after i watched good omens for the first time, i decided to thumb through my old copy to see what annotations i had made whenever i read it previously. (i’m not sure when, exactly, that was, but it’s been at least a decade, probably longer.) in doing so, i realized that the book had perhaps been a more formative influence on me than i had previously thought.

for instance, this quote:

“If you sit down and think about it sensibly, you come up with some very funny ideas. Like: why make people inquisitive, and then put some forbidden fruit where they can see it with a big neon finger flashing on and off saying ‘THIS IS IT!’? […] I mean, why do that if you really don’t want them to eat it, eh?”

the demon crowley is speaking here; according to good omens he is the one who tempted eve to eat the apple. this is not, actually, even the first time he suggests that putting the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden with the curious humans was asking for it, on god’s part. immediately after adam and eve’s expulsion, six thousand years earlier, he says to the angel aziraphale, “Makes you wonder what He’s really planning,” and goes on to note that he’s been wondering if what he did was actually the right thing.

temptation has, i think, a little bit of a negative connotation, but good omens suggests that the very first temptation, for eve to eat the apple and gain knowledge of good and evil, was a good thing. there never was an apple, it says, that wasn’t worth the trouble you got in for eating it.

the seven of blooms, seven of cups, is about choices, and facing temptation, and deception. traditionally, it depicts seven cups with various things coming out of them - as the sasuraibito tarot guide says, some cups are beautiful, some are dangerous, and some are both. here, however, with the seven of blooms, we just have a flower, with an eye, and many more drops of water, looking like pseudo-eyes.

giving in to temptation is not necessarily a bad thing, but what the seven of blooms suggests is that one needs to be cautious when doing so. one needs to take a step back and consider what that giving in might mean.

darlings, let yourselves be tempted this week if you like, but make sure you go in to any temptation with your eyes open.

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this week’s deck: the wooden tarot
this week’s crystals: blue apatite, amazonite