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Sizes available: S–3XL

This cream-colored long-sleeve shirt will be printed by a local printshop in Knoxville, TN on Comfort Colors Heavy Weight. 100% soft ring spun U.S. cotton fabric and cotton threads.

Description
One foot on land, one foot in the water—this is how Temperance, the 14th card of the Major Arcana in the Tarot, traditionally appears. The symbology of the card represents a critical balance between the grounded, material world and the subconscious and ethereal. In the original card, a gender-ambiguous angel infinitely pours from one cup to another, symbolizing balance, moderation, alchemy, and harmony. The upward-facing triangle, often associated with fire or passion, is contained within the square to signify the natural constraints imposed on the fire of human craving. Some speculate that the occasional appearance of irises on the card is a reference to the Greek goddess Iris, who traversed on a rainbow delivering messages between gods and humans.

Outside our window: a heron balances harmoniously on one foot in the running creek, wings outstretched. In the foreground, dwarf-crested and Blue Flag irises flank the banks. On the heron’s chest hangs a triangle in a square, reminding us of the enmeshment of all human affairs with the natural world.  Beyond the heron, a sun in the distance peaks over the mountains; an image that encapsulates the union of dualities required on life’s journey.

Interpretation
The charge of chaos roils against every filament of every being in the context of catastrophic decline. Each of the earth’s cells gasps for liberation, but violent enclosures seem to constrict life’s vessels further.

There comes a time when the pressure associated with chaos must burst forth as a necessary force in all transformative processes. If its appearance is untimely, though, the fury of chaos inflicts unimaginable harm upon all matter exposed to its misaimed discharge.

To nurture, cherish, and protect the chaos within—that is, to know the wisdom of chaos—one must first know the wisdom of temperance.

In this vision, temperance is not a force that opposes chaos. Rather, it is a restrained looking-glass through which one can observe chaos to understand its wisdom, without reacting to its urges unwisely. Without temperance, the fire of chaos becomes the wound that betrays transformation, the wound that recklessly wounds again. 

We have been baptized into a profoundly uncertain reality. Many of us, understandably, are full of panic and fear. Others of us have become frozen, dissociated, and avoidant within the penumbra of uncertainty that has stricken the earth in recent years. The pressure of this moment is undeniable.

In recent weeks—in an effort to understand what is required of us in the work of survival, advocacy, ecological restoration, publishing, and transformation—we have been reflecting on the last few years of social evolution as it relates to the current moment. It has been incredibly uncomfortable to face these questions; at times, it is utterly oppressive. The answers, if we are honest, are very unclear.

To seek balance with intention, to understand that temperance is not passivity, and to trust our own capacity for wisdom, survival, and dissent—that is the assignment. May we cultivate and nourish balance to understand both the material and psychic forces shaping our lived experiences during this uncertain time.