Do Buddhists Kill Mosquitos?

on Knight of Pentacles

(quick reminder: Tarot Study Hall is tomorrow, Friday the 8th, at 7 PM CDT. Paid subscribers get the link! I hope you’ll join us!)

It finally rained in Texas and we are paying for it in mosquitos.

So when I came across this poem by Kobayashi Issa I felt so seen.

All the time I pray to Buddha

I keep on

killing mosquitoes.

what is this reason for these little fuckers

Well, I had to pull a card of course. I drew Knight of Pentacles reversed. I think about Knight of Pentacles as someone who’s really practicing their values, who is trying to figure out what it looks like to live in the flesh, bone, and dirt world in a way that aligns with their soul. Knight of Pentacles is Virgo, so think Hermit, but also Magician (which corresponds to Mercury, Virgo’s ruling planet). I always like to imagine Magician/Mercury as a bridge builder—-trying to bridge that gap between what is ‘higher’ (our spiritual ideals) and what is ‘lower’ (our actual lives). Knight of Pentacles is building that bridge through devoted action. They build the bridge through habit and routine. Knight of Pentacles knows that it’s what we consistently do that matters, not what we say we believe. We can mouth off about all kinds of high-minded values but: what are we doing? How are we living?

So, we could read the reversal here as hypocrisy I suppose. Praying to Buddha but killing mosquitos—the behavior doesn’t match the purported value system. Ok, yes, and it’s really about the Knight of Pentacle’s own earnest perfectionism, and a warning about what can happen when we expect too much of ourselves. When we can’t live up to our ideals, when we key into these hypocrisies within ourselves—sometimes that dissonance makes us throw up our hands and say ‘fuck it’ and stop trying. This reversed Knight can be a warning sign that our inability to be perfect has convinced us to stop practicing. But: there is no perfect. There is only practice.

Anyway! I love the way a tiny little poem can teach us so much about a card. What a combo, Tarot and poetry. I’d love to hear about what card you pull for this poem, if you do. And here’s a spread!

The spiritual value I want to embody

The daily practice that’s required to do so

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here’s an older post on Knight of Pentacles, as Mary Oliver!

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