1 : The first card drawn is Dance protest of the Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell. In position of resources in relation to the intention which starts the reading: strengths, advantages and resources.
Under the arcana of the incantation, the power of the voice, the flow, the card depicts a woman protest danse. Costumed in witches the women dance in a round in front of the Federal Building of Chicago. The capes they wear appear as banners, in front of a monument of symbolic authority of the state. The card can face the idea of patrimony as a national emblem or seal, worn by the sovereign identity, bringing to light the idea of situated traditions that belong to communities and the original meaning of nations. Nation corresponds to the idea of social belongings, and folklore refers to a common cultural base for communities.
Those symbols are used to reinforce the entity of a federal power, becoming the appanage of the richs to expropriate them. Those women dancing in the name of the witches, ancestors of the women’s right fight, make their revolutionary body an immaterial property.
2 : Arcana : VEIL // Ritual of mourning and rage by Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz. The second card drawn refers to the Ritual of mourning and rage by Suzanne Lacy and Leslie Labowitz. In position of resistances in relation to the intention: adversity, pitfalls, blockages, or defences.
Under the arcana of Veil, the card depicts a cortege of women, dressed in mourners, they express both loss and rage. From mourning to piety, from indulgence to penitence, if we think of the rituel du sacrement de réconciliation or other religious performances of penitence, here the women are mourning not for forgiveness, but reclaiming justice for the women who were dead because of the serial killer the "Hillside Strangler" of Los Angeles.
Furthermore, the adversity of the card can also warn us from condolences of identity, ranged into separatism from the point of the state. Where the veil those women carry echoes an insurrectionnal tool, referring to votive textile objects of piety that are displaced from their traditional use. We can think for example of the voilette, the black bloc uniform, or even of the penitent balaclava. The cloth brings us to the different ways of conjuring, repairing, or reconciling practices that can be used from a clerical, spiritual or souverain authority, from dogmas to social justice.
3 : The third card at the top of the spread represents a triple enclosure hopscotch and a magic square engraved on stone. In this position, the card represents the charge of potential with regards to the intention: faculties, opportunities, chances. The arcana Sigil, refers to a magic practice consisting of formulating a word into a symbol: a sign that is charged with the intentions of the practitian. A triple enclosure is a medieval representation of the cosmos trinitarian hierarchy: the world, the purgatory and heaven. It also refers to the power structures inside the civilian society. Those marks were engraved on the stones that build medieval cities. Hopscotch, today a popular child’s game, is built on the same idea: a path from earth to heaven, where the throw of a rock settles the destiny of the player.
In this position, the card invites to locate and materialise places of authority. It suggests to symbolize the powers of those entities and to play in an insurrectional way with those influences. We can also think about the rituals of strike from the working class struggles, where those engraved signs were made by the hand of workers who were forbidden to play hopscotch, a game reserved for the court elites. Hopscotch becomes a popular insurrectional and innocent game.
4 : The fourth card represents a demonstration of the Wages Against Housework movement. It is situated at the bottom of the spread. In this position, the card represents the particular commitment regarding the starting intention: vectors, paths, influences, situations and axes.
The Wages Against Housework movement started in the 1970s in the US, with the help of women-held discussion groups in which it was made clear the structural oppression and free labour they were expected as women. Lots of demonstrations happened through the whole country and led to more rights for women (specifically regarding abortion rights and reproductive work) after years of struggle. In this position, the card accentuates the importance of making visible situations that have been made invisible by an oppressive power structure. It invites us to occupy public space and raise collective voices against invisibilized injustices.
5 : The fifth card in the center is the base of the spread. The card Demonstration of the Women’s Pentagon Action movement shows affects in relation to the intention, consecrations and qualifications.
From tradition, to camouflage, to insurrection, women demonstrate against monuments of authority such as the pentagon, great temple of the military forces and federal entities : “We are mourning”. The global spread crossing through the central incantation may invite us to grow as a votive procession for invisibilized communities: producing visible to make us invisible. At a time where gathering in public space are forbidden or restricted to 6 individuals, where expressing a spiritual commitment or the identity of a community is banished, the spread seems to reveal the power of immaterial symbols as a way to protect controlled bodies from direct attacks and injuries. Non trackable, non-verbal, non-identifiable bodies can reclaim their immaterial patrimony.
