The Choice

[Tenet Nosce]

"The Choice" is not between this or that, us or them, black or white, good or bad, right or wrong, STS or STO, or any other dualistic construction. The Choice is whether to consciously grow beyond that dualistic scaffolding which is provided for by nature. This is why Ra advised the card be placed at the end of the sequence, rather than the beginning.

I submit: The 21 Archetypes of the Tarot represent those forces of nature which unconsciously shape our experience. Like waves crashing upon the shore, they are swift, they are powerful, and they are relentless. But they are also distortions, and thus "not in any case necessary."

Even the most pig-headed, doltish, closed-hearted "Fool" will evolve to some small degree during the course of an incarnation, based upon the deterministic effects of the archetypes upon their consciousness. There is no such thing as devolution, or even standing still. In this, there is no Choice; there is no true "free will" as one may only select from a pre-programmed set of experiences, as in a role-playing game. And just like in an RPG, the more imbalanced one's character becomes, the harder it will be to progress in the game without taking steps to bring that character back into balance.

Within the rules of the game, one may decide to go chop wood, or sell potions, or fight dragons, or heal their comrades in battle. But one may not seek new forms of life, or invent their own magic spells, or become a dragon and burn down a whole village, or slay their own comrades in battle. The decision is limited to whatever the programmers elected to write into the code, and in the end, it is all just a bunch of zeroes and ones electronically encoded on a memory device. (You didn't really think it made you "better than" another player by casting yourself as a Druid Healer instead of a Dread Mage, did you? )

If one goes to the ice cream store, and is presented with two options- chocolate or vanilla- is there really a Choice? Or merely a decision? What if one would prefer strawberry? Or to invent a new flavor altogether? And is it really all that impressive of an accomplishment if one decides ahead of time that they will always take the vanilla option over the chocolate? That sounds to me like taking what little choice there was in the matter, and reducing it down to zero. Is that really the point of incarnation? To become utterly predictable in one's behavior? And how, exactly, does making the same decision over and over again bring one into balance, anyway?

INTERPRETATION: In order to acquire Choice, one must look beyond the outer appearances of duality (sun and moon), take up the burden of one's own balancing, and face the dragon (Dweller on the Threshold), thus freeing oneself from the need to incarnate within an archetypal field generated by a Logos.

(HINT: Why is this man and the world in which he lives, moves, and has his being, depicted as being inside a picture frame?)