MIDNIGHT NATION AND REFLECTIONS.

Recently, a friend of mine lent me read the book Midnight nation.

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The Synophsis is as follows.

Los Angeles police officer Lieutenant David Grey encounters a brutal murder. When he tracks down a possible lead he encounters strange, goblin-like men who attack him. When he awakes, Grey finds himself in a hospital, and those around him have become translucent and can no longer see him.
It is explained to him by his mysterious guide Laurel that he has lost his soul and he has now been plunged into a shadow world that runs parallel to our own. Here is where all the abandoned and forgotten people and things go.
David is told that without his soul he will slowly become like "the Walkers", the monstrous people he encountered who attacked him. David must travel on foot to New York where "The Other Guy" holds his soul. Laurel has led many others in David's position before but none have ever made it.
Along the way David encounters various tests, such as fighting these Walkers, meeting his future self, slowly losing his mind and his sense of self, and finally falling in love with Laurel, who is not in fact human. He also saves his ex-wife (who had walked out on him years earlier due to his unwavering dedication to his job as a police officer) from the Walkers. This had already caused him to lose hope even before his soul was stolen, and it wasn't until he met Laurel that he felt a reason to live once again. He also encounters an enigmatic old man who seems immune to the Walkers attacks and has no fear of them, and is able to drive them away in terror. It is later revealed that he is Lazarus, and has been waiting since Jesus told him to do so for him to return. He is currently watched over by an angel wielding a flaming sword.
When David finally reaches New York, the Other Guy begins to lecture him on things such as life, hope, God, and humanity. He tells him that hope is a lie and that he intends to increase misery around the world until all of humanity becomes like the abandoned and forgotten people he met on his trip through the parallel world. When that it is done, he can recreate the world as he sees fit. He then forces David to feel all the suffering humanity has felt over its existence, which causes him to go crazy and run through the streets as one of his Walkers.
Meanwhile, Laurel has surrendered herself to the Other Guy like she always does: it is in the rules, written by God Himself, that she must follow. He asks her to rebel against God as he did, but she refuses, never giving up hope. As David runs through the streets of New York, he sees a mannequin that resembles Laurel in a shop window. He remembers his humanity and his love for Laurel and returns to Satan's lair where he finds Laurel being nailed to a circular wooden board.
The Other Guy tells him that Laurel was lying to him about his soul. Only if he takes it will he become one of the Walkers; if he doesn't, he'll cease to belong to either world. Satan also informs him that if he gives his soul to Laurel, she will cease to be an agent of God (for that is what she truly is) and be freed from her endless cycle of guiding humans to regain their souls, being reborn as a human. If he gives his soul to her, he'll prove hope exists to all those who have fallen into the nether-realm. Out of his love for Laurel and his own tireless dedication to the forces of good, David does the unthinkable and sacrifices his soul to Laurel.
Years later, David has moved on with his life, becoming a source of hope for those who have fallen through the cracks in society.

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In reading this book, it gave me a lot of insight to my current life and the 1 and a half years in which has passed since i last fell out with my ex girl friend.

For the period in which i had loved her, i was in full concentration in earning enough money for a house and a home and to marry her and set up a good family. I neglected everything else in life. My Hope and aim was only her.

However, she failed me and i lost much hope.

At the period, i was feeling like david, being in the crack and having little or no hope to life......... However, perhaps tarot and friends and guides around me slowly gave purpose to what once was different and the path for me changed.

Through meeting various people in the course of tarot and in my practice. I believed i have helped many others and gave hope to them. Perhaps that is how destiny is.... if not i would not have met the girl whom i am with now.?

Destiny has a funny thing played upon us all. Even for one whom knows the tarot much, love could influence one to make a decision in which is against that of what the cards shows......

From the omens of present, the tarot show what the future may hold..... but it is never ever cast in stone.

Seeking and mending hearts and Souls. by J. Michael Straczynski

Yesterday i received a SMS informing me of the death of a friend of mine. She died of cancer.

She was filled with life when i last met her 4 years back when we went for a holiday in Bintang.

She had hopes and dreams and ideals.

Yet humbled by a terrible disease.

Life is filled with unexpectedness.

One moment, you may feel you are the top of the world... the next who knows.

Even cards do not tell me....

On the same day, I have gotten this bookKinokuniya bookshop.

Well in the book the main character ended his life due to dejection and rejection of love.....

Many a time, the thought had came to my mind when my purpose in life left me....

Yet i know i know hope will cease with end of life and there is more to life than love.

So i live to make differences.

Like the main character of the book.

The main story begins with the Jonathan being given a book and he committing suicide.....

In the book there is

"You name:"
'"The words that brought you here:"
"The words that will release you:"

Jonathan writes his name and "All love is unrequited. Haven't you heard?".
Mystery said to leave the last line blank for now. Jonathan and Mystery start looking for "The lost".

Well "All love is unrequited. Haven't you heard?". seems true to me......

Love is unrequitted in my instance no matter how hard i tried.......

My cards never failed me....

it was my heart which misguided my acts.

Wizard of Earthsea (A book whereby shaped my ethics)

From your childhood to your adulthood, there are stories, movies and events which shaped your lives.

There are idols, both fictional and in real life, whom inspire and motivate one to greater heights.

Great books or stories learnt when one is young would stay with one for a lifetime.

To me, a wizard of earthsea is a story which stayed in my heart for a long time.

My first read of this book was when i was about 10.

The greatest line which i liked is as follows. Ogion to Ged "To listen, one must be silent."

The wizards in the story do very very simple stuff and not very awesome stuff.

The most awesome thing which was seen in the book was in my opinion, Ged's duel with the dragon of Pendor's spawn.

In addition, it was mentioned in the book that Ogion stopped an earthquake. (useful if he was in china)

Le guin's style of writing and incorporation of zen and taoist principles to the story is very evident.

From the significance of the Shadow, which could be pride, fear of the unknown.

She uses simple words and not complex prose to make a fantastic story.

Plot summary from Wiki.

Duny is a young boy from Gont, one of the larger islands which dot Earthsea. His mother is dead, his siblings have all left home and his father is a dour, taciturn bronze-smith with no interest in Duny. At twelve, he is essentially alone, headstrong and wild. The boy discovers he has a strong talent for magic. His aunt, the village witch, teaches him what few spells she herself knows, but his power far exceeds hers.
One day, he uses his natural talent and a fog-gathering spell he learned from a passing weatherworker to save his village from a raiding party of Karg pirates. The tale of his remarkable feat spreads far and wide, finally reaching the ear of a wise Gontish mage, Ogion the Silent. He recognizes that the boy is so powerful he must be trained so as not to become a danger to himself and others. In the rite of passage which leads to adulthood, he gives the boy his "true name", Ged, and takes him as an apprentice. (In this world, a magician who knows someone else's true name can control that person, so one's true name is revealed only to those whom one trusts implicitly. Normally, a person is referred to by his or her "use name". Ged's use name is Sparrowhawk.)

The undisciplined young man grows restless under the gentle, patient tutelage of his master. Ogion finally gives him a choice: stay with him or go to the renowned school for wizards, on the island of Roke. Though he has grown to love the old man, the youngster is drawn irresistibly to a life of doing, rather than being.
At the school, Sparrowhawk masters his craft with amazing ease, but his pride and arrogance grow even faster than his skill and, in his hubris, he attempts to conjure a dead spirit - a dangerous spell which goes awry. He inadvertently summons a spirit of darkness which attacks and scars him. The being is driven off by the Archmage, who exhausts himself in the process and dies shortly thereafter.
Sparrowhawk is wracked with guilt at causing the old man's death, but after a painful and slow recovery, he graduates. Normally, Roke's wizards are sought after by princes and rich merchants, but the new Archmage sends Sparrowhawk, with his willing acquiescence, to a poor island group, to protect the inhabitants from a powerful dragon. Sparrowhawk struggles both to defend himself against the spirit he released on Roke and to protect the islanders against the dragon, but realizes he cannot do both.
He takes a desperate risk; in the old histories, he has found the true name of a dragon which might be the one he must confront. His gamble succeeds and he forces the dragon to bind itself with oaths to never trouble the islanders. Freed from one responsibility, Sparrowhawk resolves to track down his other foe and destroy or banish it.
Sparrowhawk is pursued by his nemesis, being forced to flee each time it finds him. Eventually, he instinctively returns to Ogion, who advises him to overcome his fear and turn and hunt his shadow. He tracks his own flight across the world, until he finds his shadow and he faces it a second time. This time he tries to physically grapple with it and through this act overcomes his fear. From this point on he himself becomes the hunter. He no longer rushes because through their shared bond he knows that the shadow cannot escape him and he eventually meets his old friend Vetch again. After some time with Vetch, Sparrowhawk senses that the shadow has found a way to escape him and he and Vetch set off into the open sea, eventually coming upon a place that Sparrowhawk perceives as land but Vetch cannot, though he does notice that rowing the boat does eventually feel like it has run aground. Sparrowhawk at this points gets out of the boat and sets off across the shadow lands/water toward his shadow which waits for him. Though some of his teachers had thought it to be nameless, Sparrowhawk masters his enemy by speaking its true name. The shadow had in fact been a shadow of himself, his hubris and arrogance. It was connected to him in that it was a part of him, a part he had always wanted to deny and by fleeing it had thus gained power over him. By recognizing this he realized that its true name was in fact his own and speaks it aloud in the dark lands at the end of the world. In doing so, he reconciles himself with his shadow.

PROMETHEA BY ALAN MOORE AND TAROT

Tarot in comics. There are several comics which feature tarot cards out there in the market. However, my all time favorite is Alan moore's Promethea.

Promethea
Promethea is a young girl whose father is killed by a Christian mob in Alexandria in AD 411. She is taken in hand by the twin gods Thoth and Hermes who tell her that if she goes with them into the Immateria, a plane of existence home to the imagination, she will no longer be just a little girl but a story living eternally. "Promethea" then is manifested in a series of avatars over the 19th and 20th centuries, culminating in the involvement of the lead character, Sophie Bangs.
People become incarnations of Promethea when they or someone close to them channels their identity into an artistic representation of Promethea. During the Crusades,Promethea had two avatars who fought each other. After this, the original Promethea spirit "forgot" and ruled that at any one time, only one human can carry the consciousness of Promethea. All of Promethea's avatars live on forever in the Immateria, retaining their memories and contributing to the consciousness of the active Promethea. (taken from wikipedia)

What i like about the series is that Alan moore shows a lot of work in the symbolic meanings of the cards in the tarot. He also touches a lot on the tree of life as well as how to incorporate the tree of life into the tarot reading.

In compliation, in the book 2 compliation of the series he writes on the 22 cards of the major arcana. He is very very much influenced by Crowley's deck and his attribution is based on the crowley's attribution. where lust is in the 11th position and art is in the position of 8.

Very very good read for those into Tarot and kaballah.

Anime which has and uses Tarot : visions of Escaflowne

Having said much about tarot and about astrology, i would like to introduce an anime which i have liked alot. It is the vision of escaflowne.

The series focuses on the heroine, Hitomi Kanzaki, and her adventures after she is transported to the world of Gaea, a mysterious planet where she can see Earth and its moon in the sky. On Gaea, Earth is known as the Mystic Moon or "Phantom Moon" (幻の月, Maboroshii no tsuki?). Hitomi's latent psychic powers are enhanced on Gaea and she quickly becomes embroiled in the conflicts between the Zaibach Empire and the several peaceful countries that surround it. The conflicts are brought about by the Zaibach Empire's quest to revive the legendary power from the ancient city of Atlantis. As the series progresses, many of the characters' pasts and motivations, as well as the history of Atlantis and the true nature of the planet Gaea, are revealed.

In the series, the main charactrer Hitomi displayed her tarot reading skills and at the start of each episode there is a tarot card being flashed. this tarot card would set the feel of the show.

For instance in episod 11,

11 Prophecy of Death Tarot: Il Diavolo or the devil.

Suspicion of treachery falls on Hitomi and the rest of the party, and chameleon-like Zaibach operator Zongi (disguised as a Freid Praktu high priest) is sent to pry open her mind. During the ordeal, Hitomi reveals her origins from the Mystic Moon, but visions of Zongi's own past intervenes -- as well as a prophesy of death that sends Hitomi into a deathlike trance ....

The devil in this episode is the zongi chameleon like shapeshifter.....

For more information please go to.

http://escaflowne.anime.net/

Hope you enjoy this nice anime as i do....