Among the main elements that stand out when in contact with the XVIII Arcana, one can cite the image of the Moon and that of the crab. For those versed in Astrology, both aspects refer directly to the sign of Cancer (the crab), whose ruling celestial body is the Moon herself. When delving deeper into the sign and the card, we can observe that the correspondence is more than coincidental: in fact, it seems to be fundamental. Not only do both Cancer and the Moon Arcana encompass the principles of motherhood (nurturing and fertility, the Great Mother for many ancient cultures), but also there is a sense of tenacity to face and go through processes that might seem fearful at first glance... pretty much like labour.
Interestingly enough, one can find this motherhood energy and its interconnection with the crab in a Filipino myth which parallels the story of Cinderella (of course, due to its irrelevance to this article I am going to omit the appearance of Prince Charming at the end of the story). Instead of a Fairy Godmother, that who helps Maria -the maiden- is a crab she meets when crying in the lake, who comforts her and gives her food. In fact, the crab is the spirit of her mother, who died when she was young. When finding out her secret helper, the step mother proceeds to eat the crab, crushing Maria's heart. Following the crab's instructions -which came through a voice in her head-, Maria buries the shells in the yard. The morning after a tree with golden fruits appears in that place. Apart from the clear correlation of the crab with the figure of the mother, the golden tree is rich in terms of symbolism and its relation with tarot. According to Sallie Nichols, when observing the Moon arcana card: "(...) two small golden plants are pictured in the distance, but these are not green as they would appear in nature, indicating perhaps that they are to be viewed symbolically rather than literally. Their golden colour hints at the golden flower of immortality, that precious blossom traditionally sought by the heroes of ancient mythology". Besides, the colourful raindrops in the card also allude to the potentialities of this sign: drops that create lushiness, crying (something very common in most Cancer natives) as a way of regenerating, life and the universe condensed in a single drop.
Interestingly enough, one can find this motherhood energy and its interconnection with the crab in a Filipino myth which parallels the story of Cinderella (of course, due to its irrelevance to this article I am going to omit the appearance of Prince Charming at the end of the story). Instead of a Fairy Godmother, that who helps Maria -the maiden- is a crab she meets when crying in the lake, who comforts her and gives her food. In fact, the crab is the spirit of her mother, who died when she was young. When finding out her secret helper, the step mother proceeds to eat the crab, crushing Maria's heart. Following the crab's instructions -which came through a voice in her head-, Maria buries the shells in the yard. The morning after a tree with golden fruits appears in that place. Apart from the clear correlation of the crab with the figure of the mother, the golden tree is rich in terms of symbolism and its relation with tarot. According to Sallie Nichols, when observing the Moon arcana card: "(...) two small golden plants are pictured in the distance, but these are not green as they would appear in nature, indicating perhaps that they are to be viewed symbolically rather than literally. Their golden colour hints at the golden flower of immortality, that precious blossom traditionally sought by the heroes of ancient mythology". Besides, the colourful raindrops in the card also allude to the potentialities of this sign: drops that create lushiness, crying (something very common in most Cancer natives) as a way of regenerating, life and the universe condensed in a single drop.
Water... the element of emotions. The primordial soup. The amniotic fluid. It contains life, it sustains life. It creates life. The rocking sea helping us sleep. The main component of our homes (our bodies, our planet).
Yet, there is always the risk of clinging onto our comfort zones, considering Cancer is the homey sign and that the watery energies both of the crab and the Moon could keep us stagnated in our old emotional patterns (after all, the element water does not necessarily mean it's flowing), keeping alive the wounded child seeking for mamma's love and approval. Just as its shell has protected this animal for millions of years (the oldest horseshoe crab fossil that has been found is 445 million years old), security is crucial for a cancer native. Out of balance, this desire for safety can result in a fear of change, a reluctance to let go and an attachment to the past.
The past, the ancestors.... that fine line between honouring our roots and clinging to them, perpetuating loyalties that keep us stuck. As creators of our own reality, there are two important things we always need to keep in mind in order to build the highest timelines or versions of ourselves. The first one is gratitude, to inhabit a state of appreciation. That way, we will be attracting more of that which we really want to let in our lives, and detaching ourselves from lower emotions such as guilt or complaint (which will bring us more of that, given that the universe is so generous that it multiplies whatever we vibrate with). Through gratitude towards our ancestors (families, teachers, etc), we will be acnowledging (giving light to) those pieces of us which are a product of their legacies. The second one is personal responsibility (adulthood, commitment to ourselves), through which we will search for our own ways, seeking to advance without staying stuck to anything that does not fully resonate with our hearts. This requires detachment and independence, in order to find out who we are, our purpose or personal calling. Like repeating the old story since we were kids: to keep loving mommy and daddy while finding out who we really are, choosing in which aspects their legacy resonates with as and in which we need to rebel in order to cut (sometimes toxic) cycles. Personally, I have found myself bounded by loyalties towards my ancestors, preventing me.from.moving forward due to feeling guilty of succeeding in life. This is something perfectly explained by Elsa Farrus Rusiñol, a wonderful channeler that I follow. In one of her videos she would say that one of the biggest blockages we have had as humans is that of feeling guilty of surpassing the others. Of course, the meaning is not to step on somebody else's head in order to undermine them, but to keep going our own way without looking back. Always helping those who are willing to help themselves, but leaving the saviour complex behind.
Within the core of Butoh, the idea of honouring the ancestors is crucial. It ranges from the memory of those dying with the atomic bombs, to more personal issues such as Hijikata's older sister being sold as a prostitute, as well as feeling those who were here before us, forming the soil under our feet.
A watery dance, which encourages emotions to overflow us and project through every cell of our body, it turns us into psychopomps, wandering through the different worlds, states, times and dimensions. Apart from his renowned flamenco muse Antonia Mercé (La Argentina, giving name to one of his most famous pieces), Kazuo Ohno held his mother as one of his main sources of inspiration. In his piece Watashi no Okaasan (My mother) -directed by his son Yoshito Ohno-, he converses with his mother's spirit. To him, motherhood represented the mysteries of life and death, since motherhood would represent giving life yet dying, feeding and being eaten.
Yet, there is always the risk of clinging onto our comfort zones, considering Cancer is the homey sign and that the watery energies both of the crab and the Moon could keep us stagnated in our old emotional patterns (after all, the element water does not necessarily mean it's flowing), keeping alive the wounded child seeking for mamma's love and approval. Just as its shell has protected this animal for millions of years (the oldest horseshoe crab fossil that has been found is 445 million years old), security is crucial for a cancer native. Out of balance, this desire for safety can result in a fear of change, a reluctance to let go and an attachment to the past.
The past, the ancestors.... that fine line between honouring our roots and clinging to them, perpetuating loyalties that keep us stuck. As creators of our own reality, there are two important things we always need to keep in mind in order to build the highest timelines or versions of ourselves. The first one is gratitude, to inhabit a state of appreciation. That way, we will be attracting more of that which we really want to let in our lives, and detaching ourselves from lower emotions such as guilt or complaint (which will bring us more of that, given that the universe is so generous that it multiplies whatever we vibrate with). Through gratitude towards our ancestors (families, teachers, etc), we will be acnowledging (giving light to) those pieces of us which are a product of their legacies. The second one is personal responsibility (adulthood, commitment to ourselves), through which we will search for our own ways, seeking to advance without staying stuck to anything that does not fully resonate with our hearts. This requires detachment and independence, in order to find out who we are, our purpose or personal calling. Like repeating the old story since we were kids: to keep loving mommy and daddy while finding out who we really are, choosing in which aspects their legacy resonates with as and in which we need to rebel in order to cut (sometimes toxic) cycles. Personally, I have found myself bounded by loyalties towards my ancestors, preventing me.from.moving forward due to feeling guilty of succeeding in life. This is something perfectly explained by Elsa Farrus Rusiñol, a wonderful channeler that I follow. In one of her videos she would say that one of the biggest blockages we have had as humans is that of feeling guilty of surpassing the others. Of course, the meaning is not to step on somebody else's head in order to undermine them, but to keep going our own way without looking back. Always helping those who are willing to help themselves, but leaving the saviour complex behind.
Within the core of Butoh, the idea of honouring the ancestors is crucial. It ranges from the memory of those dying with the atomic bombs, to more personal issues such as Hijikata's older sister being sold as a prostitute, as well as feeling those who were here before us, forming the soil under our feet.
A watery dance, which encourages emotions to overflow us and project through every cell of our body, it turns us into psychopomps, wandering through the different worlds, states, times and dimensions. Apart from his renowned flamenco muse Antonia Mercé (La Argentina, giving name to one of his most famous pieces), Kazuo Ohno held his mother as one of his main sources of inspiration. In his piece Watashi no Okaasan (My mother) -directed by his son Yoshito Ohno-, he converses with his mother's spirit. To him, motherhood represented the mysteries of life and death, since motherhood would represent giving life yet dying, feeding and being eaten.
When it comes to the symbol of cancer (♋), there are many interesting explanations about its meaning. Some authors consider it to be a mere simplification of the crab's rounded shape, with its two big claws which -just as Cancer in its shadow aspects- refuse to let go of the things they grab. For others, the symbol alludes to the femininity intrinsic to the sign, related to womanhood and motherhood. From a more astronomical -yet poetic- perspective, some experts regard it as either the four phases of the moon; or the interaction of the Sun and Earth connected by two arches of crescent moons, which denote the delicate natural balance of the Universe. To all those magnificent interpretations -and as an adherent to Taoism-, I would add the resemblance of this symbol to that of the yin-yang, also expressing the essential balance of the Universe. In this sense, when paying attention to the Camoin (Marseille) version of the Moon Arcana, we will observe the presence of two dogs or wolves howling at the moon. Jodorowsky's description of them is more than rich, observing the opposing qualities of these characters: the light blue dog, embodying a more receptive, sensitive and feminine side; and the flesh coloured dog, more dexterous, with a tongue resembling fire (action), illustrating a more masculine energy. Interestingly enough, each of their ears are the colour of the other: such as the yin-yang, they show how each principle relies on and contains the other. These opposites are parts of a whole, never confronted, but two principles of the same essence: like light and its corresponding shadow, like shadow and its corresponding light. None of them can exist without the other, and that's the magic of the universe!
Acknowledging the unknown, the shadows, the nemesis is key for any growth process, since these are the keys to unlocking our greatest powers. For artists, widening the vision to see the opposites and developing the sight of the apparently invisible can lead to wonderfully richer creations. As I usually express in my writings and share in my classes, the interaction of the opposites is what moves Butoh. Like a rotary engine, fueled by contradiction and ambiguity, this dance was born to bring light to so much darkness, and teaches us to keep one foot in each world (while moving them in our dance!). I remember Yoshito Ohno sensei giving us a magical example in his classes: kids build sand castles in order to enjoy their destruction. To him, that is art: Revolution (and ReLoveution!), to him that is Butoh. Creating and destroying (subsequently and simultaneously). Following the thread of Cancer, its need to nurture and yet the tendency to become that wounded child seeking to be nurtured themselves: in Butoh, in art, in life (a.k.a. as creators of our reality), we need to observe the two sides of the coin. As vibrating particles, we are always bouncing between opposites, and it's on us to choose which side we want to inhabit at every specific moment. In a way, it IS sides and it IS a sequence, within which opposites are just extreme degrees.
Pretty much like in the electromagnetic spectrum, life is a continuum, in which boundaries are relative. When having a limited vision of reality, we tend to focus only on certain colours (visible light). When we give our first steps into a deeper vision -our first awakenings-, we usually oversee the boundaries, or even reject them. We tend to fall into a relativism in which everything seems to be the same (just colours). Of course, this is an interesting breaking point, since by dissolving limitations we expand. However, it can turn our interpretation of reality into something rather amorphous, thus getting lost in a rainbow cloud. If we see this in dialectic terms, the synthesis would be to acknowledge the existence of an infinite amount of colours with an essence and identity of their own, while belonging to a spectrum -infinite, like the Source. And now the word definition comes to my mind. While we often associate it with labelling or putting a concept in a box, it can also be seen in a more delicate way, as in sculpting: the artist sees the essence of their work in the stone before they start defining its future shape. This is where technique comes on stage: the finer the movements of the chisel (or our bodies, as dancers!) the purer our work becomes; precision as the ability to express ourselves in the most honest way. And in a way, maternity is/should be something like that: trying to help our children become their best and truest versions, walking next to them in their becoming themselves, setting limits with love, in order to help them find their own way.
Physical exercise is a wonderful key to anchoring any universal principle: using our body as a channel, we can bring any idea into physical manifestation. And again, technique is the tool that will bring that magic into fruition. Apart from those related to creativity and channelling, many (if not most) of the exercises in Butoh have to do with limits. From the beginning, when Hijikata rehearsed with his company, he would encourage his dancers to go through really intense trainings, in order to transcend their own limitations. By keeping a position for hours, emotion would bloom like the first flower of the spring. Butoh constantly plays with limits: both through exercises that put our bodies in an excruciating pain (my first teacher would always quote Kazuo Ohno saying: "torturing the body for it to express its truth") and our souls in rather uncomfortable emotions. What's the trick of this? To get rid of any bias or preconceptions of what is positive or negative, beautiful or ugly, achievable or impossible. By debunking our limitations we WILL connect with our infinite nature. Yet, there is another key to this infinity: for it to help us be(come) creators of the reality we choose, it needs to be aligned. So, again, the dynamic or tension of principles: infinity and alignment, Jupiter (expansion) and Saturn (precision). Transcending our preconceived limits empowers us to an extent we wouldn't have otherwise achieved. There is where magic happens! Right after we leave our comfort zones and surpass any fears (sphinxes) that may show up! Any physical exercise that will keep us holding an uncomfortable position for a long time -apart from strengthening our muscles- is a way of reprogramming our mind as for its limitations. When it comes to alignment, when we reach it, we reach a position of receptors of our biggest and highest dreams manifested. I usually mention the image of the clown firemen trying to catch people jumping from a burning building: only if we are aligned, we will be able to catch them when falling. The same with the dreams we wish upon the stars. Any exercise that has to do with balance and finding precision in postures is excellent to develop this (as the ones on limits are wonderful to expand also our capacity to dream bigger!). Even walking (something we re-learn while practising butoh) can be a way of getting in touch with our antenna beings. Watching our steps (from the inside out), feeling our breath, enjoying our balance. Observaton is key, we only need to find our multiple eyes.
Bibliography:
- Jodorowsky, Alejandro: La Vía del Tarot. Madrid: Editorial Símela, 2004.
- Nichols, Sallie: Jung and the Tarot: An Archetypal Journey. N.p.: Weiser Books, 1980.
- Crabs Folklore:
https://memattz.wordpress.com/
Pretty much like in the electromagnetic spectrum, life is a continuum, in which boundaries are relative. When having a limited vision of reality, we tend to focus only on certain colours (visible light). When we give our first steps into a deeper vision -our first awakenings-, we usually oversee the boundaries, or even reject them. We tend to fall into a relativism in which everything seems to be the same (just colours). Of course, this is an interesting breaking point, since by dissolving limitations we expand. However, it can turn our interpretation of reality into something rather amorphous, thus getting lost in a rainbow cloud. If we see this in dialectic terms, the synthesis would be to acknowledge the existence of an infinite amount of colours with an essence and identity of their own, while belonging to a spectrum -infinite, like the Source. And now the word definition comes to my mind. While we often associate it with labelling or putting a concept in a box, it can also be seen in a more delicate way, as in sculpting: the artist sees the essence of their work in the stone before they start defining its future shape. This is where technique comes on stage: the finer the movements of the chisel (or our bodies, as dancers!) the purer our work becomes; precision as the ability to express ourselves in the most honest way. And in a way, maternity is/should be something like that: trying to help our children become their best and truest versions, walking next to them in their becoming themselves, setting limits with love, in order to help them find their own way.
Physical exercise is a wonderful key to anchoring any universal principle: using our body as a channel, we can bring any idea into physical manifestation. And again, technique is the tool that will bring that magic into fruition. Apart from those related to creativity and channelling, many (if not most) of the exercises in Butoh have to do with limits. From the beginning, when Hijikata rehearsed with his company, he would encourage his dancers to go through really intense trainings, in order to transcend their own limitations. By keeping a position for hours, emotion would bloom like the first flower of the spring. Butoh constantly plays with limits: both through exercises that put our bodies in an excruciating pain (my first teacher would always quote Kazuo Ohno saying: "torturing the body for it to express its truth") and our souls in rather uncomfortable emotions. What's the trick of this? To get rid of any bias or preconceptions of what is positive or negative, beautiful or ugly, achievable or impossible. By debunking our limitations we WILL connect with our infinite nature. Yet, there is another key to this infinity: for it to help us be(come) creators of the reality we choose, it needs to be aligned. So, again, the dynamic or tension of principles: infinity and alignment, Jupiter (expansion) and Saturn (precision). Transcending our preconceived limits empowers us to an extent we wouldn't have otherwise achieved. There is where magic happens! Right after we leave our comfort zones and surpass any fears (sphinxes) that may show up! Any physical exercise that will keep us holding an uncomfortable position for a long time -apart from strengthening our muscles- is a way of reprogramming our mind as for its limitations. When it comes to alignment, when we reach it, we reach a position of receptors of our biggest and highest dreams manifested. I usually mention the image of the clown firemen trying to catch people jumping from a burning building: only if we are aligned, we will be able to catch them when falling. The same with the dreams we wish upon the stars. Any exercise that has to do with balance and finding precision in postures is excellent to develop this (as the ones on limits are wonderful to expand also our capacity to dream bigger!). Even walking (something we re-learn while practising butoh) can be a way of getting in touch with our antenna beings. Watching our steps (from the inside out), feeling our breath, enjoying our balance. Observaton is key, we only need to find our multiple eyes.
Bibliography:
- Jodorowsky, Alejandro: La Vía del Tarot. Madrid: Editorial Símela, 2004.
- Nichols, Sallie: Jung and the Tarot: An Archetypal Journey. N.p.: Weiser Books, 1980.
- Crabs Folklore:
https://memattz.wordpress.com/