VW: Second Life
Location:
Country:
Setting sail and a powerful Tarot card reading for the new child
Early-morning 11 August, 1784
Sorrentina docks
Lorsagne had no love of the sea, but the need to accomplish her business in both Paris and her home in the Haut-Medoc before returning to Sorrentina for her godchilds christening over-ruled her dislike of cramped, smelly cabins allotted to passengers whose money could buy speed of travel but precious little comfort.
Her belongings already stowed, she stretched herself out on the narrow cot in the tiny cabin and listened to the shouts and calls of the crew as they cast off from the dock of Sorrentina to set sail for France. Their voices made little impression; instead she heard the voice of the islands Tarot reader as she turned over each card for the babys reading.
The Queen of Swords.
Eight of Cups Reversed.
The Emperor.
A powerful trio and Lorsagne shivered as she recalled the card readers growing sense of purpose and wonder as she laid each card on the table.
Each card had carried a message. The Queen of Swords representing the childs birth mother watching over her daughter from heaven. The Cups indicating that the child would face challenges as well as possibilities for deep satisfaction.
Good portents. Yet it was the image of the final card symbolizing the father in the babys life that Lorsagne held in her minds eye. No, M. Gandt would not fill the role of a father in the childs life. That role would be filled by a man of power tempered by wisdom and experience, authority moderated by compassion, learning in the service of all people. This was to be the father figure in the childs life who would provide Lorsagne's godchild with lifelong guidance and advice.
Lorsagne had no doubt that the good Dottore Greymoon and his wife would prove loving and good parents, but the Tarot reading revealed that the baby was destined to live on a larger stage than Sorrentina. As her own godfather Fr. Camara had written her only the last month, Lorsagnes world was drawing to a close; the child could come to her maturity in a new century, a new world.
Lorsagne fell asleep with this thought, the muscles of her face relaxed, quiet. For once, the woman with no name except that of a minor aristocrat prisoner in the Bastille was wholly at peace.
A powerful reading indeed, but the more I think on it, the more I see it as a powerful call for justice!
The mother - the Queen of Swords - sorrowing indeed, loving and caring yes, but the sword in her hands is the sword of Justice. She cries out from beyond the grave for lover to recognize and provide for their daughter.
The infant - the 8 of Cups, reversed - she is a seeker who turns her back on the insubstantial and searches for deeper relationships, her true ties. Of course she will be cherished and well cared for by Dottore Greymoon and his good lady, and indeed by all the people of Rocca Sorrentina, but she will always seek some bond of blood.
And the father - are we certain that Signore Gandt is he? The Emperor suggests otherwise. Even if Don Mercurio had relations with the poor deceased mother, she may have known some other man and been carrying his child.
The cards suggest that the father is a man of rank and substance, that his daughter will seek him, and that her mother will haunt him until he comes forward and -- like the wise and noble leader he is -- accepts his responsibility to his child.