Taken, Not Given

From the Nigel Jackson Tarot, the Seven of Swords; from the Wolf Pack, Lessons:

Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you? ―Walt Whitman

Various cultures have seen the fox as a guide or a trickster; those who raise chickens see them as a threat. Their ability to outsmart humans has earned them a reputation for cunning and resourcefulness. Jackson describes this card as 'evasive cunning,' suggesting that this fox is being hunted. He seems to be treading carefully, as if looking for traps. The Wolf pack card shows a pup learning how to hunt.. He's likely to make many mistakes before he actually captures any prey, but the older wolf will show him over and over again how to do it. In both cards, lessons are learned - the hard way in the first and an easier way in the second. Either way, the responsibility falls on the student. As Cesare Pavese wrote, "Lessons are not given, they are taken."

Storm Walker

From the Norse Tarot, the Tower:

Barrett uses Ragnarok ("doom of the gods") to depict the Tower - a Norse mythical cycle in which the cosmos is destroyed and subsequently recreated. In the image above, Bifrost, the rainbow bridge connecting the realm of the gods with the earth, is shattered. The darkness of the void came after the massive destruction, and later from it emerged the new creation. I am reminded by this card of the ways we humans try to protect ourselves from the natural cycles of life. We build towers made of such things as religion, money or intellect, imagining these to be what will safeguard us. Unfortunately when we refuse to come out of our "safe house," we miss all the signs that the inevitable (change) is upon us. It is the shattering of our egos that makes us face reality. I once tried to microwave a peeled, boiled egg because it was cold from being refrigerated. The resulting explosion and tiny bits of egg I cleaned off of everything in a five yard radius convinced me never to try that again. Waking up to Truth can sometimes be a messy process.

From the Wolf Pack deck comes the card "Lessons:"

A mother wolf tries to teach her pup the art of hunting. Generally, the very young (of any species) have limited attention spans and constantly get distracted by other things. Therefore the lessons have to be repeated over and over before the they learn. Unfortunately, I too can easily be distracted (especially by something more pleasurable) and not grasp the wisdom my life experiences offer. But pain or emotional turmoil will catch and hold my attention firmly.  In the words of Haruki Murakami, "When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in."