Eight of Rainbows (Coins/Pentacles): Ordinariness in the Osho Zen Tarot
Osho Zen cards come with a keyword at the bottom of the image. I used to actively avoid decks that do this, feeling that the suggestion of a keyword in their Minor Arcana cards was too suggestive, skewing and influencing our interpretations too much. But the keywords with the Osho Zen Tarot – whose cards diverge dramatically from the Waite-Smith system that it is (very loosely) inspired by – have come to feel like mere extras, not summaries. Today, I find it helpful.
The Eight of Rainbows (Coins/Pentacles) in the Osho Zen Tarot is one of my favourite Tarot images of all time, and yet there is a bittersweetness to it. Generally, I feel at peace when I look at this image. The simplicity of the human walking in a field, collecting flowers or blossoms from the grass. The miracle of the colourful trees. The comfortable clothes of the person dressing for themselves, not dressing to be seen.
Above: Eight of Rainbows in the Osho Zen Tarot.
On the earth are flowers, rocks and soft green grass, and the figure appears to be meandering just for the sake of it, walking slowly, taking time. If I were to choose an image from a Tarot card to sum up my aspirations in life, this would be it. No aspirations at all, thank you. Just enough free time and space in my own mind to enjoy walking through a field and investigating the interesting natural items that I come across. Sounds heavenly to me. Mostly, though, I’m rubbish at it. I buy plastic vinyl records, new books and too many tarot decks, all with an awareness that they don’t bring happiness in and of themselves, but that music, symbolism and literature take me deeper into a special place inside of myself that is already there. Still, I find these things to be really important for me as a human being, knowing that some of them harm the earth. Honestly, I sometimes feel these purchases stimulating the pathways in my brain where greed resides!
But then, to that keyword – ordinariness. My body drops with relief when I think about that word. I spent a lot of my life trying to be extra-ordinary. At the time, I liked to think that my projects were about more than my own ego, but often, they truly weren’t: I wanted people to encounter the things I created and to be impressed. It made me feel good when that happened (and terrible when it didn’t). I never would have admitted it at the time, but my desire for external approval lurked beneath so many things that I considered to be sacred and important in my life. (Which doesn’t mean that there weren’t sacred and important too, but just that ego is the poison that can eventually destroy the sacred….). Through exploring Buddhism, I found my ordinariness, I found Nature, and simultaneously, all of life’s extra-ordinariness. I can’t tell you what a relief it was. My anxiety levels are nowhere near what they used to be. I didn’t even know I was anxious!
The sad thing is that this card does not picture ordinariness at all, not for most people, not in the modern world. Ordinariness these days is far more active, artificial, bright-screen blinding and mind-based. But then again, the Osho Zen Tarot – a system of Tarot that works with the wisdom of Zen – is only 30 years old, and we were hardly all walking around in fields collecting flowers back in the 1990s. Perhaps the creators – Osho and Ma Deva Padma – wanted us to remember what ordinariness can mean. Relaxing into ourselves more. Letting go of the delusions of the mind, working with the land somehow – getting our hands dirty, collecting stones. The suit of rainbows is equivalent to Coins/Pentacles in the Osho Zen; the element of Earth. It’s cheekier, though, reminding us that the (supposedly reliable) element of Earth is often skewed by the perceptions of the mind. To truly experience ordinariness, we need to let go of the dominant culture, come back to simplicity, trust what our body knows is right beneath all of the advertisements and social media noise. Just the body, the earth, the breath – this is ordinariness.
Just an ordinary miracle I encountered in Hamburg, Germany, last month. One day in the future, I will see my last gull.
The number Eight is the most powerful number in the Tarot sequence. In the Osho Zen, to find our ordinariness, to let go of our showy-ness, to experience ourselves as pure Nature: this is the ultimate success of the suit. We can walk in the park a bit more, without caring what other people think of us. Give less of a care about our clothes and our precious identities, which can offer us an understanding of ourselves, yes, whilst simultaneously locking us into self-made boxes.
So breathe, and let go of all of that, at least for a little while each day. Ordinariness is the feeling of the of the cool wind against your face. It is the smell of pine needles in the woods, or salty seaweed at the beach. It is allowing ourselves to be simple creatures who roam the earth and experience it without trying to be more special than we already are. It is working with Earth’s cycles a bit more and allowing ourselves to be entertained by the sight of a little bird hopping from branch to branch. Ordinariness might be rare for most people these days, but it is so easy to find … and such a relief when we find it.
That’s all for now, friends. Thank you for being here – and please check out my Therapeutic Tarot Sessions and my courses embracing Tarot and Nature if you’d like us to work together. You can also sign up for the Tarot Blog newsletter (different to my main newsletter) below to receive occasional email updates (roughly monthly) with the latest posts.
Smiles from Scotland,
Stephen
