So last night I had the idea that I should use “Today’s card”to get my writing started. Yesterday’s card was The Mountain.

The mountain casts its shadow over the valley. In the winter, darkness can fall before four pm. The shadow is psychic as well as physical. The mountain is grounding: you always know where you are. The mountain, like the land, is testament to the generations of people who have lived here, their stories forgotten or erased. The mountain is more than a benign figure: it is steeped in the history, the blood, the tears.

In the cartomancy system, the mountain represents obstacles, barriers, blockages, and also pride, hubris, wanting to be the mountain that everyone else looks at. It’s like the quest novels where the entire team looks up at the mountain and knows that they need to cross it to move forward, and that it will be hard and full of hidden difficulties.

Which is funny that I give that example, because there was an rocky outcropping there and I tried to plot out my fantasy novel there; all the different kingdom a significant distance apart. that assembling the quest means going to each of the kingdoms for representatives. I drew them on the red rock using a green marker.

That rocky outcropping was my imaginary world, my escape from the closed up space and emotional confusion of home. Yet it was also the place where I imagined jumping to my death, to get away from everything. To escape this world.