You put the cup over the tray, shake it a few times, and then remove the cup to see what you rolled. Instead of putting a Tarot card under my pillow, I put three dice in the tray, covered and shook them, and left them still covered in a drawer in my nightstand while I slept. Later, I will check the dice and map the roll to one of the Minor Arcana using the Seven Eleven system. As discussed in "Dice and the Minor Arcana: Outlining the challenge," there is some uncertainty as to whether the highest-ranking suit should be Swords (historically the highest) or Wands (generally considered the highest in divinatory Tarot). With any luck, these experiments will clear that up.
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I dreamt that I was in some kind of sprawling stone building that may have been underground. I was with a small group of other people, and it had a very Dungeons & Dragons feel -- a little party of adventurers navigating a dungeon. (Dice-rolling is a big part of D&D, so the dice themselves may have suggested this theme.)
I found a sword that was very old and rusty and seemed to lack the normal rigidity of a metal blade. I was afraid that if I hit anything with it, it would not break but bend, and even that holding it out horizontally for too long might cause it to droop slightly and warp. I wondered why it was like that.
The sword itself answered my unspoken question telepathically: "It's because I haven't touched a folded pocket in a very long time."
I adjusted my shirt so that the breast pocket was folded in half and touched the flat of the sword to it. The blade immediately firmed up and felt more like a normal sword, but it was still pretty rusty and useless-looking.
I suddenly had the idea that if I could find a dumbbell, I could hold the sword in one hand and use the other to literally "pump iron" into the blade and rejuvenate it. It just seemed obvious that that was what I needed to do.
(Earlier in the dream, another man in our group, possibly my brother Joseph, had found a quarterstaff that was in similarly sorry condition and had to do something strange to restore it. I can't remember any of the details, though.)
I found a tiny 2-kg dumbbell, the kind girls use in "yoga," and started lifting it, but it created no resistance and thus had no effect. After searching a bit more, I found a 14-kg dumbbell and started pumping it as fast as I could. After a few seconds of this, I felt a sort of pulse of energy, and not only the sword but also the dumbbell and myself were transformed. I suddenly had bulging muscles -- it felt like a less extreme version of an Incredible Hulk transformation -- and the dumbbell was now huge, maybe 80 kg. The sword was now bright shiny steel, as good as new. However, it was much shorter than before, and I realized that it didn't look so much like a sword now as an Okinawan sai, except that the central part still had the shape of a sword blade rather than a simple prong. Besides being too short, it also didn't seem sharp enough, and I thought I would have to pump more iron to further improve the weapon.
I had begun to feel that we might be in a video game, and that perhaps this game had been designed to force obese neckbeards to physically work out in order to level up their characters.
Looking around, I noticed that the other members of my party who were in the room had also had their physiques improved by the iron-pumping, though their changes were much less extreme than my own. Three members of our group -- three sisters who were all named Amber -- were not in the room, so I thought I should go find them and bring them in so that they, too, could get an upgrade. Before I could do that, though, I woke up.
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It's not hard to imagine -- or, rather, it's hard not to imagine -- what Dr. Freud would make of this dream about a flaccid sword that can be made hard by touching a "pocket" and by pumping iron (blood) into it. But, despite my genuine reverence for der große Wiener Quacksalber (uh huh huh, you said wiener), we are not Freudians around here but synchromystics. As such, I note that the staff, the sword, and the sai are the trademark weapons of three of the four Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who have been identified with the four Flour Boys. (See "Flour Boy symbolism roundup.") The sai, which is what I ended up with in the dream, is the weapon of Raphael, the Turtle we have tentatively identified with me. Raphael is also the most muscular of the Turtles and, in the nightmarish 2014 rendition, bears a certain resemblance to the Incredible Hulk.
For a minute I thought the Turtles' human friend was even called Amber, but I'd misremembered. Her name is April. There's still an Amber link, though. The Greek equivalent of the female name Amber is the name of Agamemnon's daughter, who avenged him by murdering her mother, Clytemnestra (and who thus, in another nod to the GWQ, gave her name to a gender-flipped version of the Oedipus complex) -- Elektra, from elektron "amber."
Red is Raphael's color, and the sai is Raphael's weapon.
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So, what are my predictions for the Minor Arcanum to which the dice will correspond? Swords, obviously -- but due to my indecision as to the ranking of the suits, a full half of the 56 possible rolls are potentially Swords. To get more specific, here are my ranked guesses:
1. Three of Swords: The number three appears in the three-pronged sai and the three sisters named Amber. This card depicts a heart, which "pumps iron" through the body.
2. Page of Cups: This is the card associated with Raphael in the Flour Boy schema. The cup also somewhat resembles a dumbbell.
3. Three of Cups: The only card to show three women. Past syncs (not posted here) have associated this card with the swastika, and some versions of the sai (manji sai) also resemble that symbol.
4. Five of Swords: A man dressed in red and green (Raphael's colors) picking up swords (somewhat similar to lifting weights). Although there are five swords in the picture, he's only holding three of them.
5. Ace of Swords: In the Rider-Waite this shows a very short sword, comparable in length to a sai.
6. Six of Swords: The only Minor Arcanum to show both swords and a staff.
Stay tuned for the answer, which may not be posted until tomorrow. I'm away from home at the moment and can't check the dice immediately.
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