Hats off
‘It’s a question of hats,’ I wrote in Threads, but what I had in mind is not what we can observe, but how we observe. Meanwhile, if it’s not a question of hats, then it’s one of color, here by the hand of Witta Kiessling Jensen painting the Oswald Wirth Tarot just for me on the occasion of passing the viva voce examination for my second doctoral degree in January 2014 – a decade of wearing the hat called doctissima, twice the doctor, with the second degree also being higher in rank than the first in terms of its significance. In Europe the Dr.Phil. degree is above the PhD, hence the superlative.
The vibrancy of the day and the witnessing public have stayed with me, now reflected also in the beauty of this red thread. While I may be done with my academic career, some other things I’m never done with. At least that’s what the cards also said on this day when I was reminded of the event.
The Pope, the Popess, and Force showed up, quite literally describing the situation. As I was subjected to a 5-hour public examination, conducted by three Popes and a poet, I presented my own Popish findings. While it’s unusual to have a dissertation that’s free of weaknesses, in my case a lot of good things were said about it, strength being a quality that was highlighted. So I had a good time, passing the examination with high honors.
What’s left of my academic world is now a memory. I retired from academia in spite of being at the hight of my career, simply because I found the university too dull and informed solely by deceptive political decisions. The Moon in the wings here spoke of that situation. As a consequence, I chose to make my own compromises, rather than continue to go with the ones that no longer made any sense to me. Temperance on the other side of Force showed here that much too.
Casting the cards today didn’t tell me anything new. But basking in their colors enforced it for me that, somehow, the decision I made when I left was the correct one. It may well be that now my old hat doesn’t serve any more, and it may also well be no one is now taking their own hat off for me in any official capacity, but when I look at the cards here, I see that there are all sorts of other hats I can exchange and don for whatever identity performance I fancy.
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Threads
The book that sets up the principles for reading a visual text, going from a 3-card draw to longer and longer setups, in the process, becoming a treatise on obsession with reading cards.
