Heavy Mantle

This week the tarot I'll be using is the Ellis Deck, created and self-published by Taylor Ellis. Paired with it will be the Brownies Oracle, created and self-published by Doug Thornsjo. Today's draws are the Emperor and 'Constraint:'

          No wonder this Emperor is armored; he has a heavy (sometimes brutal) responsibility to bear. He guides and disciplines his people; he provides for and protects them. He relies on structure and order to do this through the laws he creates. If he is wise, he will adapt and adjust to the natural changes and challenges life brings. Like well-known coaches, he is often lauded when times are good and blamed when they aren't, even if he had little control over either. The Constraint card is often the way the Emperor's subjects feel. They have rights, by golly, and no one should try to take them away. But as the Emperor knows, rights can only be given when responsibilities are taken seriously.

We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what's in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense. ~Barack Obama