That which covers us.
To paint a literal description of one type of an accretion:- Reoccurring thoughts that adapt each time we revisit them, thoughts that cause pain, thoughts that turn feelings sour. Anything internally that blacken the soul.
Feelings are often associated with the element of Water. We can use this analogy to our advantage by seeing water as the passive part of this mechanic, whereby the wind (thought) disturbs the waters of the emotional world. Water would remain still and calm if left alone by the moving air (it would also stagnate over time without some disruption, but we’ll circle back around to that in other cards).
In Qabalah, these accretions are caused by external influences. They are not your fault, and you have limited ways of dealing with them.
Our true ‘free’ self seeks to simply express. To live without worry, act instinctively. To love freely, create, and dream. Yet we stall, we stutter, we retreat from the light of oncoming possibilities and glories.
The fear and darkness that passes over us, has a stranglehold over our steps forward. And for good reason.
The future we must inherit, must be one deserved. We cannot force growth in a direction that isn’t meant for us, or we live out of alignment with our true nature, and this friction will literally destroy a mind.
At some point we have to break free of our past, literally walking away from mistakes to begin anew. This is much easier said than done.
The past forms accretions that inhibit us. Some are self created and some are put in place by others.
How to escape these shells that contain us?
We can either rationalise them, accept them, or ignore them.
These are ideas that are like a gate. They will hold us back until we understand there’s a latch on the gate, or we can step over it, walk around it, or go somewhere else. We will be held back until we can understand what’s required.
Some accretions can be understood, and some can’t. Some may require years of practice to face, some meditation, some may need gentle handling from professional clinical psychologists.
Qabalistically we can use the Fool to see how there is a rioting spiriting contained in the self that can power us forward with purity. It’s buried in you somewhere. It’s malleable, flexible, and able to survive all this bullshit you are buried under.
That purity, that never-changing source, that point of perfection, is key to moving forward. Sometimes it can vanish, sometimes you can bathe in it. It’s that spirit that travels through the Tarot, and gets trapped in the various concepts & contradictions held within the deck.
So when we pull cards, we shouldn’t be looking for solutions, we should be looking for the problems. Seek them out, hunt them down, acknowledge them. We must bring light to our darkest recesses and understand the crazy scope of human nature contained within us.
We contain the capability to be hurtful and loving, both light and dark. It can be hard to acknowledge the darker parts of the self when done to us, and we end up stuck in our minds persecuted by various thoughts that trigger our feelings to dampen. Part of us holds onto the situation because there is some empathetic understanding of the actions, or a complete absence that could even enable closure. How do we deal with these life altering scars?
The Fool can be seen as someone going on an epic quest. They know they must be brave and take many leaps of faith, and leaps into new modes of thinking. They must retrain in someway to become competent and eventually transform into the magician.
We could use the term ‘soul searching’, and is apt. We seek to find out what to align to internally. This could be externalised with religion, group activities, hobbies, activities etc.
This is a double edged sword though. We can become lost within another’s ideology. We have to see through to the roots of something to know if it’s in alignment with what our core is about.
At some points on the occult path we must question all that we hold onto, to give us clear sight. This is a voluntary surrender to self critique, but can go much further if focused on that which taunts us from within without fighting it. This is essentially the pathway to removing internal blocks, but at the price of self recognition of failings, habits, or changes that need to take place.
We may find that we lack the power to change certain elements of the self, and the current surroundings might not be the right ground for the change to be enabled, so sometimes you have to wait, or accept the current predicament.
These accretions are part of the makeup that shapes our growth. Often we see small plants that grow in the cracks in concrete; They are able to adapt to their circumstances and thrive, within the constraints of their environment.
Through the cards we can begin to see how some of these accretions play tricks with our thought patterns. An ensnarement of the simple soul.
