Obama Tarot

Dracomicron

I was on another board and I realized that Obama's story matches the Campbellian's/Jungian hero's journey, and I was thinking that it also matched the Major Arcana cycle of Tarot (thank you, Persona 3...). I threw this together over the last couple of hours, but am perfectly willing to entertain different interpretations/pictures/etc. Part of the problem is that the story's not done yet. We have months to go before some of this may or may not come to pass.

0. The Fool: Barack Obama

"The Fool is often shown walking off a cliff. This raises the question 'Is The Fool making a mistake, or is The Fool making a leap of faith?'"

I. The Magician: John Edwards

"The message is to tap into one's full potential rather than holding back, especially when there's a need to transform something. There are choices and directions to take. Guidance can arrive through one's own intuition or in the form of someone who brings about change or transformation. Divine motive in man."

II. The High Priestess: Hillary Clinton

"She knows what we go through because she has been through it herself. But she is also very strict. Laws are in place to stop the new set of novices from hurting themselves."

III. The Empress: Ann Dunham

"A mother, a creator, nurturer, and celebrant of life. She can inspire great works, or trap her son in pathology."

IV. The Emperor: John McCain

"He is something to be overcome. Some rigidity of thinking, some inflexibility of approach, some external force keeping us from our destiny."

V. The Hierophant: Ted Kennedy

"Represents assistance, friendship, good advice, and alliances. A teacher whose instruction reexamines the understanding of the meaning of things, the structure of the world, and the powers that be. A lesson to beware hypocrisy."

VI. The Lovers: Barack and Michelle

"The impulse that drives us out of the garden, towards adulthood. Once we have stepped passed the threshold, there is no returning to the garden."

VII. The Chariot: The Iowa Caucus

"Conquest. A battle that can be won. An external conflict with a clear goal and plan of action. The qualities needed to win the battle are self-reliance, righteousness, conviction, and plain hard work."

VIII. Strength: The South Carolina Debate

"The battle is mainly internal rather than external. Danger of losing control to impulses, desires, pride, and unwarranted anger."

IX. The Hermit: The American Voter

"Temptation to completely withdraw from the world, not because the journey is done, but because the dragons of the real are too daunting. Withdraw at the wrong time, stay withdrawn too long, and growth stops. Hopefully, at some point, she casts it off and rejoins the world."

X. Wheel of Fortune: Super Tuesday

"Intercession of random chance into the Fool's path. Forces can help or hinder him suddenly or unpredictably."

XI. Justice: Iraq (graphic content warning)

"A grave injustice needs righting, something in the world is dangerously out of balance."

XII. The Hanged Man: Howard Dean

"He has sacrificed a desire for control over his circumstances in order to gain an understanding of, and communion with, creative energies far greater than his individual self. An outcast of society that appears to be a fool but is in actuality completely in alignment and integrated."

XIII. Death: The 2008 Democratic Convention

"Power manifests itself over our poor attempts to control it. Forms become exhausted, the center cannot hold. Sometimes, change can delay the inevitable."

XIV. Temperance: Nominee

"A warning to be prepared for a confrontation with the deepest questions: Who are we? Who do we appear to be? Who do we think we are? Who will we become?"

XV. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Devil_%28Tarot_card%29: George W. Bush

"Battling him gives us strength. Submitting completely to him is ego-death. The chains are loose. They can be slipped. The Devil’s own torch can light the way out. Back to the surface."

XVI. The Tower: The Memory of September 11, 2001

"Chaos, crisis, disillusion, downfall... a new approach to thinking about the problem is needed. They must re-examine belief structures, ideologies, and paradigms that they hold to."

XVII. The Star: Hope

"Most welcome when grief and despair have overwhelmed us. In our darkest moments, we need to know that there is hope, that there is light at the end of the tunnel. The Star is the opposite of the Devil who strips us of our faith in the future."

XVIII. The Moon: Fear

"A pathway into the distant, dark unknown."

XIX. The Sun: Conviction

"Accomplishment, innocence is renewed through discovery."

XX. Judgement: Election, 2008

"Judgment Day can come at any moment; live your life to the fullest, as the trumpet of Gabriel is at hand."

XXI. The World: President Obama

"The ending to a cycle; a pause before the next big cycle beginning with the Fool. It is completeness."

ElJeffe

Umm... discuss?