Tag: Future

Auld Lang Syne and Farewells as old as Time

~ cwirka
Chromolithographic print from 1905 titled “Auld Lang Syne”

While the flipping of the calendar year is often met with celebration, it is typically done while looking at hope and dreams of the future. And that makes sense – the past few years have been weird and rough for… (searches the internet) huh – everyone! Surviving another year inevitably feels like a victory. Even if we’re not sure what we’re looking forward to, we can at least say we got through what’s now behind us. Which is the standard order of things.

Because of that, there isn’t much celebratory “farewell” within our end of year bashes. But, in a lovely example of… irony? No. Self-reference? No. Circular something or other? Whatever… In a lovely example of being an example of itself, Auld Lang Syne, THE New Year song, is sung enthusiastically about remembering the good times and people that got us here. I’m not the nostalgic sort, but it’s great to have a very old song about remembering the past being used to remember the past. Was Auld Lang Syne ever a new song? It works so well as a farewell song because we haven’t said farewell to IT. How many people have sung the half-remember and hazily-understood lyrics and thought of a loved one? And now we all share the memory of using the very same song to connect with our very singular pasts.

And there’s a hand my trusty friend!

And give me a hand o’ thine!

And we’ll take a right good-will draught,

for auld lang syne.

(Standard English remix of the Robert Burns cover of Auld Lang Syne)

To be fair, it’s also a drinking song. That’s why we sing it. And perhaps the lyrics aim to fight the memory damage wrought by drinking.

It’s not an uncommon hear the song at graduations, weddings, and (obviously) funerals. It looks backwards, not with longing and regret, but with love and appreciation. A perfect way to enjoy a first/last moment of the year; the past celebrated, the present enjoyed, and the future unconsidered. And when you cast your mind back to times worthy of recollection, think of all the people in the past centuries who you’ve now shared a moment with. For auld lang sine.

Misunderstood Fortune

~ cwirka

Talk to anyone who knows anything about divination, and you’ll hear that death gets a bad rap. In dreams, in omens, in Tarot – Death doesn’t mean Death (hoping you’ll breathe easy).

You can find many novice guides to the tarot talking about misunderstood cards, particularly the Fool (who, being a fool, has to be misunderstood), the Devil (I mean, evil, hard to spin that one), and Death.

La Mort from Etteilla‘s tarot deck circa 1850–1890.

Death, we are assured, simply means some major change is coming, so just calm down. But if death doesn’t signify death, which card does? It better not be the Hierophant.

More importantly, this misinterpretation is at the wrong stage. The misinterpretation of the card called “Death” to signify death seems pretty reasonable (sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar). It’s only a problem because death is immediately associated with negative thoughts.

“Don’t worry, that doesn’t mean what you think it does”

Death from The Illustrated Key to the Tarot, 1918

To be fair, death is change. And in some interpretations it could be considered simply a sign of change. But using various interpretive tools to talk death out of being DEATH is hardly helpful. It is important to get out of the mindset that death is some sort of aberration that is best ignored.

That death card should be a chance to genuinely consider death. I mean – death is the most assured thing in any future, whether the cards say so or not.

Death from the Pierpont Morgan Bergamo tarot deck, 15th C.

Try turning the whole interpretation on its head – When we encounter real death, it doesn’t need to simply be the end. It’s a sign of things changing, as they inevitably do.

Death is change. Also, death is death. Change, however need not be death.