#Gulagart

[alchemabotana]

8 of Swords - Piczanka Tarot

This is the colorized 8 of Swords for the Piczanka Tarot deck.

Because the 8 of swords is all about the revelations, I thought I’d share some about the journey I had with my deck.

The original hand drawn deck was completely black and white, done with any black pen or marker I could find the day of drawing, and whatever paper was around. I started drawing my deck in the back of Ardmore Coffee with my friend who worked security at WFU night shifts. My boy would get off his shift when I was waking up, so we’d meet in the frigid morning and make ourselves draw before the rest. I started my deck the day after my birthday in 2018. At that time we were also filming “Antonina’s Shaman Shop” (you can watch it on YouTube, it won a Coalition of Visionary Resources award at the International New Age Trade Show for “best new electronic media”)

The swords in this digital collage are from a photograph of Russian slave labor’s prison mastercraft. These prisoners within the Russian gulag system were imprisoned for the skill sets they could provide the state for free as wards of their system. In many cases this entailed creating luxury items such as glass mirrors, which many had spiritual superstitions around. The generations who lived within the system passed down this craft knowledge for long enough for such beautiful objects to be made from the trash found and traded between inmates. There were obviously gangs and subcultures within the gulags, and a sword like this one is a prison shank made from trash with the knowledge of a master glass maker (gained from a family teacher or mentor:apprentice relationship - knowledge forced on the teacher by the gulag).

This system within Russia at large was also prevalent, and what made the gulags and prison camps unique were that they were concentration camps of artisans and craftsman the state had taken for their gifts. I could speak more about which communities specifically were targeted, but the concepts are hard to translate. The major one being the LGBTQ communities, the autistic communities, the non orthodox Christians and Jews, the orthodox Christians and Jews, the musician & bard class, the gypsy class, and the academic class. Class systems were strong in the motherland. Russia’s system of government thrived under the theft of these class’s labor for the state. This was motivated by greed, superiority, and class power by powerful individuals who could simply take it.

Unlike the struggle of Germany, Russian and Slavic people who were taken were not immediately killed or worked to death specifically for racially impurity as with the Nazi ideology. Hitler’s ultimate personal obsession was the eradicated the Jews as the “final solution” - what he considered a Jew was not necessarily how Jewish or Slavic communities saw themselves, although in American culture everyone speaks of Jews and survivors from the perspective of the abuser’s concept of race thrust upon us.

In Russia people were taken for their minds, hands, voices, and choices. With the assistance of the Nazi ideology many were empowered to speak in terms of racial cleansing, and it is true that many were murdered en masse, but this was done with line ups and shootings of prisoners only taken for that purpose. Russia rarely housed those it did not desire to benefit from the work of. As such, the “useless” such as disabled people were often culled from a young age. Indeed, those who were not often suffered and died from the lack of resources and support such individuals need to survive.

Those less desirable workers, especially the Jews, Catholics, and political prisoners of interest taken by Russian military in the 1939 invasion of Ukraine & Poland were taken to Siberia to mine precious stones and minerals for the elite classes and Russian science programs, or put to work cutting down trees and other resources by hand for the government stockpiles.

These people lived incredibly primitively during their imprisonment in the Arctic desert of Siberia. These camps were meant to quickly kill the prisoners & there were few intentions to return for more resources. Now these camps can only be found by well versed guides of the Siberian forests, or by locals of small villages still near old sites. These spaces still exist, preserved by the cold of the forest.

Once I met a gemstone trader from Russia who knew where to find the mines for the stones gathered by the prisoners. He said you can sometimes see them in the summer while flying over in helicopters. He gave me a stone from one of the mines when he saw my Babcia appear next to me. He was so frightened he almost passed out. He told me to take the stone I was holding and get out of there. The name of that stone is Charoite. Many of the stones people love and use in their spiritual practices in the New Age in America come from these mines & other prison mines. These stones are: MOLDAVITE, tektite, charoite, shungite, Baltic amber, Baltic coral & turquoise, Siberian diamonds, Alexandrite, Emeralds, garnet, amethyst, spinel, and Topaz. There are others too, but I do not yet know which ones.

This is why we are so intentional at the shop about where we buy our crystals and who from. Because, it’s not just part of the heritage that our families were forced to mine these stones as slave labor (and that others continued to be forced well into this present generation) - it’s also because in our indigenous beliefs, the stones are the ancestors & connection to spirit & our ancestors were forced to mine them to stay alive & give them to their oppressors.

Thanks for coming to my Tarot Ted Talk on why my heritage matters to me & why you should be aware of the layers of cultural appropriation that effect those who are survivors of genocides and holocausts in this present age. This is also why our communities find it highly concerning that America is operating like a giant gulag with small gulags within it. The behavior and violence here has rung more than a few bells on our memories, and I hope for the spirit of American Liberty… that our consciousness as humans be healed toward one another so that this cycle of revenge will stop in this land we call home. Time to stop acting like we’re above the thoughts and actions we can see so clearly in other countries. Time to begin to see what we’re doing to each other. That starts with each of us from within each of us. Pull out the sword, cut yourself free 🔪

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