Artwork Description
Swoon – Oracle Deck: Heart Pin Cushion-Empathy
Dimensions: 17 x 11″
Year: 2024
Medium: archival digital print on Moab Entrada 300 gsm
Edition: ed. 1/20
Empathy is a doorway that leads us out of the small self and into our shared existence. We all feel happiness and we all go through shame. We all have dreams and we all suffer pain. The root of the word mercy comes from the Latin misericordia, a heart moved by misery. One of the strange things about our human existence is that sometimes it’s through our shared pain that we find our deepest humanity. Through a
heart moved by misery, we find our way back to one another.
Rasp and Elly brought Caelum and Terra a gift which opened up for them fully when they became grownups, safely taking care of themselves, no longer in the clutches of Heart Pin Cushion the unstable Wee Witch Katarina. Rasp told them the story of Katarina’s suffering.
And with the aid of this little pin cushion, Elly helped them see that Katarina hadn’t chosen her incapacitating limitations. By feeling Katarina’s pain, Caelum became able to feel what drove the Wee Witch. That understanding was its own kind of love. It was a path back toward her mother at the end of Katarina’s life, when the veil between the worlds demands that we allow what can be forgiven to be forgiven, so that the universal truth of love can flow free.
Empathy has a way of undoing us. It breaks down the walls we’ve built up against each other and allows our separate hearts to see the ways we are one and the same.
–Swoon