My dialogue is bolded.
The Serpent's dialogue is not.
Got it?
Yep.
Well, let's go.
Q: What is the significance of the arrow symbol in the card?
A: It's what you aim for. Mr. Marchetti claims that it's Cupid's arrow, but I do not find this is so. This is the path you need to take, aiming to find knowledge (the apple) through the relationships of people and ideas. Your path to knowledge is through contrast, duality, and dichotomies.
Q: How can I use this symbol in my life right now?
A: Figure out what you want to aim for. You know you want knowledge. Hell, you want knowledge of many different things, some of which conflict with each other. In that way, you are an NT personality. You crave to know. But do you crave to know how to do, or do you crave to know who you are?
Both. I will learn who I am by what I know how to do.
Ah, except that you can learn to do anything. You've said it yourself. If you want it and choose to work for it, you can achieve it. Your path to knowledge is through relationships. Do you want to know how things relate, or do you want to know how to change and manipulate the relationships between people and ideas, or do you aim simply to understand the relationships?
All things connect. All things relate. Understanding the relationships between various people and ideas would be powerful - it would be the equivalent of understanding the world. However, I'm not sure that would be fulfilling. It is not enough to simply have knowledge, one must make use of it. So, I suppose I want to understand the relationships between things, but I also need to know how to manipulate those relationships to my advantage.
Q: Why am I so attracted by this card?
A: Because, at your heart, you are about relationships. You are about people, and the junction between opposing ideas. Male/Female, Darkness/Light, knowledge/ignorance, virtue/evil.... the duality fascinates you. At the same time, all you've ever wanted was love. Okay, not all. You also crave knowledge. If you were Eve in the garden, you might not have waited for me to offer you the apple. You'd have plucked it down as soon as he told you that it was the Fruit, and that it would grant you awareness. Maybe the fact that the fruit was forbidden would have given you momentary pause, but only for a moment. But think. One has to have knowledge before one can truly experience love. Otherwise, the relationship means next to nothing. You are attracted to The Lovers because it encompasses your thought processes, your inner conflicts, your ambitions, and your means, all at once. And all in the perfect, neat little symbols that are emblematic of the religion that you have so violently rejected. Apt little bit of dualistic irony, that.
Q: How can I best face the problem or challenge shown here?
A: Is there a problem in this card?
Well, the lovers are disconnected.
No, they only appear to be. They are two halves of a whole, a choice that is not really a choice. You have neither lover without the other, neither half of the heart without the other half, even if sometimes you don't see the whole. The whole is always there. You just have to figure out where the connection is. Hint: In this depiction, it's in their kiss, or through the arrow, aiming for knowledge. Knowledge will show you how anything connects, because all is, ultimately, one.
Q: How can I triumph through the qualities depicted in this card?
A: Explore everything. Think critically. Love to the fullest. Yes, I know you're an incorrigible flirt - that means nothing in this case. Don't be afraid to build relationships, darling. Relationships are how you find meaning in your life. They are how you acquire knowledge, that which you most desire.
Q: Why did I choose to dialogue with you, Mr. Serpent, and what do you have to teach me?
A: Well, I'd think what I have to teach you would be pretty obvious by now. Or haven't I taught you anything already?
Of course you have. Nothing I didn't already know on some level, but you've taught me something.
Well, duh, you already knew it. You know everything on some level, even if you don't want to know it. There's the knowledge/ignorance dichotomy I mentioned earlier. I have to teach you about the whole of who you are, and that you can't hold yourself back. You cannot be alone, SD. You need to engage the world and build relationships.
So, why you? Why not the wings, or the apple, or the arrow, or Adam or Eve?
Because you identify with me, of course. In some ways, you see yourself as the Serpent. "The Serpent winds on...." I am the only sentient symbol in this card that happens to be in motion. I am the third party, offering knowledge to you as I offered the Fruit to Eve. At the same time you yearn to acquire knowledge, you yearn to be in motion, to use the knowledge to change yourself, and furthermore, to change others. You chose to talk to me because I am at once your greatest enemy and your greatest mentor - a dynamic that you have noted in yourself. You are not simply Eve, more caught up in Adam than in the apple. You are not the arrow, aimed by someone else. You are definitely not Adam, blindly accepting what Eve hands you. And you are not the apple, knowledge itself. No, I am the orchestrator of this particular scene, using knowledge and relationships to make things happen, and then moving on. And you, my dear, are a control freak.
Q: What do I need to share openly about myself?
A: All of yourself. You need to learn to show all sides of yourself. Not alternating, as you are prone to do. Simply be. Show your quirks to the world, and build those relationships, that holistic network that you know exists. You can be more than a happy memory, SD. You can forge connections between people, between ideas, and you can make things happen.
Q: What choice(s) do I have to make?
A: Whether or not you're going to get off your duff and join the world. Whether you are brave enough to be yourself. I think you are. I think you will choose to make connections, and to make a place for yourself in the midst of the web of relationships. You have to. You want the knowledge too much. You want to offer that knowledge to others too much.
Q: How can I accept others for whom and what they are?
A: By remembering that they are not one-dimensional. I said earlier that neither half of the heart exists without the other half, even if you can't always see the connection. If you want to know people, and accept them, then you have to remember that you aren't seeing everything, and then you have to look for what isn't readily visible. Find the other half of the heart.
Q: What do I want and need from relationships?
A: Well, screw, darling. That's a change of topic. You need balance, obviously, someone to keep you from assuming that you understand everything about the world and him. Someone who will make you continuously search for the connection. Not saying you have to work at it all the time - you just can't get lazy. If you get lazy, you're not learning anything. I suppose what I'm saying is that relationships need to be challenging for you. They need to embody the dichotomies that you are so fascinated with. Your current fellow's pretty good in that respect - he is a man of contrasts, and you're almost always going to be trying to find the threads that connect him. Shout out from the Serpent: Keep this one around.
Gee, thanks for the unsolicited commentary on my boyfriend.
It was really more a commentary on you. I have no clue if you're good for him, or if you fulfill his needs. I'm just saying that you can learn a lot from him, if you can just keep building the relationship.
Q: What opposites can I embrace?
A: All opposites. Remember, keep looking for the other halves of hearts. They are frequently dualistic in nature, simultaneously opposite and the same. You cannot learn anything from one-sided relationships, SD. The beauty is less in the parts and more in the whole.
Well, that was enlightening and far too verbose. Thank you for your time, Mr. Serpent.
No problem. After all, I'm just hanging out on a card in a tarot deck, hoping that the arrow gets stuck in the apple and doesn't scrape any skin off me. Although, I suppose I am due to shed my skin....
Ah, more references to change, knowledge, and progress.
What can I say? I'm all symbolic and stuff. *winks*
