Hello my friends in Misery,

I'm Seven, and this is our first chat about the deck itself. We are 9 days into the project now, just about a third of the way through. And it seems like it's time for us to really get our hands in this machine.

The first five cards of the deck are the entry to the Museum of Misery. They are, in effect, our road into the deck. The Victim is us, or our querent-- the one who is entering their pain and misery, who is identified, even by themselves here, as the one who has been harmed. This is not a badge of suffering or attention-seeking, this is acceptance that no matter who we are, how strong we are, no matter our plans or goals or material goods, we can all be hurt. We can all be a victim. It is not the entirety of who we are, but it is a title we must understand before we enter.

We light our goodness, heart, love, and joy into the Black Lantern. We do not do this to show the way forward, thought like a black light sometimes bringing our joy into our pain can reveal things we did not expect. Instead, we bring this to be our warm heart even in the hardest parts of the path of misery.

The Ruined Wound is our pain, it is raw and open and it is not easily defined. But it has to be seen, felt, and entered to begin to see what it is that rests in our sour hearts. We may hurt on the way in, but it is a choice to enter.

At the Nailed Altar, we make our true pledge to walk forward. Before this, we can still turn around. Before this, the pain is still formless, aimless. We can feel it again on the way out, but we won't explore it, understand it, or know it truly. The Nailed Altar is our ritual agreement to continue forward. Once we go from here, there is no turning away from what comes next.

When you arrive into the Museum, you are now before the tableau of your suffering. You can see, window to window, scenes of what has hurt you. You can, from behind the glass, lean in to remember and know your horrors. The glass and museum setup does not make them easier to explore, necessarily, but they are safer. 

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From here, the Major Arcana are a run of your experiences in the space. Of this space in Misery. We can explore those as we go in this project, but these cards are our entry to the deck for a reason: They are the setup for how you should explore these pains yourself. 

But the Major Arcana-- this Exhibit as we're calling it-- is not the whole deck or the whole journey. As you go through the journey, you will explore each of the houses of the suits.

Each House, or Suit, is entered first through their House. For the Suit of Blades, we enter in the Hall of Blades. This is the home as a whole, and it focuses on the core of what the suit is, not interpreted in the 0-7, but the core of what it is. And this suit is Denial and Shock, the first step of grief and suffering.

We see the House with corpses, blades, heads on ends of spikes. We are afraid to enter and shocked with our tender sensibilities. This is not the world we know, and we do not believe this path is for us.

We see the 0 for the Folly of each suit. In Blades, the folly is The Suicide. One who has not tried to move forward, one who has not tried to survive, but who has lain back and fallen onto the blades of the house. It is not explicitly Suicide, though it can be. It is a personal card, not a judgment of people's action or suffering, but rather the understanding that when we give up on making it through, we do not just lay down to rest, we give up entirely.

The 1 of Blades is the Portal, as it is for most suits. This is our beginning, momentum, and inspiration into the space. The Bisected Blade is stained with the blood of those who entered before us, telling us what our journey here will be. It will hurt, and we mustn't turn away from our pain here.

The 2 of Blades is the Nemesis, here in blades known as The Hunter. This is when we learn what else resides here, what comes for us, dealing with the other side of us existing here. The Hunter is themselves held at blade point, hunting for us to lash out because they are equally under duress, under pain.

The 3 of Blades is the Wound, or how the suit hurts you. The Addiction here is what happens when our shock and denial become our pain. We deny and shut things out by drowning out the fear and terror in something else. We think only nice things. We drink, we shop, we do drugs.

The 4 of Blades is The Harmonic, where the suit finds its legs and foundation. For us, it is The Bladed Bridge. This is your sign to know that you must race along the bridge. To doubt the bridge, to go slowly, is to be hurt so much more. To rest in your denial and shock, to deny it, is to not go on the bridge at all, or to go halfway them slide down until it cuts you to pieces. This is a test of faith. Once you are through, it stops actively harming you, even if the wounds you were given sting.

We will continue our exploration of the House of Blades as Enoch turns new cards in. But it seems fair to share now what the other numbers are.

5 is the Excess of the suit, where the foundation goes too far, often what leads to conflict. In the suit of Blades, you can look forward to The Stabbing.

6 is the Ecstasy of the suit, where the suit brings joy. This can be the harmony of the thing, the rising past the suffering. In the suit of Blades, you can look forward to The Flayed.

7 is the Finale, or what the suit might do to you in its transformation of your life. This can be positive for your journey, but it can also be how the house might want to shape you if you lived in it. In the suit of Blades, you can look forward to The Pierced.

Denizen is the first of the court cards, and represents a being that lives here. As the 7 would have turned you into a denizen yourself, this is someone who has remained. It may often represent other people directly. In the suit of Blades, you can look forward to The Blade Smith.

Ruler is the head of the house. This is, if this deck were a game, the boss of the suit. These can be enemies or people, but often they represent the highest, hardest, roughest element of their house. In the suit of Blades, you can look forward to The Debt Queen.

Let me know if you have specifics you want to know more about! I'd love to delve into the dice soon and cover more of what those are and how they work, both in conjunction with tarot and with my larger oracle dice set!

See you soon as more cards come in and as we begin to look at the rest of the Exhibit and the other Suits!

7DA
your pub gob