HP Tarot - 8S Interference

(2008) 5 1/2" x 10 1/2" Pencil on Paper. Processed and framed in Photoshop.

The 8s are under the auspices of Mercury and share some of its quicksilvery mental acuity. The cards offer sudden insights, but also share a sense of nervousness and of mental hyper-sensitivity.

If the inventors of the tarot had known about attention deficit disorder, this card would be it. We are so hyper, we simply cannot stay on one task, instead we are pulled in multiple directions and in the end very little gets accomplished. In some cases the distractions do not come from within, but we seem to be surrounded by people who feel destined to offer unsolicited advice and opinions slowing us down and meddling in our affairs.

If this card has one message it would be to slow down, to re-evaluate what needs to get done and to refuse to get side-tracked from our plans.

If ever there was a task that played with the concept of interference it was the trap in Philosopher’s Stone that had Harry pick one key out of a mad enchanted swarm of flying keys to open the door in the dungeons. It required ignoring distractions and staying the course to reach the one item that was actually relevant. So here we have a smaller swarm of eight keys fly up one of the staircases in the castle to remind us of the meaning of that task.