My First Art Deck

[BradGad]

I don't know what the accepted term is here for decks that don't fit into any of the three established traditions... freeform? art decks? 

 

I've been calling them art decks.

 

I have quite a few TdMs, quite a few RWSs, a couple RWS clones, and one Thoth deck. (Plus a couple things on order, of course.)

 

This is my first art deck, the English version of the Margarete Peterson. 

 

~

 

In the early 1980s, I had a moment of cosmic consciousness. Very powerful and very hard to describe. A certain number of seconds of awareness of and connection with everything, from atoms to galaxies. I literally fell to the ground. It's impossible to put that kind of experience into words, but I did manage something important. While it was still so immediate, I managed to put a key truth from that experience into words: "We are Consciousness realizing itself."

 

That is, 1) We are the created universe realizing, regarding itself... being self-aware, and 2) Creation always wants to be and become, to bring itself into fuller, richer realization, like YHWH telling Moses:

 

אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה‎‎ 

 

That is, "I am what I am" or "I will be what I will be" or (best, I think) "I become what I become."* That's what Creation is... That is its nature. And we (we tiny awful but gloriously conscious humans) are that, that process of becoming. (Everything is a process, everything is a verb)

 

I also made a promise to myself right then: I will never accept any doctrine or religion or <whatever> that calls on me to deny this revealed truth. And, for about forty years and counting, I've upheld that.

 

~

 

During those seconds -- secondary to the sense of cosmic awareness but also very striking -- was an overpowering wave of visual imagery... the closest suggestive analogy I've been able to give is the end sequence of 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

 

But, this deck may be a better analogy: So many cards in this deck look like snapshots from that experience. 

 

I know many, many people have had similar experiences. I am not unique or special, just fortunate. I very strongly suspect Margaret Peterson has had the same kind of experience.

 

Just one quick picture here for now. I expect to be communing with this deck frequently. As that happens, I will send dispatches from the Cosmic Command Post. 

 

* This is tricky, because Hebrew does not a verb for "to be"... it's understood, implied.

 

Edited March 2, 2023 by BradGad