This is a book of parables.  Each parable builds upon the one before, but the lesson taught is unique to each chapter.  It is written as a journey through the major arcana of the tarot.  It doesn't matter which deck you use or what interpretations you may be used to, these stories quickly took on a life of their own as I put pen to paper (or maybe fingers to keyboard?)

I have written this as a cover-to-cover read.  It adds continuity to the work and lends the storytelling air to the journey through the tarot.  Will you come with me of the journey of the Fool?

A flash of light and I'm floating.  Everything has gone dark and I am disconnected from everything, drifting quietly in the dark abyss.  I don't know what happened.  I'm not even sure who I am.  This drifting is nice, though.  I sigh contentedly, but there's no rush of air.  There's no heavy lift of my chest.  There's no warmth of breath, but I definitely sigh.  I don't want to think about it too much.  So, I drift.

It seems like a short eternity, but I know that it can't be.  I'm likely asleep.  I'll just enjoy this.  Val. I hear a whisper.  That's my name, Val.  I hear it again. Val.  I look into the darkness but see no movement.  I don't see anything, really.  So, I answer back, "Yes?"

Come to me. I hear.  "Where are you?" I ask.

I'm confused.  The voice sounds like it is everywhere.  Maybe it's in my head.  Maybe it's my roommate and it's morning.  Come to me, Val. I hear the voice again.  This time I feel a tug near my center, pulling me in a direction.

Soon, there is a pinpoint of light.  It is getting bigger at a very fast pace.  I'm pretty sure that I'm going warp speed.  I can't slow down.  This is freaking me out a little bit!  The pinpoint turns quickly into a doorway and I am spat out into a dimly lit stone room.

Gathering my bearings, I look around and see pictures on the walls.  They look rudimentary and vaguely familiar.  In front of me is a figure.  I blink.  I am not seeing this.  I blink again. Twice.  I laugh.

Beside this ridiculous figure is a large scale.  On one side of the scale is a fancy looking feather and, at this point, the other side is empty.  "Nice costume, Dickwad," I say.  "Did you and the theater crew pull this together to try and scramble my brain?"

The figure cocks its suspiciously canid-like head to the side.  "Who is this 'dickwad' you are referring to?" It asks with a voice gravelly from disuse.

I roll my eyes. "Gods!  Nothing will make you break character, will it?"

It stands up a bit straighter and looks down its rather wet-looking nose at me.  "I am Anubis.  Your disrespect is... Unusual for one in your position.  You have journeyed to this place for your judgment and your placement within the afterlife."

Again I laugh.  "You fuckers have slipped me some acid, haven't you?"

The canid figure raises an eyebrow.  "I do not know what this acid is that you speak of.  I have come to you in this manner because it is most comely to your soul.  If you prefer, I can change forms."

With that, the whole room shifts around me.  It changes from a dimly lit sandy colored room to a dank sewer.  The canid changes forms into the scariest clown I have ever seen.  It leans forward.  "Would this form be more to your liking?  I can even say something along the lines of us all floating."

I shrink back in horror.  I stare at it, my mouth agape, wordless.  "I thought so," it says and the whole scene changes back.  "Now that I have your attention and your belief, we have come together to weigh your heart on the scales of justice."

Panic rises in my throat.  I'm dead.  I'm dead. Dead. Dead.  I start to hyperventilate.  Also, Anubis is about to weigh my tattered, world-worn heart.  "Oh, this is bad," I mutter, mostly to myself.

The jackal god laughs.  "We shall see," he says as he lays my heart upon the scales.

I squeeze my eyes shut in horror.  It's all over for me.  I hear another chuckle so I open one eye, just a crack.  My heart is balanced perfectly with the feather of Ma'at.  "Ammut, it seems that you shall go hungry for a while longer," Anubis says.  He turns to me.  "Despite your disrespect, your heart has been judged pure.  You have lived a life that is in accordance with the balance of the Universe.  You may now go forward to whatever awaits you beyond this place."

I am confused.  I step tentatively forward as Anubis lifts my heart from the scale.  He grabs my arm and, to my surprise, shoves the heart back into my chest.  I'm, once again, speechless.  He smirks at me.  Anubis smirks. At. Me.  "There are two kinds who walk the physical realms: those who walk in balance and those who do not.  You were not one to pretend to be something you were not.  You did not walk the world looking to use those around you.  You did not seek from one place to the next taking until the well was dry.  You gave as you could.  You saw those around you for the individuals they were and you saw them for where they were in their incarnations.  You helped those who wanted it.  You tried to help those who didn't. You did all that you could to make the world better while you were there.  That is why the feather deemed your heart pure.  Now you must leave this place and move forward."

Anubis then pushed me through a door behind the scale and back into the darkness.

Once again, I’m in the dark.  Floating.  Having a few minutes to think, I revisit the thought that I’m actually dead.  I don’t remember anything before the darkness.  I don’t know what could have happened that could have killed me.  Now that I think about it, I could have just been old.  I have no idea.  Instead of fear or panic, I feel resignation.  If I’m dead, I may as well enjoy the ride, right?

I feel like this nebulous mass of goo, slipping along a current of darkness.  My arms and legs are not distinct.  If they were, I would probably be flailing.  This must be how amoeba feel, indistinct and oozing.  I don't feel anything pushing me along, no wind or water.  Everything is just blurred at the edges, even me.  Relaxing into that blurriness, immediately gets me spit into a garden.

I look around.  Judging by what is planted, it is early to mid-April in the garden.  I remember my grandmother's garden.  It was much like this when I was a child.  Behind me, I hear a woman muttering softly and the gentle clink of garden implements.  I turn to see a tiny slip of a woman in a large, floppy hat, a too-big long sleeved flannel shirt, and work gloves walking toward me followed by two cats and a dog.  She's talking to the animals, giving them their instructions for today's gardening.

"Quit playing in the dirt, Child," she gently chides.  "If you are going to help me weed, you need to get up and take this rake."

She hands me a rake that has a broken handle.  It is almost perfectly sized for a child.  I rise from the dirt and look at my own grandmother.  I'm sure that if I were alive, I'd cry, but I'm not, so I just look at her.  I watch her twin ginger tabbies circle her once, tails sweeping her legs, and stalk off into the leaves looking for a gift for her.  Her old mutt sits out of the way, silently watching, her sentinel.  He alerts her to snakes coming her way.

"Gram," I say, walking down the row of young okra.  "How have you been?"

She raises a wise eyebrow at me.  I never would have asked that question as a child.  I was far too blind to the manners of adults.  She indulges me.  "I been fine, just runnin' the farm.  How have you been, Child?"

"I've been just fine, Gram," I respond.  Seeing my grandmother one more time, I am just fine.  I don't need to talk to her about being dead or anything.  

She goes back to loosening the dirt on her end of the row and I do the same.   This was our way when I was younger.  I helped her in the garden and she gave me little jewels of wisdom that I wouldn't come to appreciate until many decades later.

After several moments of silence she looks at me. "You look thin.  Are you sure that you have been just fine?"

I smile.  "Yes, Gram, I have been.  Can you tell me about some of the plants?"

"You know about these already," she responds.  "Why are you out here in the okrie without long sleeves?  You know it's going to eat you up!"

Smiling again and focusing very intently on the dirt at my feet I respond, "I'll be okay, Gram."

She tsks at me and keeps scratching the dirt.  George (maybe it's Sam, I'm not sure) trots up purring loudly and lays a half-dead snake at Gram's feet.  The orange tabby is so proud of himself and says so with a loud meow.  He is sitting tall and grooming his paws.  Gram looks sternly at the cat.  "Now George, I told you not to kill these King Snake babies and what did you do?  You brought me a King Snake."

Gram is the only person I have ever known who could confuse a cat.  George was confused.  She leaned over and patted him gently on his head.  "Georgie, thank you for saving me from this snake, but it really isn't the kind of snake I need saving from.  Why don't you go off and try again?"

George perked up after being chastised.  He wound around Gram's legs once and with a chirp bounced off to find his brother.  "You see that, Child?  If we listened to our very nature more, we wouldn't be confused.  Those cats are out there hunting mice and snakes.  They don't hunt them so I'll pet them and tell them how good they are.  They hunt them because that is what they are supposed to do.  They bring them to me because cats think we are terrible hunters and are going to starve without them.

"Do you ever wonder what happens when we humans listen to our own nature?  We stop hearing the chatter of the people around us.  Life slows to a crawl and we notice everything.  God reveals to us some of the mysteries of life."

I'm standing there watching my Gram with her garden rake and listening to her words.  "What's one of the mysteries God has taught you?"

Gram tilted her head slightly my way and gave me a sidelong glace.  "Talking to things.  God has showed me how to talk to anything.  He's showed me how to talk to the animals.  He showed me how to talk to the plants.  I can even talk to the clouds, only, they ain't always ready to listen.

"Oh no you don't!" Gram said, raising her hoe and bringing it swiftly down in the dirt with a thud.  "Grab my shovel, Child, and come over here and finish cutting the head off of this snake."

Dutifully, I trot over and grab the shovel.  Gram has a Copperhead writhing and trying to wrap itself around the handle of her hoe.  Calmly, she looks at me. "Go ahead," she says, "and put the shovel close to the hoe and stand on it like you are going to dig a hole."

I stand on it and I feel the snakes head separate from its body.  "I don't like nothin' to suffer.  That old Copperhead there was coming straight for me.  I saw it three rows over.  Them things are mean.  So much for the dog and cats," she said to me with a grin.  "You get the head and I'll get the body.  We can take it to the end of the row and bury it."

After burying the still-writhing pieces of snake, Gram and I walk  back up the row.  She begins gathering her gardening implements.  "I think we're done for the day," she says.  "It's gettin' too hot for me out here already."

"Okay," I respond as I pick up my short-handled rake.  "What are we doing now?" I ask.

"Well," she says, pausing to look at me, "I am going in the house.  You should go out to your Pawpaw's shop and get the barn cats fed and watered so I don't have to go back out there.  Can you take all of the gardening tools with you?"

As she's handing me her gardening tools, I realize that I am being dismissed.  I look at Gram and smile.  "I love you Gram," I say. 

She smiles back, "I love you, too, now go on.  I'll go in and fix us some water."

I turn toward the shop knowing that I won't be going into the house.  Yet, I smile and respond, "Okay, Gram! See you in a minute!"

Pawpaw's shop looks just like it did when I was a child.  I open the door to the storage closet where the tools are kept and step out into the abyss.