Would-Be Fantasy Writer

January 28, 2026 — Pat Bertram

The Wheel of Time book series has apparently inspired as well as created a couple of generations of fantasy writers. Although I have never been able to get into any of those other stories (the books may have been inspired by Robert Jordan, but their worlds and their writing styles fall vastly short of his example), I can understand the urge to create one’s own world. I’ve thought about it myself, perhaps continuing the story I began in Bob: The Right Hand of God. Although Bob: The Right Hand of God is a stand-alone novel, it does seem to lend itself to a sequel since anyone born into that re-made world would have to start developing a new civilization (or not), but I don’t have any interest in writing the sequel. To me, the interesting part of the story was the de-creation of life on Earth as we know it. Anything further seems as if it would be just a ho-hum book. A been there, read that sort of thing.

So, if not Bob: The Right Hand of God, then what? Create a whole new world and culture as so many fantasy writers do? I considered that possibility, thinking a world of my own would be a place to escape to in my own head if not in fact but, though I hate to admit any failing, I don’t have the imagination for such an undertaking. (Although I’ve written two novels that could be considered fantasy, both took place more or less in our own world.) Nor do I need to live any more in my head than I already do. Besides, the truth is, so-called real life is fantasy enough for me.

There are theories that all time exists at once, so we are living our past and our future at the same time we are living in the present. My very first book, the terribly written one that no one will ever see (mostly because a few months ago, in a fit of decluttering, I threw away the only copy of the manuscript), was the story of two people who meet and fall instantly into if not love, then an incredibly deep connection, only to find out that they are reincarnations of each other. My question (and hence the premise of the book) was that if everything exists at once and if there is any validity to reincarnation, could this happen? There is an obscure theory that we are all reincarnations of one another. That not only is there a single electron that moves so fast and through so many dimensions and quantum processes that it creates the entire universe (or even multiple universes), but that there is also a single soul that we are all part of. (Yeah, I read weird stuff, which is inevitable when one reads almost anything almost all the time.)

Other theories say we are creating the world as we live it, that nothing exists yet but possibilities we haven’t yet encountered or envisioned. Other theories suggest that everything exists in our thoughts, that we are thinking into reality the world we live in. The reason we are such a mess is that everyone is thinking of different things and wanting different things. If everyone thought of the same thing at the same time, then that thing would come into fruition. Of course, the chances of that happening are nil since whenever you have even just three people together, one will always be thinking of something else, daydreaming or disagreeing or whatever goes on in people’s heads, and the other two will be saying they are thinking of the same thing, but that thing could be completely different for each of them. (For example, if they are trying to envision an apple, one might see a green apple, another red.)

Am I getting too silly here? Well, not too silly for a fantasy writer, but except for Bob: The Right Hand of God and Light Bringer, I probably will never be a fantasy writer. Probably will never write another book, either, but who knows. I could get bored with the books that currently exist and need to occupy my mind another way.

 

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

 

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The Lord of Chaos

January 24, 2026 — Pat Bertram

In the Wheel of Time book I’m reading now, the story starts off with one of the bad guys being summoned before the head bad guy (not a guy, exactly, but a cosmic dark force that’s the opposite of the Light). The head guy gives his minion many directions, which we are not privy to, except for the last: “Let the Lord of Chaos Rule.” At the end of the book, this same bad guy again goes before dark force and asked if he did good. The Dark One lets out a loud laugh.

All through numerous rereads, I never could understand what the bad guy did because except for the beginning and very end, he’s practically invisible throughout the book.

But then, I never paid attention to the reason things happened in the book but the obvious since they seemed to be isolated actions taken by various characters. This time, I’m looking at the things that happen, thinking perhaps they are the result of the dark side’s behind-the-word machinations. And now it’s obvious.

The “lord of chaos” comes from the real Medieval and Renaissance New Year’s tradition of upsetting the class system, where the peasants become the rulers and rulers pretend to be peasants. The person chosen to be the “lord” of this celebration was called the Lord of Misrule or the Lord of Chaos, and was often the least competent person around, adding to the hilarity. (Perhaps that’s why the Dark One laughed at the end of the book? Finding the chaos his edict created hilarious?)

During the book, a shepherd (the hero who is meant to fight the dark force during the last battle) leads nations. (He doesn’t become king for another 500,000 words or so.) A blacksmith and a gambler command vast armies, a juggler becomes a wise mentor, queens become maids, an untried girl is chosen to lead the women wielders of power. (She was chosen as a puppet, and the only reason this particular chaotic bit doesn’t have the desired effect is that the dark minions completely underestimated her lust for power. Once she gets it, she grabs hold, and never lets go until it finally kills her.)

Often the bad guys play both sides. For example, it’s minions of the dark that have the hero kidnapped and tortured, but also, minions of the dark that save him. Chaos, indeed! (Create chaos, but in the end be sure to let the Lord of Chaos live so he can rule!) We don’t find out until later that some of the people that are supposed to be on the side of the light are actually on the other side, which adds to the chaos. These people might have their own orders, or they might be victims of compulsion, or they could simply be incompetent, all of which adds to the chaos.

Besides, no one knows the truth, though all characters, all factions, believe they do know what is true. The hero is the devil. The hero will destroy them. The hero needs to be killed. The hero needs to be controlled. The hero needs to be protected until he is delivered up to the Dark One at the Last Battle. The hero needs to be put in prison. Very few people ever stop to realize that the hero is doing what he must, that if he’s imprisoned, he will never grow into what he needs to become in order to win (which could be what the dark side wants, but the light also wants the imprisonment because they don’t believe he will voluntarily do his duty), and despite the very large disparities of belief, they all act with utter conviction.

Do you see where I am going with this post? (Minus the hero bit, that is.) Although the book was written thirty years ago, it seems (spookily) as if I am reading an allegory of our times. In a world of short-form content and edited video clips, it seem as if very few people take the time to delve deeper into the background (or foreground) of events to try to find out the truth. Everyone sees what they believe is true and they act on it because for them, it is the truth. It’s as if we’re living in two distinct worlds where there is no overlapping, so while both sides can be saying the same thing (“the opposition is ignorant,” for example) and both can be acting according to their honest beliefs, they both mean completely different things and have completely different results.

Let the lord of chaos rule, indeed.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

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Occupying My Mind

March 23, 2025 — Pat Bertram

This March seems interminably long, though I don’t really know why. I’ve had spurts of activity, such as the celebrations for my house anniversary (six years!) as well as an occasional visit with friends. I haven’t spent much time outside, and there really hasn’t been any reason to. After the first shy crocuses showed their faces, there hasn’t been much change in my yard. Some of my grass is greening up, some looks dead, though I hope it’s just slow coming out of dormancy. In any case, I threw out some grass seed, but it looks as if the birds are eating it despite the feast the neighbors provide for them. And then there’s the wind. The least said about that the better! Coincidentally, today’s blog prompt from WordPress is “What is your favorite kind of weather?” One thing I can tell you, it’s not wind!

You’d think as slowly as this month is passing, I’d be more aware of the days as they come, but the first day of spring passed me by. It’s possible the upcoming fifteenth anniversary of Jeff’s death might pass me by, too, though I doubt it. Even if it does, the actually date no longer makes a difference. He’s still a factor in my life, as is his absence, but not as much as either used to be. Surprisingly, I still sometimes feel a tightening behind my eyes, but it never gets to the point of tears or even sadness. Just an acknowledgment that once he was a big part of my life and now he’s not. I still talk to him occasionally, mostly about things I can’t really talk to anyone else about. Silly things, like my thoughts about The Wheel of Time books.

Yep, still rereading those dang books. I’m on my second reread this year. It’s gone beyond reading to studying, since for every page I read, I spend twice as much time online finding out about the books, such as the real-life influences of the story. Lots of myths, legends, religions, philosophies come into play. Lots of very obvious King Arthur references. It amazes me how long it takes some people to make those correlations, if they ever do. In fact, the author’s wife/editor supposedly didn’t even realize the connection between the book’s mystical sword in the Stone (the Stone in the story is a fort) with Excalibur until she was writing the blurb for one of the books.

I’m also trying to figure out the real ending. Robert Jordan died before he could finish, and the guy they got to write the last books wrote something — I don’t really know what it is that he wrote. Despite the use of the characters and setting of Jordan’s world, those last books bear little relationship to Jordan’s cosmology. The savior character was supposed to be more of an Arthurian savior rather than a Christian one, but we got a Christian one that completely subverted the premise laid out in the first eleven books. What shocked me is that on none of those last three execrable books is there a rating below three stars on Amazon. There are some one- and two-star ratings on Goodreads, but those ratings are for the entire series. (Which makes me wonder, if those raters hated the books that much, why did they bother to read them? Four million words is a huge commitment, and not something you undertake if you hate the books.)

Another thing I don’t understand — Jordan had a team working on the books: his wife/editor, a continuity editor/research assistant, and a keeper of the timeline. Why didn’t all these people prepare a synopsis for the replacement author reminding him of each character’s arc and a brief compendium of what forces are ready to face the last battle, and where they all were on the timeline? One of the very many problems with those last books is they completely ignore any character growth and start over from scratch. Another problem is they ignore the fact that Jordan had already maneuvered the major forces into place for the last battle. I suppose I wouldn’t be as challenged to find the real ending if at least those books had some sort of internal consistency, but they don’t. Thousands of words are spent on one character deciding — yet again — to be a leader. Along the way, he forged a hammer (borrowing one of the pseudo-author’s gimmicks from his own books.) But then the character never leads in the last battle. He took his followers to the battlefield and then went off and did his own thing. Nor did he use that ridiculous hammer in the last battle. Huh? And readers never even noticed? That in itself should get a rating demotion. Quite frankly, I have never been able to read anything by that author, and he lives down to my expectations.

Somewhere in all those words Jordan wrote, there must be clues to the real ending. I suppose finding that ending is as good a use of my time — and brain power — as any. I’m thinking of using one of my defunct blogs for setting out the clues as I find them rather than bore you with the saga, but who knows. I could always tag the posts with The Wheel of Time moniker so you can ignore them if you wish. And anyway, the winds might die down, spring might come, my grass might grow, my flowers might bloom, and so other things will occupy my mind.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One.

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Maybe Rereading “Dune”

July 4, 2020 — Pat Bertram

I’m rereading Dune. At least, I think I’m rereading it. I’m beginning to wonder if I ever read it at all until now.

I remember thinking I liking the book when I was young, and several times over the intervening years I’d end up with a copy and try to reread it, but I could never get into the story again. Admittedly, when I was young, I had a lot more patience for books that were mostly descriptions of day-to-day living, whether on this planet or another (the first 150 pages of Dune seem more like setting the scene than the beginning of a book) and I lost that patience in later years. It’s also harder to keep whole books in my head now, so that adds to my impatience with dragginess.

It’s possible the book gets better (I’m not even halfway through), and it’s possible it has a great ending that would make me feel good about the book. And it’s possible that something in the latter half will strike a chord of memory, but so far, there isn’t so much as a ding. Even if I can’t remember books I read decades ago, if they impressed me in some way, I have some sort of lingering impression of them. Most books, of course, leave no impression — there is simply no “there” there. I’m not sure where Dune would fit in the book spectrum because it is different enough that I should remember something or hear a faint echo of recognition in the back of my mind. But nope. Nothing. I can’t even figure out why I would have read it. I have never liked authors who have to create incomprehensible names for people, things, and places. The strange spellings seem to take up space in my brain that would normally be used for following the story.

Even more confusing, I see the cover in my mind’s eye — a reddish cover with a fellow trudging across a wide expanse of dunes. I spent some time looking at Dune covers today, and there is not a single one of them that looks familiar. (Except for the one I bought at a library book sale a while back and redonated unread.)

It makes me wonder what book I did read. It’s possible I read some other book and misremembered it as Dune. It’s possible I misremembered the cover. (If there even was a cover image. It could have been a rebound book from the library.) And I could have found the book completely unmemorable.

Too bad there’s no way to rewind a memory to see the truth of it.

What I am seeing is a lot of similarity to The Wheel of Time series, at least in small things — the witches, the truthsayers, the uncanny powers, the manipulation of people and events. Of course, these are all fairly common archetypes and scenarios for the hero/savior story, but people often compare The Wheel of Time world to The Lord of the Rings, and I don’t see it at all. (But then, that’s another iconic series I haven’t been able to slog through, so I could have missed any similarity.)

One thing that amused me — in a book that uses so many strange-sounding names and words, at one point, Frank Herbert describes someone as having olive skin. Couldn’t he have come up with a more interesting word? I have always hated “olive” applied to skin because it takes me out of the story and makes me wonder what color the character is. I still remember the first time I came across that descriptive word. I couldn’t figure out if the character had green skin or black. It took years before I realized the word referred to the color of the inside of a black olive.

So, I can remember being puzzled by olive skin, but I can’t remember anything about a book I thought I read and thought I liked.

The life of a reader does get bizarre at times.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

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Feeling Clunky

June 28, 2020 — Pat Bertram

I finished rererereading The Wheel of Time and resisted the urge to start over again, mostly because I have library books due and need to read them. I considered returning them unread, but the librarian was kind enough to deliver them and I didn’t think it proper to be so dismissive of her kind gesture.

The Wheel of Time has some hugely glaring faults, not the least being that Robert Jordan fell in love with his world and apparently didn’t want to waste even a single idea that crossed his mind, even if it didn’t fit with the story. He also had the annoying habit of creating characters for no apparent reason, pounding away at unimportant plot points and then simply dropping them, while at the same time, barely touching on some important issues. He seemed to like playing games with his readers and he especially seemed to like being mysterious for the sake of being mysterious, neither of which did anything to move the story along. He also seemed to change his mind about things he set up in early books, so that there are some awkward gear changes in later books.

But, that being said, the work really is brilliant. He is one of the few major writers I have heard about in the past few decades who actually spent years researching and building his world before he ever began writing. It’s fun trying to pick out all the symbolism and cultures, philosophies and costumes, influences and archetypes. But more than that, it’s a world of old-fashioned values such as honor and obligation, as well as being a world of less pleasant strictures such as compulsory obedience. But without the bad to push against, the good wouldn’t be as apparent. At times, the writing is almost lyrical, which helps lend an otherworldly air to the work.

I wondered how spending two months reading and rereading such a massive work would affect my interest in books taking place in today’s world, and as I feared, today’s world feels . . . clunky. It’s not just books that feel clunky, to be honest. Other things do too, such as modern methods of doctoring. In Jordan’s world, the “witches” can delve into people and heal them almost immediately instead of having them go through horrendous “therapies,” such as the cancer protocols of today. In some cases and places in The Wheel of Time, thought becomes real, so that one isn’t always battering against the solidity of this world. (Our world truly shouldn’t feel so solid, considering that things are made of atoms and atoms are comprised of a few particles, a bit of energy, and a lot of empty space.)

Still, it’s probably good for me to do something other than spend so much time in a fake world, especially one not of my own making. (Though oddly, my as yet unpublished book is a world of my own creation, which takes our world then breaks it and remakes it in a different way. I can honestly say that Jordan did not influence me in any way since my book was written — and the sequel planned — long before I discovered his works.)

Meantime, I’m still chiseling away at the tarot, picking a card every day and seeing what it means as well as how other tarot artists depict the symbol. (Today’s card is the hierophant, if you’re interested. The word hierophant means “revealer of sacred things,” and the card indicates someone who helps unravel mysteries. It’s also about intuition, i.e.: inner tuition — inner instruction or guidance.)

I almost started a tarot journal today, but who starts a new project on the 28th of the month? It is the beginning of the week, so there is that, but the first of the month is just a few days away, which seems even a better time to start. It also gives me plenty of time to change my mind. If I don’t change my mind, there is the decision of how to do it, whether in a long hand journal, or on line. Long hand is easier in some ways since there is the possibility of hand/brain connections, but online would be easier if I wanted to include images. I considered continuing my tarot studies as part of this blog, adding a bit of my tarot learnings to the bottom of the daily article as I did today, but I have a hunch I am alienating readers who see the tarot as something less than admirable. On the other hand, posting to two blogs every day is a bit much.

On a lighter note, I’ve had a surprise. I thought all the wildflower seeds I planted were defunct, but I think it’s more that our severe drought kept them from germinating, because I found a small patch of bachelor buttons below a gutter drainpipe. I didn’t plant it there, but there it is.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator

 

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Puzzling out the Tarot

June 26, 2020 — Pat Bertram

Although I see myself as a bit of a mystic, I’ve never been into tarot, or any sort of divination for that matter. I always figured if we can change the future, then it doesn’t matter what the predicted future is, and if we can’t change it, then the prediction especially doesn’t matter.

If ever a thought of the tarot crossed my mind, it would have been in the same mental classification as astrology, Ouija boards, and fortune cookies. I used a Ouija board once when I was kid, know my astrology sign and will read my horoscope when it’s in front of me (though the horoscope never seemed to have any relation to anything going on in my life), and enjoy fortune cookies, but that was the extent of my interest. Oh, I did read up on the occult since I have always been one to try to get a peek into the secrets of the universe, but charlatans so often dominated the field, that I stuck with more scientific gateways, like particle physics and quantum mechanics. (Yep, I was one of those who read such books for fun.)

I’m still not sure there is anything for me in the tarot, but considering that it is supposed to be a way to get insights into one’s inner being, it’s worth studying for now. And besides, it seems a message from my brother. Admittedly, this collection of tarot cards hadn’t been specifically earmarked for me, but that mass of decks sure struck a chord with me, so it felt as if he meant me to have them.

So here I am, trying to make sense of a massive amount of contradictory information. For example, the card I picked this morning to answer my question of what I needed to know today, was the nine of swords. Swords are supposed to be a bad luck sort of card, without a lot of happiness attached, and the nine of swords especially so. One interpretation talks about fears, vulnerability and inner turmoil and suggests that I learn what the source of those fears are. Another interpretation talks of depression and suffering, scandal and loss.

But swords relate to consciousness at a mental level, and reflect an individual’s thoughts, beliefs, and overall attitude. They also point to fears and worries, but don’t necessarily put a whole lot of weight on those fears, because the sword is two-edged, which connotes a balancing act to stay positive.

And nines are about nearing completion, maybe about reaching a plateau, because what looked like the end hasn’t quite arrived.

All that seems positive to me, so instead of the nine of swords telling me I’m depressed and fearful and need to figure out what my trouble is so I can get into a more benign state, my own take on the matter is I’m already there. Or almost. That I’m doing well balancing my fears and staying positive, even though I can do better.

See what I mean about contradictory information?

And this isn’t even taking into consideration the whole ancient elements matter — water, fire, air, earth. According to the most common tarot tradition, swords mean air, but some decks and some scholars indicate that swords are fire. (As you can see, in my own interpretation, I left off any mention of air or fire because the element question muddles an already muddled situation.)

On a different note completely, as I was reading about the elements, I happened to open the book to another page that was defining the “fool” card, and I had to laugh. Apparently, in Italy and Austria, The Fool goes by the name “Mat,” which is an Arabic word meaning “a dead person.” In The Wheel of Time, one of the major characters is a fellow everyone thinks is a fool. I thought he was simply an archetype, but he is definitely one of the major arcana characters from the tarot. Not only is his name “Mat,” but as he says, “I’m usually pretty good at staying alive. I only failed one time that I remember.”

Now I’m going to have to re-reread The Wheel of Time again to look for additional tarot references. As well as to continue puzzling out the tarot itself.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

 

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Triumph Over Obstacles

June 25, 2020 — Pat Bertram

The garage door is finally installed! The electronic opener isn’t installed, just the door itself, but that alone is a major accomplishment. Up until now, the door was mostly just propped into the opening to prevent trespassers, but now it’s on its track.

I found it interesting that today’s tarot card pick was the chariot. As usual, my question was what I needed to know today, and as usual, it didn’t tell me anything I didn’t know, but it did seem apropos, not just because of the car/chariot synchronicity, but also because of the card’s meaning of triumph over obstacles.

The triumph didn’t belong to me since I had nothing to do with the installation except for a few sympathetic or encouraging remarks, but it was definitely a triumph over obstacles for the worker who had to try to make sense of nonsensical directions. (The instructions read as if they had been translated from one archaic language to another and then finally into English.) Even once the directions were puzzled out, the diagrams and photos illustrating the directions caused problems. They turned out to be backward images of what they were supposed to be. Luckily, the worker finally figured it out. I can’t imagine the horrors the workers will encounter when installing the opener, but that’s a situation for another day.

I kept wandering into the garage to see what was going on. I worried that the poor guy would think I was checking up on him, which I wasn’t — I trust him. It was more that I enjoyed seeing the door take shape.

And because — I admit it — I was bored. Since I’ve been staying away from Facebook, I have way more time and mental freedom than I’m used to. There are no conflicting political statements to befuddle me, no mined conversations with explosives ready to be tripped, no veiled (and unveiled) insults to be fielded. I don’t appreciate Facebook’s ignoring me and my request to have the block on my blog removed, but I especially don’t appreciate their doing it at this particular time because it makes it seem as if my boycott is a political statement rather than a personal one. Apparently, some major companies are boycotting Facebook because FB is not reining in those who disagree with the current political philosophy, while other people are boycotting FB because FB is deleting the content of those who disagree with that same philosophy, a good example of damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. Or maybe the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing. Either way, it’s confusing. Either way, they are herding people to a particular way of thinking. And either way, I’m out of it for now, which is one way to triumph over the obstacles FB has placed in my path.

The point is that when I got tired of The Wheel of Time world, instead of wandering onto Facebook to see what’s going on, I wandered out to the garage to see what’s going on. Luckily, the worker didn’t seem concerned, and in fact seemed pleased to have someone to commiserate with and, at the end, to share his success.

Anyway, it’s my garage, or rather, it will be. Eventually. For now, it is still the garage builder’s workspace.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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Updates

June 23, 2020 — Pat Bertram

Printer problem fixed! I finally found a place to download the patch to the computer update that screwed up my system and made the computer unable to connect to the printer. Why the fix wasn’t automatically uploaded like the original update, I don’t know. I have a hunch it would have uploaded in the July updates, but now I don’t have to worry about the printer not working. At least not until the next update.

I’d received five lilac twigs from the Arbor Foundation a few weeks ago, and they were all alive and all doing well, and for no reason that I can see, one died overnight. (In case you haven’t noticed, plants are as much of a mystery to me as everything else.) On the other hand, some old morning glory seeds I strewed out there have started coming up, so at least that’s something.

There’s been no further activity on my garage. That’s disappointing, of course, but at least it’s enclosed so the wood and tools and such that are inside won’t go missing. Admittedly, most stuff is too heavy to be casually carted off by the larcenous folk in the neighborhood, but I wouldn’t have put it past someone to pull up in a truck and load it all up. They’ve done that before. It was just a board they came and got, but other people have lost workshops full of tools.

My knee is doing better. I wear a brace part of the time (until it starts digging painfully into my leg), and that seems to help. So does massage, isometric exercises and the herbal poultices I have been using. (Frankincense and myrrh are a couple of the ingredients, which tickles me.) I even walked a bit outside until the pit bulls running loose had me scurrying back inside my fence. (Too many people around here don’t want to walk their dogs, so they let them run loose for a while, which is a real problem, but since they are back in the yard by the time the code enforcer goes on duty, nothing is ever done about it.)

I’m still working my way (again) to the last battle in The Wheel of Time series. It’s odd how the poor fellow who was born to fight the dark powers and save the earth is so underappreciated by everyone. They all think they need to control him (they think they know everything, and they think that if they don’t force him to go, he won’t do what he’s supposed to). What I’ve been thinking about this time through is freedom. The world of the story is a sort of chivalrous feudal matriarchy, with women asserting their rights and men trying to protect women at all costs. What it comes down to is all the disparate factions, as well as powerful individuals, are trying to control everyone else. It seemed weird to me, all this insistence on obedience, until it dawned on me that modern society is rather unique where individuals can try to form their own destinies if they will, rather than conforming so much to the will of the powerful.

I think these are all the recent updates to my life. Well, the tarot. Today’s card was the two of pentacles, which told me to be flexible and adaptable. Good advice, especially in light of all these updates.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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The Tarot and The Wheel of Time

June 15, 2020 — Pat Bertram

A hot lazy day, today. With nothing better to do, I unpacked my tarot cards and sorted out my tarot books. Some of the books match a specific deck, and I like to keep the matched sets together. Other books seem more generic, or it could be I simply don’t have the decks the books mention. I also set aside the duplicates, the unopened packs, and those that might be collector’s items, such as the Dali tarot. I’ve never opened either the Salvador Dali tarot (supposedly a deck he was creating for the James Bond movie Live or Let Die), or the Tarocco di Sissi (from artist Amerigo Folchi and based on the life of Austrian Empress Elisabeth) thinking these might have more value still in their factory seal, but things only have monetary worth according to what people will pay, and I don’t know how to find people who want such things. I could keep them as part of my collection, of course, but when one has more than three dozen decks (and doesn’t use any of them), another one or two, especially one by an artist you don’t admire or one about a person you don’t know, doesn’t seem that important.

Just for an experiment, I attempted a one-card tarot reading for a friend who is trying to figure out whether to move or not, and I drew the King of Wands. To be honest, I have no idea how this card answers the question (apparently, it’s best to do a spread and see how the cards relate to one another, but maybe he can figure out if the card means anything to him), but I was struck by a coincidence having to do with The Wheel of Time. Coincidence? Considering the ten years that Robert Jordon put into researching, constructing his world, and developing the story before he started writing, I would have to say that it’s a good bet there’s no coincidence here.

In the book The New Golden Dawn Ritual Tarot, the King of Wands is described as “a red-haired man with blue eyes riding upon a fiery black stallion. The horse and rider both seem wild and warlike, but this is due to raw, unleashed power. The overall feeling that the card gives is one of great uncontrollable energy which erupts with volcanic force.” Another passage says “He is extremely dynamic. He is the Fire of Fire, the volatile igniting spark of the Father Force.”

In the Sadowscapes Companion, the King of Wands strides forward and “The trees part before him, lifting their branches to make way for his passage. The environment shifts to his will and obeys his unspoken desires and commands.” Also, he is charismatic, and is “a source of inspiration and bears his mantle of authority with ease as if he were born to it.”

If you know anything about The Wheel of Time, you will recognize The Dragon Reborn. Although sometimes his eyes are described as gray rather than blue, this is the savior character in the series, a clueless country boy who attempts to control the raw power of the universe at his command. Eventually he controls the power and develops into a fire-wielding king who rides a black horse. He becomes a charismatic leader who changes the very lives of those he meets, who molds the world around him however he wills. Also, the salamanders in the red tarot card are more like the dragons in the book than what we consider to be dragons.

At one time I thought it would be interesting to use the tarot to create a story, basing the story on cards chosen at random, as well as by a spread, but apparently, Robert Jordan has already done it.

Many of characters in The Wheel of Time are typical archetypes, such as the trickster, nurse, queen, shapeshifter, but now I suspect there’s a completely different element to the book, a tarot element, for me to deconstruct.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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What Happened to May?

June 14, 2020 — Pat Bertram

April seemed to linger forever. The days themselves passed at a normal rate, but when I woke each the morning, I thought for sure several days had passed rather than just one. It could be due to waking several times extra each night because of pain in my knee, or it could be the dozes I fell into while reading. (As interesting as it is to study a work, such as I am doing with The Wheel of Time series, the passages I remember clearly, especially the dreary ones, tend to get boring so I skip them or fall asleep, which negates the purpose of deconstructing the story.)

For whatever reason, April did pass, and now suddenly it’s the middle of June. Huh? What happened to May? I don’t remember May at all. It must have gotten subsumed into The Wheel of Time, either the story or the Tibetan wheel that gave the series its name.

More probably, though, I was concentrating on moving things along that didn’t want to move — a knee that didn’t want to heal quickly, plants that didn’t want to grow (there aren’t many living things that can deal with a drought, freezing temperatures one day and ninety degrees the next, and an ignorant caregiver through it all), as well as a garage that is being built at an equally slow pace. Which made for a strangely unmoving experience where every day was the same as every other day.

But now it’s June and somehow things did change during May. The knee is better, the transplanted bushes are alive even if they’re not exactly thriving, the flowers that wanted to bloom did and the rest are resting in peace. And the garage is much further along than it had been. (We’re past the stage of needing an inspector, so my worries of needing to get a second building permit never came to fruition.)

I need a new plan for planting, though. The bulbs did not do well at all, so sadly, I glance at the catalogs full of spring blooms that decorate my otherwise empty mailbox, and toss them aside. It’s possible the bulbs would grow despite the clay soil if I dug deep holes, filled them with potting soil, and then . . . what? Water them? It’s hard to know what to do in a drought, so it’s best if I wait for the wheel to turn to a more propitious time (or for me to learn way more than I know now about taking care of the poor things).

So now here’s June, but it might as well still be May for all the changes that are occurring. The knee still is not well enough to take walks (though well enough to do whatever I need to do around the house without exorbitant pain.) The bushes aren’t growing in this horrible heat and wind. The garage still needs to be finished. And I’m still reading (or rather rereading) the same fantasy series.

I do know it’s June, though it feels more like July, so that’s something. At the very least, another month won’t slip into the same black hole that May did.

Not that it really matters what month it is. April, May, June — they are all just names for that which flows beneath the wheel of time.

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Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

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