when we are forced to remember it is real, it tends to set many other things in our life into perspective also. In many ways Death teaches us what in life is real, what the true meaning of “value” is, and what impermanence means: all things we are prone to forget. Death’s lessons are inconvenient, even paradoxical, to the fantasy worlds we build around ourselves. Death has no place in the fantasy of our daily expectation and for this reason it shakes reality to remember it. Death, in our ordinary lives, is associated with all fear and all suffering, but it can be a source of insight and wisdom. “Ego death” is a name for profound insight, a shattering of the walls that prevent deeper insight or, indeed, perception of what is real.
Acceptance of the Death, as well as other realities, rebalances power and restores clarity of vision. Many things cloud our vision, many of them words, thoughts. Acceptance increases the chance that something will survive calamity; acceptance enables clarity of mind and perspective. The Death card emphasizes an ability for peace in the midst of turmoil.
A connective medium keeps the body alive, and attaches it to something greater. When this medium is gone, the body is a body no longer, but a corpse housing nothing. Something akin to presence, we see it in each other’s eyes, is absent in our eyes when we depart. This mystery is the closest thing to what we feel ourselves to be at our base. When all other kinds of explanations for what am “I” have been exhausted, there remains a mysterious feeling of aliveness which evades capture. Perhaps it is that which survives death, which has an “after.” One’s body rejoins the material of the universe and one’s brain goes the same way; one’s mind ceases to send messages and one’s thoughts discontinue. That which leaves it all behind continues on, becoming everything. One’s ultimate destruction is a return to what one was before, a total re-entry into all that’s left when everything inessential is taken away.
This is the card of “the Little Death” and loss. If final death could be seen as the loss of everything, body and world and all, a little death is the loss of a piece. Destruction is a part of all cycles. Only by losing something can something new be gained. Only by vanishing utterly can one leave the cycle behind, cease dying and be done with death forever. The death of Death itself will come at the end of the universe, after everything within it is back to the way it was to start with: all possibility, all untried. In order to try possibilities, to change them from possibility to reality, requires living agents subject to cyclic embodiments of creation and destruction: in order to enter this universe, one must also leave it behind.
A final theme of this card is preservation: things preserved in the midst of destruction and loss. The climactic event portrayed in the card leaves several things behind: the creature is survived by the city below and also the city in the sky, impressions it leaves. There is also an escaping, winged entity escaping this embodiment, escaping its restriction. This card suggests things which endure through difficult phases, and the possibility to survive and persist.
This card contains many of the lessons of death, and represents disasters which present a micro-encounter with death. We may learn from Death in the abstract, as an idea, as we learn from it in practice. Death is the original signal to human beings that a soul might exist. The bewildering exit of the living from life draws attention, draws out questions. All quests to understand an eternal part of the self start with pondering death. The inaccessibility of concrete answers as to what happens after, this is the same inaccessibility of concrete answers as to who and what we are, what is the “I” that asks this.
Card Meaning:
Alternative Names: The Little Death, Survival, Separation
This card marks the end of the suit of Masks. This card, which is a card of death, highlights survival, endurance and persistence, and harnessing creativity and inventiveness to move through difficulty, to achieve our goals in new landscapes and under new circumstances. This card also signals acceptance, peace and courage in the face of calamity, suggesting we may be able to see our problems with new eyes change has had its impact on us. This card can also signal loss, which may be unfortunate, it is a loss that will be survived.
This card can also, in some situations, suggest a dispute of some kind between body and mind; or body and mind not going the same direction or having the same objectives.
Reverse Meaning:
The 15th card in reverse suggests being dragged down by a momentary or comparatively small trouble, dwelling, becoming morbid before its time. This orientation suggests a need to move forward or move on, to cease clinging or release one’s grip on something past its time.