Those of you who have been following along with my Magic With Me Series might have been thinking ‘holy shit, when is this lady going to make some progress?’ Well, the answer to that is a bit complicated. As you may have surmised, I am still working on my Quest for The Maze. But, at least I have made some progress in…the progress? 

Attempt One

The first set of divinations I did regarding The Maze gave me a bit of a confusing overall impression. Someone on one of my magic servers told me a very useful tidbit—I had to view the cards as from the perspective of The Maze itself. How would a Maze interpret this, instead of a person? Their overall impression was that The Maze seemed to want to play. But, how does one ‘play’ with a maze? Probably by running it. That was my first mistake—I tried to interpret cards as a person with a body would. 

The second set of divinations I did seemed to confirm that. The Maze wanted to play, and the first confirmation I did on that set a week later confirmed that it was not ready for capture—but that it was happy with the way things were going. 

Attempt Two

Convinced I was doing the right thing, I kept going, and then checked in with The Maze a little later in the month this time, though? They were mad! They said that I wasn’t doing things right at all and wasn’t putting in enough effort. This confused the hell out of me, since I had been doing the same thing I was when it was happy. 

Once again, I turned to the Clow Server for some advice. Several people who had already finished their Quest for the Maze said this was pretty par for the course. After all, it would be weird to run a maze and stay in the same ‘direction’ the whole time. Someone else chimed in that their Quest has been a bit similar—and that The Maze was not super direct. It was a longer Quest. 

Uh, duh! This all made sense in hindsight, and I felt a bit of a dummy for not realizing it sooner. Alright. Maybe it made sense to do more frequent check-ins and try to keep in mind the perspective of a Maze—because I would likely change ‘direction’ often. 

Attempt Three

I did another set of readings, which is where I am with this particular card right now. In this spread, Card 1 was a ‘Where are we now?’ Or an orientation. I thought of it as a ‘you are here!’ pointer on a map. Card 2 was a ‘what direction do we take now?’ And Card 3 was the lesson. 

My first card was ‘Look at this Fucking Hourglass’ featuring an hourglass decorated with a book, and two skulls. The top glass had a cicada, and the bottom a hand. The hand looked like it was reaching up, like a person that was being buried. Cicadas are a symbol of rebirth, transformation, and alchemy. As the person in the bottom glass is further covered up and probably dies, the cicada is (in contrast) more and more free to fly. Ah. A giant metaphor for Death, I see. So our status is that we are shedding something old, or getting rid of it, and something new is getting started. That fits with the idea of ‘changing directions’ in this quest. 

Card Two was ‘Old Man Pouring Water on an Eyeball’ in reverse. The imagery is very simple. An old man, wearing a simple robe, pours water from a pear-shaped jug with no handle onto an eyeball the size of about a soccer ball. 

Earlier this week, I actually attended a wedding. The grounds had a very small hedge maze. I had actually gotten married at this exact location, and the hedge maze at that time barely reached my shins. There were a few fun things to be found in each dead end: a bench to look at the lovely view, a grouchy-looking Gryphon statue, and a headstone. Each of these items was actually really enjoyable to find, like a secret little Easter Egg. I used to get really frustrated with illustrations of items like this in activity books—because I didn’t see the point. In my young mind, the point was to get through the maze ‘perfectly’ without any ‘errors’ and there was therefore no point in drawing things like this in. 

But, in real life, they are actually very pleasant little surprises! Yes, this might have seemed like a tangent, but the idea of interacting with these little things seems to be what the Maze is getting across. Take some time to enjoy what there is, and what might surprise you. There are delights already in your life, but you have to make the choice to enjoy them instead of rushing to the ‘end.’ So pour water on some giant eyeballs, if you see any. 

Card Three was ‘Something’ in reverse. This card has two images. The one on top is an old IBM style computer with wavy lines coming off of it. The one below is a turtle. My first intuition was that this computer was overheating and probably about to brick itself. Ah. Another ‘slow the fuck down’ indicator? Seems like a lesson that is very compatible with the ‘next move’ card I drew.

What’s this? The same Shadow Work that keeps stalking me? The same maladaptive behaviors and thoughts that have been haunting me since my early childhood? No, couldn’t be…