VII The Chariot
first of all, WILD that my little Charioteer’s hair matches that of the RWS Charioteers…haha!
Invitations
Plant Allies: Ageratum, cedar, and fern
Crystal (mineral) Ally: Abalone shell
Animal Ally: Wolf and Horse
Dating The Chariot: This is your chance to take a roadtrip! Get on the bus! Wander down the road!
Plan a pilgrimage with friends, family or lovers. So much inward understanding can come when manifested as physical travel on the material plane. This is the sauce of this card, letting the material experience and spiritual existence guide you down the hypothetical road.
When dating this card, taking to the literal road can birth DEEP insights about your living path.
If taking a road trip is not in the budget for you right now, I invite you to read The Electric Koolaid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe. This book inspired this collage card and the name of this whole Tarot deck project, The Caravan! You can imagine my surprise when I came across the magazine clipping for this card and all of the puzzle pieces started chinking into place! wowee!
card analysis
A phantom like child squints his eyes from a run down old school bus named Furthur. Moss grows over the chipped paint from lively past happenings, one can almost hear the reverb of acid tests past and imagine the bus a’ day glowing dream. Ferns dangle from crevices in the well shaken apart window seals. The child looks serious, and yet we know to, “never trust a prankster."
While the bus doesn’t appear to be able to take the open road anymore, it is sandwiched between movement medicine. A nod to inner exploration as handy as world travel.
The sky above features a close up of an iridescent bubbled beach, recently frothed by the galloping of wild horses.
The wheels are hidden behind a winter wolf, assessing the danger of the witness gazing through time, you dear viewer. The child mimics the analyzing eyes of this fierce protector. If startled, it appears the wolf will dart and the child will mystify. The question conveyed here is,
The Ghost Bus
“How was your portal trip?”
A small blond child inquires as we step through the doorway of an earthship singing light through a green wine bottle stained glass ambiance. The air is Oregon moist and a faint granny smith apple scent wisps by in the fall air. I am holding tight to Luca’s hand, not sure where we have been transported.
“Is this our past?”
I ask the small blond child, his blue eyes piercing a part of my heart I didn’t know existed. His hair is brushed as if his mom was grooming him for a formal visit, it comes down to his cheeks. He isn’t bothered with tucking his oat straw hair behind his ears as I would be.
“The future beyond your lived experience actually. I am your great great great great great great great grandchild, Tian!”
“I am going to have children?”
Tian looks at Luca confused at my shock. I pick my chin up and look at Luca too, blushing.
“Want to go see the ghost bus?”
Tian is skipping under longleaf pines and over fern fiddleheads without our response, we follow curiously, tailing him now. Soon though, we will be pulling his chariot lovingly through time and space.
We get to a caravan graveyard, Tian stops us in front of a decrepit old school bus, covered in chipping paint. Moss and ferns grow from every possible and cute corner. I can’t believe my eyes making out the name above the windshield.
FURTHUR
“Is this the real Merry Prankster bus!?”
“That’s right, and it's full of ghosts!”
Tian shouts in timeless little kid enthusiasm. Imitating spooky, but a smirk threatens to give him away, so I mock shiver and hug myself, make my eyes go wide to play along. His little chin pushes forward and his smirk breaks into a grin, we are on the same wavelength.
“This is the bus. THE bus. The inspiration for our van life Luca! The inspiration for our whole community's life choices!”
Luca is laughing and enjoying my wonderment and Tian’s giggling. It hits me though, now. The stillness of the air we arrived in.
“But wait. Tian. Aren’t our future children still on the bus? On the road?”
“Oh! On the bus! Yes, we still are on the bus, figuratively, grandmother. But we ran out of fuel a generation after you. Now we use much smarter ways to get down the road.”
Luca, excited by progress,
“Like what?”
“We have a global electric high speed trolley system for the material travel, there’s even a train that goes to the moon! And well you are using our new astral technology right now!”
“We are in an astral projection right now?”
“That's right grandmother, pretty soon you will wake up from your nap on the bus and you’ll think this was all a dream.”
“I will?”
“Mhmm, but my mom said I have to show you this so that you stay true to your path and so that you and Luca will guide my chariot towards spiraling existence.”
He stutters over the last phrase, like making sure he gets it right for us, spi-spi-raling exis-s-s-s-tence, like he practiced this conversation in front of the fireplace many bedtimes before this interdimensional right of passage.
I am the one laughing now. Tian is cartoonishly inhaling, remembering something his mama told him to definitely not forget,
“Oh and I have to promise I will never bridle you or whip you, if you tow me towards my destiny, which I won’t. I promise!”
A bit of drool has escaped at the corner of my mouth as I wake up to the dry heat of our current parked location in Arizona.
“Let's make love.”
I whisper to Luca’s fluttering eyes. And as if we’ve just shared the same dream, we make spirit into matter.
“The dream of immortality exists in the budding Chariot card, it asks, what relics will I leave in my wake? What part of me will continue to live in the future for I have left a present in my past.”
Further = figurative distance. Farther = physical distance. Furthur = the marriage of further and farther. aka, Quit your mollyfocking intellectualizing and GET ON THE BUS!
“jesus take the wheel!”
In A LOT of decks, The Chariot is not driven, the passenger holds no reigns. I noticed this after the fact and was delighted at the synchronicity of neither of my bus passengers being in the driver’s seat!
This was actually inspired by Neal Cassady’s incredibly unsafe driving habits on the bus, but turns out it makes sense for this card! The passenger of the chariot trusts the carriage to deliver them where they need to be.
A sense of steering is motivated through courage and will power not brute force. For example, working with your angels, not getting in the way of your blessings.
Know This
The Chariot marks the end of the first stage of The Fools journey through the major arcana. All experiences prior to The Chariot are sometimes imagined as getting your basic needs met, the outer journey, how to know where I begin and end. The foundation is set. The Chariot is the beginning of the inner journey or the development of Ego. The awareness of self and how we can maneuver that self through the world.
Venturing from the nest is what we were groomed to do. You can step out into the world and bring all you have learned and value with you. Your chariot is your moving foundation, you bring your home with you now because you are at home in your body. You are invited to move out to seek truth and that you are safe and secure in your chariot.
You might be in a moment of trusting movement. Enjoy the travel because it will lead to discovery of self truth. Do you have to build a car to learn to drive one? No. Do you have to understand the mysteries of what is towing you forward? No. In Strength, you will begin to question the mechanisms but for now my friend, enjoy the ride.
“Swing low, sweet chariot, comin’ for to carry me home. ”
Difference between The Chariot and the Six of Wands
When we get to the six of wands in like four years, lol, you may wonder,
“this is the victory card? I thought The Chariot was!?”
Here is how I understand the difference.
The Chariot aligns a bit better with the term Triumph while I like to keep the six of wands as the victory card.
Victory insinuates a battle or competition, a war won through fierce and brave action against others or the system or oppression or injustice. In a lot of cards the character is surrounded by celebrating comrades, signifying a communal win.
The 7th card, The Chariot, associates with triumph, a term used when you conclude success after putting heart and soul into a task. Chariot experiences prepare us to handle inner battles against fear, doubt, and smallness and bolster confidence, righteousness and trust in ourselves. All traits of a victorious, creative leader, fighting for the collective good.
When we can overcome internal battles in The Chariot, we are well prepared for external communal struggles to come in the six of wands.
Reversal invitations
A time for stillness
Not the best time to move
Recommit to trusting the galactic and ancestral influences tugging at your toes.
Stop clenching the wheel so tight, allow for some flow.
movement and the reptilian brain?
Do you ever feel antsy or constricted? Stagnant or anxious? Especially during season changes?
I have a completely unfounded theory (so grain of salt here) that for humans with lineages back to roaming bands, there is a biological urge to be moving. When seasons change and the reptilian brain remembers or senses food is becoming scarce, it starts scratching to kick rocks. This stems from the same idea that our brains are not as advanced as our current technologies, for example a small stressor can trigger a fight or flight response because our brain still registers danger as predators in the wild.
Sometimes we feel like movement is productive, it signifies our aliveness. For example, running on a treadmill.
Other times we are running away from discomfort, pain or ourselves. Either literally or mentally, spiritually, emotionally, all those. For example, using lots of mind altering substances.
I’d say this is an opportunity to try to figure out which is stirring your desire to move but I don’t necessarily feel the brain needs to be consulted when The Chariot comes up, there is an invitation to trust your feet, trust the movement, it might be the only prescription needed.
In developing the Ego, there is a sense of needing distance from the self, in order to witness it, to see it and understand. Being uncomfortable, altering the mind, getting outside of yourself are ways to achieve this exit. Being a sedentary species now though makes these options become habitual, addictive. Very disembodied.
In working on this blog I started wondering if living mobily could be a healthier pivot for us as a species? Is it a safe way to exist presently? Not stuck to a place and all its stagnation and not fully exposed to the unforgiving road? Just enough chaos, just enough comfort? A formula for self discovery and right relation with the Earth?
I know there are so many factors to consider that are not healthy for the earth if we were to move around more like fuel consumption. But I truly have been obsessed with the idea of commune caravans as a way to shake loose from the bridle of mortgage bound, sedentary, medicated capitalism.
I’m not even sure what I am talking about anymore…just meandering on down the road. See you there?
Let me know your thoughts in the comments friends!
“Everything here is nowhere else.”