My interpretation of this card combines symbols of suspension, gestation and internal processes of growth or creativity.
I based my ideas on Coleridge’s description of the imagination as “that willing suspension of disbelief that constitutes poetic faith”. Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria translated his interior life into literature, a body of evidence of the internal gestation process of creativity that lies beneath finished artistic works.
The card replicates a botanical specimen from Coleridge’s period, showing papaver somniferum, the opium poppy that Coleridge was addicted to, which is a symbol of the workings of the unconscious world of dreams, reverie, fantasy and creativity.
Suspense can involve the anticipation of something yet to come, or it can be about the cessation of some thing or state. Within the chrysalis the caterpillar deconstructs its original form and metamorphoses into a new form. During this time it remains in suspended animation, alive and yet not. Sometimes we need to stay still, waiting in hope and faith for things to become clear, for mystery to become form.
This card encourages us to consider unlived potential, creating potential, and potency. My visual interpretation invites us to suspend disbelief about our potential selves.

Elenco alfabetico artisti