2 · The Seven Ages of tarotbyphil

"The whining schoolboy..."

This post focusses on me, and is the second of seven occasional very personal posts over the coming year asking Tarot to help me understand who I was, and why I see life the way I do.

The style will be a little different for these posts, but not permanent… honest! 😃

JAQUES All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.

Then the whining schoolboy with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school…

As You Like It; William Shakespeare; Act 2, Scene 7 146-154 (full speech footnoted ¹ below)

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This post focuses on my home and school-life during my schoolboy years², and for your reading comfort, I have split it into two short readings to cover the two main school-age experiences I had between the ages of five and eighteen.

For anyone interested in reading more of the memories this reading has unearthed, I have added a Supplemental biographical stuff… or, Unreliable memories… section after the two readings, rather than risking your falling asleep during the readings themselves 🙂

Before pulling any cards for this, my main memory is that Jacques had it dead right, at least until I was around 15 years old, when it all changed. So… let’s see where Tarot takes me… 🙂

Let’s Tarot…

Position 1 - Which card sums up the energy of this School period? - 3 of Pentacles

When I look at this card, I see someone working alone, concentrating and focussed on the details of the task at hand. Someone completely absorbed in their task, and working well. Turning to a much-loved textbook³ featuring this deck, the following jumped out at me:

Early stages of accomplishment… Sincere effort… High standards… Good grades in school… New learning… Off to a good start.

It turned out that I was bright, capable and applied myself quietly, diligently, and effectively to every task I was given. My yearly reports featured ‘A’s for everything, until the year one subject dropped to a ‘B’, disappointing my parents, and becoming the sole focus of that evening’s post Parent’s Evening discussion.

Position 2 - Which card sums up the energy of this Home period? - 3 of Wands

Setting goals for the future… Satisfaction, yet more to be done… A new job… Work-related travel…

During these years, my father worked away from home (as a highly-skilled draughtsman/design engineer for, amongst others, Ford Motor Co.) and his weekend returns were sometimes about, “wait ‘til your father gets home!” This card is me looking through the kitchen window for his red Ford Corsair 😳

The 3 of Pentacles above, also set the tone for my home-life. I was pushed hard to succeed at school, and I clearly remember a home-life where word games (the card game Lexicon, especially!), random dictionary spelling tests, and handwriting practice were the scaffolding for my promising future.

Position 3 - What was unresolved? - Queen of Pentacles

This card is very much about my mother. My mother enjoyed nice things (with a mission focussed on always buying the best, and if she couldn’t afford that, not buying at all). This translated into, e.g. quality school uniforms, and whatever was needed for school. My mother took her responsibilities very seriously.

Abundance… Ownership… Responsibility… Resourcefulness… The good things in life… Security… Nurturance… Taking care of one’s physical and emotional needs… A capable woman who is both a mother and businesswoman… A provider…

Unresolved? Her own needs must have been put on hold, as her life was a weekend husband, a young child (albeit a very quiet and polite one… this was not optional 😄) and a full-time job. She never made any secret of her dislike of children⁴, and I’m pretty sure my Primary School years were a real drag for her!

Then the whining schoolboy with his satchel, And shining morning face, creeping like snail, Unwillingly to school…

Position 1 - Which card sums up the energy of this School period? - Page of Rods (Wands)

When I look at this card now, reflecting on my life since, I see fascination and love of learning (it was just school I didn’t like!). I also see a creative young man receiving the wisdom that creative pursuits were a luxury indulged in solely by the wealthy, or fabulously gifted, rather than our own industrial working classes.

A faithful youth filled with good intentions... Eyes covered by a hat, this youth cannot see the future, nor does he realise the enlightening revelations he conveys to others by his being. ⁵

These were years of dreaming, lost in books⁶ and progressive rock⁷ at home, whilst being the ugly-eye-patched, quiet, fat kid, hiding at the back of class to avoid being bullied. I had little-to-no-interest, or skill, in sports (or local football teams; Wolves, or WBA, if you’re asking 😀) so never bonded with those who did.

Position 2 - Which card sums up the energy of this Home period? - Queen of Pentacles

Mum came fully into focus at this time, finally beginning to enjoy the little adult⁸ she’d brought up. I was conversationally more interesting now. She continued to push me hard, especially during the mid-1970’s where futures (and especially those in our industrial UK’s West Midlands) were bleak for many…

“Will the last factory to close down please turn out the lights” 😢 Bumper stickers.

Around my mid-teens, my Page of Rods emerged fully 🫢, and my father told me many years later that my mother had recalled him from wherever he was working because I was becoming a handful, and she, not unreasonably, expected his help. He returned, but Mum remained the driving force at home.

The Queen of Pentacles is an intelligent, cultured, and elegant woman…

Position 3 - What was unresolved? - 2 of Pentacles

Effort is required to balance and harmonise career and social affairs during unsteady times. Care is needed in scheduling time and energy.

There were a lot of things during this time that were never really resolved, which represents life in general, I guess 🤔…

Dad’s wanderlust never fully resolved itself, and he juggled fatherhood with well-paid distant-working.

I had discovered my love of acting, but a non-vocational University degree in Drama was unacceptable to my parents who were unwilling to support it (this would have been necessary as their joint incomes would have denied me a government grant). So the job search began... knowing that that dream was over.

Mum’s burden was increased when her mother’s mental health started to deteriorate and she found herself often on call to manage problems associated with that, too. Sadly, this at a time when she must have felt that she was about to recover her preferred life.

We were a family of three quite different people looking back on it… 🤔

Conclusions…

Phew! OK… 😅

The first key point about these cards is the absence of major arcana cards. Looking back on this period of my life it generally feels about day-to-day compliance, rather than initiative. I got through those years receiving what I needed to, in order to pass exams, because I was all about fulfilling others’ expectations. Fundamental personal growth would have to wait for my future 🙂

The second, and most surprising key point, is that four of the six cards are Pentacles. As I reflect on it now, it strikes me, for the first time, that there must have always been more money around than Mum and Dad allowed⁹; as a child hearing that money was always tight was a way of life, although they were both on good incomes 🤔… there were holidays, the afore-mentioned school uniform (with barathea blazers… what IS barathea? 🤷🏽) and a crisp ten-shilling note for pocket money when Dad got home on Friday nights.

The third point is the absence of Cups and Swords cards describing these years. My feeling is that this reflects an emphasis on Pentacular responsibility, rather than Cups-ful of warmth and affection, and my capability for learning, rather than thinking. The two Wands cards that appear hint at a creative little soul, wanting to act, play music and write, activities largely frowned upon in the Black Country¹⁰ of my youth. The first question our school careers adviser asked every final year student was, “Which factory would you like to work in when you leave here?” 😑

Simply put, my excitement about creativity was in almost total opposition to the pragmatism of Mum and Dad. I was a Wand buried in a Pentacular hole 😀

Elementally, the passive, Pentacular, earth energies were more than a match for the active Wands fire. In addition, my sun sign is also passive, earthy Taurus, and I attribute much of this energy to my being a follower, rather than a leader, by nature, nurture and preference.

Numerologically… this reading amounts to…

3+3+(QP as 13 = 1+3=)4+(PW as 11 =1+1=)2+(13 = 1+3=)4+2 = 18 (1+8=) 9

I also just discovered that, sympathetically, the numerology of my full given name is also 9, suggesting to me that these early years needed to be exactly the way they were to provide the impetus for what I’ve done since… hmmm… 🧐

Nines via Eighteen! IX·The Hermit via XVIII·The Moon. School years of learning and isolation, anxiously informed by fear of failure on the journey towards my ‘promising future’… an experience shared by many children with parents ambitious for them, I’m sure 🙂

Crucially, in my search for self-understanding, this reading has helped me to understand that my ‘whining schoolboy’ was unhappy because these years represented more ‘schoolboy’ than ‘boy’. However, the successes that I would later enjoy during adulthood would have been impossible without this rigorous upbringing, so… applying retrospective gratitude now! The powerful parental emphasis on performative excellence has delivered a life-long drive to ‘Be Perfect’ as Transactional Analysts would have it, and a professional life of setting very high personal standards supported by a strong work ethic… and… the knowledge that whatever I do is never good enough!

The surprises have been my understanding that a financial scarcity mindset can be inherited, and I did for many years. Also, finally, that much of my young life was spent without friends, later reflected in my working preferences where I have never felt team-oriented… comfortable, or especially effective in teams… IX·The Hermit is strong in this boy!

The learnings I need to mediate on, and heal are... sometimes, it is ok not to be perfect, and the choice is mine, not another’s. I am 67 years of age and have never starved, however financially challenged I have been (and I have been very challenged in this area, believe me!), somehow there has always been enough and I am thankful for this… Aloneness, has never been loneliness for me, and in a world of lonely people this has been a considerable gift for me… and finally, Mum and Dad did everything they could with what they had… thank-you! 🥰

Supplemental autobiographical stuff… or, Unreliable Memories!… below…

OK… this is somewhat of a splurge of stuff that resurfaced for me (which I don’t want to lose ahead of reviewing this post for further learnings in future) whilst working through, and reflecting on, this reading… feel free to ignore, ok! 😀

I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed (and sobbed again) on my first day at school 😭 (I’m not sure pre-school existed back then… 🤔). Suddenly, I was in a dark, strange, old wooden building surrounded by noise and big people rushing about. I was the loneliest, frightened-est, unhappiest five-year-old on the planet.

I am an only child from a largely silent home where the rule was (as for many) ‘Children should be seen and not heard’. Our home never welcomed the noise, bustle and the company of friends and neighbours. “We,” as the expression goes, very much “kept ourselves to ourselves.”

I settled in quietly, anxiously and invisibly, but hated the long walk to and from that cold, dark, wooden shed. I hadn’t the confidence to join in the excitement of playtime and for the first couple of years always hid in a quiet corner, out of sight, away from the scary big kids… then… happily… Mum and Dad moved 🙂

The new school was lighter, more modern, and a much shorter walk than its predecessor; also, I was no longer one of the ‘little kids’, which made it wonderfully less scary.

My parents saw me doing well here, and pushed me hard… as mentioned above, the three ‘A’s on my school report were ignored, whilst the ‘B’ set the disappointed tone that opened, and dominated discussion. Even now, I find people’s disappointment in me much more painful than their anger 😞

Academically though, on the whole, I did very well. Years later, I was the proud owner of a 98% mark for a Technical Drawing examination (I’d inherited some of Dad’s gift in this area) prompting Dad’s comment, “Yes, but it’s not 100% is it… why do you think you only got 98%” (or, very similar 😄).

Secondary School renewed the dilemma I had faced at 5 years old… I was both a well-established loner, and now a little kid again, surrounded by some very rough bigger ones. I sometimes reflect on the possibility that God got distracted when handing out bravery, giving me two helpings of brightness instead. 😂

I had learned over my school years so far that parental approval was dependent on academic success, and squaring this with being called a ‘f*cking, fat swot’ could be a little tricky (occasionally, physically painful, too!) leading to some sleepless nights. So I learned how to vanish into my surroundings, until…

… I was declared amblyopic¹¹. This necessitated the wearing of an eye-patch over my good eye to encourage the development of my lazy one, which meant…

• much p*ss-taking from my classmates because I looked so naff; and,

• a misunderstanding with my father over a Christmas present of boxing gloves…

… My mother was clear that the only time I could remove my eyepatch was if I got into a fight. Unsurprisingly, and quite suddenly it seemed 😀, I found myself in lots of fights!!!… that was the Christmas of the Boxing Gloves (inspired, I think, by my father’s having been a good, young lunchtime boxer amongst his workmates) leading to my father’s swift realisation that I was anything but a ‘chip off the old block’… Eventually, I think I hid them, and with dad being away, happily, they were soon forgotten 😅

My father was proud to call us ‘mates’ rather than ‘father and son’ and to some extent I believe he was right on this, eventually. I was never the young, manly boy he would have hoped for… maybe his regular absence deprived me of that model? My upbringing was largely managed by my mother, and hers 🤔

Long school holidays, at Easter, Summer and Christmas were spent with my grandmother, in a different town (with no other children my age around to play with), whilst Mum and Dad worked, visiting briefly at weekends to make sure everything was ok. They had nothing to worry about, grandma loved me 😊

Eventually, around my mid-teens, those Page of Rods hormones fed sleepless nights dreaming awake about the lovely Anne. Long, dark hair, tall, beautiful and clever <sigh> and WAY out of my league! 😍 Her very cool (it seemed to me), older brother deterred me from asking her out, and even if I’d had the courage, my Mum’s words kept me grounded, “Let’s face it… you’re no oil painting are you!” 😂

But, one Friday…

… I bought 10 Benson and Hedges cigarettes, and a box of matches 😎 (many smoker’s years later, I SO wished I hadn’t!) and finally challenged my introversion to an evening at the after-school drama club, and Anne was there!!! That night my fascination with acting began… Anne, well, that’s another story ☺️

Coincidentally, this was the very evening the club star actor, also VERY cool, played a song for us from an album newly-released that day… “There’s a lady whose sure all that glitters is gold and she’s buying…”¹²

My new obsession with rock music also fed my desire to become either Paul Kossoff, or Eric Clapton (I wasn’t fussed which 😀) playing endless guitar solos to ecstatic acclaim… I did play with a few mates for a while, but artistic differences (or very long, dull guitar solos!) split the band…

Yes, of course, there’s loads more than I can share here, but here’s one last thing that seems relevant recalling these years… I won a national essay-writing competition set by Barclays Bank. Typically, my introvert had sleepless nights dreading the first prize, which would have taken me, and others <gasp>, on a short European sight-seeing tour… I was hugely relieved when they finally confirmed a £10.00 cheque prize… I suspect I spent it on books, or comics!

So… from academic swot, to dull musician, to ok actor, to prize-winning author (🤣)… the arts were all pushing to get out… but I never believed they had a future… so, I got a job… and I’ll cover this mistake in a future post.

Next time… 3 · The Seven Ages of tarotbyphil: “And then the lover…”

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Thank you very much for reading this, especially if you’ve made it this far! I would love to read any thoughts you may wish to share on these cards, too, as I am always, and especially, open to learning... so, please feel free to comment below (I welcome respectful disagreement and discussion!) and also please let me know if you would wish to read any further posts in this series, thanks... 😊

Love, light, and laughter... always,

tarotbyphil 🕯️

1. JAQUES All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players.

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.

Then the whining schoolboy with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

As You Like It; William Shakespeare; Act 2, Scene 7 146-173

2. If you would like to read part 1… it can be found here…

1 · The Seven Ages of tarotbyphil

3. All notes in this Primary Section are from: Tarot Plain and Simple; Louis, Anthony; with illustrations by Robin Wood, 1st Ed., Llewellyn Publications, 2004.

4. I remember one children’s birthday party at home during these years. I also remember my mother saying, “Never again!” 🤣 And… Mum was always as good as her word!

5. All notes in this Secondary Section are from: The Book of Tarot; Gerulskis-Estes, Susan; illustrated with the Morgan-Greer Tarot, U.S. Games Systems, Inc., 1981.

6. I inherited my mother’s love of reading, which has been a major passion for me throughout my life. At this time, I would have been working my way through the W. E. Johns, Biggles series of books, C. S. Lewis’ Narnia series, and endless Marvel comics.

7. The 1970’s… for me this meant Free, Led Zeppelin, Eric Clapton, Elton John, Bachman Turner Overdrive, Genesis (the first four albums always soundtracked my homework, much as a Spotify Pink Floyd playlist accompanies my writing nowadays) and, of course, Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon on repeat!

8. For me, this represents being taught how to iron my own school uniform at the age of 11, polish my leather shoes every other night, tidy the house when I returned from school ahead of Mum and Dad’s return from work, and generally… do boring stuff! 😀

9. It’s important to note here that Mum and Dad had both grown up during the WW2 years of rationing and ‘making do’, and as I’m recognising on this journey, those childhood influences truly are formative!

10. The Black Country is an industrial region in England's West Midlands, primarily encompassing the areas of Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall, and Wolverhampton. It gained its name in the mid-19th century due to heavy industry and the soot from coal mines and iron foundries, creating a dark landscape. Source Google AI.

11. About Amblyopia (Lazy Eye).

12. Got it yet? 😃 If not, try this…