Today’s deck is the Mystic Azure Tarot.
It’s super cute and easy to shuffle, it’s a shame that the minor arcana don’t have individual illustrations bu-…
…
…wait…
…that’s…
Son of a bitch…
Today’s reading is a reflection on how I’ve not felt well and how the solution is to just let nature take its time.
Woke up straight to the hospital.
Alarming and dramatic thing to say I know, but I was just sleeping like shit and if there’s a surefire way to get me to lose patience is not sleeping well. I figured fuck it it might not be the most serious ailment but maybe they’ll give me something for the throat pain so I’m not using coughing spray I’m sick of its taste by now.
Took a cab there and had to go through the emergencies window (so to speak). They asked me all the routine questions, triple checked it wasn’t COVID and after an hour and change the results came in.
Strep throat, my old archnemesis.
So here’s the thing with me: I’ve suffered so many different ailments related to throat and lungs (especially growing up) that it’s one of the parts of my body I’m most familiar with.
Like, I’ve suffered pneumonia and lemme tell you, that shit makes you keenly aware of how your lungs feel inside your body.
Strep throat (or just “amigdalitis” as we call it in spanish) was one I particularly suffered quite a bit and when it was centralized on my tonsils I would wrap my finger in cotton, dip it in a mixture of lemon and salt (assuming the actual throat medicine meant to be used wasn’t available, which was often) and rubbed the sore spots in my throat with it.
It was not pleasant, I’m glad I can just use antibiotics this time.
The hilarious part of this all is just how when I heard what it was I felt like “just when I forgot about you, you came back, bitch…”
As you might expect I spent most of the rest of the day bedridden with very low energy. I tried to eat some solids but even aside from the wholetract being sore, chewing on things felt like chewing on styrofoam, and also tastes became duller.
The interesting thing is that last time the taste of things changed in this specific way was when I had pneumonia. It’s not that you lose all taste but everything becomes… dulled. I was finishing the end of a lemon tea before starting a peach tea and both tasted “vaguely sweet”-
I remember with the pneumonia I ate so many grapes, they tasted so good for some reason, especially compared to every other food.
While bedridden I fell down a rabbit hole of The Ring of the Nibelung.
First things first: Didn’t know it’s Nibelung singular because it’s basically refering to “the ring of Alberich” rather than “the ring of every other nibelung also”.
The other thing is that as I kept reading on it and went through a number of different synopses of the plot I kept remembering Mandalore’s Ring video and I just kept thinking about how weirdly out of order the events were.
Like, Alberich dissing on the Rhinemaidens only makes proper sense when you have the context that the start of the play has the Rhinemaidens mocking him at which point he renounces any idea of love.
But you wanna know what it reminded me even more strongly of? Valkyrie Profile.
And you might be shouting “YEAH NO SHIT SHERLOCK” but the thing is that learning that apparently in the play a Valkyrie’s armor and helmet are what give her her powers and then Siegfried insists on hugging Brunhilde without these had me like “OH FUCK IT’S LIKE THE SCENE WITH THE DUDE IN THE GAME”.
Another fascinating point was noticing and then having some text point pout how Wagner based the characterization more on greek figures. Like how Wotan/Odin being a known phillanderer that sired way too many kids and caused his wife Frigga to worry is more of a Zeus/Hera thing.
There’s also apparently some undercurrent where at first Wagner wanted the theme to be something about love being more powerful than hate but then as things developed he instead wanted to show that the truly altruistic thing would be for actions with a clarity devoid of all that (idea being that enforcing love too can be selfish and a source of self-sabotage).
This all was a very welcome distraction while I waited for all the pills they prescribed me to do their thing.
Sleeping was hell because… like, I don’t know what my throat was trying to do but it kept drawing air in. At its least aggravating it meant that I kept burping like I just had a can of coke, and at its most aggravating I would literally make noise against my will.
I WOULD MAKE NOISE RIGHT AS I’M FALLING ASLEEP.
Just gotta trust the process and be patient, I won’t be found wanting.