MS-0016 · The Holding · card 2 of 7
Sediment
Everything that dissolved in him settled, layer on layer, into the ground that holds him.
- Element
- Earth
- Tense
- Habitual
- The hand
- That could not release
The card
He crouches at the edge of a spring he has known his whole life and touches the surface with two fingers, and the water rings. Cut into the bank beneath him is everything the stillness made: fine silt above, compacted bands below, solid stone at the base — and buried in the lower layers, a shallow hollow the shape of a body that once lay there waiting. He is not mourning it. This card is the return, and it says that what dissolved did not disappear; it settled, hardened, and became the ground now taking his weight.
To sit with
What has hardened in you from things you thought were long gone?
What is that ground holding up now?
Related cards
BallastThe card before.Every stone he lays in the boat steadies it, and every stone makes it harder to lift.
FallowThe next card.His hand stays closed on the seed, and from outside no one can tell if it is rest or refusal.
ThreshingFurther on.Blow after blow he breaks the wheat open, and the basket fills without his hand ever closing on it.