Reading: "Altar of Incantation" from COVEAL OF THE HEDONIC (A.Glass 2025)

 

Placing Three Tarot cards face down in the grass, Nalina looks up at the slightly overcast sky. “A ritual fuck would be good with this reading...” she says to herself, looking around the park, with only joggers seen in the distance. Before, flipping over the far left Tarot card, Nalina’s thoughts return to when she visited KayJ’s video store the day before on E 6^th Street, particularly the Video box cover of Ninja Retaliation: Apocalypse. Visualizing the actress that starred in the movie, who was a friend of her late mother’s. “...Gina Silvana. She lived...” Nalina turns her head East of Central Park. “...Lower East Side, I vaguely remember her apartment. My mother and I visited her one afternoon. Nalina looks down at the Three tarot cards, with her right hand she chooses the middle card, pinching the edge of the card with her thumb and index finger, she flips the card over. “Seven of Disks. Failure,” she whispers to herself, studying the artistic details of the card showing Seven ornamented disks portrayed as an inverted Rubeuse shape, embedded within the branches of a dead tree, surrounded by foliage which is in a state of decay, beneath a gray and overcast sky. Placing the Two remaining face down cards back into their box, she reaches into her handbag and takes out a small notebook, which she had written down what her master explained were the card meanings for each of the unique crafted Tarot cards. Flicking through the pages, she sees the ‘Seven of Disks. Failure’ reading. “If the Rubeus was revealed to the Tarot receiver, the reading would end there and then. So, I would create a riddle, to accompany the Seven of Disks (Failure) card. As follows: “What shape does two pyramids make, when joined at the bottom?" If answered correctly. I would say: "Then may you reside within the chaos, in all of its decay and decline, with great calm and detachment. For you are, your own guiding light...”
Looking South of Central Park, she feels a cold wind as the clouds above, begin to form into an overcast sky.
“That is correct, I am the diamond within the chaos, and this card does no apply to me.” Nalina’s thoughts return to her late mother and her friend Gina Silvana. She looks at the last part of the explanation of the ‘Seven of Disks. Failure’ reading.
“...If answered incorrectly, therefor it would be: "From lofty highs, the restless spirits await.”
Nalina looks around the park area once again.
“Some ritual sex, anyone?”
Lying back onto the grass, she looks up at the clouds, as they slowly pass by, trying to recall the apartment block where Silvana once lived, closing her eyes, she visualizes that afternoon, how dark it was in the actual apartment, as a young girl sitting watching television with the blinds down, while her mother and Silvana were doing lines of coke in Silvana’s bedroom. Opening her eyes, she holds up the Tarot card. “It’s referring to Gina, my mother has passed and her spirit is free from here.”
Tilting her head upright, Nalina detects a scent of incense in the air, peering into the distance, she sees a man sitting alone. Placing the Tarot card back into its deck, she stands walking towards the man. Noticing a bike leaning against a tree, and a man sitting cross-legged, with an Afro styled hair. He turns, looking up at Nalina.
“Hi, I could smell you incense. Have you got a spare one?” She asks, in an innocent manner. The man stands, bending down lifting up the incense embedded into the grass.
“Sure, have this one. My mom…” He pauses in mid sentence exhaling briefly, he then look at Nalina with an aurora of sadness. “...Is having a major operation today on her brain.”
Nalina hugs him, as they both embrace. “Do you want me to sit with you?”
“That would be good,” he replies, appreciating her company.
Setting her bag down onto the grass, sitting down, she places the incense back into its spot, near where the man was sitting, he also sits.
Holding out her hands, as the man holds them. He bows his head, as Nalina notices his attire of black lycra shorts and a gray t-shirt, the man then looks at Nalina.
“The breeze, let it pass through...” she says.
He nods, as a tear forms, releasing his hand, he uses his t-shirt to dab around his right eye. She leans forward and hugs him again, this time with a tighter embrace, eyeing the foliage behind where they are sitting. “….Let us, share the energy and release the energy together.”

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Reading: "Altar of Incantation" from COVEAL OF THE HEDONIC (A.Glass 2025)