Melanie has presented us with a very challenging and I think beautiful card. The upper half of the card is dominated by a interesting vision of the Devil. A great wolfs head, on a smallish body, with angels wings rising up out of the back of the Devil figure. A bat and a Raven, are in-flight in the background behind the dark figure.

The lower part of the frame, in the foreground we see a woman wearing a stage mask, facing her mirror, in photo negative. The ear ring of the woman on the right is a Pentacle, the figure on the left is an inverted pentacle. Which plays on Melanie's title for the Card, the deceiver.

Melanie has chosen to remind us lies are the life's breath of evil. That where-ever we find evil in our world and our lives, likely we will find a lie at its core. There are the lies people tell themselves to justify staying in a unhealthy relationships. The lies addicts, the themselves to justify their substance abuse. The lies gangbangers tell themselves to justify the harm they do to their neighbors. Very few people are truely wicked, for the most part, before someone can give themselves permission to do harm to another, they must embrace some sort of self deception. Henry Kissenger once said: The world is very complex, when your doing wrong, but when wrong is done to you - it seems perfectly clear.

The shadowy colors of this card, underline this theme of deceit, because Evils greatest enemy is simply the cold light of day. I have very unfortunate experience with this myself. My father was an alcaholic as was the woman I had my first serious relationship with as a young man. I now remember all too well being lied too, being stolen from, not feeling my own home was a safe place. Not that I felt threatened physically, but I never knew when the next shoe would drop.

If I am to be honest however, I also have to remember though the lies I told myself. Lies that the evidence of my own eyes must be wrong. Lies that, she should just "grow-up" and get over her troubles. Lies that I could force her to "Do the right thing" by ignoring the problem. Trying to pressure her into acting responablly by pretending she was not acting irresponsibly. Till one week, an entire months rent disappeared. I went to the ATM to check my balance, before dropping off the check at the landlords, only to discover I was broke. I came very close to loosing my place, but it did force my eyes open.

It forced me to see that I had accepted a lot of pain into my life, accepted it as part of my life. Telling myself lies, when bottom line, I was letting my ego get in the way of my common sense. Rather then ending a relationship I should have ended, I tried to force my notion of right and wrong on another person, which was simply not my place. If she had come to me for help then it would have been my place to support her. She did not, she was still deep in her cups. Still unwilling to let go of her addiction, and it was not my place to force the cup from her hand. I should have walked long before I did finally walk away.

I did not invite this pain into my life, when we moved in together, I had no idea my girl had addiction problems. I did however allow it to stay. It was a harsh road, and I had to go a long way down it before I learned, you cannot teach someone that which they do not want too know. All true knowing comes from with-in, and neither you nor I can impose it on someone from without. So like the couple in Robins Card, I stayed, chained to my imagining of how that relationship should be, rather than accepting the reality of what it was and moving on. If she had seen her problem, and asked for my support in putting down her cup, that would have been one issue. But she didn't, so I blew alot of hot air, in argument after argument about her addiction. Only to come home a day or two later to find her drunk again.

Instead of ranting, about how she should have treated me better, I should have treated myself better. After all why should she show me respect, was I showing myself respect by ignoring my reality and staying in a relationship with an addict. That was ultimately my deception, my lie that I had to see through. That people will treat you no better than you treat yourself. That if something is unacceptable to you, dont accept it. We all have our boundaries, or do we, a boundary is not a boundary if we just allow other people to waltz across it at will. When they do, its easy to try to force that boundry on them, rant and rave and try to impose our will, our boundary, on the other person. In the end its just not on, and it does not work. When a person refuses to respect our boundaries all we really can do is show ourselves enough self respect, to leave. To not accept their violence, or addiction, or hyper-dependence as part of our lives.

So here's a thought for yea, the next time your in an argument, and you just know, your in the right. Stop, catch your breath, count to 10. Then ask yourself. Am I really?

Divination: Self Deception, Bondage of Spirit, Addictive behavior, Indulgence of lowly desires to achieve liberation.

Reversed: Release from Bondage, Seeing through ones illusions. Gaining understanding and freedom.